how time flies...
it's been a few months since i posted anything here, and so much has happened since. funny how your life can zip by in your mind when you try to think of updating your journal after a period of absence. just when you think you can compress it all in a nutshell, you realize that would be an exercise in futility.
hurricane season in south florida officially comes to a close at the end of this month. wilma did her thing to the region but thankfully, we did not lose our power this time around. we lost communication BUT WE HAD POWER!!! perhaps it's some kind of payback for being one of a string of units who we left with no lights for a week when katrina blew through here in august. everyone around us, including the streetlights immediately behind the house, had electricity. and to add insult to injury, the electric company kept saying that reports showed that we HAD POWER!?!?! oh well...
applied to the accelerated BSN program of university of miami last tuesday. still unsure about how that will pan out. will also be applying to university of florida for the same program by early next year. will be taking my GRE exams on the saturday after thanksgiving in gainesville. i need to score at least 500 in each section to even be considered by U of F. been doing an online review for that exam and jogging my mind with algebraic and mathematical problems.
classes this semester are going okay, i guess. nutrition is independent studies, anatomy and physiology lecture is once a week at baptist hospital, and the lab is once a week at the kendall campus of miami-dade. we just finished our second practicum last wednesday. i really need to ace that one since i did not do too well during the last two quizzes.
i swear, i have never been so academically competetive in my entire life. it's scary having to compete with hundreds of other qualified students for entry into a good nursing program. especially when you consider the dire need for nurses in this country, you can't believe that it would be so difficult to get into a program. statistics show that in the last year, over 3000 QUALIFIED applicants were turned down by nursing schools for lack of teaching facilities! no wonder there's such a darn shortage of nurses! and mind you, those statistics were only for the state of florida!
on another note, the store i work in, macy's at the falls, lost more than 50% of it's roof to the gusts of wilma. as a result, we were all fanned out to other stores like refugees or something. i spent last saturday at dadeland, one of our flagship stores, and sunday and monday at downtown, where they have a teeny-tiny jewelry department. yesterday, when i got downtown again, i realized that they were overstaffed for the day so my manager told me to come back to the falls and help the extraction team of jewelry managers process our stuff for transfer to other stores. today was the final day of the transfer processing. it was kinda sad seeing everything get boxed and being unsure of what the future holds for our department. the feeling some of us had was akin to the aftermath of the death of a family member. you know, rummaging through what was left behind, emptying the vaults, line safes, drawers, and cabinets, and handing them over to other stores like some kind of inheritance or whatever. *sigh*
the upside to the exercise is the knowledge that once the store is rebuilt, our department will begin at ground zero. we can organize it the RIGHT WAY...OUR WAY, and i look forward to putting a system in place. deep, my boss, has been asking me to put in for manager-in-training because he knows i can do a great job, but i keep turning it down because i don't want to lose focus of the nursing career i have in my sights. i only wish i were paid more in this job. i know i am worth much more. so does my boss. but he can't give me a raise unless i change my status to regular employee, and i don't want to do that or i won't be free to choose my schedule. right now, i have a life that i am in charge of and i don't want to lose it. but thanks for the recognition, deep. :)
hurricane season in south florida officially comes to a close at the end of this month. wilma did her thing to the region but thankfully, we did not lose our power this time around. we lost communication BUT WE HAD POWER!!! perhaps it's some kind of payback for being one of a string of units who we left with no lights for a week when katrina blew through here in august. everyone around us, including the streetlights immediately behind the house, had electricity. and to add insult to injury, the electric company kept saying that reports showed that we HAD POWER!?!?! oh well...
applied to the accelerated BSN program of university of miami last tuesday. still unsure about how that will pan out. will also be applying to university of florida for the same program by early next year. will be taking my GRE exams on the saturday after thanksgiving in gainesville. i need to score at least 500 in each section to even be considered by U of F. been doing an online review for that exam and jogging my mind with algebraic and mathematical problems.
classes this semester are going okay, i guess. nutrition is independent studies, anatomy and physiology lecture is once a week at baptist hospital, and the lab is once a week at the kendall campus of miami-dade. we just finished our second practicum last wednesday. i really need to ace that one since i did not do too well during the last two quizzes.
i swear, i have never been so academically competetive in my entire life. it's scary having to compete with hundreds of other qualified students for entry into a good nursing program. especially when you consider the dire need for nurses in this country, you can't believe that it would be so difficult to get into a program. statistics show that in the last year, over 3000 QUALIFIED applicants were turned down by nursing schools for lack of teaching facilities! no wonder there's such a darn shortage of nurses! and mind you, those statistics were only for the state of florida!
on another note, the store i work in, macy's at the falls, lost more than 50% of it's roof to the gusts of wilma. as a result, we were all fanned out to other stores like refugees or something. i spent last saturday at dadeland, one of our flagship stores, and sunday and monday at downtown, where they have a teeny-tiny jewelry department. yesterday, when i got downtown again, i realized that they were overstaffed for the day so my manager told me to come back to the falls and help the extraction team of jewelry managers process our stuff for transfer to other stores. today was the final day of the transfer processing. it was kinda sad seeing everything get boxed and being unsure of what the future holds for our department. the feeling some of us had was akin to the aftermath of the death of a family member. you know, rummaging through what was left behind, emptying the vaults, line safes, drawers, and cabinets, and handing them over to other stores like some kind of inheritance or whatever. *sigh*
the upside to the exercise is the knowledge that once the store is rebuilt, our department will begin at ground zero. we can organize it the RIGHT WAY...OUR WAY, and i look forward to putting a system in place. deep, my boss, has been asking me to put in for manager-in-training because he knows i can do a great job, but i keep turning it down because i don't want to lose focus of the nursing career i have in my sights. i only wish i were paid more in this job. i know i am worth much more. so does my boss. but he can't give me a raise unless i change my status to regular employee, and i don't want to do that or i won't be free to choose my schedule. right now, i have a life that i am in charge of and i don't want to lose it. but thanks for the recognition, deep. :)