Category Archives: Daily Log

what do you do when you literally wake up on the wrong side of the bed and have no idea why? I mean, yeah, there is always chocolate, but that seems like such a cliche.

I’ve been going once a week to my friend Kim’s house; she’s been helping me study for the boards. She has a dog–a little one, but not a yippy-yappy one. His name is Louie, and he kinda makes me want a dog of my own. This surprises me, ’cause I’ve never really been a dog person. But I’ve always thought if was going to get a dog, it would be a dogs dog–some variant on a sheep dog. It would be a very smart dog, but an outside dog. Cats are allowed in, but dogs really just seem like outdoor creatures to me.

I guess what makes me like Louie is that he is such a good-natured creature without being hyper or stupid. Isn’t that what one looks for in a pet?

Last weekend before work starts. I am busy enough obsessing about the boards that I don’t think I have enough ‘sessing to ob in the direction of work. I am hoping that by the time this coming week is gone, many areas of uncertainty will be smoothed over.

In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to get ride of the source-less grouches. I did actually try the chocolate; it hit the spot but didn’t clear the problem. Exercise was also attempted, hence the icing of shins that do not believe in higher velocity ambulation. Last call is going back to bed with a little prayer that tomorrow starts out on a better foot.

(And maybe another one for the hope of finally getting my cell-phone functional. I know it’s not in the life or death category, but pretty-please, anyway. I certainly can’t fix it. . .)

You know you are in Small Town, America when you can rely solely upon old churches as your landmarks to find your way around town.

The hospital is small. Really small. It took me about 2 years of intermittent employment to find my way around the last hospital I worked at. This one took, um, 15 minutes? Woah. Small hospital.

I miss my journal, of sorts. You mind find it a bit tedious to read about my todays, but a few months from now I will undoubtedly be spending hours re-reading my posts, acknowledging the time that slipped by me when I was too busy to notice.

Today was kind of my orientation day at my new place of employment, which included my pre-employment physical. It will be mostly outpatient, but a few hours every day will be spent on inpatients at the local hospital that we contract with. I didn’t understand why it was only a few hours until today. It is smaller than one floor of the hospital I used to be at, so it’s no wonder it only takes a few hours to see all the patients.

I ran into my bosses boss today. I’m a little anxious, ’cause my boards are next week. “But you’ve got a reputation to live up to, don’t you?” he said. “You’re the head of the class, right? The go-to girl!”

Nope, I didn’t tell him that. And actually, I was kind of uncomfortable that he knew. But he also hired one of my classmates at a different location, and she blabbed. So, yeah, now I have reputation to live up to! In all honesty, I’m very glad she had only good things to say about me to our mutual employer. But I am still kinda anxious about those boards, man. Everyone else thinks I can pass hands down, but I don’t have that kind of confidence. Gonna be a lot of people owing me “I told you so”s if I pass!

Had a really bad headache yesterday, but I’m back to functional capacity today!

The most “exciting!” thing that’s happening is that, despite their best attempts to get it forwarded, all the mail is still showing up here. And some of, they’d really prefer down there. Today involved a phone call in which sorted through/opened mail over the phone and it was jointly determined which stuff needed to be mailed.

Actually, that happened twice. Once, before class, and again when I got home and found *more!* mail in the mailbox. While talking to the lady of the house, she related that when her husband had gotten off the phone with me earlier in the day, he had turned to her and said, “My, it’s like having your own little personal assistant up there! We should have taken her down her with us so she could straighten out everything down here!” (They’re seeing to another piece of property to either rent it again or sell it.)

I have the sneaking suspicion they both think I’m younger than I am, but, as I’ve said before, better to be an extraordinary 18 year old than an up-to-par 25 year old.

I am making progress in the amount-of-food-to-cook department. The first day I cooked enough for 4-6 people (depending on how hungry they were, and how many were males); the second day, it was enough for two. I pretty much nailed it today; let’s see if I can keep it up!

So the lady I’m house-sitting for arranged for the driveway to be plowed, all but a week in March. . .and this week.

So I get up this morning and there is snoooow on the ground and more is falling and I need to go to the grocery store, unless I want to eat canned Progresso soup for the next three days.

So I shovel the driveway. It’s a small driveway, at least the part I do. (It’s a small shovel, too.) There is a half-circle, as well; that is much bigger, but I don’t shovel it.

So then I came inside and found a message on my cell phone. It was the lady I’m house-sitting for, saying, “The plow guy doesn’t go on vacation till this Friday, so make sure your car is in the garage so he can plow you out!” (Note: my cell-phone will hence forth be shoveling the driveway with me.)

So then I looked out the window and he was plowing. Also, I saw a bigger snow shovel.

So then I went to the grocery store. Bulk bone-in chicken breasts were 99c a lb. But a roaster was 88c a lb. “Self,” I said, “Buy the roaster and cut it up; it’s the cheapest way to get variety when there is only one of you.”

So I bought the roaster and went home. Then I found out there are no sharp knives in this place.

So I cut it apart using a glorified serrated butter knife. And I put the back and wings in a pot and made chicken soup out of them. Too much chicken soup.

So it is a good thing that I went to the grocery store so that I wouldn’t have to eat soup for several days. Right? Right.

Wisdomful.

(I say it with a smile, though, ’cause all in all the day went very well; it was just a lil’ heavy on the irony, is all.)

In other news, Ella (the cat) has decided I’m her friend now, even though Duke (the cat) keeps trying to tell her I’m a bad person.

I’m here, the cats hate me, my car is actually in a garage and as long as I sit in the back half of the house, I hardly even hear the traffic. Need to do some grocery shopping tomorrow; my laundry’s in the wash right now. I am mostly *still* suffering from acute lack of ambition. Doing utterly nothing still sounds good, but I have school stuff I should work on, etc, which I am blatantly ignoring and pretending it doesn’t exist. Obviously my laptop found their internet just fine; it has not discovered the printer.

Further bulletins as events update.

Don’t laugh; if something had a 50% chance of getting rid of your sickness, you’d be taking it.

(As long as no one told you it had a 50% chance of causing cancer.)

I was dreading observing a surgery this semester because I “knew”–in that creepy, look-behind-you-the-universe-is-conspiring-against-you kind of way–that there was no possible way it would go smoothly.

The fact that it took me several weeks and twice as many phone calls to finally get a hold of a live human being only fueled that fire. Despite the bland assurances that everything would be a piece of cake from people who ought to know, I became increasingly–if subconsciously–paranoid.

By the time the week of my surgery observation date rolled around, I was dreaming consecutive nights in a row that my surgery observation had fallen through. These dreams would actually wake me up, and I would lay there and think, “My goodness, I didn’t think I was that anxious about this.”

I was sure that when I called the day before to re-confirm the time that everything would fall to pieces. It didn’t. I felt so relieved.

This is called, “letting down your guard too early.”

A few scant hours later, I received a phone call that threw everything into doubt. I tried to assure myself that everything would work out, but couldn’t help but get the sneaking suspicion that my subconscious knew something I didn’t.

The next day I attempted several more phone calls, and then a real life appearance. All was futile. The observation fell through, and I became convinced that my dreams were actually premonitions. I don’t think I have ever dreamed about the same subject consecutively before; apparently, I am just developing the ability to prophesy. (Though it seems kind of slimy to just parrot Mr. Murphy and pretend it’s prophesy.)

The crowning touch was that, 3 hours after my anticipated surgery time, I was cleared to observe surgery–after I’d already switched to plan B, of course.

I think the universe is mocking me.

(The universe does revolve around me, you know.)

One of the most challenging things about writing is that you have to listen to yourself. When all you feel like doing with your daily note is whining–and you don’t feel like listening to someone whine–it puts you in a bit of a bind. You can either chicken out and not write. You can write what you feel and put up with someone whining (get over it!). Or you can figure out something to write that doesn’t constitute whining. Those things are ordered by degree of ease, in case you were wondering.

I helped the two youngest make salt-water taffy yesterday. Then general consensus is that it’s more fun to make than to eat. Taffy, homemade otherwise, somehow seems to have a vaguely plastic presence about it. If you like chewing on plastic, it’s all good. If not, it gets old pretty quick.

I attempted to become the reigning champ in Dutch Blitz yesterday, but alas. We were neck and neck for most of the way, but in the end I didn’t even manage a victory, never mind a crushing one.

New “Workers Comp” regulations are being spewed–or rather, sneakily pushed out. It seems that though government doesn’t want to risk public outcry by discontinuing programs, they’re still cutting back–just in a governmental sort of way. If you write so many laws, rules regulations and nit-picky things that your service becomes defunct–well, it wasn’t your fault the health care industry didn’t want to play dice. Right? Right. I was struck today by how very much so life is like watching a train-wreck in slow motion and wondering when it will hit. On one hand, there’s nothing you can do about it, so why are you watching? On the other hand, sometimes it seems impossible to look away.

For instance, consider the person who works for Unemployment. There are a bunch of people who are going to be going off Unemployment–NOW. Right before the holidays. All of their extensions upon extensions have run out. So. . .the Unemployment staff are sitting through briefings on the topic of suicide, in hopes of preparing them for what is expected to come next. If not now, when?