Long awaited update

Well it has been over a month since my last post and I nearly deleted my blog due to a small bout of depression. As you may have noticed the title has changed to reflect my current phase of life.

I currently have 3 jobs, however, I am still looking for a full time position. For now, here is what I am doing:

1. Every other weekend I work in the hospital blood lab

2. Soccer official for modified and high school JV and freshmen games

3. Tuesday I begin training to become a PCA –(patient care associate)

This training is 7 days long and then I go to where I will be working (Post-partum/Obstetrics/Nursery) and train for an additional 7 days. If everything goes well I will begin my 12 hour night shift work.

I decided to try out being a patient care associate to see if I should go into nursing. Twice I have gone into specialized programs and they have not worked out so now I will be in the field before making the plunge and going into yet another year of school. Fortunately I found a few programs for alternate entry RN, one of which is in North Carolina. Since I already have a bachelors degree I do not want to go through another 4 years of school and this program will allow me to sit for the RN test after 1 year of school.

Anyways, if all goes well with being a PCA and I really enjoy it I may wait around until a full time position opens up and do that instead of applying to dozens of research positions. It is really frustrating to have gone to school for 5 years for biology and not be able to find a career in my field. I used to think of certain jobs as being below me (like PCA), however, I now know that until I can humbly serve others and realize that I am no better than anybody else that I will never get anywhere…

I will start checking out a few locations where my husband wants to live in NC and see if there are any crimes labs around that are in need of a DNA Analyst. Until then, wish me luck at my new job, and who knows? I may love it and never go back to DNA! We all know RNs will always be in great demand, so we’ll see what happens…

Feeling the job-less blues…

Over a month has passed since the wedding and I have not found a full time job yet. It is not very interesting to be at home all day and I am looking forward to working on a regular basis. My husband has been out of state for the last month due to an internship in Pharmacy so it has been hard to be alone all day and night. Fortunately, he only has one week left so I am looking forward to finally seeing him daily! I have applied to dozens of jobs and two of them close today so I am really praying that one of these will be the one.

These two particular positions are on the bus route and so if my husband’s car is unfixable or too expensive to fix (we’ll find out next week) I will be able to get to work.

Overall, being at home is very dull. It is one thing if you had children to take care of, but being home alone is not nearly as rewarding. I am very grateful that I have saved enough to last another month or two without working, however, I would be much happier if I could continue to save this $$ for other things.

Feeling the Heat

The weather is finally heating up in the northeast, and although I was able to cope with it fairly well in Mexico, I’m not enjoying it as much at home. Mostly I am trying to be very frugal until I find a full time job. My husband and I have decided that the best course of action would be for me to pause my master’s degree (since I’m only 4 classes away) and to work full time until he graduates in May (with his PharmD).

Watching the money in our bank accounts dwindle after wedding and his car repair expenses I definitely agree with our decision, however searching for a job nowadays is getting harder than ever. I currently work part-time, which pays for about half our monthly rent, but with my husband being an unpaid intern for a year this job alone is not going to cut it. Oh, and don’t forget about health insurance which is very necessary for me since I seem to get sick at the least opportune moment.

Well, I’m off now to read up on a prospective job so I can write an appropriate cover letter. I ask for your prayers that I will find a job soon.

Thank you, and thanks for reading!

From Paradise to Airport Vagabond

Well, I have finally returned from wedding + honeymoon and for the next several days (depending on how much I write per day) I will write all about our trip since we did not bring a camera. Writing down all of our adventures will serve as the non-pictorial documentation of our fabulous trip!

I must say, that despite the fact that neither my husband or I had attended a wedding reception, everything went perfectly. I wouldn’t recommend planning a wedding while a full-time student, however, we were extremely blessed in both the beautiful ceremony and awesome reception.

I admit that I was nervous about the whole event, especially due to the lack of knowledge about weddings. Another silly anxiety of mine was that the guests would find the wedding cheap and lame because of our graduate student budget. Once again, we were very blessed and had financial help for 1/2 of the reception and most of the florist’s cost. In total, it amounted to ~$8000 or less (including the honeymoon), $5000 was for the reception alone. I personally do not think that is cheap, but by today’s silly cultural standards it is… especially since many couples spend on average of at least $20,000 and that does not even include the honeymoon. Isn’t that insane?

I will begin to explain the title soon, however, I must tend to my disaster-zone of an apartment and return it to its previous state of semi-cleanliness =)

In short: the wedding and week in the Mayan Riviera was absolutely amazing until Friday night where we spent several miserable hours curled up on the floor of the Chicago airport underneath the up escalator…

Insanity and beyond!

Today is the day when the stress of all the planning and the upcoming wedding really hit me… whew, I feel exhausted yet I have so much to do!!

Luckily I have been steadily getting tasks done, but I feel like this is nearly and uphill battle so this post is my mini-release and then off to bed with me!

Tomorrow I have to:

1. Pay caterer

2. Drop seating chart and cards off at reception hall

3. Get vases for head table and drop those off at reception hall

4. Go shopping for a bathing suit for Mexico

5. Finish project for my love and drop THAT off at reception hall

6. Eat?!

7. Go by my old apartment and see if any packages were delivered there since we got a package the other day that was addressed to us, however, after opening it was from somebody I didn’t know and was supposed to be sent to KY! I hope we do get the correct package and if it was sent elsewhere that they will be honest and send it back.

8. Have my lovely maid of honor practice on my hair for the big day

9. Get more black ink for the printer since it is nearly gone after printing so much nonsense

10. Eh, and I might as well pay the florist as well… Oh, but she’s off tomorrow so… maybe I’ll just stop by and see if I can pay…

11. ACK!

12. Finish packing and clean apartment (ha!)

I think I might print this list so I do not forget anything… *clicks print screen*

OK, so I think I’m going to bed because I’m going to need an early start to get things done.

BTW: I’m getting married in… THREE DAYS!!! WHOOO!!!

After Mexico I shall resume my quest to become a forensic scientist, in the meantime enjoy your week and a half off from my ramblings =)

Life without TV

I moved to a new apartment two weeks ago and decided to give away my TV to a deserving couple who needed one. There are a few things I realized quickly when you no longer have a television:

1. As soon as it gets dark you’re ready for bed

2. There is a LOT more time available

3. Once the sun goes down you feel like it is really late, when it’s only 9:30pm

4. You finally get around to those books you’ve purchased and set aside before because you were too ‘busy’

Granted I never had much time during the school year and so I never watched much TV, but I am enthralled to be reading again! It’s fabulous. I am currently going through the Barnes & Noble Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I actually finished Doyle’s first short story, “A Study in Scarlet” and I was very much impressed by how ageless his writing is. There were some words I had to pull the ‘ol dictionary out for, however, thanks to the foot and endnotes in this edition I was able to get through the story quite well.

I decided to read Sherlock Holmes’ stories seeing as he was one of the mainstream fictional ‘forensic scientists’ (if you will) of his time. When he mentioned an infallible confirmatory test for blood I got really excited and realized what a total nerd I was for getting excited.

Now if only we could discover such a test with no cross reactions!

On the other spectrum of my life, is of course my impending nuptials. After realizing that my future groom is going white water rafting for his bachelor party/activity I became rather jealous and wondered why I didn’t think of such a fun thing to do. So here I am in my darkened living room, sans TV, trying to brainstorm a fun thing to do with my lovely ladies.

Alas, I think I will just go to bed and think upon it.

TO DO:

1. Finish wedding bulletins –for the life of me I could not print them out properly

2. Decorate the basket for cards

3. Finish secret project for my dearest (it’s a surprise!)

4. Pray that his car that broke down today will not cost more $$$ and that it will last until we both graduate!

5. Figure out what to do for bachelorette party/activity

6. Several other things that I will think of as I try to sleep tonight

7. ZZZZzzz…

Adventures in Wedding Planning and etc…

Well now that I am no longer in school and semi-recovered from the semester I have been focusing (finally) on my wedding that is next Saturday.

Today we:

1. Applied for our marriage license which was less than exciting

2. Decided on the songs the pianist/organist is going to play

3. Made a meeting with the DJ

4. Called the florist to make a final appointment

5. Submitted the forms to the church to reserve the space and supplies for the rehearsal and wedding day

6. Wrote several checks and watched our small savings dwindle away!

7. Began working on the bulletins to hand out on the wedding day

 

Whew.

I planned on this blog being professional, but since school is over for now (well, if I passed my Core Exam) it will more personal over the summer due to the lack of school. However, once my internship begins I will comment on the progress of that project as well.

On a random note… Today I actually used the knowledge I learned in my law and science course about the Fourth Amendment and Searches. This was refreshing because it demonstrated that I actually learned AND remembered something! So beware if you are carrying drugs or something else illegal because if you are stopped for a traffic violation you can be searched!

On the subject of forensics, my next task is to scope out areas in California and the Carolinas to see where I can find work after I graduate in December. My fiancé is planning on entering a residency in one of those three states and would like to find out which hospitals are closest to the forensic laboratories. This next year will truly be both exciting and insane, but I look forward to finding work (at last!) because I believe this field is something I will enjoy immensely.

In conclusion, I am very fortunate to have planned most of the wedding last summer because with the school schedule I had over the last year there was no way that I could have had extra time to plan this event. So if you are getting ready to get married, I highly recommend planning ahead if you have other responsibilities. I will also begin my search for future work and find some professional organizations to join so I can attend some conferences and start networking.

Bridal Shower-

Now that I have successfully survived the CORE Exam (whether or not I failed I will not know for 2 weeks), I can now focus on my upcoming wedding. I highly do not recommend trying to plan a wedding during your first year in graduate school due to the stress level of it all, but luckily my fiancé was extremely helpful and he actually did much of the planning when I was too busy in school to help.

My wedding is in two weeks and once I relax this weekend I can get back to work, since next week I will be meeting the florist, photographer, DJ, and the wedding coordinator at the reception hall. If everything goes well I will be picking up my wedding dress tonight after the tailor cuts off the excess material at the bottom after she hemmed the dress several inches.

School, however, is still in the forefront of my mind because this past semester I was able to get a glimpse of what being a forensic scientist would be like and I am very much determined to get there.

Courtroom testimony had to be one of my favorite classes and being qualified as an expert witness (even in a mock trial) just made me feel so good about all the hard work I had been putting into school. Testifying was a neat combination of teaching and applied science because I had to be able to explain some of the more complex science behind the results in a way that a member of the general public could understand. It was truly a unique experience and I hope to be doing it on a regular basis sometime in the future.

I have to get ready for my bridal shower -yay and I look forward to seeing what the theme and everything is!

Surviving the CORE Exam.. not…

So today I took a CORE exam that basically descides whether or not an entire year of graduate school was wasted. Despite having a GPA over a 3.0, this test will determine my fate. I can only pray that this will not keep me from my eventual goal of becoming a forensic scientist sometime soon!