Half filled orbitals

[the prodogy]

In the book I'm reading, it says that Nitrogen has higher ionization energy than oxygen because it has half filled stability. It says that when nitrogen undergoes its first ionization, it loses it half filled stability. The thing is, isn't carbon half filled? Nitrogen would have one pair of electrons wouldn't it? But at the same time, it's telling me that Nitrogen has higher ionization energy than carbon. How does that make sense?

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[Bleen]

You're confusing the octet rule with orbitals. The 8 electrons mentioned in the octet rule actually come from two separate orbitals, the 2s and 2p orbitals. The 2p orbital has 6 electrons while the 2s orbital has 2. The electron configuration of nitrogen is 1s2 2s2 2p3, so the 2p orbital is half-filled (3 of 6). Carbon's electron configuration is 1s2 2s2 2p2, so it's 2p orbital is less than half-filled (2 of 6).