Beth's Contradictory Brain

How Work Goes

Work has been interesting this week. I've felt like I've been thrown to the wolves a lot! I've been at the uptown hospital where the job includes working in the lab as well as drawing from patients. What's neat is that everyone takes turns rotating between working in the front (drawing) and the back (the lab).

Now, while I learned a lot in the class I took, I didn't really learn much about the lab part - processing the bloodwork. Tuesday was my first day of training in the back. Then I show up Wednesday for work only to find out that for some reason (I think someone called in) I was the only one working in the back that morning. Now, there are several Med Techs that work in the back who are very knowledgeable and mostly helpful, but still... it was a bit nervewracking. Then yesterday I worked the later shift up front and again was left up there to work alone for the last three hours.

I figure I'm at about 70% when it comes to really being proficient in both jobs, front and back. There are so many little details about paperwork, which tests are being ordered, or what colored tube to draw the blood in that I need to learn more about up front, and in back it's a question of which tubes require special handling.

One thing I didn't anticipate in this job was that there aren't more stringent black and white standards on some things. Like if we're drawing blood for TSH levels does it go in a plain red tube or a red tube with gel? Well, that depends on which Tech you ask. I don't like that. I know the stakes are high for getting the tests results right, and the last thing I want is for a patient to have to come back in to re-draw their blood because one tube was drawn instead of the other. That happens, but not very often. I think the cause for patients having to come back in most often is that a test required X amount of blood in the tube, and the phlebotomist just wasn't able to get that much for whatever reason.

One thing I can tell you, even though you'll never see the people who work in the lab who process everything, they are concerned about the patients whose tests they're running.

Good Listening

I used to go hear Ginger and Sarah play all the time in Austin. I actually heard them the first night they ever played together - doing a round-robin kinda thing with two other female singers. They're both so dynamic and talented and have amazing voices.

Then they went their own ways and Sarah moved out to LA to be close to the ocean. I've missed hearing/seeing her play. I've got their cds, both as a duo and as individual artists on the iPod. Sarah's music always fills me with happiness, sadness, and longing.

So I was happy to see on her website (linked above) that her new cd is out. I highly recommend checking it out!!

Birthday Weekend

Happy Birthday to Nerdstar and I. I really like that our birthdays are a day apart, hers was yesterday, mine is tomorrow. She gets older before I do!

I can't say it was our best birthdays, but it hasn't been too bad. We're pretty determined to not spend our next birthdays in KC.

Friday night I came home from work and just couldn't stay awake. So it was a pretty dull evening. Saturday we went and had a good breakfast, then spent the day tooling around a lot of different stores and not spending money. We keep looking at lcd/plasma tvs and speakers for the iPod, but just can't spend the $$.

I kinda dropped the ball this year and didn't get Nerdstar any cool gifts. (I did get her a great t-shirt for Valentine's day - and our anniversary is next month.) But I did know just where to take her for dinner. So we had a nice dinner out.

Today we had to do laundry, but that was ok. Then we went to one of my favorite restaurants and then to Cheesecake Factory to get some cheesecake to bring home. Then we tried our luck at the casino - but had only bad luck. Oh well.

Like Nerdstar says, it's good enough that we're together and healthy!!

Heh

Dueling billboards. More importantly, free speech wins!

No sense of proportion

One type of patient I get to see is pregnant girls (as in under 25). I don't see as many uptown as downtown, downtown has a pre-natal clinic once a week and that lab does all their bloodwork.

It makes me laugh a little when they're all upset about the needle and the blood draw. I mean, if you're pregnant, then the needle is going to be one of the least painful parts of the next several months, if you can't handle that, how will you handle labor and delivery?

Even More Choices

Nerdstar writes What To Do? That seems to be the question these days. I don't think I could even list the options we're mulling over.

The offer she has to go to Japan for six months, and maybe Hawaii for a month after that, seems too good to pass up. But the logistics are a complete nightmare!! The biggest problem to solve is what to do with a dog and two cats while we're gone. I don't think me going with her is that problematic.

I've also been really, really hoping we'd start trying for a baby in May/June. I turn 38 Monday and everyday the number 40 runs through my head like a tyrant. I don't like the idea of delaying the baby efforts until the end of the year.

We've got three or so weeks to mull it all over.

More and more I find I just want to find a really cool city to settle down in for the next four or five years. Not sure that's gonna happen.

Choices

Today was day two up at the hospital closer to the house.

One thing I wouldn't have anticipated about working in phlebotomy/the lab is that all of the staffs are 95% women. After my last job in Austin, working with all women, it's not my favorite environment. I am smart enough to know that there are absolutely NO secrets. If you tell one person something, you can safely assume you've just told everyone. Well, except for the one or two women that particular woman isn't talking to. UGH!

From what I can tell, I have two fairly different work environments to choose from. The downtown lab is pretty chaotic, very loose, but things get done and the job is pretty simple. There are going to be several new employees soon, because half of the current staff is moving on to somewhere else. Downtown I would only be doing patient draws, not any lab work. Downtown is a 50 minute door to door commute, but it's only open 7:30 to 6 Monday thru Friday. I'd never have night or weekend hours.

The uptown lab is run very smoothly. Most of the women there have been there for a few years, several have been in this field, if not this particular hospital for more than ten or fifteen years. Not only will I be doing patient draws, I'll also rotate some days back in the lab and learn processing. This location is open 6:30 to 6:30 Monday through Friday and 7 to noon Saturdays for patients and the lab is 24/7. It's only a 20 minute door to door commute.

For now I'm working uptown tomorrow and all of next week. I lean toward staying uptown just because it's better to learn all that I can for when Nerdstar and I move and I have to find this type of job again. But a lot depends on how it goes working with those particular women all next week.

Cash Cab

Anyone else watching this show? I love it! The host dude is cool but not irritating. And it's sometimes, but not always, easy to figure out which of the "contestants" won't make it to their destination.

Taiwan

Nerdstar and I sometimes talk about what's going on with China and Taiwan. Partly because it's where she's from, and partly because it's what she's writing and talking about at her job.

For my part, I just never understand why China cares about dominating a little island when it already has billions of people to take care of. And I sometimes laugh that little Taiwan pretty much just gives China the finger and says "leave us alone". (You can see I'm destined for a job with the state department!)

Nerdstar was trying to explain the history of Taiwan to me the other night, but gave up. Now she sends me this link about it. Can't say I understand it much better.

Maybe she'll write more about how it all affected her grandparents!

Wanted

Ok Dear Readers. I tried to find DMBs Under the Table and Dreaming in iTunes - and it wasn't there. Frown. Do any of you have it and would you please - pretty please with sugar on top - burn me a copy and mail it to me??

Go Read

Nerdstar wrote an interesting post about her home province in China.

Greek and African Weekend

I should have gone to work at the hospital downtown this morning. Unfortunately, there was a little sleet last night and it was just starting to snow when I looked out the window this morning. There are a couple of big bridges between me and that hospital, and God knows no one can drive in rain, much less any other bad weather, so I decided not to risk it. Of course, other than ten minutes of sleet, we haven't had any bad weather at all so far today. They keep saying 5 to 8 inches of snow. Yeah right. The only way we'd get 5 or more inches of snow was if they weren't predicting any.

Nerdstar and I spent Saturday heading downtown to get some Greek food. It was a nice little place and we were the only ones there for lunch until one other couple came in.

Then we headed to a party to celebrate the birth of twins to one of her co-workers. He and his wife are tall and handsome and beautiful and from Africa. The twins aren't identical and are adorable little girls.

It was really neat, they had a lot of aunts and cousins and her mother was in town. They brought lots and lots of good African food. They also had this little ceremony where all the women take the babies out of the room and then do a procession bringing them in and sort of presenting them to all the menfolk and dance. All of the women were wearing traditional African garb and were so beautiful.

Yesterday we were complete lazy butts and didn't do anything. That's why I'm so bored today and wishing I'd gone in to work. If the snow really does hit tonight I won't be able to work tomorrow. Thankfully, regardless of weather, I'll be able to start training at the uptown hospital Wednesday.

Proud

Nerdstar has finally gotten a China blog up and running. I think it has great potential. Go check it out!!

Working

I had my first three days of real work at the hospital downtown. I'm in a little bit of a crazy situation. I'm signed up to work at both locations - downtown, where the class was, and uptown, close to home. The downtown location "got to me first" so technically it's my home base. But, the manager at that location had her last day Friday, and I don't think they have a permanent replacement. I haven't met the temp. replacement. I'm not on the schedule to work, but the other employees all said to just show up until a mananger either tells me not to or puts me on the schedule. It's an awkward position to be in. So, I just showed up Thursday and Friday and worked all day. While it sounds like it'd be nice to be able to set your own schedule and be under really minimal supervision at work, I find I really prefer more structure. It'd be nice if people were mature and good at self-supervision, but that's normally not the case.

Unless the weather is just too bad, and it might be, I'll show up and work Monday and Tuesday downtown just to get some more hours in.

Thankfully, I heard from the manager uptown and I start real training there Wednesday. I wasn't sure which location I'd prefer to work at, but I'm leaning more and more towards uptown. It has to be run more smoothly and I'll get to learn a whole lot more of the lab side and not just the sticking side.

The coolest part, though, is that I really like this job. A year ago I couldn't have predicted making this move into health care, much less into phlebotomy, but it's turned out to be just like I thought it would. I'm not great at it yet, but I'm pretty good with the needle. And I totally enjoy talking with strangers.

G-mail chat

I don't have any idea how many of my dear readers use G-Mail, but I've been using it a long time and really like it. It keeps all related emails together in one long thread so you don't have to go back and find where a conversation started.

But really, the coolest part of G-Mail is the new instant messenger part of it. You don't have to download anything to use it, it's literally right in the same window as your email. Which means - you can use it at work or anywhere!

If you aren't able to IM from work, I'd suggest you check it out. Oh, the one thing that is a drawback, unlike Yahoo IM, if you send someone a message when they're not "on" it doesn't keep it for when they do sign on as far as we can tell. (If I'm wrong on that let me know.)

And... if you do decide to use it, send me a "hello" sometime!

Diversity Training

Today was the last day of our two day orientation. Can I just say how much I hate diversity training? I think it's all just bullshit. We did this exercise where they tell us about five levels of comfort zones with people different than us and then show us pics of 11 people and have us write down what comfort zone they fall into for us. Uh, hello - based on looks? Ok fine.

Then, they run the video and the 11 people tell three to six sentences about themselves. "Hi, I'm a tall white dude in biker gear, but I'm a recruiter for the hosiptal." Hi, I'm an 18 year old Asian chick." "Hi, I'm a gay guy with two kids and full blown AIDS." "Hi, I have cerebal palsy and two advanced degrees." All total STEREOTYPES. UGH. Isn't a real point of diversity awareness bullshit to NOT stereotype people? So while watching that part of the video we write down our "new" comfort zone levels for each person. Right.

When someone in that hospital has the balls to talk about reverse discrimination, then I might pay attention. (In my short time on the in-patient floors, I got pissed off at being dismissed and or ignored as the little white girl by the black nurses.)

Or when part of the discussion is how some people use their minority status to play the victim, I'll have more respect for the program.

Then we're told that diversity is something we're evaluated on in our annual reviews. So, do I get an extra bonus for being the lesbian with the Asian girlfriend?

Survived

I think I've survived a tripple threat weekend. I was sick, my period started, and Nerdstar was out of town. Bleh. I don't think I could ever adequetly write about how much my brain torments me in times like this.

To distract myself, I've watched a lot of basketball (Baylor women and UT men both lost, which made me sad! Hopefully it'll motivate both teams for the NCAA!) And I played free online poker (my free chip count went from just over 2000 to just over 7000).

There were a lot of bad storms around KC today. Fortunately for us they were south of our little apartment.

Tomorrow and Tuesday I have orientation at the hospital. It'll be boring, but it'll get me out of the house. One of the girls from my vampire class will be there, too.

Nerdstar comes home Tuesday night. I'm ready for snuggles!

Free Markets

I believe in the free market almost more than I believe in anything else. So, I was happy to read this news story about workers in China demanding better.

The days of sweatshop labour may be numbered. Workers have mobile phones and word soon goes round of any mistreatment. Mr Chen said: “If you are a profitable company then you must offer good working conditions. The business environment is very different now, and a factory owner can’t expect to earn profits out of the mouths of his workers.”

The bottlenecks have already spread north. Last month, a job fair in the coastal city of Fuzhou offered 50,000 jobs in the shoe and textile industries, but found only 15,000 takers.

It's certainly a step in the right direction. And hand in hand with the free market is the freedom of information. No government in the world can stop the flow of information to a billion people. Not even with the help of American tech companies.

You Just Never Know

I remember at one of my early job interviews here in KC the woman asked me my five/ten year plan. I would have laughed, but I'd been told by the first interviewer the question was coming. I had to explain that I don't really believe in plans, because if you'd asked me ten years ago, five years ago, or even two years ago where I'd be and what I'd be doing today - well, I wouldn't have had one thing right.

Are your lives any more predictable than mine??

Nerdstar and I have been in the KC area almost a year now. We couldn't have predicted how hard this year has been. We couldn't have guessed that there'd be such a dearth of restaurants and things to do here. We couldn't have guessed that a job with the US military could be so stressful and unstable (outside of a war zone). Things like that.

Needless to say, we're pretty ready to move on to another part of the country. People are sometimes surprised to hear that we don't plan on just heading back to Austin. I try to explain that we've driven through, or traveled to, enough of this big, beautiful country to know there are a lot of cool places to live.

One of the biggest reasons I did the phlebotomy program is so that I'll be able to find a decent job anywhere we end up. So it's really been Nerdstar trying to find a job paying at least as much, if not more, that's not here. For now it's just a really cool idea with a slight probability of coming true - we might actually get to move a little to the west!

Poor Nerdstar has had some terrible problems with the military for the past month or so regarding paperwork. We're hoping it's pretty much resolved because she's putting in her packet to become an officer. I think that's really cool. That process will take a couple more months. In the meantime she's going to try to work out a deal with a new unit out west.

I hate even mentioning it. I'm such a believer in jinxing things. But keep your fingers crossed for us!

Sick

It was a very windy day yesterday, and whatever the wind blew in has made me sick. Stuffy nose and all. Bleh. I'm not really in the mood to be sick.

Nerdstar's headed to Houston tomorrow for a few days with her family. So on top of being bored this weekend, I'll be lonely. (send pity waves now.)

I Agree

I wish I could add some insight or additional comment or something. But Dr. Helen puts it all pretty well.

I'm sorry, but is Terri Hatcher being sexually abused as a child really "breaking news?" As a psychologist, I deal with people who have been sexually abused. Is it hard on them, difficult to deal with, devastating at times? Yes, it can be (or not), but is publicizing all of the victimhood really a good way to help those who have been sexually abused? And frankly, from Oprah to Ms. Hatcher to Angela Shelton, it seems like everyone owns up to some abuse at some point. I can't help but feel this play for victimhood is not a good way to promote healing for the sexually abused.

Go read the whole thing. I'm sure the comments over there will be enlightening as well.

Update: Eden has a powerful post that stems from the one Dr. Helen wrote.

Oddly enough, it was the seven or so years I spent in church during college and after that I felt a victim of events in my life the most. Part of my contradictoryness is that I want to see myself as all strong and indepedent and badass, but I'm really not. And while I know that this is my life to make of it what I will and what I want, there's such a big part of me that wants someone to come along and do it all for me. But I do know I'm not a lifelong victim. Yes, bad things happened a long, long time ago, it does not define me.

Gay Cowboys

Nerdstar has been a big fan of the rodeo for several years now (for reasons only she can explain!). The other night we were channel surfing and ran across the rodeo and it got me to thinking.

Can you imagine how much harder life must be for any real gay cowboys out there after Brokeback Mountain? Seriously. I'm guessing there's already a fair amount of homophobia among the rodeo crowd, so for the past year there's probably been a 100% or so increase in gay jokes, gay bashing, etc. and a 100% uptick in machoism to protect oneself from any hint at all gayness.

So imagine being a young cowboy with any amount of gay curiosity at all trying to come to grips with it in that setting.

Oscar Thoughts

While driving to dinner tonight, I was talking with Nerdstar about how Hollywood wants us to think it's important, and shapes opinion, and can change, well, things. But we couldn't think of a movie that had actually really changed public opinion. Can you think of one? The only one that came to mind was maybe Philadelphia. But really, Magic Johnson getting HIV did more for HIV/AIDS awareness than any movie ever could.

So it was interesting to see the theme of the Oscar's tonight to kinda be "hey, we matter, we education, we enlighten." I just don't think that's the case. They can reflect societal changes and public opinion, but I don't think movies change anything. The one movie they brought up that might have was To Kill A Mockingbird. It is a very powerful film but was it powerful at the time? Were lives, laws, attitudes changed because of the film?

That said...

Would you rather cut short the skits and jokes and presenters and actually give the winners more time to speak? Seems kinda silly to give them a huge honor and award and then give them 45 seconds to respond.

And... if the Oscar's are so important and watched by so many people world wide - why are all the new, cool commercials rolled out during the Super Bowl instead?

Just Wondering

Do you think Sheryl Crow's surgeons played "The First Cut is the Deepest" during her surgery?

TV Character Blogs

This is something I just don't get... when the character from a tv show has a blog. Current example I just ran across, Barney from How I Met Your Mother. (How I Met is a pretty funny show, but I say it's not nearly as funny as Scrubs. I love the lengths the show goes to for a joke - verbally and visually!)

Anyway. It's obvioulsy all fiction, so who writes it? The writers of the show - which might make it a little more valid, since they more or less write the character (although there are dozens of writers on any given tv show, so it's not like there's one guy in there writing Barney to "be his voice). Would it be better if the actor wrote the character's blog? I don't know. I'd much rather just read the actor's blog about the character and the show.

I do really appreciate Grey Matter, a blog by the writers of Grey's Anatomy. It's the writers actually blogging about writing a tv series. That's interesting.

Are there any character blogs out there you read?