Yes, I passed the exam, now what?

Well, here I am post exam and finally getting a few moments at 11 p.m. to update the blog. Part of the late hour is that I'm just in from a union meeting.Attempted to bring the membership up to speed but that's hard to do when only five of them show up, considering we only schedule two meetings per year. As well three of us there are working in the morning, one worked today and one worked last night so where were all those union sistas who are quick to seek me out when they'd like me to fight a battle for them? Oh yeah, enjoying their days off - think I'll remind them of that when I'm next approached. Oh well, the lobster dip was good and it was a fine start to Nurses Week.

The exam today was absolutely brutal and I am amazed that I actually passed. The pass mark was 70% and I couldn't have predicted that I made it or not. It took over half an hour to get my exam sent to me this morning (apparently the instructor was troubleshooting for other students across the province in the same situation as me) and almost as long to figure out how to log back on and input the answers - it was like you needed the secret decoder ring to figure out the instructions. As I told the admin assistant who kindly proctored my exam "I don't do cryptoquotes so I have no idea how to figure this out" these folks put the fun in dysfunctional. When the mark was posted after a few minutes I was ecstatic to find a 78! By the time I got home and called my preceptor Shihua (pronounced Sheewah) and arranged to work two LDs and one LN with her in the city on my days off over the next few weeks, I had lost all enthusiasm for finishing up the final postings due for the semester. That is for another day. When I shared my mark with the life partner he looked kind of surprised and said "you usually do better than that" and so I thanked him for being his usual supportive self. When we discussed it further he says "well you weren't doing it in a classroom I guess" so I reviewed that I've done distance ed over the past 15 years from Alberta, Australia and Ontario, NONE of it in the classroom. Think this comes under the 'not really paying attention to the spouse category' myself.

The saddest part of the entire course, exam must be written today debacle was that I would be in Boston attending a tropical health conference this week if not torturing myself with this bunch. Had an email from the would have been travel mate who had been having quite a diverse day at work herself from billionaire to bum families. Also had another email from a friend who had just made it through her first Mothers Day after her mother passed away this winter and she wrote of her brother-in-law having cancer, a MVC while traveling for work for which she was still having physio and more. I promised her that we WOULD be getting together this summer even if the price of gas required me 'borrowing' the company gas card from the plant truck and making my way up to see her. Reminding me of the quote of the day:

 If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires. ~ Abigail Van Buren

Well, I've wound down enough from my day to be able to sleep now. As I am sleep deprived from my exam anxiety of last night I should soon be unconscious. As I am planning to run away this winter and for more than a vacation I'm thinking the following packing info may come in handy:

http://www.adventurebimbling.com/travel-articles/packing-light-without-being-a-minimalist/

I am being heavily influenced by my buddy who is home visiting from Iqaluit who tells me that ER nurses there make more than he does and that's $50 per hour. He counsels that I should go with an agency as that way they will put the airline ticket in my hand and accommodation will be provided free. He is such a bad influence on me, telling me that there are five positions open there right now and some for a long time. We had a nice cup of tea and chocolate danish chat with him before my friend and I headed off to Frenchy's shop. I found a great pair of Faded Glory jeans that fit me perfectly, a walking jacket, capris, t-shirts and more.

I have been researching the possibility of being a cruise nurse - at least I'll be able to add the Emergency certificate to my resume - and it's sounding like the most possible way to do a world cruise before I'm 80. Hmmm. Got to get my resume together on my days off - always fun to see what's out there.