I LIVE!!!!

I've noticed a pattern in my behavior of late - I drop off the face of the earth and can't be heard or seen from for several months at a time. And then every so often I'll resurface for a bit before disappearing again. This is one of those times where I'm resurfacing.

This summer has been crazy - between work and school I have no time to do what I want to do. I'm taking Anthropology, which is actually really cool - it's all about people and studying culture and what makes different societies the way they are. In class we briefly talked the NSA breech and it made me take inventory of my digital footprint - what would you find out about me if you were to Google me etc? It made me realize that people post a lot of things online that are private that should probably be kept to themselves. But then again I am a private person and prefer anonymity instead of everyone knowing every inch of my skeleton. I'm also taking Chemistry - Chemistry is hard but at the same time it's fascinating.

The hardest thing about work is probably my schedule and sitting with suicidal patients. Suicidal patients just make you take stock of everything in your life - how you handle it and where you're going - this summer we've had a lot of suicidal patients. Not gonna lie, it gets to you after a while. Schedule wise we work in four week increments but if you want to do something with me I have to know about it a month and a half to two months in advance otherwise it probably won't happen. I'm alternating shifts - which means I have to have equal time between nights, days, weekends and holidays every pay period - we typically work in 12 hour shifts. In addition to the hours I have to have, after the schedule is posted I then go back through and add additional shifts picking up overtime. Sometimes I get to keep them sometimes I don't. Why do I do this? Because I have bills to pay and if I didn't not all my bills would be getting paid.

I try to keep my day and night shifts grouped to together so I can just get them done and over with all at once. I'll have 3-4 nights back to back and then be off for a night - a side affect of that is when I'm doing night shift I can't sleep on the nights I have off. Which is most perturbing. My schedule sucks right now - I'll be the first to admit it, it doesn't help that my roommate is doing a job that I could do easily and making a ton more money than me (she has told me several times). But even though I'm tired and a little frustrated I feel like I'm making a difference and doing something useful - I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a stepping stone along the way and the end is in sight, even though it is very very far away.