T-661

After attending the first of two days of orientation to the program and the school I am terrified. All of the information and speakers that stood up before us said everything I've been preparing for two years for: difficult program, need to balance life, study groups, etc. I'd previously met a number of the students and faculty and the building certainly isn't new to me. The only unexpected thing in the room was my sudden fear at the amount of work, sacrifice, accountability, and stress that I've signed up for. Today the choice between career satisfaction/personal fulfillment and staying in my jammies til 11 am and taking B for a walk isn't looking quite so clear.

The scariest thing was that I was scared. I've approached this whole program with optimistic confidence and while it's going to be tough, is it going to be tougher than working my way to my BS? Or more challenging than the struggle to complete that master's thesis? Could it be more strenuous than 2 summers in Alaska? Require more of me than traveling alone in South America? Where did that confidence go?

I think the nerves were with me from the time I packed my lunch the night before until I returned home and collapsed on the couch for a two-hour nap, but the crescendo came when we were given a lecture about breathing. The speaker led us through a visualization exercise which had us viewing our lungs as they filled from the bottom up and then emptied from the top down. Our attention was then brought to our heart which was breathing in - what? the heart breathes? maybe not a good exercise for a room full of nursing students - and then we placed ourselves in our chair, in the building, in Seattle, in the States, on the planet and so on. It was in fact relaxing, but in all of my years of school, I've never had to be taught to breathe. This program's going to be tougher than I ever imagined.