September update

Back to school, one more time. I'm glad that all of the prerequisites and general education requirements are done, and I won't be bothered with any of that this year. Looking back, the classes that were the worst for me were Spanish I & II. I had a little trouble with statistics too, but got through it this summer. I'll admit, I'm not the brightest student, and I'm getting a little burnt out with the whole college thing, because originally when I enrolled at RACC in the fall of 2004, I had no intentions then of doing a bachelor's degree right away, or taking that much time off of work, or spending this much money on tuition, or spending this many of the best years of my life in classrooms. That probably sounds pathetic to those of you who have gone on to graduate school and beyond, but you have to remember, we are talking about a Berks County descendant of a Piker here. Not exactly the model of intelligence. One of the guys I used to work with at the hardware store in Bernville told me that we ought to get tuition grants because of being at a disadvantage. They give grants to people of "minor ethnicity" and those with handicap conditions, and so on, but what about dumb Berks County Dutchmen? I mean, we can't help it we inherited the "dumb" segment in our DNA, right? We're just stuck with it. That was his logic, but he graduated ok last year from Albright College with a degree in business management.

Even though I somehow got wrapped up into doing more than I originally set out to do, I still have to admit, it's all worth it. I'll just be all the more ready to get on with life outside of college when it's finally over. For the present time though, the classes we are taking this semester look more interesting than the ones we had last semester. Maybe it was just the junior year that burnt me out a little. This semester looks more interesting. We are studying Family and Community Nursing, which seems interesting so far, because I can indirectly make some connections between that and EMS. We are also studying more medical/surgical nursing, and that is more along the lines of what I thought all along that nursing school would be like. At least, from what I've seen during a little over the first week of this semester. The other class that I'm taking is a research class, and I'm not sure yet how that will go, but I think it will be ok.

It just occurred to me recently that I'll soon officially be an antique (25 years old). How did that happen? I still have the mentality of about a 17 year old, and I haven't matured much since I was 17. Or 14 for that matter.

I had blogged earlier this summer about some projects that I was working on. Here's the results: That old tuff-truck met a brutal demise up at Shartlesville last weekend. I think the motor spun a bearing or something but that's a long story of it's own. I have a buyer for the 4x4 truck that I bought and drove over 100,000 miles since my accident in 2000. I never did get that gray Blazer running. I got about half of that project done, but now it's still sitting with no motor even though I have basically everything I need to get it running. I just ran out of time, mostly because I wound up putting another transmission and rear differential in my lowrider this summer. I had to drive a Ford meanwhile, and I'm sure my uncle, Merle B., would have liked to see that. The only reason I put another differential in my lowrider was in hopes of getting better fuel mileage. The rear differential that was in the truck had a reduction ratio of 3.73:1, and now I put one in that has a ratio of 3.08:1. What that means is, that the engine will not have to spin as fast, and I won't have to hold the gas pedal down as far to keep it cruising with traffic at highway speed. That's what I need for driving 45 miles to work and 20 miles to school. I think I'm getting better fuel milage, but now the speedometer is not accurate because the truck's computer doesn't know I put another gear ratio in it because the speedometer sensor is on the output shaft of the transmission.

I never did get the website for Bethel Ambulace up an running. Somehow the summer just slipped on by, and I never even got started. I still want to do it, but it will have to wait till some other time - maybe over winter break. We did have a successful blood drive at Bethel on the 23rd of August. I had my sign-up sheet filled, plus a few folks walked in with no appointment on the day of the drive. They managed to squeeze in a few of them. I don't have the statistics yet from Miller Keystone Blood Bank, but I think we had successful donations from about 75% of all the people who came out.

I'm still working in the emergency department, but have limited my hours during the semester. I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and am working on putting together my application to enter the Critical Care Nursing Internship at Lehigh Valley Hospital next spring. I really hope it all works out. In retrospect, when I started at RACC in 2004, I was able to put together an academic planning chart of my college career start-to-finish, and then make it happen with only a few revisions. Now, looking ahead, I have no idea if what I hope to do after college will actually work out the way I'm hoping it will, but I still haven't changed my long term goals since I set out to accomplish them about 5+ years ago.