Brianne's Journal

Well, we’ve been done with our season for 2 weeks now. I have so much extra time! Ha. More time for school work right? We started our post season workouts this week and I’m sooooore. We all look like we just got off a horse walking around campus. Hopefully I’ll get back into shape real quick here so I won’t hurt so bad next week! As long as our season was, I miss being on the ice after 2 or 3 weeks. All I have now is a quick work out in the morning and classes.

It’s coming to the end of classes soon here too so things are piling up. I’m trying to use my extra time to get things done a little at a time so I’m not going crazy the next few weeks and I can spend more time studying for finals. I’ll be here in the summer too, I never leave! Ha I have to stay and take three classes to be able to do my clinicals in the fall. I have Patho, Nursing Assessment, and Nursing Ethics. So I’ll be doing those for eight weeks in the summer. I also got my job back at Montour Heights Country Club as a waitress. Aaaaand I’ll be working out with our trainer all summer too, so it’ll be a busy summer again. I got an email from my old coach from juniors today to see if I could goalie coach for them in the summer so I may be doing that as well. I’m not sure when that will be though.

Anyways, other than my plans for the summer I’ve just been relaxing and enjoying some time off with my friends and I got a chance to go home for Easter which was so fun. I’ll put up some pictures from home and all that. My team mates and I are going to the women’s lacrosse game here in an little bit so I have to go! See ya!

Hey again,

I'm writing you from home this time! This is the first spring break I've had in my 3 years here. We always have our CHA tournament the week of break but this year the tournament was a week early so I got to go home. Go figure, all of my friends were home last week though! Ha. Oh well. I'm going to drive up to Toledo on friday to see all of them since my entire high school graduating class pretty much just transfered there. We got knocked out of the tournament after the first game, we lost 4-0 against Wayne State. We either play really well against them or we just can't seem to find their net. Oh well, now it's time for post season to get ready for next year. We get two weeks off then we get right back to it in the weight room and on the ice but not as much. I'm interested to see how much we can improve over the course of the summer. I'm hoping everyone works hard so we can have a better season than this year. We didn't do bad but there are a lot of games I think we all wanted back.

School has been going well. I just took a microbiology test before I left for break and I think I did okay on it. Plus if we showed her what we studied we got bonus points! Those always help! I'm trying to get all of my things done in the beginning of the week so I can enjoy my weekend while I'm home. I have an Anatomy test Monday, the first day back from break and I don't think I did so great on the first test so I have a lot of studying to do on this one. Also he gave us some bonus opportunities to complete as well, so I thought it would be a good idea to do those, considering my grade in his class ha. On top of my test, and three papers I have a journal report I have to do before I get back. I have to write as if I had AIDS and explain all the tests and infections and prejudices I come across my whole life till I die. Sooo I should probably start on that as well. It'll probably take me longer than I think it will. Basically, I've got a long week till I get back to school. Anyways thats about it for lately!

-Bri

Not a whole lot new since last time with school. That anatomy test didn't go that well ha. Although I got a B on my Micro test which was okay. I have cooking class in a few hours and we're cooking anything with pork - mmm.

As for hockey, we beat Wayne State two weekends ago! They were tenth in the nation before we beat them. We were pretty excited about that, everyone played so well and did their part. Somehow we managed to go from a great weekend in Detroit to losing both games this past weekend against Niagara. We always seem to pull that off somehow. So now we have to pull it together for Mercyhurst on Friday at home then again Saturday at their place. There is a little poll on USCHO.com about which team will have an upset this weekend and we're in the top 3 voted to upset Mercyhurst! Ha! We've been waiting for that for three years now, its about time!

Anyways, I got to see my parents this weekend and of course mom has to bring up a huge valentines bag of chocolate that I can't eat because I gave it up for lent! So now I have to stare at it for another few weeks. Ha, not that I'm complaining. It was good to see them. I dropped and smashed my phone in the rink parking lot and didn't know it until about 5 hours later. Needless to say, it in fact does NOT work so my dad brought me up his old one from about 6 years ago ha works well - so now I'm using that until my plan ends in 3 weeks. I talked to my brother earlier, he's at an interview right now for a big boy job (finally). So hopefully he does well with that. If he gets it he'll have to move to Chicago for a bit but then he can transfer back to Cleveland maybe. Wish him luck!

See ya!

Well our games against Wayne State did NOT go as planned! We got beat up pretty good, 6-1 and 6-4. So it wasn’t a very good weekend for hockey. We were off this past weekend and the guys were home so we all got a chance to see them play. The first game didn’t go well but they turned it around for the second game and won 4-2.

As for our team, we had some more bad news last week even after the two big losses. Our other goalie broke her leg sledding. She hit a pole and broke her tibia AND fibula AND completely ripped all of the ligaments in her ankle! Perfect! She had surgery last Thursday and hopefully will be back in maybe 4 months. In the mean time, I’m the only goalie for the rest of the season. We got a waiver that said our other goalie was injured so we don’t have to dress a player in goalie equipment. Without the waiver we would have to forfeit our games or put one of our players in her goalie stuff. So we will see how the games go this weekend against Niagara. This is the third season in a row my other goalie either got hurt or quit the team before the season ended so were getting pretty use to finishing it with one goalie.

Aside from hockey, classes are still going okay. In Microbiology lab we swabbed different places like door handles, the palms of people’s hands, mouths, desks, and even feet and a week later saw what was growing in the Petri dish...which was pretty disgusting. Interesting none the less. It makes you want to never shake people's hands or open doors without gloves on! I have my first 2 tests on Monday in Micro and Anatomy which is going to be ALOT of studying. I think that’s about all I have for you on the past few weeks so now I have to get some food and head to night class. See ya!

So Christmas break is over and it’s time to hit the books again. Christmas was awesome; it was nice to just to be home in my OWN house again. For Christmas Eve my entire family and most of our family friends ended up at our house. That’s always an interesting night. I attached some of the pictures from Christmas and of course one of my dog that my mom snuck while we were napping on the couch. Murphy’s not suppose to be up on the couch but somehow when I’m home and dad’s at work he ends up there a lot ha. The picture of me and the kid on the couch is my brother and I opening our wii that I’m pretty sure my mom bought for herself because Michael and I are back at school and the wii is with her being used EVERY day. I only got to play it for a day because I had to be back here at school for games against Minnesota State. We lost the first game then came back and killed them the second night. So I’ve been back here since the 26th playing games and practicing. It’s kind of weird being here on break because we are the only ones here most of the time besides the basketball teams and the guy’s hockey team but we manage to keep ourselves busy. Anyway, back to being home! My dad and brother worked during the day so I hung out with my mom shopping and doing whatever mostly. So dad gets mad that we never get to do anything when I’m home so he took off an extra day before I went back. We got up early and went to Cracker Barrel for our favorite peach pancakes for breakfast ha. After that we went to the zoo for a few hours and watched the monkeys pick at each others rear ends. Well, that’s not all we saw, but if you asked either one of us, I think that was the highlight exhibit. And of course we got a call every ten minutes from mom who was jealous at home because we didn’t invite her. When we got home we took her out to dinner for her early birthday and watched the Browns get spanked by the Bengals.

Classes started this past week so I guess the fun is over. Practices are at 8 in the morning and on Thursdays we lift after, then hurry back to make it back for classes. Mondays I have class at ten, so I have to leave practice a little early to make it, which is a huge pain! My classes seem like there are going to pretty fun actually. Most of my teachers keep the class interesting which lucky for us makes the time go by quicker! In Anatomy and Physiology II we will be dissecting a pig or cat I think so that will be pretty neat. In Microbiology we already started looking at blood through a microscope and learned the different kinds of blood cells. And for fun I took a cooking class to fill my full time schedule ha. Lastly, we traveled to Renselaer this past weekend which we beat last year and lost both games this time! Coach was NOT very happy. I also got my first penalty of my whole life there for tripping…oops. I went 16 years without a penalty then get one for tripping. Ha, oh well. That’s about it for my last few weeks and Christmas!

My name is Brianne McLaughlin and I am 20 years old from Cleveland Ohio. I'm in my Junior year as a nursing student here at Robert Morris. I just switched to nursing last year so I'm pretty far behind and will be here a little longer than I had planned. When I'm not in class I am playing hockey for the women's team and that pretty much takes up the rest of my time! I have an older brother Michael that goes to Bowling Green and of course a mom and dad that I'm also very close with. After school is over I hope to get a job either here or back at home as an ER nurse.

My brother started playing hockey when he was young as a forward, which is how I got stuck playing goalie. I guess shooting pucks into an open net got boring so why not hit your little sister with them instead? I can't complain too much though, hockey has been a huge part of my life for the past fifteen years and I've met some great people along the way.