It's because I am. Please, I beg of you, don't message me with info about what you did at AC. I spent my weekend caring for patients with horrific diarrhea. I cleaned more shit in 3 days than most new mothers do in 3 months. As a result of this, and the fact that I will be going in to do it again in a few hours, I do NOT want to hear how wonderful everyone's weekend was, because it only serves as a reminder of how wretched mine was.

I got the job as an ER technician. They're going to call me later this week to set up a training schedule. Goodbye money problems! $16/hr at my preferred shift, $14.25/hr at the lowest shift.

Just got an interview for a job that will nearly double my income. Hope I get it.

First off, I'm back from South Carolina. Had fun times there and got to do my biology nerd thing in my aunt and uncle's backyard forest. I also did a lot of swimming, so I now have a tan for the first time in more years than I care to remember. Not half as dark as I'm capable of, but I only had a week. After getting all relaxed and refreshed, I got to get myself all edgy and high-strung again with a 16 hour straight drive back home.

Anyways, onto the good stuff. As some of you know, and even fewer of you probably care, I was once in the Navy. It was actually 4 years ago almost to the day that I shipped off to boot camp only to have my dreams shattered at the same time my ankle was. Now, after having given up hope, I've been made an offer by an officer recruiter. They will, with a waiver from a podiatrist, take me back, finish putting me through college, and then put me through medical school with a commission as a Lieutenant-Commander upon completion of my residency. Considering that putting myself through med school will probably land me in nearly half a million in debt, I'm intending to take them up on that offer.

As such, starting at midnight tonight, I'm reinstating my old diet and exercise routine...the ones that lost me 60 pounds in under 5 months. Since I can't miss my mother's wedding in September of 2013, that gives me roughly 17-18 months between now and my earliest capable departure. My goal weight is 175 pounds...meaning I have to lose 108 pounds to reach that. I also need to make sure that I'm in good enough physical shape to handle everything the Navy throws at me PLUS 20% as a buffer against another injury. This will require a lot of work and determination on my part. What that means for those of you who like to talk to me is as follows:

1: I will be online less, due to being at the gym 4-6 days a week for at least 90 minutes
2: Gym + school + work + huge amounts of bunny food = very tired and crabby Alby. If I seem to be in a mood and you don't want to deal with it, I encourage you to just excuse yourself from talking to me that day to avoid any confrontations. My sincere apologies in advance for the douchebaggy behavior I know I will have at times.
3: All of those chubby chasers out there, sorry, but the fat is going bye-bye. Hopefully it won't leave behind skin flaps, but I'll worry about that as needed.
4: Finally, once I do leave, I'll be gone for weeks at a time at random intervals. I will try to post when these are and when I'll be back, but that won't always be possible. Again, sorry in advance.

Off to South Carolina. I will try to keep up as much as possible on my mobile apps, but since my aunt lives in the middle of backass nowhere, where cell phone signals are just the wet dreams of the younger generation, I may be out of contact for days at a time

I'm at the point now where all of my usual time-passing activities are a complete bore. I'm talking like it's almost painful to do them. The ONLY thing that seems to have been working recently is reading, and now I can't do that because I can't afford over $100/week in books, which is what I spend if I go on a reading binge. Aside from that, gaming no longer has any appeal for me, nor does TV, Netflix, or any other electronic-based activity. The real-world activities that are available to me don't appeal either. Not a club/rave person and I don't really have friends, so social things are kind of out. Fishing and hiking, while good for the body and soul, are terrible for an active mind such as mine with nobody else there to talk to. I'm just beginning to lose interest in the world around me, and that scares me.

Apparently since I joined the SPCA a few months ago, I'm now also a part of PETA. Didn't ask to be part of PETA, didn't want to be part of PETA. Now they're sending me newsletters on the horrors of fur and carnivorism. Dragon likes bacon. Dragon likes steak. Dragon will continue to indulge in these things. Aside from that, hooray for eco-terrorism? o.=.O

Wish me luck! *runs off to bed*

I'm now 24. Dragon is getting old

As of noon today (3-8) my externships will be over and done. The good news is that I'm apparently very proficient at my job. Bad news is that my plans for transferring my credits to a college have been derailed. I'm going to have to just take the one year of standard college I've already completed and continue that degree. On the plus side, in just over a year, I will be a registered medical assistant, a certified phlebotomist, and a biologist with a biology degree. Lots of titles for me.

In other news, my hatchday is in 13 days. As always, I won't be doing much of anything. Probably just a nice lobster dinner with my mother and grandmother.

Alright. As you may notice from my to-do list, I have quite a few items that need to be completed. The problem is that I'm in the midst of a horrible writer's bloc. I need something to get my creative juices flowing again. Therefore I'm opening 2 slots for free stories. The rules are as follows:

1: Please pimp this journal I want as many applicants as possible.
2: Unlike my usual policy of just needing a general idea, I want as much detail as possible in the requests. The reason I'm doing this is to make the creativity start working, so if I need to use my creativity in order to come up with a plot for you, it's clearly a moot point.
3: There are no rules regarding the content of the story EXCEPT no scat, watersports, vomit, gore (in a sexual way) or extreme cub stuff. Anything else is fair game.


If you want a chance to win, post a reply to this journal with a link to your journal. Do NOT post a reply with the plot details, please send me a note.

I'm opening 2 slots initially, but if I see more than 2 that I really want to write about, then I will do more than 2.

1:
2:

For the past few weeks of school, we've been taking an Insurance class. Since medical assistants quite often have to deal, either directly or indirectly, with these agencies, we need to know about them. Since the class started, my classmates and I have been horrified beyond words by numerous cases of what pretty much amounts to justified murder. The insurance companies have teams of doctors and nurses who evaluate every case in front of them, looking for reasons to deny them. This includes lifesaving operations. The insurance companies don't see people as people, they see them as money lost, or money saved. They place $100,000 above a person's life in value. This is all bad enough, but I aspire to be a doctor someday, and I am ultimately answerable to these companies. If I had to perform a lifesaving surgery in a hospital, and face it, surgeries of that kind are performed nowhere else, and the insurance company denied coverage, I would not be allowed by the hospital to perform that surgery. Even if I waived my fee as the surgeon, the patient would still have 60-75% of their charges for the procedure left, meaning that they would still be SOL, which translates to dead in this circumstance.

In light of all of this, I have to reevaluate where exactly I want to be in 10-15 years. I don't think I can practice in the US. My conscience wouldn't be able to bear letting people die just because a greedy corporation wants them to. Therefore, I'll probably be looking to practice in a country that has socialized healthcare already established. The UK would be my first choice, and Oxford is such a nice school.

Anyways, that ends my rant on insurance for now.

I'm officially in the final in-class mod at school. On January 12, I'll be done with classes and only have externships left before I'm finished. Already have an externship site set up and everything. Can't wait to be done with this career school and get back into college.

Well, I've spent the past couple days beta testing The Old Republic. Since they've officially lifted the non-disclosure clause in their testing agreement, I can now talk about it. The game is very interesting and in depth, so I'm not going to go into extreme detail. I'll just say that I'm greatly looking forward to the release on Dec 20. For those who plan on getting it, I highly recommend the Smuggler class. It actually has a very dynamic and unique gameplay that hasn't really been done before. That coming from me, is saying a lot. My MMO resume is pretty simple: almost all of them. If anyone has specific questions about the game, feel free to ask in comments and I'll answer.

I was on my way to drop  cty_lover off at school when, just down the street from me, a cat decides to cross the road. Next thing you know some psychopath going about 60 in a 35 clips the poor thing in the backside. The cat promptly flails and begins trying to limp to safety. Naturally, I did what any human who deserves to live would do and pulled over to help. Before I can get to the cat to bring it to safety, some other ignorant numbskull comes pelting down the road and crushes the cat's skull beneath his tires. If looks could kill, that car would be shrapnel and the asshole driving it would have been minced by said shrapnel. So instead of saving the poor kitty, I wind up just carrying its still squirming body to the side of the road to prevent further desecration. I am so infuriated and enraged at this point that I hope we run out of oil...like tomorrow. Sucks for us, but better for every other living thing on the planet.

Cable and internet are back up for the first time since the damn snowstorm last Saturday. My FA inbox took hours to clear out. I truly feel for anyone who has like 1k people watched. That would be just a global nuke and a feeling of sorrow for what I may have missed.

Anywho, something I wanted to post about a week ago was this:

Tentative timeline for college.

June '12 - Should have my AS degree
Sept '12 - Starting at a 4 year school, hopefully UMass Amherst.
June '14 - Will be graduating with a BS degree in either microbio or biochem
Sept '14 - Will be starting Medical School
June '18 - Will be finishing Medical School and officially be a doctor.
July '18 - Will be starting my one year of internships
July '19 - Will be finished with internships and allowed to legally practice under my own license
Aug '19 - Time for residencies to specialize my practice
sometime in '26 - Will officially be a specialist and be able to practice in my desired field.

Total time learning - 15 years
My age upon graduation - 38

I have a loooooooooong way to go

Working at Comcast and now the hospital is making one thing blaringly obvious... I am not a people person at all. As such, the, healthcare field may not be my real calling. Therefore I am taking suggestions as to what I can do. I would prefer something involving the life sciences. Something with minimal human contact. Possibly microbiology or something like that. Please field any suggestions you may have.

Peeing out several large blood clots with each void. That didn't happen last time. No pain or anything, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for now, but it's still worrisome.

If you have the best of both worlds and want a chance at being in this massive orgy, follow this link http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2814264/

Just got back from surgery. Turns out that it was kidney stones. one in each kidney...and one of them was pretty large. Anyways, feeling kinda crappy from the anesthesia and my throat hurts from having an air tube shoved down it for the better part of an hour. I'm gonna go lay down for a while and brood on the fact that my body hates me.

Unfortunately, my surgery is the day before FF starts. It's an outpatient surgery, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna be walking around anywhere with 2 stents and a couple wires hanging out of my schlong. So this year I must abstain. Probably be good for my finances in the long run though.

Went to see my urologist today and found out that the x-ray I had on Friday was completely normal...no stones or anything calcified. That's actually bad because it means we have no idea where all the blood and protein in my urine is coming from. As a result, I'm getting another penile probe sometime soon, the goal being to see if there is anything fleshy in my kidneys that the x-ray missed. Yes, kidneys...he's looking into both. That means a double stent for me. Hopefully it's a physical problem like a polyp or ruptured vein. If it isn't, then the blood and protein may indicate that my kidneys are failing, which will result either in my needing a transplant, or my death. Fun fun. I hope Satan has a job opening, because I'd rather be an employee in hell than a customer XP

Work and school pretty much. I have school today from 8:30 - 2:30, then work from 3:00 - 11:30, then school again tomorrow from 8:30 - 2:30, followed by yet more work. While it's nice to have an income again, I'm beginning to miss my life. Oh well, I guess fun is for the dead.

Well I'm currently sitting here at school with nothing to do. Class ended at 2:20, but I need to make up hours that I missed during my work orientation. All the work is done, but since this a time-based course, I still need to make up the actual hours, even if it means sitting here doing nothing for the next 2 hours. Let the boredom commence

Over the next few minutes, I will be posting pictures of all of my pets in my scraps folder. More details on each individual will be in the submission info.

*edit* since FA's upload thingy seems to be down, I'll have to revise the above statement to "Over the next few hours (hopefully)"