I have so much love for my new default icon. I know, sad woman. But hey, I just love that image and I think it came out nicely and it has Ken on so, well, enough said really.

Anyway.

I have the horrible feeling that, these days at least, I don't actually like being in college much. I know I get later starts, earlier finishes and get to wear whatever I like in, but all the same I think college sucks in a lot of ways. Not least of which because sitting in a small room full of concentrated stupid makes me worried that my brain's going to atrophy. Is idiocy contagious? I hope not, or my IQ's probably going to have dropped twenty points by the time I get out of here and back onto the wards again.

In short, once again, my coursemates - or a sizable proportion of same - are goddamn STUPID. I mean really stupid. 'So stupid it's painful to listen to them' stupid. I've never wanted to tear my hair out as a result of this before but hey, you learn something new every day.

I have no idea what caused the ten-minute (at least) digression in my last lecture along the lines of whether or not it was fair to expect us to wear a clean uniform to work every day (answer: yes, it is. Next question?) but something caused it and it was painful. Extremely painful. Not least of which because we finished up with some complete idiot who had to be at least forty accusing the lecturer of having 'insulted' the class by pointing out that the concessions made to our pockets, as English nursing students, are not common practice in every country out there. Insulting? That? Yeah, sure. I believe you, thousands wouldn't.

It's enough to make a girl want to get personal.

For fuck's sake, moron, toughen UP!

Sorry, but it really bugs me with some idiot turns round and says they have been 'insulted' by a lecturer's generalizations. I guess some people out there are determined to take everything personally. All I can take away from that, and their reaction, is that the individual in question is incredibly thin-skinned and has had a far easier ride of it than I have vis-a-vis insults. All I can conclude is that they were never the unpopular ones at school, never possessed sharp-tongued parents, and have never had a colleague or workmate lay into them for any reason whatsoever. In short, they're sheltered. Abnormally so. How else could I, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, possess a thicker skin than someone in their forties? It doesn't make sense.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though. On my alst placement, my mentor gave me a lot of very good advice during my final interview about how I needed to improve my practice. Toward the end of my interview she said, 'you're not insulted, are you?' Not a bit of it - I'd correctly called it for constructive criticism. How will I ever know what I need to improve on if I get into a huff every time someone offers me advice? But that she asked means that some students will take offense to that. God help the nursing profession. Aren't we supposed to be able to question our own practice?

It's worrying not least of which because we're going into nursing. Nursing, people. The nurse's role, it often seems to me, is to act as an intermediary between doctors and patients, patients and relatives, hospitals and the outside world. One of the inevitable consequences of being an intermediary is that whenever someone has a grievance, they take it out on us.

Patient hasn't seen their doctor all day? Blame the nurse looking after them. Kitchen sent up the wrong meal? Blame the nurse who served it. Discharge been mishandled? Blame the nurse who faxed the referral. Doctor won't prescribe more painkillers? Blame the nurse who normally gives them. Relatives can't see the patient? Blame the nurse who passes that on. It's just the way things work. We're like the receptionists or secretaries who have to spend half the day listening to people complaining about their boss' errors or omissions. There's nothing we can do to change things, we're just the ones who are most accessible - ergo we take the flak. Believe me the secretary analogy is entirely apt.

If the people who are supposed to be dealing with all this flak on a day-to-day-basis take personal offense to an off-the-cuff and highly generalized statement made to a crowd of a hundred, how in the Hell are they going to cope when a patient's cursing at them because they can't have another enema? Or a relative in a rage because their father hasn't seen a doctor all day? Believe me these people won't hesitate to get personal. Really personal.

If someone's thin-skinned enough to take offense to their lecturer, God only knows why they'd want to be a nurse.