Highmoon's Ponderings

After a year and a half of taking all the prerequisite classes I needed, on May 13th I took the HESI (Nursing School Entrance Exam) and turned in my application to the FIU School of Nursing BSN program.

I got great scores in the HESI. I needed 80% in both the Math and English parts to pass, and I got 92% in Math and 97% in English. Though I am now taking the one class I still needed for my prerequisites, the application is in and all that is left to do is wait and see.

I cannot tell you–like, honestly, I can’t put it into words–how it feels to have reached this goal. I had a few moments when I thought I was gonna cry but I didn’t. Not yet. When I get accepted maybe.

I had to write an essay explaining why I wanted to become a nurse and why I would be a good candidate for the program. My essay is below. I think it says it all.

I did not set out to become a nurse. I went to university, got my degree in English and I was happy; even when it proved challenging to find work, I was sure I’d made the right choice in getting a degree in something I enjoyed. Then life happened.

In 2009 my mother was hospitalized for a total of 118 days due to what was eventually diagnosed to be a metastasis of the cancer she had beat back in 2007. From February to July 2009, I traveled back and forth to Puerto Rico to be by her side. I put my life on hold for months at a time so I could be of help in those difficult moments.

During the time in the hospital, it wasn’t the five-minute doctor visits that gave my mother and her family succor. The ones that truly made a difference were the nurses. They were the ones who learned all our names, what my mother liked, what the telltale signs of her symptoms were. They were the ones who came at all hours to calm my mother down when the pain was too much, the ones who were patient and understanding when my mother was being stubborn, the ones who held her hand when she was alone and frightened. Even when she went into hospice, it was a nurse that made her last days the most comfortable they could be.

I did not set out to become a nurse, but after witnessing the vital difference they made in my mother’s life, I was inspired by their example. I realized that I could not go back to doing anything else that did not have that kind of impact on people’s lives. Just as the dozens of nurses that had treated my mother had affected her life, I knew that I could do that as well—that I had to. So after eight years, I decided to go back to university to get a second degree, and become a nurse.

An English graduate is an uncommon applicant to the Nursing program, to say the least, but the skills I learned in getting my BA are skills that I can bring to this program as well. I am trained in research and argument, in writing and delivering clear, concise messages. I already know the rigors and challenges of upper-level classes, the dedication and discipline they demand. I have also seen firsthand the work done by nurses, been through personal tribulations that allow me to sympathize and empathize with those I would be helping. In short, I have life experiences to back up my academic training, and I now bring these to the goal of becoming a nurse.

It is my greatest desire to join the FIU Nursing program and I hope it is one you will fulfill. You will not regret it.

I’ll keep you updated.

I always had the vague notion that what I had termed Joys and Sorrows was where the core of this game I’ve been working on lied; in a game about the loss of Humanity, the loss of the Self, Joys and Sorrows represented that which defined what was being lost. But for some reason that I couldn’t pinpoint I wasn’t entirely happy with the mechanic (and I call it that only as a technicality, as it never really became part of a moving system but remained only a cog off to one side).

A few weeks ago while at work, I had a small Eureka moment in regards Joys and Sorrows and the central place I wanted them to have but hadn’t quite achieved. The game, in essence, is about the loss of that which makes you Human, and the stories that emerge from that downward spiral. I was on to the right idea with Joys and Sorrows in that these are player-created statements that describe that which is important and connect the character to their Humanity, as well as defining where the sources of interest and conflict will lie as the story develops. But it was still clunky. I hadn’t found a way to express mechanically, on the physical game level, the loss of these bonds.

And then it hit me.

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The final grades were posted today, so that means that, officially, the Spring 2011 semester is over and done. How did I do? Overall, not bad.

• Human Anatomy: B
• Human Anatomy Lab: B
• Survey of Chemistry: C
• Chemistry Lab: B+

When the dust settled, my cumulative GPA is now 3.52.

This was the last semester of my pre-Nursing stage. Yes, I do still need one class, which I am taking now in Summer A, but really, this was it, the one semester with the heavy science classes, and the last one before I put in my application to the Nursing program at FIU by next week.

It wasn’t an easy semester, simply because both of these classes were all about memorization of tons of information. Seriously, it’s all about learning the info they threw at you by heart as much as possible. Especially Anatomy, these are foundation sciences, so they had a ton of material to cover in little time.

Overall I much preferred Anatomy; though I got a B, it was more due to a problem I’m noticing I have with exams (exam paper blank-out, I call it) than with not knowing the material. In fact, I know it well, and while I’m far from being to recite body parts like my professor, I can recall a huge amount of the anatomical info we covered. And let’s face it, this is the class with the Lab where we had four cadavers to study from. Little test tubes simply do not compare.

Chemistry was a nightmare, seriously. If I say that it was my least favorite class in my entire university career I would only be upsetting Statistics at being made to share that title. I found it tedious and of little interest. Though I give the professor credit for trying her best to make the class amenable, and kudos for being really good about explaining things, I have to take points away since she rarely, if ever, brought all that chemistry into the Health Sciences context. This class is specifically for Nursing, OT, PT, Nutrition, Health Sciences students, so you know the topic that is of interest to us: couch the chemistry in terms of our interest! Nope. The result was apathy on my part. Much like I don’t care in general how this blog, browser, software work in the back-end, just that they work for me on the user side, that’s how I feel about Chemistry.

Could I have done better? Always, really. I gave it my best most of the time, and pushed through the tiredness and despondency when they attacked, and here I am now, done.

A 3.5 is a good GPA, but I don’t know if it will be good enough for the Nursing program at FIU. I do have the ace in my hand that is my previous degree, which does add points to my GPA for purposes of their admissions calculations, so I’m hoping that, and my essay on why I wanna be admitted, will do the trick.

Next Tuesday, I start the Nursing Concepts class and next Friday I take the HESI exam (Nursing school entrance test), so I’ll report then.

I am honored to report that, through the sale of the RONIN: Japan Earthquake Relief Edition bundle, we have raised $1310.00 in donations to help relief efforts in Japan. The donation was sent via PayPal to the Japanese Red Cross Society on April 10, 2011.

Click to see the full-size version.

It is hard to imagine that it has only been a month since the 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami hit the island nation of Japan. As efforts turn towards the reestablishment of normal life for those affected, it is our hope that this donation can help those in need in some small way.

A very heartfelt thank you to all who participated.

A statement from my latest post on Rebuilding Vampire about the Vampire: The Masquerade character sheet turned into an all-day Twitter discussion about character sheets in RPGs in general. It was a good series of chats, actually, but it highlighted very quickly that I was talking to two different groups of people and that what I wanted to convey about why I said what I said about the VtM sheet was not clear at all for those who lacked a certain context. This post is me trying to explain my views on character sheets and what I see is their role in an RPG. I would love it if from there we can launch a greater conversation about RPG character sheet design in general.

In 2008 I listened to episode 54 of the Master Plan podcast, in which Ryan Macklin interviewed Daniel Solis. The name of that episode, and the idea that was hashed out over the half-hour interview, was that “A Cover Is A Promise.” Briefly (and really, you should listen to the episode to get the better explanation), Daniel poses the idea that when looking at the cover of an RPG, it gives the prospective customer a solid idea of either what you will do in the game or an emotion/theme that the game will create; the cover makes a promise of what’s to be found inside and in play. That phrase has stuck with me since then, and I have brought it up in various conversations ever since because it speaks to me, and solidifies a feeling I have had about roleplaying games that I simply had no way to voice. Following that line of thought, when I think of character sheets, this is the statement that comes to mind:

A character sheet is a map.

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Over a year ago I wrote about two traits I wanted to focus on in my vampire game, traits I called Joy and Sorrow. These were to be brief phrases that described something that brought Joy to the vampire or cause her Sorrow; either way, they were emotional triggers that kept the vampire connected to her Humanity in the face of the imminent loss of it to the Beast.

Through all the various thought processes, version of the game I’ve assembled in my mind, playtest drafts, moments of frustration, through them all Joy and Sorrow remain at the core of my design. It’s simple why, really: to me, they are the fuel for conflict in my interpretation of the vampire myth via a roleplaying game.

Since V20 was announced, my mind has been churning old thoughts around on the back burner (I am in the middle of classes, after all), stirring them over low heat. Every so often a bubble escapes and a half-formed thought comes to the forefront, teasing me with things I won’t have a chance to pay closer attention to at least for another month. This past week, it was Joy and Sorrow. Again.

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