186 - Kennedi Newman Pt 1: Take a Moment to Look Up

Join relatively recent graduate and Spokane, Washington native Honored Guest Kennedi Newman as she chats about how it feels being a nurse for almost a full year, her superpower and anti-superpower, what it’s like being a new homeowner, “crashing twice” after nursing school, her love of books, how she got on the path to her first career, why she left that career, and more!

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young® Podcast. I'm so glad you guys are here today. And I'm going to start today with three little letters. J-F-K. Yeah, JFK. I understand that uh I wasn't old enough, mind you. And I need to emphasize that. I was not old enough to know that he was an incredible president while he was alive and that he had brought a lot of hope to our country and was very inspiring. But... What I can tell you now is the reason why I'm bringing him up is because I'm with a vastly more inspiring Kennedi, no offense JFK, the one, the only Kennedi Newman. Kennedi, good morning, how are you my friend? Good morning, I'm doing well. That was a really entertaining intro I had to like not cackle through. I would like to note though, I spell Kennedi differently than the Kennedys. It's with an I instead of a Y at the end and that's very important emphasis. very important emphasis and it is her first name not her last name. ah Although since we're here, why Kennedi? Do know why your parents picked that name? I have no real understanding as to why. think it's because they, I think they just liked it. Like my mom really likes like endings, like her names that end with a like Y or an I, like the E sounding. So all my siblings and I have that ending. So I think they were like, that sounds cool. Yeah. it, I love it. It's a beautiful name and thanks for allowing me to riff on it for just a moment. ah Let's just jump right in then. So are you still a nursing student or are you a nurse? And if so, what degrees do you hold and where'd you get them? I am no longer a nursing student. I finished my residency at the end of this June, so I've almost been a nurse for a year. uh Degree-wise, I own several degrees. Everyone jokes uh now that I've graduated nursing school what my next degree will be, so stay tuned on that one. I'm overly educated. have uh a bachelor's in English secondary education, a master's in curriculum and instruction. And then now a bachelor's in nursing. And also, I don't feel like you're old enough to hold all those degrees, so I'm very confused. I'm not, and I get that all the time at work because I'm a nurse now. Everyone thinks I'm like freshly like 22. I don't know when you graduate nursing school, what age the comp is. I think it's 22 or 23, but everyone's like, oh, you're still young. And I'm like, actually I'm way older than you all think I am, which is even funnier to me. I love it and we have that in common. I'm still very grateful for my patients who are like, they'll be like, oh, do you have kids? Yeah, I got five kids. And I show them a picture. And of course they see my oldest living who's now 21, gonna be 22 this summer. And they're like, you are not old enough to have a kid that old. I'm like, okay, now I was gonna give you good care regardless, but now I have to care for you even better. So just kidding. All right, so then where is home for you, Home, I've lived the longest in Spokane. um I grew up moving around a little bit. I was born in Mississippi, spent like three weeks or three months there. I don't even, I was too little to remember. Moved to Alaska, moved to Spokane, moved to Colorado and then back to Spokane. So we've been here the longest. Most of my family on my dad's side is here. So this is, I would identify Spokane as home. Awesome. And sorry, I'm being blonde for moment. You said you were born in Mississippi? Yes. And Mississippi ends with an I? Interesting. Interesting. The whole thing. Irony. We're going to say irony with an I. uh never made that connection, so thank you. You're welcome. I was like, I heard her correctly, but I needed to just totally clarify before I put my foot in my mouth again. uh So Kennedi, having just recently, let me back up for a second. How does it feel to say you have been a nurse for almost a year already? Wild, wild. It hasn't been a year in my world. It feels like it's been like a month, honestly. I feel like everyone talks about like ebb and flow of like your first year, how like you start and you're like, I know nothing. And then you feel like you know things and then all of you know nothing and then you feel like you know things and it's just back and forth. And I feel like that's so accurate because it's been kind of a whirlwind where I'm like, oh, dang, I keep going to nurse your nurses, but soon I'll be a nurse to nurse to somebody. And that's wild. Before long they're gonna be like, Kennedi, can you be charged today? That'd be great. I'm, um what's wild is I'm already preceptor trained and I haven't been a nurse for a year. And that's crazy to me that I can precept people and haven't been a nurse for that long. But I think my floor loves it. My unit loves it because I used to be a teacher. They're like, hey, she knows how to teach people. Let's use her. And it's, it's fun. I love it, but it's wild to me. and if it helps you feel any better, I'm getting that from a lot of my former students who have been a nurse now for a year or so, about a year, year and a half, they're like, yep, we're already precepting other nurses and we're teaching them this and we're teaching them that and the average experience on our floor is X, Y, or Z and we're finding that everybody's like, this is a little bit different than I thought it would be and oh my gosh, in a good way but also kind of in a terrifying way as well. Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's like, I love it. It's fun. It's exciting. But you're also sitting there and you're like, holy cow, like it was a year ago. I graduated nursing school and I, there's about to be new grads on my floor with me. Yeah, crazy. So then having been a relatively recent new grad yourself, what are the three words you chose to describe nursing school? Ah, okay, so I spent a lot of time thinking about this and I consulted some friends. I phoned some friends, like literally. I went with very, very me words of adventurous, chaotic, and serendipitous. Those are the three words I'd say. These are good words, and I'm excited for you to discuss them at the end of your episode. I don't know if you phoned any friends on the following question, but what are three of your favorite songs in life right now? I didn't need to phone friends on that because I am a huge music person. Like I think every nurse finds their kind of coping mechanism for some things and how to decompress after work and music's mine. So my three go-to songs right now are Dashboard by Noah Khan, which just got released. So it's probably gonna be on my top list for this year on Spotify because it's just chronically on repeat. ah I like Mondays by Taylor Bickett and then Let It Burn by Shaboosie. Very good, very good. We're gonna add that to the Feeding Our Young® Honored Guest playlist and eventually you'll get a link to that playlist. That is one of those things that I get to address maybe once a quarter, if not once every six months. uh because it's one of those that takes a little while for me to get to, because it's uh at the bottom of the old list here. So, enough about me though. Let's get to know you a little bit better before we talk all things nursing and the amazing things you wanna talk about. at which you've already hinted at, right? Nursing not being your first career, which is awesome. But um I love your answer to this. What is your superpower? uh So I said my superpower was growing things like I garden, I have plants everywhere. I'm literally in my plant room right now recording this. I did say my anti-superpower would be annoying people with my ADHD. At work I find fidget toys chronically. uh My goal is to bring joy to others at work but also I do work with my best friend now and that's uh a little chaotic to my unit because I find ways to annoy her because it's funny. Hahahaha my go-to right now is clicking a pen and seeing how long it takes to annoy her. ah So I think that's my anti-superpower for sure. I love it. love it. And you're the very first honored guest to ever create the, is your anti-superpower question? think it's fantastic. Now you have someone in your room with you who we may or may not hear on the podcast later. Who is this special someone? I have my dog named Captain. uh His full name, if you want to know, is Captain Dingus Newman, ah middle name Dingus. It's very fitting for him. He's a German Shepherd, massive, uh looks absolutely terrifying, but he is the biggest dope to ever exist uh in every aspect. you might've heard him, yeah, you might've heard him like two seconds ago, he was scratching and leaning up against the wall and it sounded like a thunder storm happening in my room. So I'm sorry if that got picked up on the audio. Actually, I honestly didn't hear it because you've got your AirPods in and be even if I did the audience typically won't because the background noise generally gets taken care of very well. However, every once in while something squeaks through. So we may hear Captain Dingus. We may not. I really almost hope we do just so I can shout out Captain Dingus one more time. Okay, so before I ask the following question, I'm going to ask one before it. because uh it informs the question that follows immediately thereafter. But now that you are no longer a nursing student and you are learning your craft and you are doing all the things, what are your hobbies and interests? What are the things that are occupying your time when you're not at work? right now, so I just moved and I have a house now. So right now occupying my time is like doing homeowner stuff. I just got my garden set up. So I would say I'm big on the grandma hobbies. So like gardening, baking, crocheting, my unit benefits from my baking because I'll just bring in sweets all the time. Um, I'm also, we have so many pregnant like nurses on my unit and make, I'm making baby blankets for each of them right now. So they get those. ah So I'm big on grandma hobbies, but outside of that, like reading, hiking, I go backpacking all the time. I'm getting back into the piano. um It's weird having free time, so I still haven't figured it all out yet. I'm like, I have a life. Would you confirm that it takes a little bit to get back into like these fun activities that you did not have time for before? 100%, I get to work with nursing students a lot too em as a nurse and I always tell them, I'm like, when you first graduate, it's gonna take, you're go into orientation and first before orientation, you're gonna go into having to study and work towards the NCLEX and that first month, you're gonna have no motivation to study for that NCLEX, we'll be all real, no one wants to do it. You're gonna sleep so much, like your body just crashes afterwards. And then you go, you pass your NCLEX and you crash again because you're like, oh, the stress is over and you crash. And then you go into orientation and you're fighting for your life every day, learning all this new information and how to do things on a unit. And you feel so exhausted that it's kind of like you come home on your days off and you do the scroll and you sit on your couch and that's totally normal. I feel like it's only been in like the past like four or five months that I've really actually started to rediscover what I like. Like it's taken a while. ah Because I was so tired and I want to say like that's so normal like give yourself grace That's so normal to just absolutely crash afterwards because you're so tired can confirm and I absolutely love that. So the two questions that I'm going to piggyback off of your hobbies, the first one being with the fantastic hiking and backpacking you're getting back into, what inspires you most in life? this question I answered so weirdly, but like, feel like for most people does, but it comes in connection with that is I'm so incredibly inspired by nature. Um, like the fact that we can have this absolutely incredible, beautiful world that exists and that is also equally as chaos, chaotic is just wild to me. because we go through our day to day and like kind of these cement buildings and like the nursing lights and everything from the hospital, like. And really you're in there and you don't realize how much it also mimics the natural world outside. ah It's just so beautiful and powerful. And like, we can take what we learn from nature and bring it into our lives. And it's just very humbling and awe-inspiring. Like to me, like it's how cooler is it that we get to exist in a world that we've partially impacted and created, but like it has these gorgeous trees and root systems that mimic a placenta and, ah or a placenta mimics a tree root system. and how we have butterflies and we have air and the thing that goes into our lungs and how it just all equally correlates to each other is just incredible to me and I take so much like inspiration from it and bring it into my day to day life. And I love that that is how you answered that question. That's why I wanted to bring that up, because even you just saying, you know, we live in amongst a lot of concrete buildings, asphalt, you know what mean? Driving on roads, doing all the things. And yet the other thing, the other component that I feel like, Kennedi, is that a lot of times we get so caught up in our day to day and what's right in front of us that we don't take time to just look up or look out. You know what mean? We get to live in Spokane, so, you know, I mean, can look out my window right now and not see mountains, but see, you know, relatively large, they're really mole hills compared to say, Mount Rainier or something along those lines, which I also got used to seeing on the west side. But you still get to see beautiful nature. You get to look up in the sky. You get to see the clouds. And I feel like we don't take enough opportunity to just pause and look at those things and be grateful for all those things that you just said and then some, yeah? Absolutely. And I find like I've developed a routine after even after my shifts when I'm stuck inside so much like going for a walk when I get home getting outside, I have a lovely little nature path by my house. So we I take my dog on that all the time. Thankfully, he's a big dog. So I get scary dog privileges at night, which is lovely. ah Because then I feel comfortable going on walks after work at night. But I just feel like even when you're in the hospital, like looking out, thankfully at our hospital, especially on my unit, I have such good views from patient windows. Taking the time to look there, watching the sunset with patients has been a really cool experience. Our hospital offers a healing garden. So I know several nurses that go out on their lunch breaks and go have some outdoor time just to ground yourself. And I think that's so important. And something we don't do often is take those few extra seconds to ground yourself in nature because it was the original healing aspect, right? Like we learned so much about healing from the natural world. And now we exist in a world that doesn't. like work well with that. And I think sometimes we get disconnected from that. So good, so deep, and I'm even extrapolating it to what's the hottest, latest, and greatest, right? Artificial intelligence. Now we're gonna not even have to think for ourselves, let alone anything else, like, ugh, anyway. I could, no, I get it. I call it the death to free thought. Like even when I was teaching students started using like AI and that was wild to me because it is this break from the natural order of things. And that's a world of like, we stopped thinking for ourselves. We stopped kind of existing in a sense. And I think that's just wild. And I think we forget that in our day to day lives, especially as nurses, cause we are in like the center of technology and all of these things, like it's all around us and loud noises and sensory overload that like we forget that like nature exists and like listen to some bird songs and just step outside barefoot. I did that this morning because I was like, you know what? I just need to feel some dirt. And yes, does that make me a little weird to some people? Sure. Do I care? No. I don't. And I love, you know, the other thing that pops in my brain when you're talking about this, I recently had to get a newer car to me, which is, whatever, it's a whole thing. But the long story short of it is in this newer car, you know, I was used to, I've driven Hyundai now, Hyundai Elantra originally, and now a Hyundai Santa Fe, and this is a 2023 Santa Fe. And the reason why I bring that up is because in the radio, like you said, music, ah it's a whole nother language. I just love getting in there, you know what I mean? I'll crank whatever I need to listen to. Sometimes I'll listen to sports radio. But they also have another option, is you're hitting the mode button on your steering wheel and cycling through the various things. They now have nature sounds. And it's this, you know, it is kind of calming music or weird, like, you know what I mean? I don't want to say new age, but you know, some very light music in the background, but it's like, there's like a rainy day. There is a lively forest, things of that nature. And I was like, well, that's like your initial reaction. I was like, well, that's interesting. And then I turned it on for the first time after a rough shift on the way home. And I was like, okay, I can vibe. You know, I may not be able to feel that underneath my feet. I may not be able to go out right now and do that sort of thing, because I got to go home and go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow. But for a moment at least, I can at least surround myself with the sounds of nature. and feel, you know what mean? It's just, it's so cool. It was so cool. Anyway, going from reality to maybe some less reality things and still, we're almost 20 minutes into your episode. We haven't even talked about nursing yet. This is gonna be so fun. But that being said, I loved this part of it too, going dialing it back to your other hobbies and all the things. What fictional characters in movies, television or books do you most identify with? And I think my response was, I'm a book nerd, so that's a very dangerous question because I read quite frequently and I have to, I would like to put a little tidbit in here for like the girlies who do read and went to nursing school and feel like you haven't touched a book since you like started nursing school. I'd like to state that's so normal. Your brain is so bright. So if you feel like you're in a reading slump. Yep. somebody who's just like, I love reading, but I can't touch a book. I can't get myself to do it. I am just now getting out of that. Like I used to read like an a thousand page book in like two days. Like that's who I am as a reader. I can bust out a book like no other. Um, but I can't even finish like a 400 page book right now. Like it takes me time. Um, So I want to give that little tidbit to people who listen to this. It's like, no, that's normal. Like you'll, you'll get back to your love of reading. It's not gone. It's that's not a part of you. You lost because of nursing school. It's going to come back. You're going to find your book series. And for those of you who are like, I don't like reading, I'm going to say you just haven't found the right book yet. And I will stand firm on that. We can argue it. I'll give you my like email. I don't care. We'll have a discussion. If any of my former students listen to this, they've heard me say that. And I know for a fact, a lot of them have. found their favorite book. So I just want to say back to your original question though. I, that was the hardest question. I don't, I don't even know if I could directly state like who I identify with. Um, because I read such a, yeah. She did not have an answer to this question beyond quote unquote, so I am a book nerd dangerous question. But I did open this up because then that leads to the following question. I think you know where I'm going with this. But if you could have a meal with, and I'm gonna let you explain who these people are because I knew who they were, but not necessarily everybody who's going to listen to this will. If you could have a meal with one person dead or alive or people, who would that be? Yeah, so I set up a couple of famous authors. ah So the Bronte sisters, if you've ever heard of the Bronte sisters, there's Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and for some reason, the name of the last one is escaping me it's really bugging me that I can't think of the third sister. Elizabeth Bronte, yeah, I think I want to say it's Elizabeth. And I'm so sorry to the Bronte sisters for forgetting all three of you right now, my bad. ah But they wrote, they each are famous authors on their own. For those who don't read classic literature, ah they are classic literature authors. uh You might most, I would say the most famous one that's probably right now people would have heard of is Wuthering Heights. ah The movie just came out for it, though I will state if you have read Wuthering Heights, don't watch the movie. The movie's phenomenal. I will say that the movie's so good if it had a different. It is not Wuthering Heights, so I stand firm on that. But they really revolutionized a lot of our literature and kind of the stories that were written. So you have like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are probably the two best known books for them. And they really put a lot of social commentary into those books. A lot of kind of, they were very controversial for their time. And so think they'd really just be a whole vibe to me. And then I did kind of... For me, go with a cop-out answer, but go for Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, because I also think she is just revolutionary in her own world with Gothic literature and even in a sense, sci-fi. She was kind of the original author of those. And so just to kind of meet with her and be like, hey, how was it for all of you guys existing in a time when women weren't supposed to write these things? They were supposed to be all about romance and love stories and also not writing books. uh and having a family and things like that. So I think they'd be really just impactful and really cool to like have a conversation with because they were so controversial. Yeah, very much so. And I thank you for bringing that up. And I was wrong. It was I was looking it up again. I was like, this doesn't feel right. It's Charlotte, Emily and Anne and Elizabeth. Yeah, Elizabeth was one of the two older siblings that had died previously because there were six there were six siblings all together. Anyway, uh there you go. There you go, everybody. Sorry, Anne. Sorry. We got it. We got to give a shout out to you. My bad. Well, I mean, you know, she might show up in your dreams tonight. This could be interesting. uh You're like, please. pas. Yeah, I was like, listen, I get it. I did you dirty. Go ahead and haunt me. I accept it. And while you're here, I have a few questions for you. You know, that's fine, that's fine. And lastly, who is your hero? Oh, okay. I, I, this one was a hard one for me too, because I was just sitting there and I was like, who are my heroes in life? Like I look up to so many people, um, because like, just, think just in general, people are amazing. My friends are super amazing. Like I, the people in my life are incredible. Um, but if I had to like go for like the, the traditional, like who's your like hero that people know, I would say Jane Goodall or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Um, Yes. just like, don't, I don't feel like I need an explanation for those. They both are just such incredible, iconic women and did so much for like our world, especially like losing Jane Goodall. think this year was just incredibly sad. I just listened to one of her books. Um, it's on, I believe I can't remember the name of it, but it's on hope and finding hope in the everyday world. And I totally recommend that book, it's phenomenal. But she is just incredible for the scientific community. She's incredible for like the natural world. Just both of them are just incredible. That's all I got to say. Like I look up to them and all the impacts they've done. And like also they're powerful women, which I love. We love an icon who just doesn't listen to other people and does what they want and helps to better the world for it. Yeah, very well said my friend. Well, I mean, it's obvious you're a book nerd. It's obvious you love to read. It's obvious you love literature, which I guess lends itself to our discussion about your career path. And we'll just start with the initial career path. So you said teaching. Why teaching? Like, where did that come to play and how did that come to play? Yeah, I growing up, everybody honestly said like, you should be a teacher like you would make such an amazing teacher. And I was like, maybe maybe and then I went to school. uh And I started taking uh specifically I started taking elementary education classes, I was supposed to be an elementary teacher first. And then I took the elementary math class, which if anybody is an elementary school teacher, you understand what I'm talking about. When I say like you had to relearn all of basic math. Like long division doesn't exist for kids anymore and that's wild to me. And I took that and I was like no, can't do it. uh And so I went and was like you know what, I love books. I love reading, I love teaching, like talking about books. I love like all those things so I was like let's do high school. Let's do high school English and take all these English courses and look at high school and then I started, oh I need to backtrack a little. Yeah. I was in high school, we had a class that allowed you to work in elementary or middle school classrooms. It was like an early education class for like people who were thinking about being teachers. So I actually went and worked in elementary school classrooms before I even went to college. It was my last period of the day. I would have my lunch and then I would go work in elementary school classrooms. And I actually got to work with one of my former elementary school teachers. I got to give a shout out to Miss Goffman. She was my favorite person ever. And she got to mentor me when I was seeing if I wanted to be a teacher. And so I worked in her class. And that was so fun. ah I just uniquely remember a day we left the on her lunch break and we went and got Starbucks together. She's she's she's my favorite person. ah But so I did that in high school went to college and was like, Yeah, let's do this. uh Started taking the education classes, the English classes started student teaching I student taught at Shadle Park High School in Spokane. Um, and that was, that was fun. That was a whirlwind. Again, shout out to Brad. He was my mentor teacher. Um, and that was really, really fun. And I, I've just always had a special place for teaching, like just always loved educating others and like seeing that, I get it moment click in a kid's head is just absolutely incredible. Um, and so I. just was like, let's do it. And so I graduated and I actually, before I even graduated, got offered a job in Coeur d'Alene teaching at a high school there. Um, and that was really fun. Just started, I started at 21 teaching high school, which is wild when you realize the age group that I'm working with. Um, because at 21, I don't know how to take care of myself. How do I take care of like 200 high schoolers? But I was like, they're was one of their favorites probably because I was a young teacher, like you're 21. Like I can, I know the slang. I know like all the lingo. I don't anymore. Like kids say things and I'm like, oh. Like, know, finding Nemo that kid scene when he's like, you're really cute kid, but I don't understand a word you're saying. That's how I feel now with like younger kids. So I feel really out of touch with it. But I loved it. Like I love teaching. I still do. And I got my master's degree actually when COVID started, funnily enough. ah I was like, let's get my master's degree. It's online. I'm home more. Like, let's do it. So, yeah. Yeah, we were online teaching anyway. So I was like, you know, what's more screen time, you know? Oh, that is just amazing. And I love the fact that, like, again, you're saying you're a younger teacher to start with, right? And have since aged a bit there without aging you. You know what mean? you're like saying, because I look, I'm not knocking on everybody. I do promise in that regards, because I love. You want to talk about being a non-traditional student and in her quote she said being a non-traditional student and in parentheses mildly older student with a whole career beforehand. So yeah, I mean you've aged a bit since then, right? So passionate about education, passionate about all the things. Why are you not still a teacher then if that's if there's a not a better way to ask that? My apologies. Yeah, no, that's, that is a loaded question. I will state this. uh And I get asked that every time because I think the number one thing I experience right now as a, when people find out I'm a, used to be a teacher, especially at work, they'll be like, and you chose nursing? Like that's the number one response I get, which is just wild. But everyone then goes, yeah, I don't think I could be a teacher. Like I have respect for you. ah I lasted three years. And if people didn't know, Teaching is just like nursing where within the first five years, I think it's about 60 % of the population actually changes career paths, which is wild when you think of the state of our education system. And I always saw people having worked in both education and healthcare, like, yes, they're both broken systems. They're both systems that we need to work on, but I will forever and always argue that our education system is worse off currently in the state of America, ah just having been in that environment. So why I left teaching, was the hardest decision of my life. Like I think I wrote that in like your challenges and life questions. I won't lie, I cried so much trying to make that decision. I cried the day I told my students that I was leaving. I cried when I gave in my final resignation. Like it was a uh hard decision to do, but the best decision for me. I was working in a windowless classroom. So I would like in the winter leave when it was dark, come home when it was dark. So it was taking a toll on my mental health, unfortunately. Um, I had amazing coworkers. will forever and always respect them and love them. I literally went one of my best friends. We started teaching our first year together at the school. Um, and we, she's also the person who encourages my love for the outdoors. go backpacking and hiking all the time together, but she, and she's still doing it. She's still there at school and she's incredible. And I love Madison dearly. I'm going to give her a shout out to, I'm going to give so many shout outs today because people are incredible. And I feel like they need to be recognized, but she also was my biggest supporter for. deciding to go back to school. I just witnessed, so I started teaching. had one year of normal teaching. I'm going to call it normal teaching. I think our schooling systems, education colleges don't prepare you for what real world teaching looks like. ah I feel like nursing school does a better job at that, but teaching does not. ah And so I went into the workforce, had one year of normal teaching and then COVID hit, like peak COVID. I remember I was a speech and debate coach as well and I was over in Boise for a speech and debate tournament and it got canceled because COVID had started breaking out and was in the area. And so we had driven eight hours there. We had to stay the night and then drive eight hours back with a whole busload of kids. uh Just because of this. And I remember telling them, okay, guys, I'll see you on Monday. can come leave, you can leave your stuff in my classroom. You can come get it Monday. And Monday never came. I had to let them into my classroom on a random day to let them get their things. It never came because school shut down. And then I was all of a sudden thrown into this world of online teaching for the rest of our school year. And then from there we came back and we would do a mix of hybrid teaching. So half online, half in school. And then we came back full-time. We would get COVID outbreak. We would close and go back to online. We would come back and you just saw this like, disconnect happen in students. You saw this like lack of learning and education, like understanding occur. you saw a lot of mental health issues creep up and I just felt so powerless in this system to handle it. I felt like there wasn't really much support ah going through it. I had the support of my coworkers, but teaching is a very isolating job because you're in a classroom on your own with these kids. And it is very much like, you're dealing with parents, you're dealing with admin, you're dealing with politics. you're dealing with all these different things and then you throw in a pandemic on top of it. And it just, I watched every single day, like the impacts it had on my students. And it's not a negative thing to care too much, but I cared too much to the point that it was taking a toll on me. Um, and I, I remember I hit a three month period. Um, and this is a hard one to talk about, but I hit a three month period where six of my students attempted suicide. And I had given all the warning signs. I had talked about it. had said, like, these are the signs I'm seeing this we need to help our kids like I was advocating for them so much. And it started to become so normal in our system that I was like, I can't contribute to a system that is not doing something for these kids, I need to do something more hands on I need to do something that I feel like I'm actually making a difference and every veteran teacher I work with that I had the worst three years they've ever witnessed. So nobody was Nobody was shocked when I was like, you know, and I need to take a step back because I was getting a little apathetic and I felt like I was doing a disturbance disservice to my students when I got apathetic because I was like, you know what you guys need, you deserve somebody who's going to have the emotional strength to put into you. right now I'm not there for it. Um, and I, really, in the weirdest way did it for my students, like choosing to leave teaching. Um, and I, I miss it like crazy. Like I miss teaching and I miss my students. they still are in contact with me. A lot of them though, I get to see. like how their lives are going, which is lovely. But it was just a really difficult decision to do, but something I don't regret doing either, going back to school. Yeah, thank you for being open and transparent about that, Kennedi, because it is. It's an epidemic, even pre-COVID, but you know what mean, post-COVID especially. Our own family's been touched by, you know, student suicide and how that affects, you know, as a best friend of one of our kids and what that did to their life. I mean, it is, it's so hard. It's so hard to see. at the risk of... you gonna do a complete no-no here. uh This is like one of the saddest moments to stop. But this is where I'm gonna put maybe pivot here for a second because we have yet to, now we're gonna talk about jumping off into nursing. I'm looking at the time and you're a natural two-parter here based on how much we like to talk. uh If it's okay with you. We're gonna stop here and jump into this discussion about your transition into nursing and all that and what that looks like, et cetera, et cetera. Is that okay with you if we do that at this time? Yeah, no, absolutely. Awesome. We need to end on a positive note though. Let's do it. Let's do it. I gotta stop giggling. I'm like going I was like going all this will be perfect like as soon as she's done with this discussion I have this I want to talk about the similarities and I was like oh no this is more heartfelt than that I can't really just talk about that so anything you got for us sister You should know me. I'm an open book, I'll talk about anything. All right, I can do this, I can do this. I gotta figure out how to do this. Ha! Okay, so even though like I did experience all that, like I do like to say that I learned so much and it shaped so much of like who I am now and so much of what I learned as a teacher comes into how I am as a nurse. uh And there are still incredible teachers out there doing everything and making huge impacts and changes. And I get to now advocate for them and I get to now go and do that at the bedside or in the nursing world or with nursing students. um and take what I learned as a teacher and pull that into my new career path, which is an incredible learning experience for me because I think we are always growing and evolving and changing. And just because this one career path didn't work out for me doesn't mean I didn't have an impact on the people I work with or the kids that I taught or, and it doesn't mean that they don't have an impact on me. And so I get to take everything that I learned and carried with them and. bring it with me into this new career path, which is an incredible opportunity for me to do. Awesome. There we are. That's how we ended on an uplifting note. So you guys don't miss part two of the Kennedi Newman experience as you can see why she's in studio. She's just a lovely human being and very excited to actually finally talk about what was that other career nursing something? I don't know. Well, the thing I don't yeah, but just a whole reason why this podcast exists. All right. So you guys catch your next episode and Kennedi, I'll catch you on the flip side.