Saturday, August 25, 2007

Why Blog If You Can't Bitch?

Friday:

I've been trying to convince a patient to go to the hospital, but my efforts have been futile. She continued to deteriorate and the cops picked her up, but she hadn't been EDed yet. Also, there were cookies in the break room, and I was starving, but I had fasting labs and I got no oatmeal-raisiny satisfaction.

My doctor's appointment began with a family history questionnaire. Basically, my answers went like this: cancer, depression, cancer, diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, cancer, stroke, cancer, and hypothyroidism. I can guess what is going to be the death of me. I would bet a million dollars that I die of cancer, except to claim it I'd have to die, and how am I supposed to spend it on penny whistles and moon pies then? Fortunately, I had a pap smear to look forward to. My doctor turned out to be super good at it, way better than those other 4 ladies who have scraped my cervix, but then I had a 45 minute wait for my blood test. On the bright side, it gave me a chance to catch up on crappy news shows and strangers trying to tell me about their medical problems. The phlebotomist was decent, but she kept asking me, Do you bruise easily? Do you take aspirin? Are you on Coumadin? Your veins turn black and blue so easily! These questions are not welcome considering mom has a platelet disorder.

So then my friend that was supposed to meet me for lunch completely flaked out. I went ahead and tried to sign up for my chemistry class, but it was full, natch. So I had to go to the registrar, and I had no idea where the registrar was. A phone call to VBG straightened things out. So the registrar told me to go petition the chemistry teacher. When I found the chemistry department, the teacher turned out to be very helpful. His computer, however, was not. Fast forward twenty minutes to the registrar, and things worked out great until she actually tried to schedule me. Computer sez I need prerequisite classes and I have to go to the back of the bus. Since I had the teacher's permission, that didn't matter to anyone except the computer. The chemistry department secretary merely had to be reached by phone, tell the computer to shut the hell up and accept me, and then the registrar could schedule me. I didn't mind the wait, but the 26 people behind me in line seemed to. My karma instantly caught up with me at the college bookstore, where the purchase before me involved 4 people, one credit card, a confused cashier, and merchandise with tags but no prices listed in the computer. Then I got to cough up $211 for one textbook, which is almost exactly the amount of money direct deposited into my personal checking account every two weeks.

This class is not through the community college I attended this summer, it's through the city's public university. Since signing up for my chem class took 2 hours, I figured it would be nice to visit the community college and sign up for my physics class I plan to take in the spring. Guess what? They won't let me. Why? Because I need to take trigonometry first. And? I haven't taken anything resembling trig since high school, when it was hybridized with some other math and called pre-calculus. This is when I almost cried in the registrar's office, and I HATE crying in front of people. The public university also required trig to take physics. The private university did not, but the classes were only in the morning, when I have to work. I found 3 online trig classes through the community college, but they had all been cancelled. My only option is to petition the trig teacher this week, so I can take physics in the spring. I have to petition because classes have already started. There are only so many night classes offered for the courses I need, and if I can't stay on schedule I'll have to wait another year to apply for grad school.

I stopped by mom and dad's on the way home, and they are always happy to see me, which is self-esteem boosting. Plus, there was homemade banana cake with chocolate icing to steal. The day basically stopped sucking after 5pm, but BOY did it suck. I have to keep reminding myself that someday I won't have to take stupid classes, someday I will actually reach my goal and it will seem so much sweeter after so much bitterness.

Right?

1 comment:

rabidmonkey said...

if only you could take physics for non-science majors. not only does it have no prereques, i missed half the class periods and a fair bit of the homework, but i still got a high B. in some ways it was more simplified that the physics i took when i was 15, although it did not involve strips of blue ticker tape in any way, which was hugely different.