i'm 30.5 now! what?! i can't believe it. i'm not unhappy, really, just shocked. i'm almost done with school- 2 more classes to go!!! then i get to choose when to take the final (oct 10-dec 3). i'm thrilled! i have advanced end-of-sbb-itis and i have barely studied at all for the past 2 weeks. oops! tomorrow it is.
in celebration of my 3 extra days off per month, i've decided to set some goals. i know, i know, i am always in need of goals.
1. try one new fruit or veggie or other healthy food per week. recently i've had arugula, wheatberries, goat cheese, honey roasted soybeans, and tofu (new for me to prepare at least!).
2. friday (or saturday if i'm too tired) begins the "sarah exercises for 31 consecutive days" challenge. i drive past a great park on the way home from work. my gym is less than 10 minutes away. i have as many as 20 exercise dvds. c'mon! do it!
3. it also begins the "sarah does NOT consume soda for 31 consecutive days" challenge. if i find some all natural juice sweetened stuff, fine. but kick it with the code red & diet pepsi already. my body does not need high fructose corn syrup or bizarre chemistry experiment fake sugars does it? i will not forgo mochas, though. tea or coffee is ok at 1-2 cups/day i say! all in all, i probably average no more than 1-2 sugary soda per week but since it has no nutritional value at all, why bother?
it's good to have goals. now off to bed to continue my lovely "sarah gets plenty of sleep" exercise!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
job analysis
a friend of mine just left me a comment on facebook asking if i'd ever go back to my old job. what?!? lol. i was so tearful and rantful and stressed there. i can't believe i came out of it with friends...some of the funniest and sweetest that i've ever known. my current job is kinda boring...it certainly doesn't challenge my skills as a tech the way my old job did. then again, it's elective surgery. it isn't transplants and traumas and codes galore. we expect our patients to remain stable. with that lack of adrenaline-rushed PLEASE let me get these blood products to them before the patient DIES, my job feels less important. conceptually, i know that it's not. if i make a blood group error and cause a massive transfusion reaction, that's very important. i'm learning how to supervise, how to be the problem solver (i use 'the' lightly as i always have my friends at the reference lab and the TAC at my disposal), how to leave work behind at 230pm and enjoy the sunshine even if i had an annoying day. i need to learn to balance my need to make a difference, to feel like i've helped in my corner of the world, with my need to have balance in my life. it's amazingly difficult if not impossible to do that in a high level healthcare career.
yet BOY do i miss the benefits of working for a large academic medical center. the kick ass insurance and retirement. the market adjustment raises. the free tuiton. not wearing teal scrubs every day. ;) being one in a sea, instead of one in a creek. i miss the anonymity compared to the current annoyance i feel every day at lunch while overhearing the high school clique-esque 30-to-40-somethings gossip cruelly in their large table. i miss the pride i felt knowing that i worked for one of the busiest and biggest transfusion services in the country and i was one of its best techs.
i know i'm not ready to go back yet. i need my SBB first, some of the more...abrasive...staff to retire, and a lead tech (on days! i won't give up my day shift!) position to open up. then maybe, just maybe, i will go back?
yet BOY do i miss the benefits of working for a large academic medical center. the kick ass insurance and retirement. the market adjustment raises. the free tuiton. not wearing teal scrubs every day. ;) being one in a sea, instead of one in a creek. i miss the anonymity compared to the current annoyance i feel every day at lunch while overhearing the high school clique-esque 30-to-40-somethings gossip cruelly in their large table. i miss the pride i felt knowing that i worked for one of the busiest and biggest transfusion services in the country and i was one of its best techs.
i know i'm not ready to go back yet. i need my SBB first, some of the more...abrasive...staff to retire, and a lead tech (on days! i won't give up my day shift!) position to open up. then maybe, just maybe, i will go back?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
thirty wishes
i decided to name my new blog "thirty wishes". i am not sure it'll last; it's not particularly creative or exciting or meaningful, but it did make me a little less sad about the whole turning thirty thing. maybe some of my wishes will come true! there are so many possibilities when i stop moping long enough to ponder them. friends in their thirties insist that it's so much better than the twenties. i hope so. i know that my twenties were filled with plenty of drama, discouragement, and uncertainty and it'd be great if my stronger, more independent, less indecisive self finally felt some fulfillment in my thirties.
i've decided to take it literally though and think of 30 wishes i have for my thirties:
1. many beach vacations, at least once a year even if it's just for a long weekend
2. australia, hawaii, europe, and asia...looks like asia may be first up, which i would have never anticipated but it'd be a great adventure with my friend from taiwan, and we could visit another friend in hong kong
3. a new home...one that is more than 500 square feet and therefore has room for a golden retreiver!
4. i hope to fall in love. sappy, but true. i've been waiting for a great guy for so long that it's hard to have faith that it will ever happen.
5. ideally, i'll marry this guy and he'll help me get over my fear of pregnancy and parenthood.*shudder*. or we'll just have many pets. :)
6. health. i'm working hard at exercising, eating right, and learning to deal with stress and i hope my body thanks me!
7. career fulfillment. this is probably the area i spend most of my time at battle for, yet i still just like what i do. it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies like vet med did, which i hate. but it also doesn't make me cry, which i appreciate.
8. a better relationship with my mom. i love her, she loves me, but we don't understand each other. hopefully, one day in my thirties she'll forgive me for growing up. that'd be awesome!
well, i got to 8 and i must say if i achieve all those, i'll be a happy gal. so forget the literal thirty wishes idea.
i've decided to take it literally though and think of 30 wishes i have for my thirties:
1. many beach vacations, at least once a year even if it's just for a long weekend
2. australia, hawaii, europe, and asia...looks like asia may be first up, which i would have never anticipated but it'd be a great adventure with my friend from taiwan, and we could visit another friend in hong kong
3. a new home...one that is more than 500 square feet and therefore has room for a golden retreiver!
4. i hope to fall in love. sappy, but true. i've been waiting for a great guy for so long that it's hard to have faith that it will ever happen.
5. ideally, i'll marry this guy and he'll help me get over my fear of pregnancy and parenthood.*shudder*. or we'll just have many pets. :)
6. health. i'm working hard at exercising, eating right, and learning to deal with stress and i hope my body thanks me!
7. career fulfillment. this is probably the area i spend most of my time at battle for, yet i still just like what i do. it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies like vet med did, which i hate. but it also doesn't make me cry, which i appreciate.
8. a better relationship with my mom. i love her, she loves me, but we don't understand each other. hopefully, one day in my thirties she'll forgive me for growing up. that'd be awesome!
well, i got to 8 and i must say if i achieve all those, i'll be a happy gal. so forget the literal thirty wishes idea.
Thirty
i have been thinking about turning thirty a lot lately. it seems to pop into my head on a daily basis as much as i wish it would remain buried in my unconscious until i can at least ease my shock and dismay with some really good chocolate chocolate cake. i just can't believe that my twenties have flown by so incredibly quickly.
as i have moved forward in other stages of my life, i've always been ready. i was ready for each school move. i was ready to graduate high school, so ready in fact that i had no desire to look back, even long enough to pick up my senior yearbook. amusingly, when i finally went, the only other yearbook remaining belonged to a classmate who was behind bars. i was ready to move to campus, the hell out of the dorms, and into an apartment with a roommate. i was so ready to flee my undergrad experience (granted, it did take me five years) that i didn't even attend graduation (granted, with former president bush as the speaker and snipers reportedly visible from all the places i love and hate at the ohio state university, with post 9-11 fear in the air, i could even convince my family that it wasn't worth their time and binoculars to see me handed a degree). i was ready to leave the nest and step out on my very own, both in mansfield and later here. i left both of my other grown up jobs without a twinge of regret, excitedly moving up the unglamourous lab tech ladder.
my twenties feel different. they so weren't what i expected. i haven't accomplished what i dreamed and while i (think i) know in my (still disappointed) heart of hearts that my dream wasn't meant to be, it feels like i may never be permitted access to what follows because of it. does that even make sense? i didn't go to vet school, didn't graduate, didn't marry an adorable and rational vet boy who would understand all the crazy that comes with the DVM title and keep me from bringing home an entire zoo of neglecteds, so i can't move on to the happy-ever-after phase. instead, i am glued to the step before the vet school phase. i didn't have the step before written on my pretty plan (in perfect penmanship on lined, unwrinkled paper, of course) so i didn't expect it to be THIS. THIS is apparently long yet very short, possibly unending years in a tiny condo watching everyone else move on to the after phase (i absolutely admit that some don't seem to have been granted the happily ever part) while i just wait.
it's not that i'm not busy. work & school & volunteering & family & friends & the gym wear me out. i look foward to bedtime and i am never ready for the alarm to ring, especially in these cold days of winter. i go through the motions of this life with a smile on my face more often than not, quickly moving on to new months and years in my calender, but sometimes i am just overwhelmed with a crashing wave of discontent and worry that THIS will last forever.
i think that's what bothers me most about my twenties being gone. it's not just the grey hairs and the fact that my mother insists that "now that you're older [if you were struck by a car in a crosswalk or threw yourself off your bike into the middle of high street again] you probably would break [all] your bones". it's the realization that the rest of the big stages aren't necessarily inevitable whether i'm ready or not, yet the years will flash before my eyes faster than i can appreciate them.
as i have moved forward in other stages of my life, i've always been ready. i was ready for each school move. i was ready to graduate high school, so ready in fact that i had no desire to look back, even long enough to pick up my senior yearbook. amusingly, when i finally went, the only other yearbook remaining belonged to a classmate who was behind bars. i was ready to move to campus, the hell out of the dorms, and into an apartment with a roommate. i was so ready to flee my undergrad experience (granted, it did take me five years) that i didn't even attend graduation (granted, with former president bush as the speaker and snipers reportedly visible from all the places i love and hate at the ohio state university, with post 9-11 fear in the air, i could even convince my family that it wasn't worth their time and binoculars to see me handed a degree). i was ready to leave the nest and step out on my very own, both in mansfield and later here. i left both of my other grown up jobs without a twinge of regret, excitedly moving up the unglamourous lab tech ladder.
my twenties feel different. they so weren't what i expected. i haven't accomplished what i dreamed and while i (think i) know in my (still disappointed) heart of hearts that my dream wasn't meant to be, it feels like i may never be permitted access to what follows because of it. does that even make sense? i didn't go to vet school, didn't graduate, didn't marry an adorable and rational vet boy who would understand all the crazy that comes with the DVM title and keep me from bringing home an entire zoo of neglecteds, so i can't move on to the happy-ever-after phase. instead, i am glued to the step before the vet school phase. i didn't have the step before written on my pretty plan (in perfect penmanship on lined, unwrinkled paper, of course) so i didn't expect it to be THIS. THIS is apparently long yet very short, possibly unending years in a tiny condo watching everyone else move on to the after phase (i absolutely admit that some don't seem to have been granted the happily ever part) while i just wait.
it's not that i'm not busy. work & school & volunteering & family & friends & the gym wear me out. i look foward to bedtime and i am never ready for the alarm to ring, especially in these cold days of winter. i go through the motions of this life with a smile on my face more often than not, quickly moving on to new months and years in my calender, but sometimes i am just overwhelmed with a crashing wave of discontent and worry that THIS will last forever.
i think that's what bothers me most about my twenties being gone. it's not just the grey hairs and the fact that my mother insists that "now that you're older [if you were struck by a car in a crosswalk or threw yourself off your bike into the middle of high street again] you probably would break [all] your bones". it's the realization that the rest of the big stages aren't necessarily inevitable whether i'm ready or not, yet the years will flash before my eyes faster than i can appreciate them.
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