 Hi everyone! It's been a while so I thought I would do a little life update. What's going on? What's happening? How manic it is right now with COVID vaccines and all that jazz. So first things first. I'm still loving life. I love my job and everything is pretty great, pretty much. But I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I'm very busy right now. I'm not going to lie. At the minute I do part-time now at my new GP surgery and the team are lovely, it's amazing, it's going really well, they're so supportive. I'm almost at the end of my foundations of general practice nursing course. I've got like a month left I think now. Hasn't that gone fast guys? That has gone so fast. It's been, yeah, it's been wow. It's gone really fast. But so what have I got left to do? I've got four competencies that I need to finish which hopefully won't take long. I've got half of my assignment left to finish which is 1,700, 500 words but the second half of it's the easier half so well I'm praying it's the easiest half but it looks quite simple. I don't think I'm going to have a problem with doing that half of it because it's about myself. It's a bit like a reflection and how I've built as a general practitioner so I think that should be quite simple to link in with all my competencies and things like that. Not worrying about that. And then I've got my last five smears. I've only got five smear tests to do and then I've got my assessment at the end of February and then I'm done for smears. I'll be signed off and yeah I'll be well away with my smears. Also now looking into doing some extra courses because I'm a sucker for learning apparently. So the one thing that I want to do is the sexual health diploma because I haven't got an official qualification in this. I've done all the e-learning. I used to work in central health for nearly six years. I've got all the knowledge there. It's just getting that official diploma that I really really want to get because not only that it's going to give me a lot more knowledge as well in the subject as well as putting everything into practice as a GP nurse and things like that. And I'll be able to do a lot more like implants and potentially coils one day who knows. But yeah there's just little things that I want to add on now to that. And the next thing I want to do when I finish this course is apply and do a PG cert in education or do a masters in nursing education. I think it's called or healthcare education something like that. But something that's going to enable me to teach and do more teaching which I'm really excited about. It's something I really really want to do now. Obviously not quit my job. I'm going to keep my GP job but I'm going to hopefully do the extra qualifications and do it the days that I'm not at work. So doing it here and there and bit by bit and incorporate it with my everyday job. So yeah doing the two things that I love. So yeah so I have a very clear career path in front of me that I want to do. My little steps to get me there. And it's all looking up to be honest. It's all looking up so far fingers crossed. But other than that what have I been up to? It's been absolutely manic. I cannot lie. I'm exhausted guys. It's so busy right now and I don't want to help myself because I'm taking on a lot more than I should. But I love doing it so that's why I do it because I love it. I get a sense of achievement out of it and it keeps me motivated. So what I do? So I said I'm working part-time in my GP surgery. I do 23 hours there. I am picking up extra hours so I do Saturday Covid vaccine clinics now. Just a little add-on to my days. I'm also going to be doing a couple of Thursdays as well. Thursdays is normally my day off but we've got a nurse leaving our clinic sadly. So I've said I'll help out and I'll do a Thursday shift for the next few weeks. So I will be doing that as well as that. I am part of the Covid support nurse team and this is working alongside the public health team and we're targeting specific areas. So we will provide infection control training and that extra Covid support for testing and guidelines and things like that to places like care homes, residential homes, nursing homes, places with extra support like learning disabilities, to nurseries. Anywhere like that in the community we are doing that sort of stuff and it's been really busy. At the minute it's more like email support and phone calls. That's it. And online training so we'll deliver like the donning and doffing of PPE and things like that to them just to make sure that they've got everything that they need and staying well and keeping their residents and their staff safe. And apart from that I am also as some of you know I'm a general practice nurse and ambassador. I'm the vice chair now of the GPN SNN group. You can find us on Twitter. We've got a new Facebook page incoming. We've got a new Facebook page. I'm going to put the links below. If anyone wants to join our pride is a private Facebook page. I'll put the link below but make sure you answer. There's three questions to answer at the start. Make sure you answer every single question or you won't be letting. It's just the way it has to be because we have to keep it really regulated because we just don't want anyone just walking into our group. We want to keep it professional for newly qualified nurses and student nurses with a passion for GP nursing. So yeah if you're interested links below give it a go. So as well as doing that I still do my webinars for sexual health webinars. They are free to all whether a student, new qualified nurse, whoever you are if you want to join you come and join. I'm going to put the link below to the page where you can book on the webinars because there's so many webinars on that website that are just going to be amazing for you like hypertension, ECGs, diabetes, asthma, learning disabilities. There's loads on there so if you're really interested then you just gain a little bit more knowledge. They are very quick basic webinars like 20-30 minute webinars so it is a very brief one but it's so good for knowledge. I learned quite a lot actually from these webinars. It's held by specialist nurses as well in these subjects so they are amazing and yeah join in if you can. What else have I been doing? So next on the list I am part of the shared decision council. This is as part of Rufemäe's structure and it's... I can't say too much about it because of confidentiality and all of that but basically we are a group of nurses from across the UK so we're from all over all different levels as well so me as a new qualified nurse and then you'll have more experienced nurses on board and this is just to talk about what's going on, how we can improve, what positive changes we can make for the future especially with COVID and the lockdowns and everything like that. We want to make sure that everything's running well and how we can improve this. It's been actually amazing, it's been really really good to be part of and I've loved every minute but obviously I can't go into it, can't talk about it but I can tell you I'm part of it. I can't think of anything else at the minute like that's too much anyway. I'm part of so much and doing a lot of bits here and there for everything it's just manic, I get literally I think one day off a week now because my time is just completely filled with my job, my extra jobs, I'm doing about three different jobs with my webinars and COVID support and vaccine clinics and my GP nurse and then my course on top oh it's busy guys but I wouldn't have anyone on the other way because I love it but yes Sundays are my days to just do nothing, just chill out, try and avoid my phone if I can and just do nothing but it is hard to avoid my phone because I'm addicted to social media as some of you know because I reply almost instantly to most of you if I haven't replied it's because I've looked at it and then I've gone off to do something thought I'll reply to that later and then forgot so if that is the case message me again just keep messaging me until I reply, I will reply it's just that I've probably looked at it and then got busy at work or something like that and just haven't had the chance to get back to it so yes but yes please don't ask me to come and do your work for you that's not going to happen guys come on you've got to do this I'm doing it right now I'm on a course as well as 101 things but I can do this so can you guys come on you've got this come on and lastly I'm still waiting to move house I know I think I told you a while back a few months ago actually that was moving house it's still in process literally this is why I'm not sitting in my window anymore because because this is why boxes of rubbish so I'm stuck here in the corner or upstairs in the bedroom where it's not as busy um but normally I would sit in front of the window on my little chair and then you'd see all the living room but now he's stuck with this now guys until I move but hopefully in the next few weeks two weeks to three weeks by the end of February I'm hoping I'll be in the new house fingers crossed it's going to be amazing it's so much more spacious the living room is much bigger than this for the dogs they're going to have loads of space it's going to be a massive improvement and it's just down the road for my new job so I can walk to work it'll still take me about five to ten minutes to get there but I can walk to work every day I'm getting in those steps guys it's going to be fantastic I'm really excited um but other than that I haven't really got many other updates I don't think I've got any other updates to tell you I just hope you're all coping well with COVID and placements and opting in opting out have you made your decisions yet let me know um there is no right or wrong decision I just want to say this because we had this last time with people opting out and they got so much backlash for it that's not okay if you want to opt out then just opt out you know it's you and your personal life and you have to do what's the best for you and your families right now and if that's opting out then do it don't be ashamed of that so just put everything in place that's best for you and forget the negative comments but I hope you're all doing amazing keep going guys have a great week guys