Many, many changes happening at the moment... First thing is that I'll be moving to Rochester, NY in a few months to attend a post-bacc premed course. I'm terrified and excited about the prospect of goodng back to school. One of the things that I had to get used to when I graduated was that I didn't have thing I HAD to do on my days off. I was able to go to work, do my job, and then go home. In my line of work, I don't take work home and besides keeping up with my continuing education, my days off are completely mine. Now I'm having to switch gears back into that academic mode with my least favorite subject- math. I'm taking an online math course in preparation for the post-bacc program. I'm still trying to get into the swing of doing school work again. Hopefully this will begin to prepare me for the insane amount of school I'll be doing for the next few years.
I'm currently in Chicago on vacation, which has been great! I really REALLY needed a break from work. I'm looking forward to not stepping foot into a hospital for the next couple days. The main reason I'm here is that my little sister Iris is auditioning for musical theater programs here. Today she had her first one and she was confident and energetic despite being really sick. I was so frustrated because I know what an amazing performer she is and I wanted the panel to see what she can do at full steam. After the audition I told her that if they didn't accept her she should tell them who her brother is and let them talk to me! I realized a little while later that this is (almost word for word- just replace "brother" with "grandpa") what our grandpa used to say to us before and after every audition. He was fiercely proud of us and was never afraid to express it- he did so every chance he got. Iris is such an amazing performer and I am just as proud of her as our gramps was- I'm glad I can carry on the support he always gave us!
When I get back to LA I will be starting a new shift, working a 24hr 911 car in LA county. My old shift, a Critical Care Transport shift, was too much for me. We were running for 22 out of our 24hr shifts, going without sleep and food for hours on end.. it was intense and exhausting. Occasionally we would have a truly critical patient (stroke, aneurysm, trauma), but the majority of our calls were for insurance reasons. I really enjoyed working with everyone in the program, but the call volume was just too high and I was really feeling run down. I'm excited to get back into running 911 calls regularly. Even though we get a lot of bs calls, we get to meet a ton of people. Also, since I'll be working in the same area every shift I can get to know the paramedics and ER staff better.
All this change has inspired me to set some new goals to work towards this month. There isn't anything that says I can't start my New Years resolutions in February right? I've been playing bass a lot more recently, which has been great. By the time I graduated from college playing and practicing felt like a chore- something I came to dread. Now I practice to relieve stress, it has become a way to escape in a focused way. It feels great now to practice a passage and work it up, it feels like I accomplished something. It also gives me a chance to focus on something in order to clear my head. My work makes it difficult to eat healthy, there have been a few shifts where dinner was eaten standing at the 7-11 counter at 3am. I would like to try and change that- make meals to take to work, cut out all fast food again, and start exercising regularly. There, now it's in writing so I have to do it, right?
This afternoon has been relaxing, I'm sitting on the couch watching the snow fall while listening to Tchaikovsky's symphony #6.... I thought it was a good time to reflect.
