Hawk Talk - Stephanie

it's a four letter word that starts with 'M' and rhymes with groove and it you say it within ear shot of me you just may have to watch out...

For anyone that doesn't know-Donahue was evacuated with just a few weeks of the summer left.  This meant pulling an all nighter to get all of my, my suite mates, and other friends' stuff out of our rooms in Donahue to rooms in Leitch.  Of course, being the lucky person that I am, I was placed on the 4th floor or Leitch.  And for those of you that don't know there is NO ELEVATOR in Leitch. 

Well a few weeks go by and it is time to make the trek to North to my school year room.  This was quite the process because this time everything had to come down from the fourth floor and then over to Eames hall.  This time I actually did luck out because I was on the 1st floor. 

So needless to say I am sooo done with all of that.  Now comes another hard part- trying to find a space for everything. You don't realize how much stuff you have until you try and squeeze it into a reshall room with only one three drawer dresser and two small closets.  Which wouldn't be hard if I didn't have a huge closet at home and two dressers each with 6 drawers... and you can't just leave clothes behind.

So that is it for my shpeal... wish me luck on my room!

Hello there!

So I write to you with happy news this time.  I had recently applied for some job openings at Saints Medical Center just up the road here from the school. I had also applied at the end of the school year but didn't work out. My conclusions on that now are that I had goals a little over my head. At that time I had applied for some tech positions in the ER there but having to tech, CNA, or clinical experience that was pushing it. 

I interviewed yesterday for a position on their intermediate care unit to be a unit coordinator and a patient care technician for them.  The hours still need to be worked out a bit with school and reslife, and ems, and all those other things but hopefully this will all work out.

This job is going to be great experience for me and starting on the "step-down" unit as the intermediate unit is sometimes referred to will be a nice start to get me acclimated to the hospital environment versus the pre-hospital environment that I am trained for and accustomed to. From here I hope to work into the intensive care unit and eventually the ER as I gain experience. 

Well I will keep you updated! talk to you soon!

Hey there,

So when someone says summer class bad thoughts immediately pop into your head don't they? Sitting inside on a beautiful day while all your friends are texting you from the beach. Or sitting inside at night after working all day and your friends are still texting you from the beach. Well luckily this summer we really haven't had that many beach days... but that is besides the point here.  The summer class I am taking is really interesting. Think what you will but it really is. And it's a history class to boot, my least favorite subject and I don't think I blink the entire class.  I will put the professor's name in here once grading has closed to give her due credit for being the type of professor you wish would teach all of your courses.  If this professor taught organic chemistry- I would have nothing to worry about!

Anyway the class is just great because you don't feel like you're in a lecture at all you just feel like you are having a very intellectual and culturally in tuned conversation.  If you pay any attention at all you will do well in the class, well it is history so you do need to memorize some names and dates and things, but as far as concepts go it is straight forward. The novels assigned are great books too.

Well the final is coming up soon so I am going to get to studying, Talk to you soon.

Yup you heard that right. So everything is going pretty well, the summer is not to bad, all the summer RA's and staff are living in Donahue. Then I get a phone call, that phone call says that I need to take everything out of Donahue because it is being closed to take care of a mold problem. Now at first I kind of laughed because I had put in work order in June saying that there was some mold growing in my room.  Because of that I really didn't stay on campus to much throughout the summer. Well anyway once that quick burst of laughter went away I realized that I had a lot to move, and on top of that I had class 7-10.

So I got one big trip done before I went to class with the help of one of my friends on campus that already lived in the building I was moving into. After class I came back and it was game on.  I moved the rest of my stuff and helped my suite mate move all of her stuff. Now this girl has a lot of stuff! She hadn't moved out of that room in 5 semesters (if I counted right). So that is a lot of stuff, not to mention all the things you accumulate when you have a bathroom and a common room to fill. So her things took a while to move. We finished her room around 4am.  Then it was onto the EMS office.

Now there was no way that we could get everything out of the office so the essentials were loaded up like paperwork, computers that contained pertinent information, the basics to finish out the preparation work for the summer so that when the fall came everything went smoothly. Well that took until 730am. Mind you the cut off time was 7am to get things out but there just wasn't enough time.  We made the last trip at the last possible moment before the building gor sealed off like something from a movie. 

And That was a long day. !

So I don't mean to be the party pooper but for a handful of my friends this has not bee the best summer.  To date I now know three people that have died in car accidents and three that are still in critical condition.  Someone I went to high school with was in a horrific car accident and he didn't make it. My good friend's uncle was in a car accident that was strangely similar to the kid we went to high school with. He went into a coma and after test's revealed that there was no brain activity the family had to let him go.  A hometown friend of one of my best friends in college was killed in an awful accident. It is still under investigation what happened because the injuries and the damage to the car are not consistent with the way the car was found, it is stumping DOT officials. In that same accident the driver and two of the passengers are still in critical condition.

I know this entry was short but it's not of the happiest topics so I'll leave it at that. Drive carefully!

So it is been quite a while since I wrote to you all... But here I am so no worries. It has been quite a hectic summer- much more so than expected. 

So one of the highlights of my summer so far would have to be my vacation up at Old Orchard Beach; better known as OOB to those who frequent the place. It has to be my favorite place in the world, hands down. The beach is so clean and so is the water.  The temperature of the water can very significantly from day to day because of the location of the beach but it's still nice. One day everyone on the beach will be in the water because it is warm but still refreshing and the waves will be nice and then with no warning the next day not a soul is in the water because it is ice cold. The tides are just perfect too. Low tide gives you miles of sand to build castles, walk, run, tan, and then high tide gives you awesome waves for jumping and swimming in.  I just don't think it gets much better than this beach. 

We stayed at a near by campground called Wild Acres. It is really a great place. It is huge. They have a bunch of pools and playgrounds and hot tubs.  It is about a 3 min walk to the beach and a 10 min walk to the center.  The center is a whole different story.  There is a mini amusement park with rides and games, and that sort of thing. There are shops and restaurants and the pier. The pier is quite famous and though the shops and restaurants on it have varied through the years it is still the same old pier. 

In the center you HAVE TO go to the fry shop. The name of it has something to do with original pier fries or something of the sort but if you just say "old pier fries" and people will know what you’re talking about.

All this talking about the beach makes me sad because I probably won’t get back up there until next summer.

Well that is all for now... Back to work and reality... 

So I finally heard word from my EMT practical... and... I PASSED! yey!! so now I have to hop on line pay the state some more money (55$ to be exact) and schedule and probably very inconvenient written exam. It will probably be in some awful part of some awful town. or right in the heart of Boston with no parking or something like that.  But on the bright side I just have to get a 70 or better on that test and I am home free. 

I have heard a bit about this national registry of EMTs but I have to look into it some more because I'm not really sure what difference it makes to be "nationally" certified. because from what I hear a lot of states don't even recognize it so I have to figure out if it is worth it because I am sure that is some more cash to dish out to someone. 

I really haven't figured out how to study for this thing yet. I guess I'm just going to go over the review questions at the end of the chapters but there are 36 chapters and hopefully my exam will be sometime next week.  That doesn't really leave a lot of time for studying.

speaking of studying I should probably get started considering the magnitude of material I have to view. I'll keep you updated.

Hey there.

So summer is starting to fall into a routine now. which is nice. I just wish I could get my body used to being a morning person. I don't start fully functioning at work until around 1130 which is not good but its not that I'm not trying I just feel half asleep until then. I have tried going to bed early but that doesn’t help I just feel more tired in the morning like I got too much sleep.  I think I am going to try getting up a little earlier (which is going to be a HUGE challenge) and going for a brisk walk or jog. Maybe that will get me going and then by the time I get to work I will feel somewhat awake.

I don't like that my routine doesn't leave anytime for getting to the gym.  I work about 30 minutes away from the school’s gym (45-60min with rush hour traffic) so it's hard to get myself to drive that after working all day.  And not to mention the gas wasted in driving an hour round trip to go to the gym. The solution to that seems easy- just to work out at home-but that is easier said than done. There are so many distractions like the TV and the couch or my bed. There is something about being at the gym that just motivates you to get a good workout in.

So the workout routine is still in the works but the work routine is getting there. Some weeks I mix it up for vaca time or appointments and what not but it’s pretty much set now.  I am even throwing in a summer class because I feel like I am just wasting all my time this summer. I am taking a US history course. I have heard great things about the prof. and it will be nice to have one less class in the fall.

well now that I have bored you completely with the woes of my schedule! ha-ha feel free to comment! talk to you soon.

Hey there,

I got my birthday present today from my fiancé. He is currently deployed to Korea but managed to find the time to buy me a gorgeous purple bathrobe.  It is super super warm and fuzzy and must weigh at least 5lbs! The material is super thick.  It was hand made in Korea in Kunsan City and then was shipped to me all the way here in MA.  I also got some Korean juice. It is almost like a vitamin juice, or so I hear. I can't read a thing on the label.  And some Korean chewing gum and chopsticks from a funny restaurant.  My camera is broken right now but when I get it fixed I will up date this with some pictures of it!

I'm going to attempt to fix my camera. Be back soon with pictures!! hopefully :\

Hey there,

So this might not be too too long seeing as I just worked my first full day in a long time.  I started my Medical Records job today, the one I was telling you about. And I don't want to complain but boring.... capital B!   the job is pretty tedious and repetitive.  the two main components are scanning and batching.  Batching involves writing over certain patient information on the form in these special gel pens so that the scanner will read the information better.  this also involves looking up each client's ID number to ensure that the patients information is correct and all accounted for.  This situation can get pretty messy... and I literally mean messy because I can not write with those gel pens, I just smudge the ink everywhere. And sometimes the hand writing you are witting over is just awful to begin with so you have to white it out with that white out tape so that you can write over it. Or sometimes the information is just down right wrong and you have to fix everything.

The other part of the job involves scanning.  This is pretty much exactly what your thinking it is, but with a bonus.  The scanners are extremely picky so bent corners or rips or even folds in the paper cause a severe jam.  After getting all the papers in that batch into the computer.  he some client and employee information must be manually entered into a screen for each scanned page so that you can later search for the documents.  This manually entered information just so happens to be that same information you spent hours hand writing onto the forms before lunch.  After all that is done you must go through and do a QA check on everyone you just entered (quality assurance).

After you finish all that someone else goes through and finds all your mistakes and then comes and tells you about them. It's really uplifting!

Anyway... Lucky for me I get to switch off between this job and the switch board to break things up. Hope you hear from you soon.