October 26th, 2011

As far as I know, the phrase "when it rains, it pours" is used in the negative sense to mean one bad thing being followed by multiple more bad things. I'm not sure if there is a positive version of that saying; but if there is, say it to me.

In the last six months I:
1) Graduated nursing school
2) Acquired a girlfriend
3) Passed the licensing board and am now an official registered nurse
4) Got a new car
5) Was offered full time employment
6) Moved to a new city

I'm pretty happy

Now which ones require elaboration? You already know about #1.

2) Three friends of mine and I went to an art show in June. I guess you could call it an art show. All I was told was it was in the warehouse district in New Orleans, some artist would try to sell stuff, and there would be live bands and beer in the back. Live bands and beer was the only part I cared about.

We got to the warehouse where the event was held, and the greeter thanked us for coming and supporting the cause. "The cause?" I asked.
"All of the proceeds from today's exhibit and show go to benefit cancer research for Amy's mother," she said. I'm still keeping up the tradition of not calling people by their real names.
I was unsure how to feel at that point. I'm all about expanding myself and going to see new things, but the art part of the show was to take a back seat to the concert-listening and beer drinking, however, I am a huge supporter of fighting cancer. Cancer sucks. The problem, though, was I had only brought twenty dollars and art shown in art shows is usually more expensive than that.

"Does the beer go to fighting cancer also?"
"Yes it does."

While still sober in my fight against cancer, I was introduced to a woman who did a rather decent job at busting my balls. Anyone who knows me knows I dislike those who prematurely bust my balls (ball busting is a privilege that is earned) but she was creative and witty about it, so I let it slide. The fact she was cute was actually a point against her because we all know cute girls think they can do whatever they want including premature ball-busting, but her intelligence made up for it. I didn't see her again for a few hours when – during one of the intermissions while a new band came on – she was invited on stage to read some of her poetry.

A woman in a sundress with thick glasses reading poetry with her hair in a ponytail is pretty high on my list of "not my scene," but I was glad I decided to stay and listen because the stuff she was reading was really good.

I simply told her afterward that I enjoyed her writing. Weeks later she told me that coming up after she had shown her brain off rather than hitting on her beforehand showed her what I've been saying for years: I'm attracted to women's minds second. I'm attracted to women's faces first. Boobs are all the way at sixth.

A few dates later and I determined she was a very grounded high school teacher with poetry being a creative outlet. Good thing, too, because I'd hate to see such a cute girl wasted as a damn dirty hippy.

In keeping with tradition I shall refer to her as "Poetry Girl" instead of her real name when I talk about her. We're dating. She's cute. I'm happy.

3) I wanted to dance for an hour straight when I found out I got my nurse's license. Turns out I'm a fatass. I was only able to dance for two minutes and fifty six seconds. I had a song lined up in case I passed. Bonus points if you can guess it.

4) My new car is a blue Toyota Corolla. Grandma paid for about a third of it as a graduation present. You know what it has that most my previous cars didn't? Air conditioning! Fuck yeah! Nore more sweating for Frank!

5) In my previous journal I objected to the nursing job search being so reliant on technology. I now have even more reason to hate that process since what actually worked for me involved using the computer to find the addresses of every hospital in New Orleans and some mapping software. I then spent one day walking into each and every hospital in the city of New Orleans, introducing myself to their human resource department, and explaining to them I was a new graduate looking for an opportunity and that their shitty computer program was un-navigable for someone with absolutely no actual nursing experience. By the end of that one day, I had a job offer.

It isn't in a pediatric ward like I wanted, but is instead another Long Term Acute Care hospital (LTAC for short) and I'm pretty sure my student job at an LTAC in Baton Rouge helped me get it. I might start looking for pediatric jobs after I get that year of experience, but I am pretty grateful to these people for offering me a job. So I don't want to bolt immediately. That seems like a dick move.

I've tried explaining LTACs with little success. Here's the quick version: no one goes to a hospital to die. You go to a hospital to heal. Even though we see extremely sick people who require months of time to heal and sometimes do die; we are not a hospital people go to specifically to die at. That's stupid.

6) My roommate is a friend I've known since high school. We found a house in the same neighborhood as the hospital I work at. I walk to work. It's pretty awesome. Plus, I live in New Orleans now. Which would be great for me if I was single because of all the single ladies here, but is still pretty awesome because of how much more fun it is than my hometown...and probably more fun than your hometown.

That's all from me. Now on to your journals.