My Job

I may have been a bit overdramatic yesterday. But I think when it comes to finances, it's not a bad thing to be extra conscientious. However, I'm pretty sure that I don't need to start worrying until I have 2 weeks left until graduation and no job. I didn't sleep at all last night because I was stressed out about all of this. The worst thing about it is that Daniel and I argued about whether he should quit his job. I hate arguing about money. We don't argue very often at all, and when we do it ruins my whole night. Daniel and I both have the same goals, and no matter what happens we're in this together. Of course we quickly realized that and both of us calmed down. Daniel told me that no matter what, we're going to be fine. We're both growing up at the same time and figuring life out together.

I feel so lucky to already have someone to share my life with- someone that I can rely on to be there no matter what. And someone that I trust to make smart decisions that will be good for both of us. It's funny because I was talking with some friends about that a few weeks ago. Many of my friends are so far from marriage that they are very curious about what it's like to already be in a committed relationship. When I explained that it's comforting to have someone there for you no matter what, always on your side, they thought that was so sweet and romantic. I just thought it was the truth. I guess it's hard to see your own life as romantic. But it's true. I'm so lucky to have that, and I know a lot of people that wish they had it.

Well today I'm feeling much more optimistic- mostly because I applied for 3 more jobs. So at least I'm trying. I think I was frustrated because last time I looked, a few weeks ago, there wasn't very many entry-level positions open. But this time I found 3! So there's hope. It also seems that Daniel may have found a way to keep his job and fulfill his ensemble requirement. It doesn't solve the problem of being very stressed out and having absolutely no free time, but sometimes that's what you have to do to pay the bills. I'm going to do everything I can to help him though. And that means taking care of the house, the dog, the cooking, the cleaning, taking the bus to school if I have to.... I'll do anything I can to help him because he's bringing home the bacon.

I sort of realized today that I only have 8 weeks left of my job. That makes me really sad. Even more sad than the fact that I only have 8 weeks left of school. Is that bad? I've spent 3 1/2 years at DU, and I'm ready to go. I guess that's a good thing. But my job... I don't think I'm ready to leave that. I love my job. I've been there 18 months; I don't remember what my life is like without it! I love the people, I love the work, I love learning new things, I love being recognized and appreciated by my boss. I am going to miss my friends there so much. I really hope we can stay in touch. A few of them are invited to the wedding, so hopefully that will be an incentive. I just can't believe that it's over in a few weeks. The lab is moving, and I will have to get a full-time job somewhere else. I will be really lucky if I can find another work environment as good as this one. The people are so welcoming, appreciative, flexible, encouraging, patient... they let me come in at 10am if I feel like sleeping in, and let me take off 2 weeks when I'm completely overwhelmed with school. They also let me (I want to!) come in on Saturday to help with a mouse exposure. We've gone out for happy hour on the boss's tab, had dinner and a movie with just the girls at my boss' cabin up in the mountains, a Christmas party, an ice cream party just for the students, and a huge family picnic at the zoo. They've heard about every wedding planning detail, every final exam, every trip back to Phoenix. They've met my parents, my sister, and even all my in-laws. This job allowed me to feel like a real Denver resident for the first time. I got off campus, and got to know members of the community who weren't students. Most of all, they taught me skills that will give me a huge advantage when applying for jobs. I need to make these last 8 weeks count.

The "real world"

I had a taste of the "real world" tonight and I don't like it at all. Daniel and I are trying to decide if we can afford for him to quit his job. The truth is, he may have to quit whether we can afford it or not. Which is really scary. To keep his $15,000 a year scholarship, he is required to play in an ensemble in the music school every quarter. Last quarter he got in big trouble because he didn't. So this quarter, he absolutely has to. The problem is that his manager won't work around school. All the ensembles meet when Daniel is scheduled to work. One of them meets Saturday mornings, but even if Daniel asks for that time off they won't guarantee it.

He already made all of his classes after 6pm so that he can work during the days. He's only supposed to work part time, but they keep scheduling him for 23-25 hours. He's talked to his boss before about not scheduling him during classes and only 20 hours a week, but they refuse to be flexible. They don't recognize that school is important. Daniel ends up leaving class a few minutes early to be on time for work, and then he has to stay 30 minutes late which makes him late to class after work. It's ridiculous! Besides all the scheduling conflicts, it's very stressful for Daniel to keep up with his homework and reading while working over 20 hours a week. I feel so guilty when Daniel gets stressed out, or complains about his job. So I do everything I can to help. This weekend I did all the chores, laundry, grocery shopping, and I've been cooking dinner regularly so that he can eat and run.

The good news is that we definitely have enough money saved up to pay our bills for the next few months. But once I graduate, I need a full time job. If I don't get one right away that pays a decent salary, we'll be in big trouble. I'm already kind of freaking out about that. With Daniel not working I will feel even more pressure. I feel so guilty too. Daniel shouldn't have to work so many hours. If he's in school, I should be able to support us for 8 months until he graduates. It's not fair to rely on him so much. If I knew that I had a job on June 4 then I would feel so much better. But I don't know that I will. Jobs aren't the easiest to come by right now, even with a college degree.

I feel like this is so unfair. I thought that putting in 4 years of college meant I was guaranteed a good job. Now I'm ready to leave school with a piece of paper that says I paid a lot of money to a University and lived off my grandparents for 4 years. And nobody will hire me just because I have that piece of paper. What's the point? I could have saved my grandparents lots of money if this degree isn't going to help me get a job. I'm just wallowing in self-pity now.

So I called my Mom, hoping she would have some magical answer. Unfortunately, her Mom magic ran out when I turned 18. But she gave me lots of things to think about. So I spent this evening looking for more jobs. I applied for 2 more research assistant jobs at CU that seem promising. I know that I'm super qualified and I would be great for any of those jobs- if they don't mind that I'll be leaving in a year. That's always the problem.

I think everyone must go through this. Your first time actually living on your own. With all the wedding planning and graduating stuff I haven't had a chance to stop and realize that whether I'm ready or not, I'm on my own in 8 weeks. Sure, my family is there to support me. I'm not going to be homeless or go hungry. I'm lucky enough to know my family won't let that happen. But it's hard to remember that when you have no job, and you're about to jump into the real world.

Jobs and Graduate School

I feel like those are the only two things I think about these days: jobs and graduate school. I'm getting sick of it too. But, there have been a few developments.

First, on the job front. I talked to the soon-to-be PI (principal investigator) of our lab about possibilities for after I graduate. The answer wasn't good. She told me that there were no job openings for me or my fellow student Ashley. I smiled and politely asked her to let me know if anything opens up, and she smiled and agreed. I didn't realize how much I was relying on that possibility until I lost it. Now I feel like I'm in big trouble. I'm 9 weeks away from graduating college with no job. Okay, saying it like that makes me sound crazy. I do realize I have 9 whole weeks to find a job. But I went from having a back-up job and one interview to nothing! And the worst part is that my current job is one giant question mark. The whole lab is moving by June 30. At CU, where the lab is moving to, there are no job openings. So my question is, can I keep my current job? My very-low-paid-but-still-interesting-and-enjoyable-hourly-with-no- benefits job? Or is that going to disappear in June as well? Here's my other question: if a job does open up, am I going to be competing with Ashley for that job? I love Ashley, we get along great, but I don't want to compete with her for a job. I've been working in that lab for 15 months and she's been there less than 6 months. She's content with an hourly job, but I need something with salary and benefits! It's all so confusing. And scary. Here's another question: if I can keep my hourly job, do I want to? Would it be better to work as a teller at Wells Fargo for $25k with benefits or better to work in my field for much less?

On to graduate school. In the past month or so, I've felt very pessimistic about my realistic chances of getting accepted to my first choice school. That's CU, about 15 minutes from our house (also where the lab is moving to). The average GPA of an accepted student last year was 3.76. Mine right now: 3.41. Not even close. Midwestern, the school in Glendale that I visited, has an average of 3.5. Much more attainable. And I really liked that school. The only problem is they place an emphasis on direct patient care experience, and so far I have NONE. I'm working on it, but it's surprisingly difficult. Or maybe not, if you're the patient that I want to gain experience on ;-) So I spent tonight looking at some other options. Here's what I came up with. A.T. Still University (or Arizona School of Health Sciences) in Mesa seems much easier to get into. Their average accepted student had a GPA of 3.3. The problem with that one is that I'm missing one prerequisite class, but I'm pretty sure I could take that next spring if I needed to. Also, it doesn't have nearly as good a reputation as the other schools I've looked at. And it's in Mesa. My fourth option is University of Utah. Once again, my GPA is more in line with their average accepted (3.4). But they place an extreme emphasis on patient care. The average student had 5,000 hours (1,000 hours = 1 year). And they prefer paid experience over volunteer. They did have 13 accepted students (out of 40) with less than 3000 hours. So I guess I have a little bit of hope. Oh, one BIG problem with that school: tuition. For in-state it's a whopping $53,000 a year. That's over $20,000 than CU is for all three years. And per year, it's over $20,000 more than every other school I'm looking at. But, that's for Utah residents. I am not a Utah resident. Which means my tuition would be.... $78,000 a year! Does anybody actually pay that?! Unbelievable. There's a small chance I could end up paying in-state tuition through WICHE (a program that gives residents of all western states in-state status), but I would have to apply and it's this whole government bureaucracy. I'm not exactly sure what the requirements are.

So, right now I am seriously stressed out about all this. Worst case scenario: I graduate college with no job and don't get into any graduate school. Best case scenario: I get an awesome job making $30K + benefits and get accepted into CU for June 2012. Right now the worst-case scenario feels so much more likely. I am going to try really hard to think positive thoughts and get the best grades I can this quarter to boost my GPA. And study the GRE really hard because that can't hurt either!

Last term of my Undergrad

So far this quarter has been a breeze! I definitely deserve it after last quarter. I'm in class only 2 hours a day 4 days a week, and 3-5 hours on the fifth day (depending on how long lab goes). Only taking three classes is such a change. I took 5 last quarter, though 2 of them were 1 credit. I don't think it matters though, because when you have 5 different schedules, professors, homework assignments, and exams to keep track of it gets a little crazy regardless of how many credits they are. Two of my three classes are professors and classes I've had before- they're just continuations of the sequence. The third is psychology, cognition and learning. I haven't really made a decision yet about that class. The first day was pretty boring, but that's probably because this is my 5th or 6th psychology class so by this point I've heard pretty much all the major theories. If I have to learn about prosopagnosia one more time I'm going to scream. The professor is pretty ordinary, except in her audio/visual skills. She couldn't get her computer to link up to the classroom's system. Dumb.

With all this extra time, I have officially begun studying for the GRE. When I got home (at 3:30pm!!) on Monday, I sat myself at the kitchen table with my computer, a notebook, and a pencil, and forced myself to take the "diagnostic quiz" that's basically a shorter sample of the GRE. I was totally freaked out. I had a running dialogue in my brain of "this is really hard, I'm not prepared, I can't do this, I have to do well or I won't get into graduate school, I need to answer faster....." and that seriously inhibited my brain function. So of course I didn't do very well. 56% to be exact. To be honest, I don't really know what is a "good grade" on the GRE. But I'm sure I can do much better. So I think I need to slow down. That's my biggest problem. There were many math questions that I read, started to solve, and then said "this is taking way too long- I'm just going to guess." If I slow down and give myself permission to take longer in order to answer correctly, I bet my score will improve. Another area to work on: vocabulary. This is a surprise to me. I read constantly, and consequently have a larger than average vocabulary. But even I recognized maybe 10% of the words presented on the diagnostic quiz. The section I did really well on was fill-in-the-blanks because there are lots of context clues. However, there are 2 sections that I totally bombed. The analogies and antonyms give you nothing but vocabulary words: no context, no clues to help with definitions or even connotation. If you don't know the definition of the word or words presented, then you're just taking a shot in the dark. So I need to do some vocab drills to prepare for those sections. The diagnostic quiz didn't cover the writing section, and I think I need to really work on that part too. I absolutely hate writing and tend to do okay on it. Not great, not terrible.

The hard thing about studying for the GRE is that in the back of my mind, I feel like I don't have a chance of getting into graduate school with or without it. My GPA right now is 3.41. The average to get into CU (my top choice) is 3.7! Honestly, who graduates with a 3.7? Not me! The average for Midwestern in Glendale is a 3.56. Closer, but still above mine. My only hope is to get all As this quarter, which will maybe bring me up to a 3.5. So I feel almost like it's a lost cause. There is such a small chance I will get into either school. Every single day I think that I need to come up with a backup plan. The problem is, there isn't anything even close. I really want to be a PA. I know exactly what Daniel's Mom would say: I need to change my thoughts to change my behavior. She believes in positive thinking. If I keep thinking that I won't get in, then I won't. I need to think that I will get in. But that's so hard when I'm such a realist. Honestly, do I even have a chance? I would say with really good GRE scores, great recommendation letters, and really awesome personal statement I might have a chance. I have no idea what I'll do if I don't get in.

My Spring Break

Wow this week went by so fast! And we got so much done on the wedding.

I had my first dress fitting on Monday. It's going to need a lot of work and at least 2 more fittings to get it right. I'm very "petite" so all the proportions are wrong. The torso needs to be shortened and the entire top taken in. Alterations are so expensive, but I can't wait to see the dress when it's all finished and fits me perfectly. My Mom also started planning the wedding shower. She's had lots of offers from family and friends to throw it for me, so they're all going to work on it together. We're having one big one instead of a bunch of little ones. Nicole has also already planned the bachelorette party. I know virtually nothing about it. Daniel opened a registry for us at Target. We're also going to do Crate and Barrel. That will be fun to pick out all our gifts!

I met with the florist on Tuesday along with Daniel's mom and my Grandma. I surprised myself by going completely non-traditional. No little balls of compact flowers. Instead, we'll have very tall and linear bouquets of dendrobium orchids. The flowers will be purple to contrast with the teal. My bouquet is a cascade style with all white flowers. It's going to be very different and modern. Exactly what Daniel and I wanted.

On Wednesday, we met with the flower girls and their parents. My mom is making their little matching dresses. They will be black and white with a teal ribbon around the waist. My mom measured them, though of course they'll grow some in the next 8 months. They're going to be adorable. Also on Wednesday we met with the bakery to try some cake and pick the design. Daniel wasn't happy with my choices so we'll probably be changing that. But the design was mostly his decision. I decided to add our monogram on the middle tier. I really like the way that looks. My mom and I also bought some things for the table centerpieces and the flower girl baskets. She is going to embellish them a little bit, and make the pillow from the same material as the girls' dresses.

On Thursday I went shoe shopping with Beth and Tyler and found the most perfect shoes. I couldn't have imagined shoes any better for my wedding. They are very me and go well with the gown as well. Tyler was very helpful in selecting the shoes- he made sure to ask if they were comfortable. He's such a boy!

On Friday we had the food tasting. I brought almost my whole family- my parents, my brother, my grandparents, and Daniel's parents. It was surprisingly easy because everyone agreed on their favorites. The food was absolutely delicious and I am thrilled with what we picked. There's going to be a lot of food left over I'm sure. The manager at the restaurant brought out so many dishes to try we were all completely stuffed by the end- and it was all free. He was so friendly and helpful. That was a really fun dinner.

On Saturday, we assembled and mailed the save the dates. I designed them and ordered them earlier in the week. I even went to the post office to buy special stamps and spent all night Friday printing out the labels. That was quite a job in itself. Daniel's mom and my mom helped me stuff, address, and stamp the envelopes. We spent all week gathering the addresses we needed and there are still about 10 that we are going to hand-deliver (Daniel's fraternity brothers) because we never got their addresses.

While I was doing all that in Phoenix, Daniel was busy making the final music selections, picking out and ordering all the guys' tuxedos, researching vows, and picking out his wedding ring. He was busy too! I can't believe how much we got done in one week. What a relief! There are still so many little things to do, but I feel like I have a few months before I need to think about any of that stuff.

While I was in Phoenix I also visited Midwestern University. I was surprised and impressed by the campus. It's beautiful! It was so hot the day I was there, I wasn't really dressed appropriately. I found out about all the prerequisites and the application process and took a tour of campus. The biggest thing I'm worried about is that I need some sort of direct patient care experience to put on my application. The more, the better. I have none right now, and I want to turn in the application over the summer. So I have just a few months to figure that out. I think a paid job is going to be difficult to get, so I have applied to volunteer at a few local hospitals. If I can get in 4-8 hours a week for the next 10 weeks that should be pretty good. I'm also planning on studying for the GRE. I need to do as well as possible to make myself a competitive applicant. I am so nervous that I won't get into either program. I don't know what I'll do if that happens. I have my whole life planned out, with no plan B. So I'm going to do everything I can to get accepted.

The prospect of moving back to Phoenix is exciting. I never thought I would end up back there, but if I get into Midwestern that could become a very real possibility. Daniel has already told me that he will move anywhere I get into PA school, including Phoenix. Though he's not thrilled about the idea. At least it's in Glendale. That's far enough from our family that they won't just pop in when they're in the neighborhood. I don't know much about that part of town, but from what I saw it's a really great place to live. I think it's pretty affordable too.

Today is my last day of Spring Break. Tomorrow it's back to school. This quarter will be much easier than last quarter. I think I will be spending much more time focused on what will happen after school. I will be applying to graduate school, studying for the GRE, volunteering to get experience, and applying for full-time jobs. That will definitely make up for the lighter class schedule. But I'm excited to see what will happen next in our lives. I can't believe that I'll be making enough money to support us in just 12 weeks (if all goes according to plan anyways).

Date Night Recap

Our date last night was great. It was exactly what I needed to de-stress for a few hours. The ballet was absolutely incredible. The costumes, set, music, and of course dancing were beautiful. It was so romantic and dramatic. Dinner was great too. It's been a long time since we've gone out for a really nice meal and gotten all dressed up.

The only downside of the evening was that my group was having problems with our experiment. I was in the lab from 9am-11am that morning, but then I had plans the rest of the day. Three of my group members were there from 9am until 9:30pm (with a break for lunch and dinner). They texted me at about 3pm and asked if I could come in because they were having problems and it was taking longer than they expected. But we already had dinner reservations and I really didn't want to cancel on Daniel. He did this nice thing for me to help me relax and it would be so rude to cancel to go work on school stuff. So I told my group I just couldn't come in. They were very understanding and weren't upset at all- but I still felt guilty of course. So then at 4pm they reminded me that I had to have my powerpoint done by tomorrow morning. Of course I forgot. So I had exactly one hour until we were leaving for dinner to make my powerpoint and get dressed and ready to go. I was kind of freaking out and I didn't think I would get it all done, but I did. So we went to dinner, and during dinner my group members were texting me questions about things that I had done earlier that morning. And then during the ballet one of my group members called me to ask about my powerpoint presentation. I kept seeing that red blinking light on my blackberry and it was stressing me out because I knew it was my group member that called and left a message. So basically during the whole night I was reminded every hour that the rest of my group was working on this project while I was out on a date with Daniel. It kinda took some of the fun out. But I guess I deserved it.

So this morning we met at school and drove to Dr. Verl's house about 45 minutes out of the city. He lives in the foothills of the mountains basically. It's a beautiful neighborhood. It wasn't quite as awkward as I thought it would be, mostly because the entire class was there so we had each other to joke with. Dr. Verl was surprisingly nice and funny and hospitable. He cooked some pretty good food for us and helped us a lot with our presentation and troubleshooting our experiment. And it was great to spend some time with my classmates actually socializing and being friends instead of group members. I'm so lucky that our group all gets along really well. We actually like each other and we never argue about what to do. We all pull our weight and show up on time, prepared, and ready to work.

The one thing that's irritating to me is that Dr. Verl expects us to be in the lab every day up until our presentation on Thursday. He expects us to keep trying because so far the experiment isn't working. He doesn't care that I have two papers, two other presentations, and two finals for other classes. He actually told us that. He doesn't care that we have other classes. We have to work on this class. There just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. I have to meet with 3 different groups, and trying to coordinate everybody's schedule is virtually impossible. So we're going into the lab again tomorrow to try to finish up as much as we can. There goes my weekend. I have a paper due on Monday so I absolutely have to find time to write that. I'm going to wake up early tomorrow and try to get it done before everything else. I'm so sad I don't get to sleep in this weekend.

I guess I have to have some horror story to tell my children someday about how hard college is. I have never experienced anything close to this. I have had class/work/group meetings from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed this entire week. And it will be the same for the next week too. I haven't had time to cook so we've been going out way too often. I haven't had time to clean so our house was a mess until today when Daniel cleaned it. He's the best. He did so much today while I was gone. I ripped two pairs of jeans in the last few weeks (long story), so I've just been wearing ripped jeans because I don't have a free hour to drive to the mall and buy a new pair. Jackson is so desperate for attention that he got a tennis ball, dropped it in my lap while I was working on my computer, and sat there staring at me for 30 minutes. I feel so bad, like I'm a bad parent. And Daniel and I have had almost no time together- except for last night of course. I've been close to throwing a fit and just giving up. But it hasn't happened yet. If I can get through this week fulfilling all my obligations and doing well on all my projects, I will be a better person for it. This is real character building. I can feel it physically changing me. Or maybe that's the cortisol coursing through my veins. Cortisol is the stress hormone for all you non-sciency people :-)

Well I guess I should stop wasting time and work on my paper/ presentation/ final exam studying. Any encouraging words and/or prayers are welcome! I'm going to need them.

I'm going crazy!

The interview went great, what a relief. I'm just glad it's over. I couldn't sleep at all the 2 nights before, and I thought I was going to throw up the whole day up until I got there. I left an hour before, even though it takes less than 30 minutes to drive there. It's a good thing because traffic was terrible (at 3 in the afternoon- dumb!) so I got there about 15 minutes early. It's a HUGE campus with 2 hospitals, a medical school, and lots more so I had to find the building I was going to and the nearest parking lot. I wasn't paying attention, and I got pulled over by campus police. Definitely not what I needed ten minutes before my interview. Apparently, I was going 29mph in a 15mph street. Oops. I have absolutely no record because I've never been pulled over before so he let me go with a warning. But by the time he let me go, I was already late. I took a deep breath, parked, and ran there. I got there about 7 minutes late. Nobody seemed to mind. The lab is very small (3 women, compared with about 30 in my current lab). It's brand new, and they are about to move to another floor to get more space. I got the impression that I'm very qualified, especially since I have so much experience working with animals. The only problem is that I want to start graduate school. I didn't exactly tell them I was ready to start the application process and if I get accepted I will start next June. I just told them I wanted to go into the PA program there on campus eventually. But I think they had a feeling it would be soon, because at the end of the interview the PI told me she was hoping for someone who would stick around a while. But, if it's a good fit then that doesn't matter as much. She also is hoping to hire 2 people and the second person could be on a year-to-year basis. So I could definitely be that second person if they have the funding. Overall, a very positive experience. I really fit in well with everyone, and felt like I could see myself working there very easily.

What a relief that's over because I have a million other things going on! My Frontiers project is my biggest concern right now. We have absolutely no results, and we are presenting one week from today. That means we need a poster, a full length journal article, a powerpoint, and a coherent 50 minute presentation complete with answers to any questions asked by the chemistry faculty. To get results by then I will need to be in the lab every single day. Unfortunately, I can't because I have two other group presentations on Monday. So I have to meet with each of those groups, make a powerpoint presentation for each, and write a paper for one of them. I have no idea how I will get all of this done. Especially considering my professor "invited" (translation: required) us to come to his house at 10am on Saturday morning and stay all the way until the barbeque at 4pm! That's the entire day that I won't be able to work on either of my other presentations or paper. And I have no idea what we are going to be doing for 6 hours. I guess making our powerpoints and working on our presentations. Except that will be kind of difficult to do without any results! I'm freaking out. I have no brain power left to think about anything but all of these assignments and group projects. Did I mention I also have two final exams next week? I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to study for those in my spare time. Ha.

So Daniel has heard me talking about all of this and what does he do? He plans a date night on my only free night this weekend. I am so excited! I get to forget about all of this and go to a nice restaurant and then the ballet to see Romeo and Juliet. It's restaurant week in Denver which means that practically every restaurant has a deal where a couple gets a 3 course meal for $52.80 (Denver is the "mile high city" which means that its elevation is 5,280 ft). So Daniel made reservations for us for restaurant week and then we can get student rush tickets 2 hours before the performance if there are any seats left (which the box office told us there almost certainly will).

I hope I can get through the next week without going insane! And if you're reading this, don't call me or email me or add anything else to my to-do list (please). I just can't handle anything besides school and work.