Well How About That!

No auto-reject on the ICU position.  Doesn't mean that the reject isn't coming, but it does feel good to not be auto-rejected so quickly.  I just don't want to feel like I'm putting in all these applications, and just wasting my time.  It is so frustrating.

I'm also feeling a lot better, still blowing my nose and sneezing, but I was able to put in full day at work. 

Tonight Mike is at class.  Which I'm a little sad about for a couple of reasons.  Its one less night I get to have dinner with him this week, and I'm missing being in class.  He started his last class of the program he's doing at school this week, and my friends who are either starting or repeating their 4th semester went back this week as well, and I don't know what to do with myself.  I have been obsessively checking Harper's website to see if some of the classes I'd like to take online had any spots open up, and so far no luck.  I know this is crazy, but I've been in class for the last 3 years, its not natural to me yet to not be in class.

It would be nice to be able to have a nursing position before I begin anymore classes so that I can plan accordingly, but I really am feeling like I want to go back in the Spring.  I need to take nutrition, chemistry, and MAYBE statistics.  I can take everything but the chemistry online, and that is what I would like to do. I need to get these classes under my belt in order to get started on my BSN at NIU.  I don't want to be hindered later down the road because I only have an Associate degree.

There is so much on my brain lately about everything, my two jobs, whether to drop the part time one, looking for a new job to replace both, taking classes to advance my degree.  I don't know how there is room for much else sometimes, but yet there is!

Sick :(

I feel awful.  It started yesterday with a bunch of sneezing, and an awful headache when I got home last night from work.  And I woke up today congested, and just feeling like poo.  I didn't think I was that bad where I couldn't work, but that is where I turned out to be wrong.  I tried to hang on as long as I could, but I called it quits at about 1:30 and came home and slept.  I still feel icky, but I'm hoping I'll feel better in the morning.  My sweet husband brought me some roses to try to perk my day up a bit.

It was definitely sweet of him, and I love them!

I've been trying to just relax tonight, but of course, I got a bit jealous when I saw yet another classmate who has a job before I do.  I wish it didn't sting so much, and I feel terrible that all I can think of how much I wish it was me.  You can't help but compare yourself to your classmates in this type of over-saturated job market.  It makes me wish I hadn't been so ambitious with trying to be in the ICU for my capstone, because I could have had a better chance at establishing a job offer had I been on a med-surg floor.

A position for the ICU where I had my Capstone has been taunting me for months.  I would love to begin my career in the ICU, but I know my lack of experience is probably not want they need.  When you have people who are on the brink of dying, do you really want some green, new-graduate nurse?  Or an experienced nurse?  Plus, there was an issue during my Capstone that left me feeling like the assistant director didn't like me very much.

So, this has kept me from being able to bring myself to put in my application.  The thought of sitting down for an interview with this woman is terrifying.  The thought of my application spreading laughter throughout the whole ICU department is depressing.  But tonight, I figured what's another rejection letter in my mailbox tomorrow morning?  It isn't like I haven't seen enough of those already, and like it even matters anymore.  And heck, maybe the fact that I was able to hold in my tears of fear around this woman will count for something.  But either way, at least I can say I put my name in the hat, regardless of what they decide to do with it.

I did put in a couple of other applications that surprisingly didn't ask me that infamous question on the last page "Do you have X years of experience as an RN?".  So maybe I won't be auto-rejected.

I'm starting to think that if I don't have a position by the new year, I will start looking at other types of positions at places I don't even want to say the word, but you know what I'm meaning.  I just don't want to accept a position, and then another one come along that is more of what I was looking for, and then feel like an ass for jumping jobs.  But I just can't go forever without getting a job, or else my degree is useless.

Time to get some sleep, and hope to sweet 8lbs 7oz. baby Jesus, in a tuxedo shirt, that I'm feeling better.

Saaaa-Weeeeeet!!

Remember that CPR class that would have been for free at my hospital had there been openings?  Well by-gosh if they didn't open up more seats!   Problem solved!!  Now I'm glad that it was storming and my hubby was sick the other day, cuz that saved me $$$$!

Ghetto Hair No Mo!

Popped a Xanax before, but I made it to my hair appointment. Loved my girl J! She went through all my pictures with me, and worked with me on how to proceed. I always feel bad because I have a huge head, and it takes them forever to foil my hair, but it all worked out!!

I really have to stop letting so much time pass between colorings, and trust it will be ok!! But I love my hair!!

Gotta Wake Up Slow...

I have been overly tired this weekend. I worked at the hospital on Saturday, and its a complete energy drain for me. I'm fine during my shift because I'm in "GO" mode, but as soon as I clock out, I'm zapped. I truly was having a hard time not falling asleep at red lights yesterday on my way home. I know that is bad, but that is just how exhausted I was. I was still exhausted even after I took a shower when I got home. That normally will wake me up. But nope, I was basically awake long enough to eat dinner and spend a little time watching some TV with Mike, and then I was out.

I am getting my hair colored today. My friend at work convinced me to just do it, and so I made my appointment on Friday. Because of how exhausted I've been (a.k.a. sleeping as soon as I get home) and with projects I've been working to decorate, I haven't had my normal time to obsess about what I am going to do. My regular colorist is not coming back after all, her leave turned into she quit. :( The last girl I had was ok, she did a good job on the color, but when she was blowing my hair out, I wanted to just take the brush from her and tell her to leave me alone. How do you do this everday, and suck at blow drying someone's hair? Anyway, so I scheduled with a new girl who is the next level up experience-wise (i.e. newbie, not-so-newbie, decent, pro, expert, master lol). So that made me feel a little better about going to someone new.

So, the hair, I have the desire to do something different, but like I said before, I have a hard time committing. So, maybe I'll go all wild-card and let the girl do what she wants. lol

I really haven't had the time to do anymore job searching, and that was just way too depressing last Sunday. I'm still waiting to hear back from my friend's mom-in-law about what changes I can make to my resume, so I guess I'm waiting on that. Census on my floor is so low, we even had some lap appendectomies, and cholecystectomies.....we don't usually see those. I felt bad when my coworkers were talking about being out of paid time off hours because they have been downstaffed so much. I don't have any sick or personal hours to take, and luckily, it doesn't affect me too much when I get flexed (well, I do get SUPER-HAPPY lol). I've accepted that I won't be getting a position there, but now I feel bad that there may be more lay-offs. How awful is that for those that have been there for so long, and now may be forced to look elsewhere? There's not a lot of jobs out for there for patient care techs or unit secretaries, so I feel bad for them. But hopefully now that the main surgeon is supposed to be coming back next week, census will pick back up and the downstaffing will slow down.

Da hubs made some chocolate muffins for us, so the plan for the morning is to enjoy those with some coffee, and freak out on the inside about my hair, lol.

CPR isn't happening today....

My hubby is sick, and I woke up later than usual as a result, and it's raining like a mofo outside. I'm not a fan of driving into the city at all, much less when it's storming outside. No Thank You!

Job searching has been extremely depressing. I started filling out a ton of applications on Sunday night, and I was feeling ok about it until I discovered the auto-reject. One hospital in the area doesn't even wait to tell you that you are not hire-material. As soon as I hit the 'submit' button, I would instantly get a message that I didn't meet the requirements. Then I would get an e-mail saying the same thing just to rub it in. I had to pull out the Ben and Jerry's after that.

I have always known this was going to be a difficult process, but the realization of this still hurts. My 3.42 GPA (pretty darn impressive after the hell that is nursing school exams), my capstone in the ICU, my experience as a patient care tech on one of the headrest floors to work on in the hospital.....doesn't matter because I have no experience working as a Registered Nurse.

It makes me sad that I wasn't one of the lucky ones who just happened to get a job on the right floors that could hire a new grad. My floor can't help it that elective surgeries are down, and that the main surgeon had to take a leave for his own surgery. It makes me sick that I may be a hypocrite yet again, as I have considered the possibility that I may need to consider looking at nursing home positions, which is super depressing because that is the last thing I want to do.

I do have to keep trying. My friend's mom is a nursing instructor at another college, and she offered to help me with my resume. I was so happy to accept this. I don't feel like our school did enough to really help us in this area, even though we all had to make a resume. I can make it look neat, and formatted. I want you to tell me if you would make sure to read my resume or just throw it in the trash.

Luckily, I am not in a desperate situation. I have a good job that isn't going anywhere, with a boss who has always been amazingly flexible with me. There are things about my job that are frustrating, but it's all temporary stuff. I really will be sad when the day comes that I leave. I even want to work something out where I come in for a little bit, because I'm crazy.

In happy news, my couch pillows came in from Etsy, and I love them! I finally found curtains that I like so those are going up today. Now I gotta find some coordinating placemats/table clothes for the curtains I got for the kitchen. They are a deep aquamarine, so I gotta do some looking when I have time!

Also started looking at hair pictures, and trying to get the guts to schedule an appointment for my hair. I'm crazy.

CPR Certification

Yesterday at work, I got a very helpful tip from a patient at my dental office who just so happens to be a new nurse himself.  He's almost through with his first year of working as a nurse, and he told me that he seemed to start to get calls for interviews after he put his CPR certification on his resume.  So, today, I take a look at my CPR card and realized I was certified in August 2010, therefore expiring this month!  I went into a panic because I wasn't sure if I was already expired or if I had until the end of the month.

So, I go to my hospital's education portal, and see that the next CPR class isn't until the end of the month.  Even though it would be free through the hospital, I didn't want to wait that long!  So, I wet to several of the villages fire departments around here, since I went through Schaumburg last time.  But I had already missed all of them. 

Then, I went to the American Heart Associations' website to see if that could help me find other classes in the area.  I discovered you can do the classroom part online, and then scheduled a skills session at a recognized facility.  Then I realized it would cost me $22 for the class, then $48 for the skills session.  And this just seemed insane compared to how cheap it is elsewhere.

Next, I search for more regular classes, and found one at Edwards hospital in Naperville.  This was not a horrible drive, and it was decently priced, so I went for it.  Well, they told me I was actually expired as of August, and so I could only do the full certification class rather than the renewal.  And the soonest I could schedule was the 25th.  So, I went ahead and did it, and paid the fee or the class.  Of course, then I panicked because I realized I may not be able to get off of work since its on a Saturday, and a couple of the people who could cover for me would not be available, and I realized, if I can wait til the 25th, why not just wait a few days and do the one that is FREE at my work?

Of course, when I go back to the education portal, I then realize that the class is full.  REALLY?!?!

So....I did more searching.  I returned to a company that is based in the city.  I initially disregarded them in my first search because I didn't want to drive to the city.  However, I realized they were way more flexible with class times, and that one of their locations was actually not really too awful of a drive.  I gave them a call just to double check that registration really wasn't necessary, and they said as long as you are on time, you can get into any of the class times!  As a bonus, they also told me that I had the WHOLE month of August to renew, and that I wasn't expired yet.  This definitely made me feel better, because I was felt sick that I didn't start getting this together sooner!

So, then I had to cancel the class at the hospital in Naperville.  I felt really bad, because the lady that scheduled me gave me very thorough directions on how to get to the class, not just how to get to the hospital.  I was impressed.  Anyway, they were able to refund me the cost of the class, and all is right in the world.

In the end, this was FAR MORE of an anxiety-inducing cluster-fuck than it should have been.  It didn't help that I was at work trying to work through this, and getting interrupted in my planning was frustrating! lol Anyway, had I just taken a look at my card a month ago, I could have already had this planned out.  But no.  I didn't do that because I have been so busy with so many other things.  I am planning to go to the class on Thursday to update my CPR certification.  I will also probably look into using this same company again when I am ready to get my ACLS certification, and some other certifications I am interested in.  This company actually came to my school for my CPR certification for my CNA class, so I am feeling pretty comfortable using them.

In good news, tonight, Mike and I are dining on some yummy Wildfire, and going to a movie!  Just a simple dinner and a movie date night!  :)