Break
Is this a break from the break? Or is the break over? Or was there never any break? People ask me occasionally how school is going, or summer break, and what do I tell them? My answer is continually changing because it seems like every few weeks I'm doing something different. That is partly why this blog has not been updated for a month; I'm kept busy running here and there, and, guess what, now the summer "break" is over.
Today I start my junior year of nursing school at Alvernia, and, like clockwork, my mom kept up with first-day-of-school-tradition and made pancakes for breakfast. I got a good Mom, y'all. Upon arrival at one of the morning classes and chit-chatting with another student, I was asked if I went on any vacations this summer. My reply mentioned something about going to the Carnegie Science Center and then to my sister's place in Ohio, but that I was kept too busy otherwise. Basically, I bit off more than I could chew this summer. I tried to do the externship at Hershey Medical Center, take six credits at R.A.C.C., volunteer occasionally with E.M.S. and F.D., usher at church every other week, fix up some vehicles (a.k.a., run a mini junkyard), and also work on the silo crew. I got most of the stuff done, but wound up dropping the statistics class at RACC, and did not even begin working on the one vehicle. It still sits there with a blown head gasket (I think).
I'm posting this after dark, so it's too late to go take any pictures to show you now, but I got my little toy on the road again. I keep telling my Pop that this is the 1969 Camaro Z28 that I'll never have. It's a lowered 1993 Chevy S-10 pickup, and it's a lot of fun. It makes me feel like I imagine an old geezer must feel going to down to the garage and firing up the machine that brings back memories of days gone by. I had a very similar truck back when I was 16, a '91 lowrider, but some of you who read this remember that I crashed it soon after turning 17. Too bad, that was the souvenir I had from the money earned while farming during my high school days. This truck, the '93, is nothing special, and it certainly isn't an expensive vehicle, but with a little TLC the thing runs great and is fun to drive. It handles nice, and it even attracted some unexpected attention. It's just a cheap 'lil S-10. I'll try to post a picture sometime. I put a 4.3 Liter V-6 engine in it to replace the sorry little scrap of 4-cylinder that came factory with it, and also put a NV3500 5-speed stick shift transmission in it, and buffed the paint. Again, nothing special, but fun fun fun when I get rubber in all 4 gears, er....wait, 4 of the 5 gears.
Nursing and silo building are like living on two different planets, and all I know is that I'm in high demand at this stage of my life. When I tell people in nursing about building silos, farming, or mechanical work, they basically have no comprehension of what that means. They just stare like a heifer stares at an electric fence for the first time. I can't draw a mental picture for them that even comes close to explaining how much harder it is physically than their job. It just doesn't register. Vice versa as well. I can't begin to explain to the Joe Wengers of Fivepointville what it is like to work in the hospital. They just shake their heads and wonder what it is like to study 80+ hours per week. They just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, I worked with a lot of nice people this summer and previously, but a lot of them may as well have been from different planets. I tried to tell my neighbor, who in partnership with his dad and brothers owns a 900+ cow dairy, about all of this, and his reply was something like this, "Yeahup, everybody sort of lives in their own little world." My philosophy professor at R.A.C.C. this summer asked me in front of the class what I am. My reply sent his head spinning, "Well, I wear a lot of hats. I'm an EMT, a nursing student, a firefighter; they call me sort of a redneck, a Mennonite........" Poor guy didn't know what to make of it all. Sometimes neither do I, but I do know one thing, I like variety.
I just have to grin when people either complain about their job or tell me how hard it is, or tell me how hard my job is going to be. I tell them that since I'm out of high-school I've learned that there are 3 basic kinds of work. I think I've told this to professors, my Joe Wenger boss, and even someone I did an interview with at Hershey Medical Center. Yeah, three kinds of work: #1, the kind that takes strong back and a week mind (masonry, construction, butchering, paving, roofing, silo building, etc.), #2, the kind that predominately takes a strong mind over a weak back (office jobs, some sales/retail, nursing/medicine/EMS, teaching, ministry etc.), and #3 some work doesn't really require much of an excessively strong back or a very strong mind, it just requires that you have a lot of guts or nerve or audacity, whatever your level of sophistication calls it (i.e. trapeze, high angle rescue, racing, working with explosives, etc.) OK, OK, OK!! Everybody could give an opinion about that theory from what they know about their own "little" world, but do you get the basic idea? Yeah, some of those positions, and others, might require some combination of the 3 qualities above, but it's still sort of amusing to consider. Neurons use calories to function just as muscle tissue does. Some full time EMT's and Paramedics try to overplay how difficult their job is, but depending on where they run, they might only treat 2 or 3 patients in a 12 hour shift, or maybe even none at all. They seem to somehow thrive on making their job internally political. Some nurses think they have it tough, but would never step foot in an ambulance or anywhere outside of their comfy little clinic; somehow it is all "below" their "profession." Yeah, right. (Well OK, there are some exceptions, like my cousin, Bethany, in Haiti.) Nurses and truckers are at constantly at risk for back problems if they are not careful, but do the majority of them ever do stretches and exercises or watch their posture to reduce their susceptibility? Well, maybe some, but not all. I have worked with builders who think that their vocation is the way the truth and the life and carry the you-just-ain't-right-in-the-head-if-you-don't-think-and-work-like-I-do attitude. But ask them a question that requires even a moderately educated answer and they will give you a sneer and a demand to "Get back to work!!!" If it doesn't make them more money, they could care less about it. Oh, and while I'm on that, they always want more more more. Some, not all, of them are about as greedy as the early Roman emperors; the faster you work or the more you give them, the more they want no matter what. A communist (I don't remember who) noticed that about people; the more you give a person, the more they expect from you. And they don't always care about quality either, just do more and do it faster. The same is for people who sit in offices and crunch numbers all day but don't know what it is like to be out there making the results happen. Yeah, those people that went straight to college out of high school and majored in business or accounting. Sure they get a lot done too, but....... OK, enough of this tangent. I think you get the point. I hope God blesses those people who, when a conflict arises, at least try to understand someone else's perspective from their "little" world.
Yeah, I must admit, I never guessed that those philosophy classes would be as interesting as they were.
So, a review of the summer is what you might be wandering about. E-mail me, and tell me about yours. Maybe yours isn't quite over yet. Mine? Well, in a nutshell, The externship started right after spring semester ended and lasted for 10 weeks. Summer classes lasted for 8 weeks and overlapped with the externship for 6 weeks. After the externship ended I built silos for two Fridays till summer classed ended, then did it full time for 2 weeks. Other than that, I got to spend some quality time with family and friends here and there, including the celebration of my parents' 40th anniversary, going tuff truck'n, junk haulin', wake-boarding, out to eat, and once in a while put a little time in at the ambulance station. Was it a good break? Well, I can't say it was entirely a break, but it sure was a nice change of events.
This fall I will attempt to bite off more than I can chew again. I'm currently registered for 17 credits; 11 of nursing, 3 of Spanish, and 3 of biology (genetics). The genetics class is optional and is only to fulfill a minor in biology which I haven't officially declared to the college yet anyway. I'm not sure If I'll keep that one. Quality versus quantity???? Hmmmm...
Oh, by the way, the cats are gone. We gave away the kittens, and a few weeks later the mother cat got hit on the road. Now my brother gave us a pet duck. Maybe I'll put a picture of that on here sometime too if it doesn't get eaten by a fox or something first.
Today I start my junior year of nursing school at Alvernia, and, like clockwork, my mom kept up with first-day-of-school-tradition and made pancakes for breakfast. I got a good Mom, y'all. Upon arrival at one of the morning classes and chit-chatting with another student, I was asked if I went on any vacations this summer. My reply mentioned something about going to the Carnegie Science Center and then to my sister's place in Ohio, but that I was kept too busy otherwise. Basically, I bit off more than I could chew this summer. I tried to do the externship at Hershey Medical Center, take six credits at R.A.C.C., volunteer occasionally with E.M.S. and F.D., usher at church every other week, fix up some vehicles (a.k.a., run a mini junkyard), and also work on the silo crew. I got most of the stuff done, but wound up dropping the statistics class at RACC, and did not even begin working on the one vehicle. It still sits there with a blown head gasket (I think).
I'm posting this after dark, so it's too late to go take any pictures to show you now, but I got my little toy on the road again. I keep telling my Pop that this is the 1969 Camaro Z28 that I'll never have. It's a lowered 1993 Chevy S-10 pickup, and it's a lot of fun. It makes me feel like I imagine an old geezer must feel going to down to the garage and firing up the machine that brings back memories of days gone by. I had a very similar truck back when I was 16, a '91 lowrider, but some of you who read this remember that I crashed it soon after turning 17. Too bad, that was the souvenir I had from the money earned while farming during my high school days. This truck, the '93, is nothing special, and it certainly isn't an expensive vehicle, but with a little TLC the thing runs great and is fun to drive. It handles nice, and it even attracted some unexpected attention. It's just a cheap 'lil S-10. I'll try to post a picture sometime. I put a 4.3 Liter V-6 engine in it to replace the sorry little scrap of 4-cylinder that came factory with it, and also put a NV3500 5-speed stick shift transmission in it, and buffed the paint. Again, nothing special, but fun fun fun when I get rubber in all 4 gears, er....wait, 4 of the 5 gears.
Nursing and silo building are like living on two different planets, and all I know is that I'm in high demand at this stage of my life. When I tell people in nursing about building silos, farming, or mechanical work, they basically have no comprehension of what that means. They just stare like a heifer stares at an electric fence for the first time. I can't draw a mental picture for them that even comes close to explaining how much harder it is physically than their job. It just doesn't register. Vice versa as well. I can't begin to explain to the Joe Wengers of Fivepointville what it is like to work in the hospital. They just shake their heads and wonder what it is like to study 80+ hours per week. They just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, I worked with a lot of nice people this summer and previously, but a lot of them may as well have been from different planets. I tried to tell my neighbor, who in partnership with his dad and brothers owns a 900+ cow dairy, about all of this, and his reply was something like this, "Yeahup, everybody sort of lives in their own little world." My philosophy professor at R.A.C.C. this summer asked me in front of the class what I am. My reply sent his head spinning, "Well, I wear a lot of hats. I'm an EMT, a nursing student, a firefighter; they call me sort of a redneck, a Mennonite........" Poor guy didn't know what to make of it all. Sometimes neither do I, but I do know one thing, I like variety.
I just have to grin when people either complain about their job or tell me how hard it is, or tell me how hard my job is going to be. I tell them that since I'm out of high-school I've learned that there are 3 basic kinds of work. I think I've told this to professors, my Joe Wenger boss, and even someone I did an interview with at Hershey Medical Center. Yeah, three kinds of work: #1, the kind that takes strong back and a week mind (masonry, construction, butchering, paving, roofing, silo building, etc.), #2, the kind that predominately takes a strong mind over a weak back (office jobs, some sales/retail, nursing/medicine/EMS, teaching, ministry etc.), and #3 some work doesn't really require much of an excessively strong back or a very strong mind, it just requires that you have a lot of guts or nerve or audacity, whatever your level of sophistication calls it (i.e. trapeze, high angle rescue, racing, working with explosives, etc.) OK, OK, OK!! Everybody could give an opinion about that theory from what they know about their own "little" world, but do you get the basic idea? Yeah, some of those positions, and others, might require some combination of the 3 qualities above, but it's still sort of amusing to consider. Neurons use calories to function just as muscle tissue does. Some full time EMT's and Paramedics try to overplay how difficult their job is, but depending on where they run, they might only treat 2 or 3 patients in a 12 hour shift, or maybe even none at all. They seem to somehow thrive on making their job internally political. Some nurses think they have it tough, but would never step foot in an ambulance or anywhere outside of their comfy little clinic; somehow it is all "below" their "profession." Yeah, right. (Well OK, there are some exceptions, like my cousin, Bethany, in Haiti.) Nurses and truckers are at constantly at risk for back problems if they are not careful, but do the majority of them ever do stretches and exercises or watch their posture to reduce their susceptibility? Well, maybe some, but not all. I have worked with builders who think that their vocation is the way the truth and the life and carry the you-just-ain't-right-in-the-head-if-you-don't-think-and-work-like-I-do attitude. But ask them a question that requires even a moderately educated answer and they will give you a sneer and a demand to "Get back to work!!!" If it doesn't make them more money, they could care less about it. Oh, and while I'm on that, they always want more more more. Some, not all, of them are about as greedy as the early Roman emperors; the faster you work or the more you give them, the more they want no matter what. A communist (I don't remember who) noticed that about people; the more you give a person, the more they expect from you. And they don't always care about quality either, just do more and do it faster. The same is for people who sit in offices and crunch numbers all day but don't know what it is like to be out there making the results happen. Yeah, those people that went straight to college out of high school and majored in business or accounting. Sure they get a lot done too, but....... OK, enough of this tangent. I think you get the point. I hope God blesses those people who, when a conflict arises, at least try to understand someone else's perspective from their "little" world.
Yeah, I must admit, I never guessed that those philosophy classes would be as interesting as they were.
So, a review of the summer is what you might be wandering about. E-mail me, and tell me about yours. Maybe yours isn't quite over yet. Mine? Well, in a nutshell, The externship started right after spring semester ended and lasted for 10 weeks. Summer classes lasted for 8 weeks and overlapped with the externship for 6 weeks. After the externship ended I built silos for two Fridays till summer classed ended, then did it full time for 2 weeks. Other than that, I got to spend some quality time with family and friends here and there, including the celebration of my parents' 40th anniversary, going tuff truck'n, junk haulin', wake-boarding, out to eat, and once in a while put a little time in at the ambulance station. Was it a good break? Well, I can't say it was entirely a break, but it sure was a nice change of events.
This fall I will attempt to bite off more than I can chew again. I'm currently registered for 17 credits; 11 of nursing, 3 of Spanish, and 3 of biology (genetics). The genetics class is optional and is only to fulfill a minor in biology which I haven't officially declared to the college yet anyway. I'm not sure If I'll keep that one. Quality versus quantity???? Hmmmm...
Oh, by the way, the cats are gone. We gave away the kittens, and a few weeks later the mother cat got hit on the road. Now my brother gave us a pet duck. Maybe I'll put a picture of that on here sometime too if it doesn't get eaten by a fox or something first.
posted by GKStauffer at 21:06
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