First day of school

Today was the first day of RT school.

I have homework and it's not from any of my RT related courses. I have homework for my Workplace Ethics course, which is an elective. I've been exempted from one of the three electives that I have to take. At this point, I think that I will stick with the Workplace Ethics course and use it as one of the two electives that I still need to take.

In my Respiratory A&P course, the professor went on and on about how cool it was to be an RT. That was a good thing as far as I was concerned. He also mentioned some things that are in the good to know category.

• RTs can go straight into Critical Care (ICU or Emerg) at the start of their career. A lot of other medical professionals only do that after getting some experience and additional training under their belt.
• 15 countries accept Canadian RTs. The fact that Canadian RTs are trained to the higher standard of RRT (Registered Respiratory Therapist), makes Canadian RTs more of a none quantity in other countries. If you're an RT from Canada, you're an RRT.
• If you are into the cram and forget study method, you are screwed. You must learn and retain what you have learned.

The General Therapeutics course is being taught by the program coordinator. Most of the class was spent doing program orientation stuff. At the end of the class, we went down to the lab and were given our lab safety training. We will be using pressurized oxygen in the lab, so we have to be aware of some of the potential dangers associated with oxygen cylinders and compressed oxygen. Can make big boom and also make little fire very big and hot... Why is that lab right beside the cafeteria's kitchen?

There won't be a General Therapeutics lab this week, so we're expected to go to a BBQ that the second year RT Students have arranged. About 12 of the second year students came into class and mentioned the BBQ and said hi.

I didn't have an Applied Science class today but the program coordinator told us that she will also be teaching that course because the person who was going to teach that course can't anymore. The Monday morning class will now start at 9AM instead of 8AM. Yaaaay.

The professor who is in charge of the clinical placements and job shadowing came in and talked to us during the General Therapeutics class. The job shadowing for this semester is part of an actual course that will have assignments and homework. I will do job shadowing twice this semester. Everything except the job shadowing will be done online. The assignments are designed to make students more aware of what the RT profession is all about. One of the assignments involves making a poster for RT Week.

I found out that my scrubs haven't been ordered yet. Apparently, you can't just fill out an order form and expect them to order scrubs for you! I was supposed to take my copy of the order form to the book store and pay for them! I payed for my scrubs and bought a lab coat. I can wear the lab coat until my scrubs arrive.

I picked a locker that was close to the library. I wish that faculty would stop telling us how hard the program is. Some of us are becoming afeared...

One more sleep

One more sleep until I start Respiratory Therapy School. My first class tomorrow, at 8AM, is an elective course called Ethics In The Workplace. I'm trying to get an exemption from that elective. Until I know for sure that I'm granted an exemption, I'll be attending the class. I should find out tomorrow if I have been granted an exemption.

My other two classes tomorrow are Respiratory A&P and General Therapeutics.

If I don't get an exemption from that 8AM Ethics course, Tuesdays and Wednesdays will have 6 hours of classes and will be my longest days. My current timetable has 22 hours of classes on it. If I get the exemption, my timetable will have 19 hours of classes on it.

Day before school starts

School starts tomorrow.

That is all :-)

Things I did today

1. Got my Student Card. My Student Card picture doesn't look too bad.
2. Applied to get an exemption for a Liberal Studies elective.
3. Got a College Bus Pass, that cost me less than $200 dollars. It's good for Sep., Oct., Nov., and Dec. My picture on the Bus Pass makes me look like an escaped mental patient, who's out for revenge. The only person who's ever going to be seeing that picture, is the bus driver.
4. Bought some things for my nephews. I'll be visiting them before school starts and must come bearing gifts.
5. Ran to the bus stop, as fast as I could for about 100m, so that I wouldn't miss it. That just sort of happened without me thinking about it and it didn't result in me feeling like crap. I think I'm almost not sick now.

Orientation Day: Maybe I am sick

Both my ears now seem to be all cleared up. The left one was bothering me today, so I used the magic ear drops and it's fine now. Thanks to 'RT Student In Chicago' for telling me about the magic ear drops. I've been so focused on my ears being clogged up, that I seem not to have noticed how sick I am.

I went to the College’s Orientation Day this morning and had to sit outside for the first half hour because I was all light headed and sweaty. It was 13C (55.4F) and I was outside, in a tshirt, sweating like a madman for at least 25 minutes! For a while there, I thought that I might end up being “that guy” who passed out during the welcome to college speech. The welcome to college speech was all that I missed this morning.

When I went back inside, everyone was directed on how to get to the program information session for their respective programs. The RT Program information session was good. There was a lot of useful information and very little blah blah blah. We were also fitted for and ordered our scrubs. It looks like I’ll be wearing XL sized scrubs. I was surprised by how well they fit and how comfy they were.

I was given a Student Information Manual that has a lot of useful information in it. I was pleased to see that it went into a lot of detail about the clinical rotation sites. We will be doing our clinicals at one of 9 hospitals. Our preference for sites will be taken into account, but a lottery system will come into play if certain sites are preferred by too many students.

These are some other things that I learned during the orientation for my program:

• We will be job shadowing RTs during the first three semesters. This will be done at sites close to the college.
• In the fourth semester we will be doing “High Fidelity Clinical Simulations”. Apparently the simulations are fairly intense and stress people out. There was talk of people crying.
• We're not allowed to take any pictures or video without permission :-(
• In addition to our regular exams, we will also be writing composite exams at the end of first, second and third years. Each exam will be cumulative and can be used to test us on any of the material from previous semesters. If you fail a composite, you can’t continue on with the program.
• During our clinical rotations, in third year, we will have to come back to the college a couple times for 3 days of additional training.
• I won’t need a stethoscope until second semester. Damn it. All I want is a reason to buy a stethoscope. Is that too much to ask for?

After the orientation I was supposed to go to a barbecue. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out at the barbecue.

I didn’t get my student card this afternoon because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out while in line to get his student card.

I didn’t go on a tour of the college because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out during the college tour.

What I learned today

The pharmacy in my neighbourhood actually has an ear care section. I honestly never noticed all of those ear care products before. It's right beside the eye care section. The ear care section has a few products that claim to be able to do something about ear wax build-up. My ear is a lot less clogged up, than it was yesterday, but it's still not all cleared up yet.

I went to the pharmacy today and picked up something called Murine Ear Drops and started using it. The package says to use it "twice daily for up to 4 days if needed", so I'm going to use it for up to 4 days and see how things go. I've used it once so far and I think it's improved things a bit more.

Q-tips

Q-tips. I've been meaning to by Q-tips for a long time. I always forget. I don't really need them for anything but I really think I should have some. I've been planning on buying Q-tips for over a year.

On Tuesday night, while in bed trying to sleep, I noticed something odd about my right ear. If my right ear was face down on my pillow, it would feel all clogged up. If I turned my head around the other way, so that my right ear was face up, that clogged up sensation would go away.

Funny thing about Q-tips. I don't really need them for anything but if they're lying around, I use them to clean my ears. Maybe if I got some Q-tips and cleaned out my right ear, that ear wouldn't get clogged the next time I went to bed. I'll get some Q-tips and clean out my ears. What could go wrong? On Wednesday morning I finally bought some Q-tips.

Nasty. There's something really disgusting about ear wax, especially when you remove globs of the stuff from your own ears. After a few minutes, and about 20 Q-tips later, both of my ears seemed fairly clean. I couldn't believe that I hadn't cleaned out my ears for over a year! I also noticed at that time that my right ear felt really clogged up. I figured that the clogged up feeling would go away after a few minutes, but it didn't. My ears were all cleaned up but my right ear was clogged up even worse than before. I could barely hear out of my right ear now and it was starting to hurt a bit. WTF did I do? How could I make things worse? Did I compact some of that nasty ear wax into my ear and make a minor problem into a big one?

I tried doing the Valsalva Maneuver many times and also figured out how to use an eye drop container to irrigate my ear. My ear was simply not getting any better. It was clogged up and it felt like it was going to stay that way for ever. I decided to leave things alone for a while and just hope that my ear would get better on it's own. When I got up this morning, my ear was still horribly clogged up. Crap. I think I might have to see a doctor about this.

Up hear in the land of universal health care we have a bit of a problem. A lot of people don't have a Family Doctor. Most Family Doctors aren't accepting new patients. There's a big problem with their not being enough Family Doctors here. Since I don't have a Family Doctor and this ear thing was starting to freak me out, I decided to go to a walk in clinic.

As I was waiting at the bus stop I started to think about how much it would suck to go to the walk in clinic. The city I live in has a fairly serious shortage of Family Doctors and the walk in clinic is probably where everybody like me goes for Doctoring. As I was pondering the prospect of sitting around, in a waiting room, with a bunch of sick people , I decided that maybe I could take care of this on my own. Perhaps I was being a little girl about this little ear thing. I wasn't sure what I could do but I knew that the answer was on one of the shelves in the pharmacy across the street from the bus stop.

On the way to the pharmacy, I decided that some Sudafed might do the trick. When I used to go skydiving, and my ears got clogged up, Sudafed always seemed to help. I started taking Sudafed at about 10 AM today and slept most of the day away. At about 3:22PM I started doing the Valsalva Maneuver again and irrigating my ear and it happened. Something shifted and I heard the glorious popping sound and gurgling noise that goes along the clearing of ones clogged ear.

Mature Student Orientation

I went to a Mature Student Orientation at school last night. Nothing terribly exciting happened.

The "real" Orientation Day is on Monday.

The great paper sale of 2008

OK. This may be the lamest post ever. I'm all excited because I bought 1200 sheets of paper. It was on sale. $0.47 for a pack of 200 sheets. I almost bought some at the local pharmacy for almost $3.00 a pack!

There was a limit of 6 per customer, so I bought 6. With taxes, that only cost me $2.82. I might go back for more tomorrow.

Get out of my head!

All weekend, I've been thinking about the stuff I need to get done at work next week. That's never been much of a problem, until now. Now it's a problem because I don't have that job anymore! I'm unemployed! Why am I thinking about a job that I don't have anymore?

I quit you! Why do I still think about you! Leave me alone! I hate you! Get out of my head! LOL...

Work is for weenies. Na na na na na.

End of an era

Yesterday was my last day at work and possibly my last day as a so called IT Professional. It was a bit of an odd day. I mostly cleaned up my desk, read blogs and answered a few questions about this or that.

Someone mentioned to me that it was the end of an era. Everyone who was in the IT Department, when I started, in April 2000 is now gone. I was the last to leave.

OK, now I'm excited

I will be unemployed in 31 minutes!

Last day

This is my last day at work. I thought I would be a bit more excited. Maybe something exciting will happen in the next 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Second last day

Yesterday was my second last day at work. The phrase for the day was, "I do not care". I was saying that a lot yesterday and almost everyone thought it was pretty funny.

I went out with all of my friends, at work, for lunch. The guy who recently got a job someplace else, joined us. Lunch sucked. The service was horrible and the food was crap. In the end, I didn't even get what I ordered because my order was given to someone else. After an hour and a half two people had to leave before the food was served. That was the second worst restaurant experience in my life. There were about 15 tables in the restaurant and only our table was getting shit service. The tip on a $60 bill? 25cents. I've never done that before, but I was pissed!

About 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave work, I ran into an "Oh my god" problem. Something was seriously messed up and it had to be fixed. WTF? Why am I always the one left holding the bag, when things go to shit? Where the hell are the other two guys, who can work on this? I have to catch a train. If I miss my train, I have to wait over 4 hours for the next one. Why am I the only one still in the office, who can look at this? F this! I banged out an email essentially saying, "I can't work on this. This is a serious problem. This is what's wrong. Good luck figuring it out." and went home.

Glenna over at G's spot has been writing recently about "going above and beyond" and then getting screwed over because of it. Glenna, you are not alone.

Immunity

I went to the doctor yesterday. I got my second dose of Hepatitis B vaccine. My blood tests show that I have immunity for Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella (Chicken Pox). I still have to get one more dose of Hepatitis B vaccine in 5 months and then a blood test to prove immunity. Two more needle sticks to go...

Timetable

My Timetable was available on the Student Portal yesterday. A few things about my timetable:

• 9 hours of Anatomy and Physiology every week! I have 3 A&P courses in first semester (regular A&P, cardiovascular A&P and pulmonary A&P). Is the human body really that complicated? (Air goes in. Air goes out. Blood goes round and round. What else does an RT need to know?)
• My earliest classes are at 8AM. I was kind of hoping 9AM. Waking up at 7AM, like a civilized human being!
• My elective is an ethics course. Do not lie, cheat or steal. If you lie cheat or steal, you will be punished.
• If I get an exemption for my ethics elective, my first class on Tuesday will be at 10AM. I don't lie cheat or steal, so I don't need to be taught about that! Sleeping in, until 9AM on Tuesdays!
• My first class on Friday is at 10AM. Sleeping in, until 9AM on Fridays!
• I finish classes on Monday at 11AM. Very Happy to see that. I have some stuff I want to do, in another city, late Monday afternoon.
• My General Therapeutics course has a theory and a lab component.
• The General Therapeutics lab is for 2 hours on Friday. I'm pretty sure that I only have to wear scrubs in the lab, which would mean that I only have to wear scrubs once a week on Friday.
• There seems to be a job shadowing component in the first semester. That appears on my timetable for 4 hours on Thursday. I don't think that it's for 4 hours every Thursday, because I only get 24 credit hours for it. I'm guessing that it will be for 4 hours for 6 weeks.
• Without the job shadowing stuff, I have 22 hours of class and lab.
• My latest classes are finished at 3PM.

Why I'm looking forward to RT School

Freadom over at Respiratory Therapy Cave recently wrote A list of what I like about being an RT, which got me to thinking about why I am looking forward starting RT School.

10 Reasons I'm looking forward to RT School:

1. I can sleep in every day. I won't have to get up at 4:30AM on work days anymore.


2. I don't have to pick up, drop off and pay for dry cleaning any more. No more wearing dress pants, for me.


3. I can be unemployed. It's OK to be unemployed when you're a full time student.


4. I don't have to shine my shoes on a regular basis.


5. I get to buy a stethoscope.


6. I can spend a few years learning some interesting things.


7. I can stop worrying about looking for another IT job.


8. I can start using the, "I can't because I have to study" excuse.


9. I can get to school in less than 10 minutes. It now takes me hours to get to work. I'm not kidding, or exagerating, it takes me over 2 hours to get to work.


10. When I'm finished, I'll be a Respiratory Therapist.

You know you hate your job when...

...you're all happy when you realize that you can be 3 hours late for work on Monday. I have to get my second Hepatitis B shot tomorrow and find out if my blood tests confirm that I have immunity to Measles, Mumps, Rubella and the Chicken Pox.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, a Hepatitis B Vaccination requires three injections over a period of six months...

First semester text books

This is the stack of required text books for the first semester of my Respiratory Therapy Program.

Maybe Monday

When I was at work on Friday, I heard that the Ass clown was talking about me on Thursday. He was trying to figure out if the 8th could be my last day instead of the 15th. He told someone that he would talk to me first thing in the morning about that. I waited all day and he never talked to me. Maybe Monday will be my last day.

1, 2 or 3 more days until I'm unemployed. My last day will be on Monday, Wednesday or maybe Friday next week...

Ass clown

4 more days until I am unemployed. I wish I was a bit more excited. The idea of going to work tomorrow has filled me with dread.

After reading one of EE's posts on Backboards and Bandaids, I now have a new nickname for my boss: Ass clown.

7 ate 9

Stupid song. Make the stupid song get out of my head! Dontchya hate it when a stupd song gets stuck in your brain?

Not what I wanted

My new most favorite TV show is on a Canadian TV channel called CLT (Canadian Learning Television). The TV show is called Situation Critical and it's about the trauma center at Sunybrook Hospital in Toronto. It follows patients and medical professionals as they are dealing with various sorts of traumatic injuries. I've seen about 3 or 4 eisodes so far and I'm quite impressed with how the show has been done. At first I was kind of shocked to see how graphic the program was. I'm actually quite interested in seeing all of the blood and gore, but I'm kind of surprised that it's being shown on a mass market education channel at 9PM on a Sunday night.

Most of the show focuses on the Trauma Doctors when they're treating patients but they do frequently acknowledge the other people who are a part of the trauma team. They did a good segment on the RNs who are a part of the Trauma Team, in a recent episode. As I've been watching the show, I've been trying to identify the RTs that are working in the trauma room and was hoping that they would mention RTs in one of the episodes.

They mentioned an RT in last nights episode, but not in the way that I was hoping for. A 50 year old women was brought in after being ejected from a car during a car accident. She was conscious and was bleeding a lot from a nasty head laceration. She was in a lot of pain and heard one of the Doctors give an order to draw up some Fentanyl. As soon as the Fentanyl was mentioned the patient said something like, "Yes, please, Fentanyl...". The person closest to the patients head found the patients reaction kind of funny and asked her how she knew that word and was told that, "I'm an RT". Everyone stops for a few seconds and the Trauma Surgeon asks her where she works. She works at Mt. Sinai. At that point the narrator dramatically states that, "The patient has just identified herself as a Respiratory Therapist from...Mt. Sinai" and then goes on to refer to her as one of the trauma teams colleagues.

The RT was actually pretty lucky. Other than the head laceration, she had a concussion which seems to have resulted in some minor problems with her memory. A few weeks after the accident, she was talking about how she could find herself sitting at a traffic light and not knowing where she was going.

Crap. That's not what I wanted, when I wanted RTs to be mentioned on that TV show.

Most Children Strongly Opposed To Health Care

Current Student

On Friday I received a big envelope from the college. The envelope contained a student Orientation Guide, Student Enrollment Form and instructions for picking an elective. The Student Enrollment Form shows a status of Enrolled for all of my courses and lists the choices that I have for my elective. All of the instructions in the orientation guide, and on the sheet that explains how to choose my elective, tell me to go to the "Current Student" section of the college web site.

Current Student! Yippee! I feel kind of lame for mentioning it, but I now feel like more of an RT Student than I did on Thursday. When can I start calling myself an RT Student? Now? After the orientation day? When I get my student card? On the first day of classes?

Not interested

I went for a long walk during my lunch, at work, on Friday. I like books and I like wandering around and hanging out in book stores, so I found myself in a bookstore during my walk. Mostly out of habit, I walked over to the computer section and was kind of surprised by something. I had no interest in any of the books. None. I didn't even bother picking up any of the books to take a closer look. I'm starting to have trouble remembering why I was so interested in IT. That's a good thing. I'm really not interested in IT anymore and I'm glad.

A fog of self importance

What's wrong with people #1:

A fog of self importance. That's the best way to describe what's wrong with so many people at work. A lot of people, at work, walk around thinking that they are terribly important. They're so preoccupied with their over inflated sense of self worth that they can't actually see what's going on around them.

6 work days to go.

Books

Yesterday I picked up the last of the books that I'll need for the first semester or Respiratory Therapy School. I only had to pick up one text book and a couple of course note packages. I've already purchased all of the other required texts.

Unfortunately, I didn't have an excuse to buy a stethoscope yet. It wasn't on the book list and I haven't yet seen any indication that it's required for first semester.

When the boss is away...

I only have three more weeks to go at work! My boss will be gone all of next week!

These last few weeks sure are dragging on. Yesterday one of my coworkers had his last day. He was so glad that he was leaving. I was glad he was leaving too. He's a really decent guy and shouldn't have to put up with the BS that my boss has been dishing out.

Approaching unemployment

In a little less than 4 weeks, I'm going to be unemployed. Since I'm going pack to school, I like to job that I'm going to be "gainfully unemployed". Starting on August 16th, I'll be spending money and not earning any. The thought of that has been making me kind of anxious. I've spent most of my adult life working hard and saving money for retirement. The plan was to retire early.

Saving money for retirement and staying out of debt has been so important to me for so long, that I'm having some trouble coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to be unemployed and spending my retirement savings on an education for a new career.

11 more workdays until school starts.

Motivationally Challenged

I have a couple of projects at work that I could tackle today, but I won't. I just don't feel like doing a whole hell of a lot. I used to have a good work ethic. I'm going to spend most of my day, at work today, not working and not feeling guilty about it. I'm not lazy. I'm motivationally challenged...

Fortunately, I have a new blog to read today: The Happenings of Heidi

A couple updates about work:

• The guy whose resume was discovered on Workopolis is going on a couple of good courses next week and is going to be going on to a conference in Las Vegas. If he's smart, he's still looking for a job.
• The guy who handed in his resignation last week is spending the day cleaning out his filing cabinet and training the new guy, who started yesterday. The new guy is essentially a middle manager who will live between my coworkers and my idiot boss.
• The boss is doing performance appraisals this week and everyone seems to be getting good ones. Maybe my boss is worried about more people quitting...

Home Ownership Anniversary

On July 16th, I was a home owner for a whole year! Yipee! I wish I could stop thinking about painting and retiling the damn place. I really can't afford it. I'm only going to be working for a few more weeks and I really wasn't able to save as much money as I wanted.

I am not a criminal

I'm not a criminal and now I can prove it. I have a Police Record Check Report saying that, "Based on the NAME(S) and DATE OF BIRTH provided, a check of the CPIC Identification Data Bank reveals NO RECORD for this individual." I also have nifty little "I am not a criminal" wallet card that I'm supposed to carry around with me.

Workopolis posting

One of my coworkers has his resume posted on Workopolis. It looks like the HR department, at work, has stumbled across his resume and has mentioned it to my boss. All of a sudden, my boss isn't treating my coworker like crap and is promising him a bunch of training and interesting projects to work on.

I quit

I tendered my resignation this morning. My boss sent me an email from the golf course, reminding me that he wanted my resignation letter. I replied with, "It's on your desk.". My last day is August 15th.

Today is a good day. I have literally wanted to quit this job for years.

Joke of the day

Heath care humour at its' best: http://afridgefulloffood.typepad.com/gsspot/2008/07/joke-of-the-day.html

5, 6 or 7?

I'm not sure how many more weeks I'll be working. Is this the first of 5, 6 or 7 more weeks before I'm unemployed? I need to make all the money I can, before school starts, but I really am looking forward to being unemployed and "just going to school".

Resignations

One of the people I work with resigned today. He starts his new job in 3 weeks. He used me as a reference. My old boss is the head hunter, who got him the job.

On Wednesday my boss told me that he wanted me to officially resign from my position, before I started school full time. I was a full time student in 2006. My old boss never wanted me to resign when I became a full time student; he wanted me to work on a casual part time basis. I don't think my new boss likes me :-)

Sharp pointy things

Yesterday I got started on all my vaccinations against nasty stuff and bloodwork to prove immunity to nasty stuff. I had to drink beer all afternoon, to get over the trauma of it all. They kept on stabbing me with sharp pointy things and making me bleed. Bastards.

Beware of people wearing lab coats. They like to stick people with sharp pointy things. They also want your blood for some reason...

Second interview

The guy who "lost it" last Friday, with my boss, might be getting a job offer very soon. He went to a second interview with a potential employer today and I am told that things went very well. I hope he gets the job. He really doesn't deserve the crap that our boss is dishing out to him.

8 weeks to go...

It wasn't me.

I'm not terribly fond of my current boss. Actually, I think he is one of the most dimwitted people that I have ever had the displeasure to work with.

I once went to a 1 hour meeting with him and it took 5 hours! He didn't listen. I kept on repeating myself because he didn't seem to be listening. He kept on talking about the same stuff over and over. 4.5 hours into the meeting, he asked me about why I seemed to be angry! One of the people I work with discovered that you just have to stand up, mumble something about having to go somewhere and then just walk out. It works like a charm. I owe the guy who told me about that little meeting termination strategy, many beers.

I'm going to be finished this job in a little over two months. Everyone I work with was wondering when I was finally going to flip out and lose it on my boss. Yesterday someone beat me to it. I'm told that the guy who lost it actually used phrases like, "Go ahead fire me! Do it! Do it now!", "Let's go over and talk to HR right now and see what they think!"

I only have 66 days to go. A part of me wants to go to war with my boss, but I find myself wondering what that would accomplish. I'm going to be out of this job in a little over 2 months. I have a bit to lose (2 months of pay) and almost nothing to gain.

It wasn't me. It was the other guy. Nobody was expecting that.

How low can it go?

Morale at work is at an all time low and getting worse. Is there a limit to how demoralized an incompetent Manager's staff can get? The morale of my coworkers seems to be getting lower and lower without any bottom in sight. I don't really take work too seriously these days, because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll walk out of the tunnel at the end of August.

I feel pretty bad for the people I will leave behind. My boss is a truly stupid man. I'm not trying to be insulting, he really is lacking in intelligence. He often leaves his staff dumbfounded by the depths of his stupidity. You can talk with the guy for an hour and be assured that everything you said was ignored and or not understood because he just wasn't listening or didn't know what you were talking about. A 10 minute discussion can turn into an hour long meeting, where he just babbles on about things that he doesn't understand. He seems to have built a career on bullshit and it sure does stink.

The scenic route

I've spent the last few weeks exploring hiking trails in my neighbourhood. If I walk to school from my place, and decide to take the scenic route, I can get half way their by going through hiking trails.

This is the scenic route to school.


This is Jimmy the frog. I met him while taking the scenic route this morning. He may look small, but he's a bad ass. I outweigh Jimmy by at least 215lbs and he isn't scared of me.

Damn it

Damn it, I just called the number. I don't know why. I just couldn't help myself. It had a recorded message. I got bored with it after about 30 seconds. Give the number a call and Fred will tell you everything you need to know. Let me know how it works out...

Stupid Sign

I took a picture of this sign a few weeks ago, with my camera phone, and forgot about it. I don't believe it and I won't call.

Soon to be poor student

I've been taking a closer look at my finances. I may not actually have enough money saved up to be an unemployed student. I might actually have to get a part time job when I'm in school :-( I might be able to be unemployed for the first semester, but probably have to get some kind of a job during second semester. I will most definitely be looking for a summer job. I was sort of considering the possibility of taking some courses in the summer, next year, but that's not looking to likely at the moment.

I'm actually thinking about updating my resume. That's pretty damn depressing. I haven't felt the need to do that for a few years.

Pre program requirements

The college sent me some paper work on Monday. The paper work is mostly for a criminal record check and immunization requirements. There was also mention of a CPR and First Aid course requirement, which I have already met.

The application for my criminal record check is in the mail and should be processed within four weeks. I was expecting the criminal record check to involve a trip to a police station. All I had to do was fill in a form and mail it in.

I'm now working on completing the immunization requirements. I have to get vaccinated for a couple of things and get blood work to confirm that I have immunity for a few other things. The Hepatitis B vaccination looks like it will be a bit of a hassle. The Hep B vaccination involves 3 shots and then a blood test to confirm immunity.

Scrubs

Breathing Through School recently wrote about scrubs and I started wondering about the scrubs that I would have to wear, when I start my clinicals in the summer of 2011. Yestrday I found out that I have to wear red scrubs, when I'm doing my clinicals. I guess I have to wear red so that I'm easy to identify in a crowd. "He did it! The guy in the red scrubs! Get him!"

No turning back now

I guess there's no turning back now. I've paid my student fees for the 2008/2009 school year.

My begging for money efforts, at the bank, have been successfull.

Hello Mrs. Banker. How are you doing? I'm going to quit my job and go back to school. Can I borrow some money? Gee thanks. Where do I sign?

One of the benefits of always paying your bills on time and not carrying a balance on any of your credit cards: A kick ass credit rating.

Proof that I'm irreplaceable at work

After hours tech support guy called my cell phone a few hours ago. I was feeling a bit snarky, so I didn't answer the phone. If he's bugging me after hours about work stuff, and it's important, he'll leave a message. If it's not important or he can actually figure it out on his own, he should hang up the phone and try to figure it out on his own! Better yet, if it's not important he shouldn't even freaking call me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The IT people at work really should be able to do things for themselves! He called back a few minutes later and left a voice mail. The Internet connection for a branch office was down and he didn't know how to contact the Internet Service Provider for that office. He knew who the Internet Service Provider was, but didn't know how to contact their tech support. I didn't know either, so I actually looked it up in our list of support contacts. Everyone in my IT department knows about that list of support contacts! After hours tech support guy has a copy of those contacts on his Blackberry. Sheesh.

My apologies for the gratuitous use of exclamation marks!

Student Line of Credit

After getting my student fees invoice yesterday, I decided to go to the bank and apply for a student line of credit. A student line of credit is different from a regular line of credit in that you only have to pay interest, while you are a full time student. With a student line of credit, you don't actually have to pay back any borrowed money until six months after finishing school. I already have a line of credit that I could use for school, but I would have to pay back principle in addition to interest if I used it.

The person at the bank had a hell of a time trying to put my application into the computer. At one point she actually said, "you don't fit into any of the boxes". Apparently most people who apply for a student line of credit still live with their parents, have their parents cosign, don't have a mortgage, haven't been working for 12 years and don't have any retirement savings...

I used to think that I would borrow some money from my retirement savings plan to pay for school. Now I'm thinking that borrowing money from the bank is a better way to go. I already borrowed money from my retirement savings plan for the down payment on my condo.

Student Fees Invoice

I received my student fees invoice yesterday. Almost a third of the amount due, isn't for tuition! In addition to tuition I also get to pay for the following:

• Technology Enhancement Fee
• Health Plan Fee
• Recreation/Athletics Fee
• Capital Development Fee
• Student Association Fee
• Student Priority Fee
• Administration Fee
• Graduation/Alumni Services Fee
• A fee for a six letter acronym. (I'm not putting the acronym on this list, because it can probably be used to identify my school - I'm still trying to remain anonymous)

The financial realities of going back to school have now fully sunk in. So much so, that I actually went to the bank today to beg for some money. I'll get into that in my next post.

I got tired of doing the math, to figure out how many days till school starts. I now have a nifty little count down counter at the top right hand corner of my blog.

Not happy enough

I got in trouble at work yesterday. Apparently, I'm not happy enough.

My boss keeps on asking me how I'm doing and it's getting annoying. When he asks me how I'm doing, sometimes he does it with an over the top kind of manic happiness that creeps me out. Yesterday I told him that, "I'm fine." and he actually told me that being fine wasn't good enough and that I can do better than that. WTF!? Am I supposed to pretend that I'm REALLY, REALLY HAPPY whenever he asks me how I'm doing? Maybe I should just be really, really happy for no reason at all. Anybody know where I can buy a do it yourself frontal lobotomy kit?

I don't need to know why

Yesterday, while I was on the train, I decided to do some writing. I found myself trying to explain, on paper, why I was changing careers. Why I was giving up a successful IT career, so that I could start over as a Respiratory Therapist. I've been trying to explain that one to people, and to myself, for quite a while. I think I may even have done a post, or two, on this blog about why I'm changing careers. I figured out something yesterday. I don't really know why I'm changing careers.

Every time I try to explain why I'm changing careers, I can't really explain it properly. Everything I say, or write, seems like a rationalization, justification or defence for what I am doing. The plain simple truth is that, I don't truly know why I'm doing this. For some reason I thought that I actually had to have a good reason. I don't have a good reason and I don't need one.

I'm doing this because I want to and because I can. I don't need to know why and neither does anyone else.

Paranoia

I've been paranoid about something going wrong. Something going wrong with my plan to go back to school.

Yesterday I logged into the college's student portal and discovered that there is now a Respiratory Therapy section on my grades page. In the past, the only thing on my grades page was the CPR/First Aid course that I took in January.

Paranoia better now.

Mostly just waiting

I've been thinking recently, that I should post something on my blog. To be perfectly honest, I don't have much to post about. I'm mostly just waiting.

Just waiting for my tuition invoice to show up. Just waiting for school to start. Just waiting for my summer job to finish up.

102 days until school starts.

Summer job looking better

The budget just got approved at work, so I should be pretty busy until school starts.  It looks like I'll be working more hours every week, which means a bit more money for the going back to school fund.  I've also got some reasonably interesting and challenging things to work on, which will hopefully make it easier to ignore the things about work that I don't like.

Usually if I'm crazy busy, and am doing something that's considered important, everyone just leaves me alone and just lets me do what needs to be done.

School starts in 112 days.

References

Over the years I have been asked if I can be used as a reference, when someone is looking for a job. I have never refused. People who ask, always seem to know that I think well of them.

Yesterday evening I heard my cell phone ringing and couldn't find the damn thing, before it went to voice mail. When I listened to the voice mail I discovered that it was someone asking me if I could be used as a reference during a job search.

I couldn't believe it. The arrogant, condescending, unhelpful guy, who was always taking fake sick days, was asking me to act as a reference! This is the guy who got fired a few weeks ago from my current work place. I was stunned and also more than a little bit pissed off. What planet is this guy living on? I can't be a reference for that guy. I don't really have anything nice to say about the guy and if the person doing a reference check starts fishing for "problems" there will be many for us to talk about. I know the guy too well and can't give him a good reference. I would have to lie like crazy to be a good reference. What the hell was he thinking when he called me?

I'm just not going to call him back. If I ever end up talking to him, despite my best efforts not to, I will just tell him that I'm not comfortable being a reference for him. If he asks me why, then I'll have to tear into him.

My summer job

I now have a summer job. It's going to be over at the end of August and then I can be a full time unemployed student! My summer job is a lot like my other job, because technically it's the same job. Now that my job is just a "summer job", it's a lot less unlikeable. My summer job is kind of a joke and that's OK because it's just a summer job...

Stress Management

Back in the beginning of February the college sent me a letter congratulating me on my acceptance to the Respiratory Therapy program. Along with the letter was a confirmation form that I had to send back to the college. The form indicated my intention to start the program in September. There was a May 1st deadline associated with the form, so I've been getting a little bit stressed by the fact that the college didn't send me anything acknowledging that they had received the form. Did they get the form? Did I get screwed by Canada Post or some kind of a clerical error at the college.

I sent the Registrar an email on Sunday asking for a confirmation of my status. This afternoon, l still hadn't received a response to that email, so I went to the college to find out what my status was.

What a relief. Everything's fine. I am confirmed and I was given a status of confirmed on February 25th. This has been bugging me for quite a while, I should have enquired about it a lot sooner.

Here comes the sun

OK. I don't think it's going to snow again. That was a long hard winter.

Some signs of spring, and the fast approaching summer, in my neighbourhood:

Damn college kids :-)

Oops

Yesterday at 4AM, I decided to get some work done. I decided to apply some patches to a couple of servers, at work, that needed some patching. Unfortunately I accidentally logged into our mail server and started patching it. One of the patches required a reboot, so I did the reboot. Actually I tried to do a reboot. It didn't work out so well.

The server didn't come back up. I was in a different city and couldn't go in to take care of that fact. After 45 min of desperate hoping, I decided that I had to get someone to go into the office to see what's going on. I called a coworker who lives close to work and got him to go into the office to see what was up with the server not coming back up.

When he got to the server he gave me a call and told me that the server was stuck in a part of the POST (Power On Self Test). There was a message at the bottom of the screen that contained the phrase "...press F2 to continue." I hate that. When you reboot a server it should just boot up normally. It shouldn't ask you any stupid "are you sure" questions. My coworker pressed F2 and then the server came back up.

Unfortunately, after the server came back up it wasn't accepting mail from the Internet. After about an hour of testing and coaxing, I finally got the damn thing to behave the way it's supposed to.

Oops. Doing something on the wrong server is a bad thing. Rebooting the wrong server and then not having it come back up, on its own, is an even worse bad thing.

I hate computers.

I say that at work a lot. People think I'm joking.

I know what's wrong (with everything)

I just had a revelation. I know what's wrong (with everything). Smooth talking weasels. If somethings seriously messed up and "that's just the way it is" there's a smooth talking weasel someplace, who's responsible.

If a smooth talking weasel suffers from some sort of "unfortunate incident" and I'm somehow responsible for it, I'm wondering if I can use something that I would like to call "the smooth talking weasel defence".

Me: "Your honour, I had something to do with that unfortunate incident. He was a smooth talking weasel and he had it coming."

The judge: "OK. You're free to go."

Me: "Do you validate parking?"

Very stupid and funny

Very stupid. Maybe I shouldn't find this funny, but I do.

Arterial Blood Gas Sampling

I was talking about donating blood today, so I started thinking about Arterial Blood Gas Sampling and the fact that that will be part of my job as an RT. This is a video about taking an Arterial Blood Gas Sample.

I don't have to

Why are all my coworkers demoralized at work, when I'm not? I've been trying to figure that out for a while now. I tried to convince myself that "I don't care", but that's not really the case. If I find myself unemployed, between now and September, that definitely would be a financial hardship. A financial hardship, that would be best avoided. I also have a great deal 0f sympathy for my coworkers who are becoming increasingly demoralized and almost despondent, about their workplace, so "I don't care" isn't exactly honest.

I woke up yesterday morning with one thought on my mind. I DON'T HAVE TO.

I don't have to have a job. I don't have to put up with any crap at work. I don't have to get pissed off at work or about work. I can get by. I can dig a little bit deeper into my retirement savings and get by. I don't have to quit my job because I can stick it out for a few more months and save some more money for school.

Wrong answers

Until recently, whenever I was asked family history questions by a Doctor, I was giving the wrong answers.

There is a history of Diabetes in my family. There is a history of Heart Disease in my family. There is a history of high blood pressure in my family.

According to the BMI (Body Mass Index), I'm about 30lbs. over weight. I currently weigh about 220lbs. According to the BMI, I should weigh about 190lbs! 190lbs. doesn't seem reasonable for someone my size. I think a weight of 200lbs would be more sensible. I'm going to try to lose about 20lbs. in the next 5 months.

No crazy diets for me. Lots of long walks and a bunch of healthy eating should do the trick. The biggest challenge will be, the eating out for lunch, when I'm at work. Restaurant food just isn't very healthy...

Spring is here

Window wide open.
Lying on the couch.
Listening to the birds.
Falling asleep.
Spring is here.

More changes at work

Almost everyone in my department, is now looking for a job. My new boss isn't making much of an impression on my coworkers. My old boss is now an IT head hunter.

My least favourite person at work, got fired last week. His replacement started a day later. A couple of people, in my department, are convinced that they will lose their jobs.

I'm mostly just waiting for school to start. School starts in 147 days...

Working on Sunday

I have to replace a piece of faulty network equipment at 9PM tonight. My boss has agreed that the firm will put me up in a local hotel tonight, after I replace the equipment. There's a nice little boutique hotel around the corner from my office, so I'll be staying there.

The commute back and forth from work and home seemed pretty unreasonable, for today, given the fact that I will only be working for about an hour today. I'll stay in the hotel tonight come into work tomorrow and then take the train home after work.

I've been in the big city since 11Am. I've been wandering around the big city hanging out in book stores and doing some writing to pass the time. I think I'll go check into the hotel in a few minutes, watch some TV and then take a nap. I'll be back in the office at about 8:30, so that I can replace the network equipment at about 9PM.

I can sleep in a couple of hours tomorrow and still be in the office at around 8AM. I'm really looking forward to the extra sleep.

Maybe I should learn how to write

I'm not very happy with the quality of my writing, so I think I'm going to spend some time figuring out how to improve my writing. My knowledge of grammar is almost completely intuitive. I need to learn some of the rules and how to apply them.

I actually have several books dealing with the topics of grammar and writing. Funny thing about those books, I don't actually remember buying them. (Was that last sentence actually a real sentence or is it some kind of a grammatical abomination that should be destroyed for the good of the blogosphere?)

I used blogosphere in a sentence for the first time! Aren't I special?

Craniorectal Anastamosis

Craniorectal Anastamosis.

I've been laughing about that one for a couple of weeks now.

"I think you might have Craniorectal Anastamosis. It's a disorder that the medical community is only now starting to understand. You should go and see your doctor... If your doctor doesn't take you seriously, find another doctor and insist that you be tested for the disorder..."

"Some studies have shown that a sharp blow to the base of the skull, with a heavy blunt object, can be used as an effective treatment for the disorder. Hold still, this won't hurt for long..."

This Winter

This Winter has been pretty yucky. I was planning on doing a post on how yucky it was and then I saw a sign across the street, from the office building where I work. That sign pretty much sums up this winter.

Vocal chords doing what they do

If you ever wondered what vocal chords look like, when they're used to generate sounds:

I hate the bus

On Monday, I started taking a VIA Rail train from my home city to the big city I work in. Luxury. Absolute Luxury. Big ass reclining seats, a free newspaper and a guy who comes around and asks me if I want a coffee. Taking the train is much more civilized than taking the bus.

This morning I got to the train station, in my home city, only to find out that the train I was planning on taking was cancelled. The train was cancelled, because there was a freight train derailment on the way to the big city. No problem I thought. I can walk to the bus station and grab a bus to the big city.

When I got to the bus station a boarding announcement was made. I watched people board the bus. I started thinking that I should board the bus. My feet wouldn't move. I started to feel sick. Then I started to get angry. Then I started to think about the $100+ worth of commuter bus tickets that I had in my coat pocket. Those tickets will eventually expire and be worthless.

Freaking bus. I hate the freaking bus. I'm not taking the freaking bus. I'm going home. Maybe I can start a fire with all of those commuter tickets. Maybe I can start a fire with all those commuter tickets on the bus.

No more commuting by bus for me!

My trip home on Friday, by bus, from work took over four hours. That trip should only take about an hour and a half. There was some snow and a lot of stupid people driving on the road, so the trip home was quite the ordeal.

There was an idiot beside me who decided to turn up the volume on his headphones, so that everyone on the bus could listen to his shitty, "I'm a bad ass, POS, drug dealing, gangster with lots of bling bling" music. I wasn't sure if saying something to the guy was a good idea, so I didn't. I could very easily have gotten into a fist fight with the guy, if he said something stupid, after I asked him to turn down his music.

Fist fight on a 4 hour bus ride = Something to avoid

There's now a commuter train service, that I can use, between my home city and the big city where I still work. The train station in my home city is a little bit farther than the commuter bus station and the train station in the big city is a 10 minute walk from work. No more traffic and no more idiot drivers to get in my way, on the way to work! I start commuting by train tomorrow.

184 days till school starts (not that I'm counting or anything).

That's a good idea

Breathingthroughschool recently told that my blog has been put on the Breathingthroughschool blog roll. I was just over there reading some older posts and happened to take a look at the blog roll. The blog roll has my blog listed as "RT Scribe", instead of "Respiratory Therapy Student".

There's another blog out there that's called Respiratory Therapy Student Blog. My blog's called Respiratory Therapy Student. Those two names are just too damn similar. I've been thinking that one of the blogs needs to have a name change. I'm going to change the name of my blog to "RT Scribe". The url will remain the same and will still be http://rtscribe.blogspot.com

I don't have Respiratory Therapy Student Blog listed in my blog roll because the lack of correct spelling, punctuation and grammar pisses me off. I'm not a literary genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I do use spell check and "sort of" use good grammar and punctuation.

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Sung to Rockstar by Nickelback

This is bad. Really bad. So bad it's funny. Really funny.

Pandemic Ventilator Project

If you ever wondered if you could build a ventilator in your basement, if you really had to, take a look at the Pandemic Ventilator Project.

Working more

It looks like I'll be working at least 4 days a week until I start school. My boss has decided that I should be responsible for resolving some intransigent problems that haven't been addressed properly. The problems are technical ones that have lasted for months or years and really haven't been tackled with any seriousness. I started working on two of those problems last week and I'm almost finished with one of them. I must admit that I really liked work last week.

I suspect that I could be working full time hours, until school starts, but would like to avoid doing that. On Wednesdays I end up sticking around in the big city and don't start the homeward commute, to the little city, until 11:30PM. On Wednesday evenings, I usually get home at about 2AM. The prospect of getting 2.5 hours of sleep and then starting a 4:30AM commute to work, on Thursday mornings, doesn't appeal to me.

My savings for school have been diminished quite a bit, so working more should be a good thing as far as my finances are concerned.

School starts in 192 days...

It's about time

I've finally gotten a copy of EGAN'S Fundamentals of Respiratory Care. I've been coveting that book for quite a while. The ninth edition just came out this month. That's now my favorite book. I was pleasantly surprised by what was discussed in the first five chapters of the book. I was expecting applied Anatomy and Physiology in the first few chapters. Applied Anatomy and Physiology doesn't start until chapter 8.


These are the Titles for the first 5 chapters of EGAN'S Fundamentals of Respiratory Care (Ninth Edition):

Chapter 1: History of Respiratory Care
Chapter 2: Quality and Evidence-Based Respiratory Care
Chapter 3: Patient Safety, Communication and Recordkeeping
Chapter 4: Principles of Infection Control
Chapter 5: Ethical and Legal Implcations of Practice


Those chapters clarified a few things, for me, that I thought I was going to have to ask an RT about.

Why I hate you

If you live in a place that doesn't get cold or have snow, I hate you. I have many reasons to hate you.

This is why I hate you when I'm at my bus stop at 5:45AM:

This is why I hate you, when I'm walking to someone's apartment after work:

When I go for a walk, and I get caught in a snow storm, this is why I hate you:

A watch I don't hate

I generally hate wearing watches. In the past when I've tried to wear a watch, I found that I was constantly taking it off and putting it down somewhere. Unfortunately, when I put the watch down I could never remember where I put it. So, like most people these days, I haven't regularly worn a watch for several years because I use my cell phone to keep track of the time.

A few months ago, I decided that I should get used to wearing a watch. As an RT student, and eventually an RT, wearing a watch could come in handy when I'm trying to measure someone’s pulse or respiration rate.

My efforts to train myself to wear a watch haven't been working to well until recently. Things finally changed, when I took a hammer to one of my watches.

The watch that I was trying to get used to wearing fell on the floor one day and the back came off of it. I couldn't quite figure out how to get the back of the watch back onto the watch, so I thought that I would give it a few taps with a hammer. Unfortunately, for my watch, I started to get a little frustrated and started pounding on the damn thing until I broke it real good. I also discovered that taking a hammer to something, while it's on a ceramic tile floor, is also not a good idea. Ceramic tile can, and will, chip when hit with a hammer.

A few days after my watch got hammered, I went over to the local pharmacy and bought a cheap Timex. I'm quite pleased with the watch, because I don't detest wearing it. I actually have trouble remembering to take it off, before I go to bed at night. I try to avoid wearing a watch when I'm sleeping, because I will invariably smack myself in the face with it. I think it's the watch's wristband that makes all of the difference. It's not metal and it's not leather, which seems to make it less objectionable on my wrist.

My new watch:

Maybe he's not an idiot

I pride myself on my ability to change my mind...

I may have formed a negative opinion of my new boss prematurely. I had a long talk with him yesterday and he doesn't seem nearly as clueless as I thought. I'm going to delete my "My new boss is an idiot" post, because it's probably just a spitefull baseless rant that doesn't have any value.

Trauma Bag

The bag part of my Trauma Bag arrived today. I was starting to think that it was lost in the mail. I just finished stuffing it, with First Aid supplies.

A new attitude at work

Shut up and keep your head down.

If I remain inconspicuous and don't call attention to myself, I might just have a job until school starts.

Job turning to crap?

Most of the people I work with are quite perturbed about the "replacement" of my boss. A couple of people I work with are thinking that they will probably be "replaced" very soon. Given my plans to start school in September, I'm not overly concerned about losing my job. I am a bit concerned about the prospect of not having any money coming in for several months, while I'm waiting for school to start. I also don't want to look for another IT job. I would rather be unemployed, if I can do that without enduring much of a financial hardship.

I'm going to be starting school in about 7 months. I'm wondering about what type of severance I would be entitled to, if I lose my job. If I get fired tomorrow would I get enough money, in my severance package, to get me through the next 7 months? Would I actually have any money left over when school starts? Am I going to be left as the last man standing in August, after everyone else has either quit or been fired?

I met my new boss on Friday. He seems like a decent guy, but given the situation, I don't know if he can be trusted.

The only person not upset by the current situation is a lazy, brown nosing , ass-kissing weazel. That guy's already doing some hard core schmoozing of the new boss.

CPR Protective Barrier Devices

Ever since I took that CPR course, I've been interested in getting some kind of CPR Protective Barrier Device, that is easy to carry around. If I'm ever in a position of giving someone CPR, I don't want to be worrying about getting any nasty diseases.

After looking around for ages, I finally found and purchased a couple of barriers that are small enough to fit into a pocket. One of them is even small enough to fit into my wallet.

They're both made by a company called O-Two Medical Technologies. The one that can fit into my wallet is called a Revive-Aid®. The one that can't fit into my wallet, because it has a one way valve on it, is called Bio-Barrier®. Information about both products can be found here: http://www.otwo.com/prod_cpr.htm

I ordered 4 Bio-Barriers and 2 Revive-Aids, and a Laerdal Pocket Mask, from a company called Access Medical. I have a Bio-Barrier in my wallet. I have a Bio-Barrier and a Revive-Aid in one of my coat pockets.

Maybe I do need a trauma bag

After taking that First Aid and CPR course, I decided that I would put together a trauma bag. A trauma bag is just a very good first aid kit, that is more suited towards providing treatment for serious injuries. As far as I'm concerned, a typical first aid kit is suitable for injuries that are in the "boo boo" category. For serious "holy crap that's a lot of blood" injuries, you need a trauma bag. My trauma bag is basically going to be a very well stocked first aid kit with some extra stuff for protecting myself if I give CPR to someone.

My trauma bag is getting kind of expensive. Yesterday I was thinking that I was maybe getting a bit carried away. So far I've invested about $220.00 into the trauma bag.

Yesterday morning, I walked out of the front door of my building and was met by a distraught wild eyed woman who was saying something about a guy hanging out of a window and police being all over the place. She really didn't make much sense and I just made a funny face and mentioned something about "That being scary" and then proceeded on my way to the super market.

While I was still wondering about the mental status of the woman, I saw the police cars parked in front of the building next door. I also saw the police officer looking up, about 12 storeys, at a person whose legs were hanging precariously out of a window. The police officer was repeatedly yelling at the person hanging out of the window and telling him that he should get inside so that they could talk. I really didn't want to watch because it really did look like the person could let go and plummet to an almost certain death. I'm not very sensitive, when it comes to blood and gore, but I'm definitely not one of "those people" who finds people getting hurt entertaining. I also have some problems with the sound of breaking bones. That sound is something I try to avoid hearing. I also thought that I wouldn't really be able to do anything that the police couldn't do themselves and I didn't want to become part of a crowd control issue.

As I continued on my way, I was wondering why there wasn't an ambulance anywhere to be seen. As I turned a corner I saw a couple more police cars that were blocking traffic. As I turned the next corner, I saw an ambulance parked on the side of the road with its engine running. Maybe keeping an ambulance out of sight, from a possible jumper, is a good idea.

Maybe me having a trauma bag, is also a good idea.

Changes at Work

My boss at work is now "seeking other career opportunities". His replacement should start work in about a week. It looks like someone else's head might be on the chopping block, as well. I'm kind of wondering how long I'll want and or have this job. Will I quit or get fired before I start school?

There's a pretty good chance that my work environment will turn to crap fairly quickly. Only time will tell. I'm not too personally involved in my workplace anymore, so this whole situation isn't really stressing me out the way that it is others.

I do my job and get paid. Very mercantile. Very unstressful.

Messing with my blog

I've been meaning to update my blog a bit. I'm going to start doing that today. I hope I don't mess anything up.

AED Demo

This is an online demo of an AED: Philips Heart Start FR2+ Defibrillator

That's the model that I was trained on during my course last weekend.

All is in order

Someone from the College Registrar's office left me a voice mail, on Monday, to let me know that my letter was received and that everything was in order.

AED use and the law

I actually found the legislation, for my legal jurisdiction, that applies to the use of an AED outside of a health care setting. The legislation says that a person "...who, in good faith, voluntarily and without reasonable expectation of compensation or reward uses a defibrillator on a person experiencing an emergency is not liable for damages that result from the person’s negligence in acting or failing to act while using the defibrillator, unless it is established that the damages were caused by the gross negligence of the person.". The legislation came into force in July 2007.

Letter of intent

Earlier this week, I sent a letter to the College stating, "...that I intend to start the Respiratory Therapy Program, in September 2008, as per the conditions of the admission deferral I was granted in 2007." I sent the letter through registered mail, so I know that it was received on January 9th.

Yes, I can use an AED

According to the instructors, who taught me CPR today, I can use a publicly accessible AED.

A Laerdal® AED Trainer 2 was used for teaching us how to use a Heartstart® FR2 Automated External Defibrillator. We were told that all of the popular AEDs were as easy to use as the Heartstart FR2. I shouold be able to use any AED that I have access to during a cardiac emergency.

The fire department in my region uses the Heartstart® FR2 Automated External Defibrillator .

First Aid and CPR/AED Course

Today, I finished the first day of a two day CPR and First Aid course. It's called "Red Cross Standard First Aid and CPR/AED-HCP". Taking the course is a prerequisite for the Respiratory Therapy program, that I'll be starting in September. It's also satisfies the First Aid and CPR certification requirements that health care professionals need.

We did the First Aid portion today and will do the CPR/AED portion tomorrow. I'm really wondering about the legal issues associated with the use of AEDs in my area. After I finish the course, am I legally allowed to use an AED on someone?

Today the course was taught by two people, one is a Paramedic and the other is a Fire Fighter.

I think the second day will be a bit harder. I'm looking forward to it.

Didn't go home last night

I was in the office till midnight last night. The last bus home was at 11:30. I stayed overnight in a hotel and just got back into work. I worked for 14.5 hours last night. I think I'm only going to work for an hour today, before I go home.

Working late

I volunteered to stay late at work today, so that I could help get our phone system back up and running. Everyone was shocked at how eagerly offered to stay late. I haven't done that in a couple of years. Usually I get out of here as soon as I put in my time.

I work. I get paid. Very mercantile. Completely stress free.

Our phone system has been out of commission all day. I get paid by the hour. I wonder how many more hours this will take.

8 months till school starts. I'm working late because I need the money for school.

Commuting to work

I've been commuting to work for just over four months now. On days that I work in the big city, I spend at least 4.5 hours sitting on a bus getting to work and back. That amount of commuting did take some getting used to. I'm glad that I usually only do that for three days every week.

I've found that if I bring a couple of books and my iPod, I can either sleep or keep myself busy while travelling. One of the books is for studying, the other book is for enjoying. The iPod is nice, because there's a big city news Video Pod Cast that I can watch while travelling. If I can watch the news on my iPod I don't have much of a desire to watch the news at 11PM.

9 months till school starts.