Soul Sucking Sadness

I should be taking a nap before work

but I am too ...

sad.

All is frustratingly quiet on the southern front and I don't know whether to jump ship and cut my losses or go tearing down there and pulling a final act in a romantic comedy.

Le sigh.

Am I There Yet?

So I put my 2 weeks notice in yesterday. I decided that I wanted to really make an effort to manage my most challenging time of year mental health wise as best as I can. That means not working full time, working a second job on my days off, and going to class two nights a week.

I cross trained over a month ago as a hostess at Cracker Barrel so I can pick up hours as a hostess and in the retail store. I am also going to be really focusing on getting disability benefits. I believe that not being able to maintain a full time job during the spring every year I would make a great candidate for receiving aid. I'm not like corporations and banks that asked for bail out money only to buy tennis courts for the CEO lounge or whatever. With those benefits, I can comfortably work a few days a week and still pay bills and continue to make headway toward going back to Stanford...next year.

Letting go of this job also releases the plan for returning this coming September. Save for some unforseeable and fortunate turn of events in which large sums of money legally become mine, I won't be in a position to pay down the at least 5 grand I would have to pay to maybe get back in. I am starting to get concerned about when I will no longer be able to simply return with a few forms to fill out. There is also of course the concern for how living life instead of constantly being intellectually challenged will affect my academic success. I know once on campus, there are numerous resources available to students to help them do well. I will naturally take advantage of them, all of them. However, the first few days at Stanford, I wondered in amazement at the blessing that lay before me and the sheer favor from God that placed me there. Though I worked hard in high school and had wonderful grades, recommendations, and records, I still did not know how I surpassed thousands of other applicants. When I return, I will have to come to terms with where I fit with my new graduating class and the peers and fellow students that I will share my classes and experiences with.

Anyway, that is the biggest thing that has happened this past week. Still quiet on the southern front. Valentine's Day is fast approaching...I can only wonder at how I will spend it this year.

Sleep

Drink long and deep from the well of sleep

May your dreams be sweet as candy

Eyes close in ecstasy

Mind drifts slowly, softly searching

For a shore upon which to anchor

An island of reverie

That's What She Said...

So, I figure maybe I will just do a normal, everyday blog entry.

Whats going on in my life, what my current thoughts are, problems I am working through, etc etc.

Just cause.

I have been working as a CNA since the beginning of the month. Its difficult work, and if you don't operate using ergonomics, you can really hurt your back. I find this out daily as my back protests every adult diaper change or shifting someone in bed. I knew going in the nature of the job. I understand that I am a combination of a janitor, a flight attendant, and a nanny. I clean the garbage, take it out, clean up the rooms, and the people, get them ice water, adjust their bedsheets, help them to and from the restroom, get them a snack, put them onto and off of the bedpan, let the nurse know they are ready for some meds, and whatever else arises.

Already, I am wondering how I can manage without this job. I went through all the schooling, took the test, went through interviews. Its not the nature of the job, or the time (working from 10pm to 6am) that I am working. I have been having difficulty adjusting my meds to a nocturnal life, tending to sleep all day, and concerned about working nites along with my humanities course. Before quiting the job altogether, I asked the woman in charge of the schedules if I could have Tuesday and Thursday nites off to try and keep the job and my sanity.

When I first got the job, I was told it wasn't possible. When I told her I would have to put my two weeks in if it couldn't work, she made it happen. I wasn't threatening her, I know I could live without the job. In fact, I seem to be at a crossroad. If I manage to keep this full time job, I could send a few more hundred dollars to Stanford every month and possibly return to Stanford this September. Of course, the current variables are ripe for trouble come this spring when my mental illness shifts to manic and psychotic. I don't want to go through the annual insanity with a new job all over again.

If I just work at Cracker Barrel I will have enough to live on, but not enough to pay down Stanford. I don't want to be a quitter, but I have quit jobs in the past that I knew were not right for me and though it was hard at the time, I was able to move on and would not go back to any of them. I know two other people who tried being a CNA and decided to move on. Most of the people I work with on the night shift have been CNAs for over a decade, some over two. And they were all supportive of me moving on if I felt the job was not working out for me.

I may be able to stay here next year with a good friend and that does bring me comfort. That would mean that I would have lived in Illinois for three years before I go back to Stanford...weird! But, as I have mentioned before, returning to Stanford is my number one goal, but my first priority is my mental health.

Besides working nine nights without a day off and finally twisting my hair, I can't say anything else is going on with me. I haven't been writing as regularly as I originally wanted to, so I am going to write a little more, say, every week.

All is still quiet on the southern front.

Let's Set the Record Straight

I have not updated in a while, but before I get to it, there is something I need to get off my chest.

This blog contains my adventures last year, good and bad, and anything else that may have been on my mind. For those of you who stop through and read an entry here or there, know that a fair share of my foibles can be attributed to the crazy, but the rest I guess are me. I am fun loving, quick to like a person, eager to please, make mistakes, wrong choices, decisions, and so on. What you find here is me, perhaps more than most would care to share about themselves and their past, but its all here. Mostly. However, as much of me as is here, I implore you not to draw all your conclusions about me from one or two pithy entries. A turn of phrase, as good as it may be thank you very much, still may not capture all the facets of a situation or my thoughts. For every update about loneliness and pain, I have happy moments. For every sexy rendezvous, there were regrets, repentance, and lots of showers. Last year was like a Dickens novel, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This year will most likely be no different. I don't know where the year will take me, but I want to do everything I can to stay sane and off the streets, be it homeless or at a corner.

Now, on to the update.

I started a job as a CNA at the beginning of this month and I think I am gonna have to put in my two weeks already. Its full time at night. Next week classes start and on my days off I am going to be closing at Cracker Barrel. Every year I had gone to the hospital in the spring, I had been working more than one job and doing too much. With my schedule as it is, its a matter of time. A recipe for crazy. I know the place I am working at really needs good CNAs, every place does, but I also don't want to put myself into mental duress over it all. My main goal may be to return to Stanford but my main priority is my mental health.

In other news, all is quiet on the southern front.

What do you think about the job situation? Do you think its better to press on knowing I am jeopardizing my mental health for a chance to return to Stanford sooner or to play it safe and err on the side of sanity and potentially keep myself in Illinois another year? Leave your comments below!

5 Key Principles to Achieving New Year's Resolutions

1. Break goal into smaller steps

2. Tell ppl what you are acheiving

3. Remind self of benefits

4. Small reward for achieving each small step

5. Map out progress