(no subject)
I realized I haven't written anything in a few months. Oi.
For those that don't know, I've been working at the local plasma center here in town as a "reception technician" which is just a fancy way of saying that I screen people all day long. While the job isn't horrible in the sense that it is gross or the environment is sickening (such as the food industry sometimes is), I do dislike having to do the same thing over and over again day in and day out. I have the 26 questions that we ask every donor memorized (even though I'm not supposed to have them memorized, but when I say them over 500 times a month, how can I help it?), and donors are always amazed at this ability.
Some things that I've learned about plasma centers and the plasma-donation (which is really "plasma-selling") process:
1. The plasma donated/sold at plasma centers are for manufacturing purposes only, meaning that the plasma is made into medicines. I think some people think that the plasma goes to local hospitals and such, but it doesn't (blood banks are responsible for this). It goes straight to a pharmaceutical companies who in turn sells it to another pharm company for a hefty price (I've heard it's something like $10k per litre). While the drugs made from plasma does save lives and allows people with serious medical problems to live normally, I am suspicious as to the number of people helped versus the number of people that donate.
2. Plasma companies would like to think that they are compensating you for your time, but if this was true then the rates would vary according to donation times. However, rates vary according to weight which in turn determines the amount of plasma you can donate. In reality, those who can donate more receive more money. So the idea that one donates plasma is totally false - they are selling their plasma. Thankfully, almost all "donors" recognize this or at the very least act accordingly.
3. People do have a sense of entitlement when it comes to plasma donating, which irks me greatly. For instance, I really do want to smack a bitch when they say that they were deferred on such-and-such date and therefore that was x-amount of money out their pocket. It couldn't be out of their pocket if it was never in their pocket to begin with. Secondly, I get really pissy when people get mad at me for telling them that their OWN BODILY VITALS exclude them from donating today. It's not my fault that your blood pressure is so high that your heart could explode at any minute.
4. I cringe any time anyone says the word "plaz", as in, "I used to weight blahblahblah, but then I started plazin' and became lazy." Ugh.
5. Yes, the broken economy has brought a lot of people to the plasma center. When the students are in town we'll do almost 400 donors in a day. Even with the students not in town, we do almost 300 people in a day. And yes, there is usually a line of people waiting at the door at 7 a.m. EVERY DAY (even weekends) before the center opens. This is probably one of the more depressing aspects of this job.
6. I honestly think that a bigger portion of the American public can be classified as "white trash" or "redneck" than what we would like to believe. Examples: a woman that tries to donate while holding her six-month old child (which, by the way, we don't allow anyone under 18 into the center. And yet still people will bring their children in tow.); a man puts chewing tobacco in his mouth during the screening process and then proceeds to spit into an empty liquor bottle that he brought with him; people whose cars constantly die out in the parking lot; people don't seem to shower...ever; people who have horrible tattoos (you'd be surprised how many people have their farking LAST NAME tattooed on their arm. Seriously, is it that hard to remember?); etc.
Okay. Enough about that.
I have a meeting with the assistant to the director of the utilities dept. here in town on Monday. So far I have had two interviews with them, so I am believing that this means I'll be getting a job offer (I really hope so!). It also helps that I think this woman likes me a lot (she kept asking questions about my hobbies and such; of course, in both interviews I was asked a lot of questions about my personal decisions to do x-y-z- than run-of-the-mill questions about my job strengths, which I liked.) The job itself is an administrative position, but considering there are only four people in the administrative side for the whole department, the position includes a lot more technical things than routine clerical work. I think they were really impressed with the fact that I did ISO9000 documentation for a past employer, and that I really wanted to complete my Six Sigma certification (which I could probably do very easily in this position). But who knows. I'm excited about having a job that will allow me to think critically about processes, and which will pay me more than eight dollars an hour. I really don't feel as though the job I have right now is a "real" job in the same sense that the university administration told me my degree would open, nor is it a job commensurate with my job experiences or abilities. But, I know that I have a huge sense of entitlement when it comes to this, and I could quite possibly be classified as "being a little bitch" about it.
I'm also ready for a job that has steady hours and isn't open 7-days a week. I generally work noon to 8 p.m. on the weekdays, but on the weekends they'll change it to 7 or 8 A.M. to 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. Plus, I rarely get two days off in a row, and if you ask for vacation time you will probably work every single day up until that vacation. I also have to stand on my feet, usually in one place, the whole time I am at work. Not only does this wear you out quickly, but it has been killing my back and hips (since I don't stand with my weight evenly distributed (sorry, Wii Fit)).
Enough about jobs. Booo.
I've been enjoying crocheting still. Right now I'm working on two projects: a granny-square blanket for my niece (who I get to meet for the first time in a week!) and a rug for a charity art show which is happening on August 1st. I'm pretty happy with both, although on both I've made a lot of mistakes. For instance, I've been sort of doing granny square wrong this whole time, but it doesn't affect the way they look so much as it affects their durability (I've been adding a new border to stitches instead of spaces, but it's no biggie). With the rug I'm using t-shirts that I got from a thrift store and cutting them into rags, but my rags have not been pretty (bad scissors, mainly) and I don't know how to crochet in the round very well (I suck at counting my stitches). But since it's for an art show I figured no matter how shitty the final product looks like it'll still be art and it can always be something that hangs on the wall as easily as it can be a rug. By the way, it'll look like a sunflower (hopefully) when it is finished.
I've stopped taking clarinet lessons because I don't have a lot of free time to practice nor did I have a lot of time to actually have a lesson. This makes me sad, but I know it'll always be there in the future, waiting for me. We watched the Manhattan Civic Orchestra play on the 4th of July and I really, really, really miss playing with a group of people. I wish there was a civic band for people who are not super-awesome that met in town (I know Olathe has one, but I don't want to drive that far).
I miss kendo a lot, too. In fact, there are so many things that I miss from college. Strangely, "writing papers" and "doing homework" is absent from that list, unless it is for Italian class. :D
Honestly, I'm ready to be done with Lawrence. I love this town, but it is a ridiculously hard place to be when you're not attached to the university in some way. Maybe I'm ready to be done with Kansas completely; I've been here for over 20 years, and I think I'm about ready to be somewhere else, even though I consider the rest of America to be scary, difficult, and expensive. I don't know; a lot of my friends are moving away, either out-of-state or merely to Kansas City, but either way I feel lonelier and more stagnate than before. I have been constantly kicking myself for not getting a more widely-accepted degree and for not having a concrete plan for my future self. I just feel that with the current economic climate and my luck, no matter what I decided to pursue on a graduate-level I would still be in the same place I am now, except with more debt and remorse. Plus, I don't know what I want to do that isn't extremely competitive right now. I want a niche at a time where niches are rare.
At the same time, I have to keep in my that my future is not this solitary object hurling through space and time. I'm just trying not to rely on my spouse so much to set the tone, nor do I want to seem like I'm not contributing as much as he is (I know this doesn't make a lot of sense). It's just that I believe that a woman's role has fundamentally changed for the younger generations; where it was once acceptable for a woman to sit back and let her husband and his doings take precedent for family decisions, I feel as though there's more of an expectation that women, especially college-educated women, play more of an active role. However, I don't know if I want to, and therefore I feel guilty about it. Why can't I be a housewife anymore? Granted, not many families have that option, but if we do, then what of it? I find it funny that I feel bad about wanting something that was once considered normal. Of course, it's not this simple; there's the idea that your worth as a person is directly tied to your earning potential/actual income and so forth. It's just a funny thing to ponder: look how much we've changed!
I'll figure it all out eventually, I'm sure. In the meantime, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming.
For those that don't know, I've been working at the local plasma center here in town as a "reception technician" which is just a fancy way of saying that I screen people all day long. While the job isn't horrible in the sense that it is gross or the environment is sickening (such as the food industry sometimes is), I do dislike having to do the same thing over and over again day in and day out. I have the 26 questions that we ask every donor memorized (even though I'm not supposed to have them memorized, but when I say them over 500 times a month, how can I help it?), and donors are always amazed at this ability.
Some things that I've learned about plasma centers and the plasma-donation (which is really "plasma-selling") process:
1. The plasma donated/sold at plasma centers are for manufacturing purposes only, meaning that the plasma is made into medicines. I think some people think that the plasma goes to local hospitals and such, but it doesn't (blood banks are responsible for this). It goes straight to a pharmaceutical companies who in turn sells it to another pharm company for a hefty price (I've heard it's something like $10k per litre). While the drugs made from plasma does save lives and allows people with serious medical problems to live normally, I am suspicious as to the number of people helped versus the number of people that donate.
2. Plasma companies would like to think that they are compensating you for your time, but if this was true then the rates would vary according to donation times. However, rates vary according to weight which in turn determines the amount of plasma you can donate. In reality, those who can donate more receive more money. So the idea that one donates plasma is totally false - they are selling their plasma. Thankfully, almost all "donors" recognize this or at the very least act accordingly.
3. People do have a sense of entitlement when it comes to plasma donating, which irks me greatly. For instance, I really do want to smack a bitch when they say that they were deferred on such-and-such date and therefore that was x-amount of money out their pocket. It couldn't be out of their pocket if it was never in their pocket to begin with. Secondly, I get really pissy when people get mad at me for telling them that their OWN BODILY VITALS exclude them from donating today. It's not my fault that your blood pressure is so high that your heart could explode at any minute.
4. I cringe any time anyone says the word "plaz", as in, "I used to weight blahblahblah, but then I started plazin' and became lazy." Ugh.
5. Yes, the broken economy has brought a lot of people to the plasma center. When the students are in town we'll do almost 400 donors in a day. Even with the students not in town, we do almost 300 people in a day. And yes, there is usually a line of people waiting at the door at 7 a.m. EVERY DAY (even weekends) before the center opens. This is probably one of the more depressing aspects of this job.
6. I honestly think that a bigger portion of the American public can be classified as "white trash" or "redneck" than what we would like to believe. Examples: a woman that tries to donate while holding her six-month old child (which, by the way, we don't allow anyone under 18 into the center. And yet still people will bring their children in tow.); a man puts chewing tobacco in his mouth during the screening process and then proceeds to spit into an empty liquor bottle that he brought with him; people whose cars constantly die out in the parking lot; people don't seem to shower...ever; people who have horrible tattoos (you'd be surprised how many people have their farking LAST NAME tattooed on their arm. Seriously, is it that hard to remember?); etc.
Okay. Enough about that.
I have a meeting with the assistant to the director of the utilities dept. here in town on Monday. So far I have had two interviews with them, so I am believing that this means I'll be getting a job offer (I really hope so!). It also helps that I think this woman likes me a lot (she kept asking questions about my hobbies and such; of course, in both interviews I was asked a lot of questions about my personal decisions to do x-y-z- than run-of-the-mill questions about my job strengths, which I liked.) The job itself is an administrative position, but considering there are only four people in the administrative side for the whole department, the position includes a lot more technical things than routine clerical work. I think they were really impressed with the fact that I did ISO9000 documentation for a past employer, and that I really wanted to complete my Six Sigma certification (which I could probably do very easily in this position). But who knows. I'm excited about having a job that will allow me to think critically about processes, and which will pay me more than eight dollars an hour. I really don't feel as though the job I have right now is a "real" job in the same sense that the university administration told me my degree would open, nor is it a job commensurate with my job experiences or abilities. But, I know that I have a huge sense of entitlement when it comes to this, and I could quite possibly be classified as "being a little bitch" about it.
I'm also ready for a job that has steady hours and isn't open 7-days a week. I generally work noon to 8 p.m. on the weekdays, but on the weekends they'll change it to 7 or 8 A.M. to 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. Plus, I rarely get two days off in a row, and if you ask for vacation time you will probably work every single day up until that vacation. I also have to stand on my feet, usually in one place, the whole time I am at work. Not only does this wear you out quickly, but it has been killing my back and hips (since I don't stand with my weight evenly distributed (sorry, Wii Fit)).
Enough about jobs. Booo.
I've been enjoying crocheting still. Right now I'm working on two projects: a granny-square blanket for my niece (who I get to meet for the first time in a week!) and a rug for a charity art show which is happening on August 1st. I'm pretty happy with both, although on both I've made a lot of mistakes. For instance, I've been sort of doing granny square wrong this whole time, but it doesn't affect the way they look so much as it affects their durability (I've been adding a new border to stitches instead of spaces, but it's no biggie). With the rug I'm using t-shirts that I got from a thrift store and cutting them into rags, but my rags have not been pretty (bad scissors, mainly) and I don't know how to crochet in the round very well (I suck at counting my stitches). But since it's for an art show I figured no matter how shitty the final product looks like it'll still be art and it can always be something that hangs on the wall as easily as it can be a rug. By the way, it'll look like a sunflower (hopefully) when it is finished.
I've stopped taking clarinet lessons because I don't have a lot of free time to practice nor did I have a lot of time to actually have a lesson. This makes me sad, but I know it'll always be there in the future, waiting for me. We watched the Manhattan Civic Orchestra play on the 4th of July and I really, really, really miss playing with a group of people. I wish there was a civic band for people who are not super-awesome that met in town (I know Olathe has one, but I don't want to drive that far).
I miss kendo a lot, too. In fact, there are so many things that I miss from college. Strangely, "writing papers" and "doing homework" is absent from that list, unless it is for Italian class. :D
Honestly, I'm ready to be done with Lawrence. I love this town, but it is a ridiculously hard place to be when you're not attached to the university in some way. Maybe I'm ready to be done with Kansas completely; I've been here for over 20 years, and I think I'm about ready to be somewhere else, even though I consider the rest of America to be scary, difficult, and expensive. I don't know; a lot of my friends are moving away, either out-of-state or merely to Kansas City, but either way I feel lonelier and more stagnate than before. I have been constantly kicking myself for not getting a more widely-accepted degree and for not having a concrete plan for my future self. I just feel that with the current economic climate and my luck, no matter what I decided to pursue on a graduate-level I would still be in the same place I am now, except with more debt and remorse. Plus, I don't know what I want to do that isn't extremely competitive right now. I want a niche at a time where niches are rare.
At the same time, I have to keep in my that my future is not this solitary object hurling through space and time. I'm just trying not to rely on my spouse so much to set the tone, nor do I want to seem like I'm not contributing as much as he is (I know this doesn't make a lot of sense). It's just that I believe that a woman's role has fundamentally changed for the younger generations; where it was once acceptable for a woman to sit back and let her husband and his doings take precedent for family decisions, I feel as though there's more of an expectation that women, especially college-educated women, play more of an active role. However, I don't know if I want to, and therefore I feel guilty about it. Why can't I be a housewife anymore? Granted, not many families have that option, but if we do, then what of it? I find it funny that I feel bad about wanting something that was once considered normal. Of course, it's not this simple; there's the idea that your worth as a person is directly tied to your earning potential/actual income and so forth. It's just a funny thing to ponder: look how much we've changed!
I'll figure it all out eventually, I'm sure. In the meantime, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming.