[Highest Ranked]
#1 Uplifting
#3 Homesick
#30 Basketball
#50 Family Problems
Book One of UMD College Park Series:
Shoot your Shot - To let go of your pride and pursue someone you are interested in.
UMD's senior Point Guard, team captain, and so...
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Nobody ever thinks about the time they graduate college.
It's always the thought process of leaving home, but leaving the place that has shaped you and grown you has a different feeling. A feeling of what is now and what is next.
A feeling of what will become, where to go.
For some it's to make history is to be a part of it.
For some people it's to be successful.
Others its returning home
And for others leaving what's behind and walking forward to what is new.
I'm not ready to graduate. It came too soon.
Slumping my shoulders down, I reflect a smile in the mirror. Zipping down my red graduation gown reveals the white dress Mamà sent a couple weeks ago. Abuela perfectly stitched it together in love. My novio is going to go loco and want to sneak his hand up the slit on the side like a slithering snake with his scaly hands.
Today is the day.
I never thought I would be graduating college at this moment. As a little girl, I had so many dreams and ambitions. For starters, I really thought I would be successful making dirt conchas and dirt and rock enchiladas for my outdoor restaurant with Isabela for Conor and all my stuffed animal friends.
It was a busy life. Mateo really loved eating the dirt concha's, until Mamà shut it down due to breaking a code.
I glance back, smiling at Conor on my stripped empty bed. Then I wanted to be an astronaut in a smoke-free environment to actually be a real hero, a nurse.
The gold pin glistens in the bedroom light. Jaylan hollered and whistled so loud last night at our Florence Nightingale pledge pinning ceremony. I think my cheeks were as bright as Professor Khan's pantsuit. Mi novio is so supportive.
I love him.
Lightness fills my chest thinking how he romantically got me red roses just like the kind from my first day at my old job now. He was being a sneaky pants and finally confessed his secret.
In less than a month, I will be a nurse... an ICU nurse... a Cardiac ICU nurse at University of Maryland Shockley Trauma Center in Baltimore.
The most known Trauma center on the east coast.
As much as I wanted to stay here where I worked, Ximena, my preceptor, helped me find a greater opportunity with even better co-workers and a smaller unit. It's Lizzie-sized, with six beds for extremely sick patients. It's going to be scary but the motivation is because of Papà.
I'm going to be a Cardiac Intensive Care Nurse.
Imagine that.
I can do anything, according to my giant puppy with his slobbered kisses on my cheek.
