Life in Steps

A warm spring day in Fairfax!
I used to spend a lot of time at this ledge, looking over out town.

It was quiet, warm, nostalgic… 

Next semester starts soon. January 22, the day before my birthday. I still need to buy books but CCV hasn’t gotten their stuff together and posted what books i need yet. Thats kind of frustrating.

I’ve been thinking about whats coming up for me in the future. Beyond school that is. My fifth annual Anthrocon trip to Pittsburgh is coming up in July and that’s all I’ve been thinking about.

I bought my Registration as a “Supersponsor” which means I get early access to hotel reservations, a special luncheon with the guests of honor (Which is an artist named Skulldog, someone I met at my first FurFright years ago), a Free T-Shirt, Special seating at the front of all the good events, and Expedited line wait times. And that “Feel Good” feeling knowing that you’re supporting a charity. 

The reason I’m thinking about it a lot though is because I want to Fly there this year, which would be new and exciting for me. I’ve only flown nine or ten times before so it’s still a thrill. Being so early in the year and excited about it is also good because it gives me motivation to make (or buy) my own fursuit and save some money to have a good time. My new position in CSR should help me save for that. I figure $100-$150 per paycheck will put me in a great position for AC (AnthroCon). 

On another side note, my new insurance cards came in for health and dental :D I’m Insured now! Not a moment too late either, My wisdom teeth are aching to punch through my gums and it’s not the same as the “feel good” feeling I was mentioning earlier. 

Oh well. The butterfly’s in my tummy will hopefully stick for a while. Maybe I’m getting over-excited for this excursion though. Last AC was medioker and landed me a fun time in an ambulance for a random panic attack. Scary.

For those of you who want to learn more, www.anthrocon.org is a great place to learn about his fun, weird little hobby of mine. :)

Peace for now!

Photo Taken From Our Apartment Window in Winooski, VT. 14 January, 2013.

Boy it’s been a long time since I updated this.

I’ve been so busy just doing the whole life thing that I’ve been neglecting my followers, so if you’re reading this, then thanks for not giving up hope on me!

So, Here’s what I’ve been up to. This post may be a bit longer than my past ones because of all that happened. 

SCHOOL:

Its happening. I’ve got a 3.7 combined GPA right now which is outstanding. I missed a few classes due to a change in my schedule but I’ll get to that later. It all basically sat on being able to do my homework and not procrastinating on it. If I sit down and just do it, and review the stuff I felt like I already knew anyway, then it sticks much more.

My class schedule is Intro to Biology on Mondays and Wednesdays, (This is a lab course so its worth 4 credits and meets twice a week for two and a half hours) Human Biology on Tuesdays, and  Medical Terminology on Fridays. A total of 10 Credits A fairly light and easy schedule. Great for getting back into the swing of things. Each class meets from 11:45am to 2:30pm. Human Biology and Medical Terminology have been the easiest courses. I feel as if the teachers are giving away perfect grades as long as you show up to the courses. Intro to Biology is more difficult because there’s no “Extra Credit” or anything. If you miss a point, it’s gone forever.

But again, I’ve been keeping up and it’s been paying off :) The school thinks I’m in a Liberal Studies program right now because they said that with this major, I can basically choose my courses at whim and transfer to UVM when I feel ready. 

On a side note of that, I’ve been looking at UVM a lot recently, just getting ready to transfer, and found a complete list of all the courses in the Neuroscience major, and MAN am I excited to get into it! Listen to some of these courses; 

• Exploring Neuroscience
• Diseases of the Nervous System
• Human Neuroanatomy
• Neurobiology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Physiological Psychology
• Speech and Hearing Science
• Cognition & Language
•  Learning
• Animal Behavior
• Selected Topics in Behavioral Neuroscience
• Infant Development
• Cell & Molecular Physiology
• Neurodevelopment
• Psychopharmacology
• Topics in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
• Neural Computation
• Neurobiology Techniques
• Measurement of Communication Processes
• And general Undergraduate Research

Class starts in a little less than two weeks and one of my classes still has posted their text book requirements yet. I’m getting a little annoyed at that. Another class still hasn’t posted their syllabus and course description yet. 

I really don’t want to be buying a last minute $150 textbook from the UVM bookstore when I can easily rent them from Amazon for about $25 for the year. 

On a different note, I’ve noticed that whenever I’m at work I begin thinking in terms of “What it will be like as a doctor” and I get a nice euphoric feeling from that. It’s one of the things that I’ve constantly and unconsciously managed to wander into thinking about. That gives me some positive and reassuring hope that I’m taking the right path.

School’s almost starting! Another two weeks and we’ll be back in the swing of things again! I’ve already gotten myself off to a good start and I think I’m ready to take control. I am starting to get a little worried that I may have over-packed my schedule a bit though. I guess we’ll find out when things get started. Worst case I lose some money and drop out of the classes that I can’t handle. 

I did a little footwork on potential schools I might go to after CCV (next year) and I’m stuck between UVM and UMass Amherst. UVM has a little bit better ranking in the college world, and lets me be in town with the people I love. Not to mention it would probably look better to UVM College of Medicine if I came from a UVM background. UMass Amherst is also looking nice too though, not only because its in my home state where I can get more experience being on my own and meeting new people, but because it would give me better chances at getting into UMass College of Medicine. I’m going to do more footwork on which med school I want to go to but right now I’m leaning towards UVM.

Lets hope I can just handle keeping my GPA up between classes, work and volunteering, shall we?

Classes all paid for! At least for this semester. I’m a little excited after hearing that I had 16 credits and a 4.0 GPA already. It’s kind of cheating since 12 of the credits were transferred from champlain and the other 4 were from a networking class I took in HS in 2008. Still, it mean I may not have to take as many classes at CCV before I’ll be eligible to transfer to UVM. After one year I’ll try to transfer. With any luck I’ll be going to UVM sooner than expected.
Books are still going to cost me a lot though. Books I have to pay for out of pocket, which will total $450… Plus next semester if I take a similar course load, I’ll need to pay about $800 out of pocket for tuition. Plus books. Time to start saving!

As far as the EMT stuff goes, I finally found an application to Burlington Rescue. I’ll have to call them for some more information but I think this is what I need to start with becoming an EMT. Hopefully they won’t require I take the EMT-B exam right away. I couldn’t fit that class in (or afford it) if my life depended on it. Maybe I can take it over the summer or during the fall…

EMT Training! I heard that EMT experience will look great to medical school admissions because it gives you two types of experience. One working with patients and learning the medical/clinical side of things while the other is responding to emergencies and the service work involved. 

Being an EMT was always sitting in the back of my mind as a possibility, but I didn’t think it would make that big of a deal since I already work at the hospital. Looks like I was wrong. So here I am! I signed up for a CPR/AED certification course on the 26th! It was kind of expensive ($110), but required to get my EMT-Basic training done. That I’ll probably start either Spring or Summer of 2013 just because I don’t want it to interfere with my study time, and also because its $550 and I just don’t have that much yet.

Med School, I’m ready for you.

So I had my first day of volunteer service yesterday! It was awesome! Lots of people recognized me and it made me feel a little special. I’m excited to be doing this more and more as the days go on. 

One a slightly lighter note, I got denied from a Vermont Grant to help pay for college. Which is super lame. I’ve got a meeting on Wednesday to see if a Stafford Loan can cover the money needed to go to school this year. Dear lord I hope so. I need to get back in the game. My new school work desk is kind of just sitting around doing nothing.

My Boy and I went to Juniors tonight and had a great time. The food was fantastic as always, and the waitress we had was phenomenal. Extra gratuity given for wonderful service. There was something that threw off the atmosphere and mood a little though.

About 10 Minutes after we took our seat and ordered our food, a group came in and sat in the booth next to us. Most of this group was fine and peaceful, however one particular member of the group was very impolite and rude. He was talking very loudly in a quiet restaurant and ordering the waitresses around like they were his property. Being that it was impossible to not hear what he was saying, it soon became apparent that this person was the owner of the restaurant. This made me disgusted. The individual then proceeded to talk in a vulgar, rude, and disrespectful manner that was loud enough for everyone to hear. Luckily there was only one or two other parties in the place at the time. 

The gentleman was talking about how he had a right to kill people and where/how he would do it, he was being very racist and prejudice and his language was less than pleasant. This was one of the worst conversations I had ever heard period, let alone from the owner of the restaurant that we were eating at. My appetite was ruined from being unable to ignore the loud mans vulgar conversations. I was one tic away from interrupting his party and his conversation to express my disgust.

To my surprise, even though the gentleman came in after us, and ordered from a larger party (he had five in his group), and ordered the same food as us, the waitress they had managed to serve them first. This could be a owner privilege but I feel it may be a little disrespectful to his paying customers to prioritize his parties food over ours.

Needless to say if I go there and run into this gentleman again, I will mention something about our experience. Hopefully he hasn’t ruined anyone else’s romantic evening in the past.

I have been getting a lot of people recently that do t think I can make my goals. Luckily these people are nice about it by simply saying “you know… Nursing makes a lot of money too” or “make sure you have a backup plan!” While I understand the importance of having a fail safe, I also will continue to achieve my goals, and people putting me down like this isn’t helping.

I know what I want to do is near impossible. Do you not think I’m scared of failure? Of course I am, but you know what? I know I’ll fail if I don’t try. So to anyone trying to politely tell me I can’t do it, piss off!

Sorry for the lack of posting recently! I’ve been so busy! We moved apartments across the building. This new one triples our square footage and has nicer bathrooms and kitchen, plus a nice view of Winooski (Picture Above)! Our new roommate Emily is pretty awesome too. I’m overly grateful that she will be helping us with rent.

As far as school goes, there’s not much to tell unfortunatly. :< I’ve been waiting for my Financial Aid stuff to go through, and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m so impatient. I just want to know if I’m approved and for how much, but apparently I have to wait for my account number to be mailed to me before I find this stuff out. Or wait for CCV to update their computers, but they said that can take more than a week to do. Its tough when the financial deadline is coming up so fast (August 7th)! I’ll have to make an appointment with a Financial Adviser at some point too.

Fletcher Allen is still going strong! I got my volunteer schedule all set which is awesome! I’ll be working outside of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Surgical Intensive Care Unit acting as someone who communicates the visitors to the unit nurses, and informing those visitors what’s going on with their loved one. I went through all my training already so I can start as early as next week! I’m excited for that. Plus it’s a rather relaxed job, so I can squeeze in some homework when there are no visitors coming in. I think that will help me really crack down on my studying. No distractions to worry about like TV, Computer, Phone, iPad, etc. I may even throw in a couple extra hours just because I like to help these people out! After a year or so I’ll see if I can switch to something else, to mix up who and how I help out.

I can’t wait for school to start. I’m so bored in the mornings right now. :/

I love your faces!

Well that puts a damper on things. I had a dentist appointment today because my wisdom tooth cracked and was bugging me. and I had an exposed root in another tooth that i cracked (#31). So I went in to get things checked out. A typical examination with an estimated cost of $90.

I just got back with $190 less from the appointment (They took 16 X-Rays) and a nice layout of what needs to be done. Total estimated cost of things that need to be done? $4040. The real kicker is that I don’t have dental insurance so this is going to be an out of pocket expanse. I told that to the receptionist as she gave me the treatment plan, and she gave me a flyer for a credit card.

Now… Normally I would say “Fuck that!” to something that isn’t bugging me that much and costs $4000+, but I know dental health is pretty important unless I want to spend even more than that on dental implants for every tooth in 10-20 years. Damnnnnnnnn.

So I just paid off the outstanding balance on my student loan. A whopping $800. Thank god my 401k cashout came in today. That should sustain me until I collect some money again. Up next is to pay for my new apartments rent and security deposit. Woo? Dear lord it’s a lot of money..

But now there’s nothing stopping me from being able to get $3500 in financial aid! Plus with FAHC Paying $2600 a year, I shouldn’t have too much of a problem paying it back either. Just so much money. That’s what it all breaks down to.

Just got back from my little meeting at CCV! Got a handy student handbook, made my schedule and blocked out my time. I’ll be taking 14 Credits (Full time student is 12 or more) and working 40 hours a week at the hostpital.. Then I also signed up to volunteer! That will probably happen on the weekends for a few hours. I still have to have a meeting with the volunteer board to work out what ill be doing and when. Then I have to fit in an orientation on a Tuesday. 

At any rate, This will be good! School in the Morning, Work at night. Plus some volunteer hours to boost up the looks of my resume when I’m applying to Med School or UVM or a residency program. School for this semester will end up costing $3372 after fees and before books. Fletcher Allen will pay $2600 a year (almost half) for me to go. So Financial Aid shouldn’t be too much of an issue. 

I’m ready!