Originally I said I would take it slow, and not take any classes this summer. In part, it's like, why not save the $500 or so. In part it's that I am not in a HUGE rush to get into nursing school because when I do make that transition, I will have to make a decision about going full time, and that is kind of a nightmare from several perspectives. (Those being that I started my perfectly good job 6 months ago and I don't want to leave it, that it would make us financially uncomfortable during the 2 years for the degree, and well, that last one is a whole thing in itself.) In another part, A&P has been lots of work and I will want a break where I can sit on my thumbs and play World of Warcraft and put drum practice at a higher priority and generally sloth it up. Or work out, or play softball, whatever.

Then I got the summer course catalog from PGCC and looked at it. I was just going to glance at it and toss it in the trash, knowing my plan to slack and bide my time. But then I somehow was getting out the hiliter and marking all the classes I could take. (And taking a trip down memory lane to a time when doing this filled me with hope and eagerness and complete for-granted-taking of the cost being absorbed by loans.) What are the advantages? More good grades (in theory) to help my sad GPA from my previous college experience. Obviously, learning more is good. Looking better on an app to nursing school just by having more courses under my belt, as currently nothing else I'm doing is getting me experience in a medical field. Being ready to apply sooner.

Disadvanatages? Being less focused at work, being out that $500 or so bucks in the immediate future, less time for social life and slacking. The thought of course is that there will be time for all those things when I'm done with nursing school but in a way that's a lie because a) I still make time for those things and b) what if I go get a BSN to MSN or something like that?

So I realized, hey, I should talk to an academic advisor. Or, I could ask my friends list!

( Detailed Class Options With Snarky Commentary )

So what do you think, peanut gallery?
Poll #1164653
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

What class should I take this summer?

1. Go to Career Cruising.
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top twenty results

( no surprises here! but some 'Huh?' )

I have been up way past my bedtime the past few nights riveted by Echo Heron books, otherwise known as the most recommended nonfiction nurse books in every nurse community on LJ. The one I am reading is Tending Lives, which is a compilation of different nurses' stories. Everytime I get to the end of one I think, "I'll just read the next one, it HAS to be less intense." Nope.

On my way to work from my incredibly frustrating dentist appointment (no new crown, it didn't fit, and I had to redo the mold, which as you may know is a foul process) I was thinking about how odd it might be considered after my initial career path (fancy private school, obvious college, clear intentions from my upbringers that I was meant for "better" things) for me to contemplate becoming a nurse. I do not once remember anyone I grew up with suggesting they wanted to be a nurse when they grew up, which is odd, thinking back. I've lived in a pretty narrow social framework. Nursing is one of those careers that is on the list of things you might mention in elementary school that has a clear, obvious set of duties: Teacher, Fireman, Farmer, Nurse. Even when I was growing up, these were increasingly remote ideas for an occupation; I can't quite imagine for kids today what it might be like imagining "what you want to be when you grow up". So very many jobs (in America, anyways) fall into one of two, possibly three categories. It seems like today most people (at least in my peer group, which is admittedly decidedly middle class) either sell stuff, program stuff, or manage selling stuff or programming stuff.

Anyways. It's very high on the list of topics occupying my brain this week particularly after an enthusiastic chat with oontzgrrl this weekend. I went to the hospital yesterday to see the newest person I know & zarobi. We went into the NICU where he will hopefully be staying a very short time and visited him for a good long while. I tried to imagine working in a hospital while I was sitting there and while it was still scary-feeling, I didn't have that "no way in hell" feeling at all. I felt like it's about time I challenge myself. I looked around and felt an enormous respect for what all the nurses around were doing. I can't imagine how anyone could ever disrespect the profession!

The new kid looked very healthy, but sleeeepy. Jo looks fantastic, considering everything she has been through! We had a lovely visit until they kicked me out.

Yesterday I took a day off (thank goodness I could) and visited Baltimore. The University of Maryland - Baltimore's School of Social Work, specifically. They had an open house, and I finally wised up that I should attend one and really get a feel for the goal I'm considering. I am glad I did, because I know now I'm completely right. This is what I want to do. ( Read more... )

A few notes on my recent life:

Sometimes a wakeup call can be good, even if it's delivered in a way that is unpalatable. This is kind of applicable to everything in my life, as over the past year I have embarked on alot of haphazard exploratory experiences. I don't plan to disembark or anything, but the haphazardness can be reined in a little. In more specific terms and largely unrelated to the wake-up call I got a few weeks ago, I signed up for softball again, and am trying not to develop an ulcer over it. I'm in ten times worse shape than I was last year. Hopefully my attitude about it is proportionally better.

peril_book_club has chosen a Hunter S. Thompson book. It'll be the first time I've ever read his stuff, and I'm hesitant, although of all the things to choose I think this one is the least likely to frustrate me in predictable ways. I hope it will make me less likely to groan internally at the mention of his name, more in touch with why everyone worships him. This is also a convenient reminder to anyone and everyone that I run a book club, it's fun, and you should try it. My book club, I mean. We're holding the next meeting in my newly organized library!

It's so easy to envision enacting the solutions to your problems when ensconced in the bathroom for whatever reason you might be ensconced there for any amount of time. For some reason once I step out of the safety of the bathroom, it's less easy to envision myself walking up to the VP and talking to him about how to achieve my goals and his at the same time.

The second half of next week I will be in Springfield, VA taking a class. I'm going to want to hang out with VA people!!! the evening of the 23rd and 24th, what's up?!@? I'm still not sure where I'm going to stay, but I hope to either find a place to crash or get the company to spring for a hotel.

In other news, I'm thinking of taking a CS class or two from UMUC largely because the company might be willing to pay for it and SURELY it will be enriching. But I might have to take like, 2 pre-reqs that I have no experience in before taking the class on relational databases. Am I crazy??? I am willing to take any class anyone is willing to pay for at this point in order to get more academic chops.

So, I suppose it's not a surprise that I stink at softball. I was only in like three innings and manged to pull a muscle in my thigh. I did hit the ball a few times, but never made it to first base. WELL. There's only one way to get better, isn't there? I'm not going to quit this just because I'm bad at it like I do with everything else. At any rate, our team (the Daemons, for those who appreciate that kind of humor) lost both games to Wolfpack: 10-5 and 15-14. Now, considering this team was apparently last year's champions, and the girls on this team all look like they CLEARLY have a bunch of experience, probably playing college ball, I don't consider this a big deal. We did pretty good. I mean, except for me. (Oh, and Jack cemented his position as awesomest permanently by coming out to the game to watch and root.)

Hey, I was hoping more people would try to guess my songs in the last post. :)

This is a fun one: post every job you have ever had. (Filched from carneggy.) I hope I'm not forgetting any.

( Not a long list, actually... )

OK, I guess that juggling 3 different PC games officially makes me a "gamer". I started Civ III last night, and all I can say is, damn did they make this game ten thousand times harder than Civ II. I am unamused - you should be able to choose an easy setting that's actually easy, IMHO. So, I feel like such an idiot that I actually am reading the manual. I look online, and see that I could read for a solid month and still not absorb all the tips and tricks. Yikes!

Also stopped by Tea for the first time in oh... 2 months? That was nice. I should stop by more often, for sure.

Work is work. I'm trying not to be hypocritical about pickiness - i.e. not get het up about someone else being picky, and then turn around and be picky myself. Right now I am excited about the fact that nixieq's friend emailed me about her MSW experience at UMB. Exultate! It is distracting me from work however.

I always say to myself, "Gee, it'd sure be nice to wake up one day and know what the hell I want to do with my life."

Yesterday, I woke up and thought, "I should get an MSW (social work, fyi). I should start doing some volunteering in the area I am likely to want to concentrate in (care for the elderly?) and by the time I can make a graceful exit from the tech sector, I will have something vaguely competitive for an application to graduate school. Do I really think I would be comfortable in law school, or trying to restructure my entire thought process towards biochemistry, something I have never done before? No, I should get an MSW."

Is this a fluke, or a legitimate inner nudging towards purpose? I was reading the Soc department newsletter from my alma mater the other day, and saw a story on one of my favorite professors. It said he wanted to hear from alumni about how they are using sociology nowadays. Hrm. I'd love to be able to write him a letter that could provide that content. I'll probably spend downtime at work today looking at local MSW programs and searching for volunteer opportunities.

if i read this right, it would cost me no less than $1,000 (not including stuff like books) to take even a single class in the science in the evening program at umd. and most likely if i put it off, more, considering the state of higher education in maryland and its soon to be slashed budget. basically, that makes this seem impossible. seem! i'm sure i could wrench it out somehow, and i haven't looked very hard at whether loans are available for non-degree seeking students. (although on the site it said "financial aid" was not available.) i'm not even really sure i can still apply and what-not for this fall. until a week or so ago i had given up for the fall, but there has been a thirst for something growing. i want to take a class.

good morning! here's discouragement and disturbing images.

( discouragement )

the disturbing images are from my dream. i dreamed that iraq was attacking us, and dropping bombs around the area. i was at some kind of convention with my father and he was sitting in a room with his back to the window, and he was trying to be all stoic about the bombs dropping, but the last one that drops causes some kid of massive tidal wave. it was coming toward the window and i was trying to get him to run but he wouldn't budge, just kept talking about what he was talking about, and finally i ended up running but after the giant wall of water came through, he was still there, only now he was a giant grey cat but still talking with my dad's voice. (sorry dad, i don't know why the cat thing, but at least you were being stoic, and survived the tidal wave!) the other part of the dream i don't remember had to do with riding a lawnmower around and this person was asking for help mowing their lawn and come to find out, they were living in my grandparents' old house and the riding lawnmower i had was my grandfather's old one, so i was in a way reuniting this lawnmower with the yard it used to mow.

a classic todd comment:

[01:59] me: i feel that the human mind and brain are one of the last uncharted territories, and that fascinates me
[02:01] him: Oh, it's pretty neat stuff, but unless you're gonna pursue it to doctorate levels, it's really nothing more than a hobby, which is why I'm getting an engineering degree :)
[02:02] me: i wish there was some way i could test my ability to handle taking science classes before i embarked on the whole career path...
[02:02] me: or if i could just know where to begin, what classes to start taking...
[02:02] him: Isn't that what high school is for?
[02:03] him: Sorry, cynicism...
[02:04] me: are you saying i should have figure that out ten years ago?
[02:07] me: at least i got a sociology degree, which is vaguely appropriate :)
[02:08] me: i'm trying to assume you didn't mean that meanly, though
[02:12] him: No, or yes and no... In general the purpose of pre-collegiate education is preparatory not only in acquiring skills, but in discovering aptitudes.
[02:13] me: The only thing I discovered an aptitude for in high school was slacking and crushing on boys...
[02:13] me: oops!
[02:14] me: time wasted. oh well. i'll just have to be late on this "figuring out what i ultimately want to do" thing :)

apart from that, it has been a fun conversation where i got to talk about anti-depressants. and it's renewing my urge to start my long-term plan to become a psychiatrist. apart from that whole not-knowing-if-i'm-up-to-the-task-of-med-school thing.

i slept 8 hours today; a nice bit of catch-up. it meant i didn't actually *do* anything today, though. why can't i have another weird dream that inspires me to be productive? i did have a weird dream about going on vacation to a time-share with all my friends and fighting over who got to take a shower first. i have no idea why.

kevin lane icq'ed me out of the blue today. now i'm all wishing (again) i could orchestrate an NRV reunion. i would need to rent like, a HOUSE for a weekend though, and i have no idea how you would go about doing that. i guess i can fantasize about finding the perfect abandoned victorian mansion in the hills for now.

i meant to mention that i recently became slightly obsessed with getting back out of the technical field, but i can't tell if i am more obsessed with that or with getting off this overnight shift. i can say that it is killing my soul. i know this. i also know that there is no visible hope of being released from it. i also know it would be intensely difficult to find another job with my skill set and no certifications. i had a dream that i found another job and got off the overnight shift, and i woke up so elated... but really, it's not going to happen... not for a while. unless i want to take a massive pay cut. but this brings to mind the realization that... maybe this isn't what i want to be doing, ultiamtely. i was looking at the UMD and JHU employment websites... there were some psych related lab jobs in there that only require a bachelor's degree. i actually lulled myself to sleep later that day imagining doing something I feel passionate about, and getting paid for it. not to mention, working for a university... i could take classes... oh, it's only doing me damage to think about this. sigh.