# Welcome to *Chromatically*! --- Hello and welcome to *chromatically*, my published Obsidian vault! It's an amalgam of notes I've made over the course of completing my [[nursing]] degree. I can't promise it's 100% free of errors, but any mistakes that might be here are my own and made in honesty. This is a **living vault**. It is *very* much *not* a finished resources. There are pages that are are polished, and some that are little more than placeholders with a few bullet points that I jotted down during lecture. It's a constant on-going work-in-progress, and it will be for the next...several years? Maybe longer? I've been working on it for the better part of four years now, and it's completely changed how I learn and study. I do my best to be accurate but I am still learning—if you do spot anything wrong I would love for you to reach out! What I'm trying to say is that what you see is what you get. I publish all my notes, exactly as I have them, except for meta-notes specifically related to my current classes (containing projects, due dates, announcements, etc.) >[!question]- About me/Contact info My name is Chromatic (she/her), and I'm currently in a 2-year ADN (Associate Degree of Nursing) program. If everything stays on track, I'll be an RN in the spring of 2024, assuming I graduate and pass the [[NCLEX]]. After that I'll most likely be jumping right into another two years to get my Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN). > If you'd like to contact me the best way to do so is on discord, Chromatic#2103. I am also Chromatic10 on the Obsidian Forum, if you prefer that method of communication. I am super glad you are here and checking out my vault! If it helps or entertains you in any way that's amazing. I do just want to clarify the purpose behind Chromatically, which is to say it's just for me. I realize that's a little contradictory as it lives in the internet, but so it goes. To break it down, Chromatically's real job is twofold: Firstly, it helps me study. I've found the act of writing down the course material in a way that is logical, clear and accurate has been *the single most effective method* for me to really *understand* what I'm studying. I could wax poetic on this topic for ages, but I think it best to leave it there for now. Secondly this vault is for me-ten-years-from-now. I want be able to think "Oh right, I remember learning this in school, what was it again?" and be able to look it up in a way that *makes sense to my brain*, and read it in a way that is written *exactly how my brain understands it*. I set up this Obsidian publish site on a bit of a lark—and as exercise in "working with the garage door open" as they say. It was never meant to be *for* anyone besides myself, but I think it will push me to keep it a little bit more polished. I love [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/) and love nerding out about it, so I've put this out there for posterity and/or a way to share my vault with other Obsidian enthusiasts (Obsidianites?). I *think* this vault will be much more interesting for PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) enthusiasts instead of fellow nursing (or any nursing-adjacent) students, but it helps anyone in any capacity I'm happy! ## Nursing Journey Wow I'm a nurse. How did that happen? On the one hand I know I did a lot of hard work to get here, but on the other hand I feel like it just sort of happned and now people trust me with health stuff for some reason. Imposter syndrome is a real thing. This is where I talk about how Obsidian helped me get here. Could I have done it without Obsidian? Yeah, sure. Would another program have worked too? Probably. Did using Obsidian make all my notes super easy to organize and work perfectly for my brain? Yes, 1000%. Has it fundamentally raised the bar for every other program that I use? Also yes. The reason why it worked I've laid out up above, but I want to reiterate what I think the acutal reason this application works for studying is that *I wrote* all the notes. I had to *think deeply* about what I was trying to put down to words. I didn't just passively read and listen, I had to apply what I heard. I graduated with honors and a 3.9 average (for non US academics, the highest it goes is 4.0). I did dedicate a lot of time and energy into studying, but I worked and maintainted friendships, and did hobbies and normal regular chores, I got married and went on our honneymoon. All of this to say that I was able get the most out of the time that I did study because of using Obsidian, and because I was able to connect to this amazing community and really refine a way of taking my notes and using them effectively. >[!abstract]- ADN (Associate Degree in Nursing) Program Journey >> - [x] quarter 1 > - [x] quarter 2 > - [x] quarter 3 > - [x] quarter 4 > - [x] quarter 5 (currently taking) > - [x] quarter 6 > - [x] [[NCLEX]] > >>[!abstract]- Prereqs (completed) >>- [x] statistics %%winter 2020%% >>%% English 101 spring 2020%% >>- [x] chemistry %%summer 2020%% >>- [x] biology %%winter 2021 OBSIDIAN START%% >>- [x] microbiology %%spring 2021%% >>- [x] nutrition %%summer 2021%% >>- [x] anatomy & physiology I %%fall 2021%% >>- [x] anatomy & physiology II %%winter 2022%% >>- [x] lifespan psychology %%spring 2022%% ## Where do I start? Anywhere you like! Explore! There's no real hierarchy, just open up the graph and see what notes jump out at you. Or, you can scroll down the left-hand side and click on what interests you. Beware that any particular note may be a place note...I made a lot of notes that I'll probably end up deleting, but this is a result of having all my raw notes for anyone to see. So it goes. Enjoy! >[!info]- A note on spelling/typos I am a terrible speller. I'm a native English speaker, but English is...well, terrible. Something about the English being the language that sneaks up on all the other languages in back alleys, knocks them down and steals all their vocabulary. I've always struggled with it. Something I realized at some point was that you can just *turn spellcheck off*. I have found it to be the *utmost luxury*. It's freeing. It's like flying. I can just write and flow and not have those *judging red squiggles* blasting out of the screen at me. I don't think I ever realized how much low-key stress those little red squiggles cause me. > >So, I have it switched off 90% of the time. > It's not that I don't care about spelling, it's just that I don't prioritize it over getting words on the page. Like I've said, this vault is really only supposed to be for me, and I gladly accept the trade-off of an odd misspelling here and there (or all aver the place) to a full vault. Some days I switch spellcheck on and eradicate all those judgy red squiggles. But really, spelling is overwrated anyway. ## PKM Philosophy There are some common PKM conversations that are had over certain topics, so I'll leave some of my philosophy here. I'd love to chat with you on PKM and Obsidian—ping me, or jump in the channels on the Obsidian Discord server. > [!question]- Where are the folders? There are none. I really don't use them, and I have no problem by simply searching for whatever I'm looking for by name using quick switcher. I make heavy use of aliases to make sure I can find what I'm looking for...and if I ever have a problem finding something in one keyword, that's a sign I've done something wrong. I do things wrong a lot, and only realize when I look back and think *what was I thinking?*. Most of the time adding an appropriate alias, or splitting one note into two fixes the problem. Folders would not help this, and would be much more work for next to no benefit. > I'll give an example. If I know I made a lot of notes on Obsidian, and I open up quick switcher and type in "obsidian", and my notes on Obsidian aren't there, that's a problem. In this case I usually search manually to find where I *did* put those notes. Say I find them in a note called `[[note making]]`. In this case I'll either add `aliases: [obsidian]` to that note, or refactor my Obsidian-specific notes in their own new note, whichever makes more sense. > Unfortunately for my internet visitors, this system doesn't really help you when navigating this vault—you sort of need to know what's in here already for that to be useful. Sorry! This is why I've made the list of notes visible on the left-hand side. At least you can browse note titles to get the gist of what's in here. If you're ever lost search for "home" or click the "chromatically" in the top left and that will take you back here. Searching in the search bar also gives you an insight into what aliases I use, if you're into that sort of thing. (If you do search you might notice that many note titles seem to pop up twice. This is because I use H1 as the title of my note for formatting endorphins, do it's unavoidable.) >[!question]- Where are your tags? >Hidden in my YAML. I actually don't have much use for them at the moment, but I think future-Chromatic might want them so I only really put some in to save her a total headache. > [!question]- What plugins do you use? > I run pretty bare bones, but I've been finding more and more useful plugins. In vague order of most important to least: > - **Spaced Repetition** for anything I want to learn by rote (you'll see them scattered around if you look at the notes on topics I'm currently learning). > - **Full Calendar** for keeping track of due dates. You won't see these tasks, as they're typically in my Meta folder that's not on publish. > - **Dataview** to keep track of *notes* I want/need to work on. I was using Tasks for this, but it was starting to become unmanageable. You also won't see this as it's all in YAML metadata. > - **Chem** for putting in chemical diagrams of molecules. Unfortunately this doesn't show up in publish, sorry. >[!question]- Is this all you use Obsidian for? Nope! It is by far my more polished vault, but I also have a catch-all Second Brain vault and one I use for creative writing. No, I will not be publishing *those* monstrosities any time soon XD >[!question]- About sources This vault is made up of my **personal notes** synthesized from my lectures, textbooks, and Google. I do not keep track of my sources. I add information to the vault organically as I come to it. If I start writing about recent research I probably will, but right now I'm not exactly on the bleeding edge of science. >>[!info] Image Sources >>As for my images: some I make myself, and others I clip from my textbook or I scavenge from all over the internet. If an image I find has a maker's mark I try to keep it in, and if it has a watermark I do not use it. I'm very picky about my images so I love finding ones that have exactly what I need/want. >>I only ever intended these for my one use, but now that this vault lives on the internet I can see where this might become problematic. *If you see an image that's yours (or otherwise not mine) that I've used without proper credit, please let me know via discord or the Obsidian forum, and I'll gladly either take it down or add in due credit, whichever your prefer.* ___