Thursday, November 11, 2010

Frontier Bound...and back

Whew! I am completely exhausted from the past few days!    Monday morning, I drove down to Hyden, Kentucky for Frontier Bound.   It took a little over 8 hours and was really a nice drive.  I went through a couple of states, saw pretty much only trees and mountains since C'ville and listened to an entire audio book.    I got there at about 3:30pm, checked in and rushed up to my cabin to find out that I was rooming with several girls I had already met through Facebook.  So exciting!!  Everything was so pretty and the weather was perfect.  Couldn't have asked for it to be any better.


After that, the next few days were pretty much in a blur!  We had several workshops, talked about registration and what to expect with school, and pretty much boohooed like a bunch of hormonal women the entire time. It really was ridiculous, and even I in all of my "tough girl" persona teared up several times.   When did I become such a sap???  I guess it just goes to show that we are truly in the right environment, and that was really the most amazing aspect of it all. Never before have I found such a large group of women that I had such similarities with.  Even though we were only together for a few short days, it truly feels like we are all one big family.  Frontier talked the talk, like most other schools I've visited, but it was so refreshing to see that they really lived up to the hype.  One of the students, Renee, told me that she was almost worried about coming because she didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't reach her expectations.   For me, Frontier has surpassed them. :)


Since the school is nestled in the Kentucky mountains, finding a cellphone signal was pretty much not going to happen.  They had an excellent wifi service though, so I fortunately was able to communicate through email and gmail chat.  I spoke with Andrew nightly that way, and we shared our days. That did help ease the pain of leaving my family so long.  The first night, after I excitedly told Andrew about that day's experiences, he asked me if I was in a cult.   I had to laugh, because if he had only seen all of us crying over stories of childbirth and our passion with midwifery he wouldn't have even asked. He would have been certain!!


Anyway, the drive back was interesting to say the least.  I left Wednesday night after Follies, although it wasn't without some stress.  Apparently my car battery decided that was the time to die, and I had to have the car jumped by a Staff member. (Michael, you rock!!!)   I decided to go ahead and go, and hoped beyond all hope that the half tank of gas I had in the car would buy enough drive time to sufficiently charge the battery so that I would be able to restart it when I refueled.   I made it about 2 1/2 hours, to Marion, Va, and stopped at a gas station after the gas light came on.   The moment of truth came when I had to restart the car, and after a hiccup or two, it started.  I'm sure I don't need to go into what a relief that was!!!   After that, I drove straight home. The entire trip took about 7 hours because I only stopped once to get the gas.  It was rough!!!! 


I made it home at 4:20am, and after taking a moment to notify my friends via facebook that I arrived safely, I took a quick peak at Allie and passed out in bed until 10am.  Now, after another nap at 2pm, I feel like I have a hangover and am seriously dreading going to work a  12 hour shift tomorrow.  Even so, I wouldn't trade the experience of these last few days for anything.  I am so excited to return to my nursing classes in January and simply can't wait until I can return to my Mommas and families :)


4 comments:

  1. Yay! I enjoyed reading your reflections ;) of Frontier Bound.

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  2. Welcome to the Frontier Family! :-) I'm a member of bridge class #64.

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  3. It surpassed my expectations as well Ginny!! :)

    I told my husband that you said yours asked about the "cult" and he laughed. I think being able to watch Follies helped relax him, b/c up until then, he was sure...

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  4. Yea you have to admit that it probably looked pretty strange for those men, even though they were pretty exposed to it all from us. Too funny.

    I notified my employer today about upcoming classes so I can start working on tuition assistance for them. When I had my Manager sign the approval form, she was extremely shocked at the Midwifery courses. Apparently when I told her about me working towards a MSN, she completely blocked out that it was in Nurse-Midwifery. I'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I work on a general med-surg floor, haha! ;)

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