Sizzling Summer...Stuff.

So, after a week of sleeping in till 8am EVERY SINGLE GORGEOUS MORNING and wrapping up my affairs from the past year (money = ouch), I’m preparing to launch a new summer routine next week. This summer will be unlike any summer I’ve had yet. I suppose one could say that about every summer, but some summers are more alike than others. What’s new about this summer? I’m going to be taking classes and working a real honest-to-goodness job for real pay. Both are bran-new experiences for me.

I’m also trying to establish a routine for myself. I’ve found I need structure (this is why I pay people to teach me things that are written in books and keep me accountable in learning material). It’ll be a sort of “Liturgy of Life”, if you will, in which I order my days to include regular prayer and Scripture, exercise, sleep, study, reading, and song. Until now I’ve had only spasms of structure in my routine of trying to hap-hazardly crunch everything I need to do into my days and finding at the end of the day that exhaustion extinguishes other interests.

So, here are some goals for the summer.

Daily Readings every day. Compline every night.
Success in Microbiology. (my scale and grade scale)
Work as much as possible (goal of a minimum of 3 days a week).
Learn one new folk song every week. A cappella. Lyrics and melody memorized.
Workout MTW 1 hour &30 minutes minimum. Walk/Bicycle 30 minutes -1 hour per day HFSS.
Read good books and write papers and blog posts for pleasure. (Vague, I know.)


About my job:
I’m a nurse technician. Basically, that means I’m a nurse assistant with a few more skills and responsibilities. I can bathe patients, change their linens, feed them meals, take vital signs, help them walk, help them toilet, bring them things, turn them, check I.V. lines, empty catheters and drains, do basic assessments. I’m hoping to be able to give tube feedings, change dressings, put in catheters, take out I.V. s, do naso/oral-pharangeal suction, etc as well. I don’t know yet how much of these nursing type responsibilities I’ll have. My hours are “Relief” type. I’m told that that means I can work as much as I want whenever they need me. The shifts are 12 hours long. From 7am to 7pm and vice versa. The facility is a Long Term Acute Care Hospital: patients come here when they’ve outstayed their time in the hospital, but the nursing home isn’t the right place for them either. There’s a big focus on rehabilitation, at least from what I saw when I did my geriatrics rotation there. We want to get the patients to the point where they can go home. It’ll be great.

About my summer schooling:
I’m taking a Microbiology course three days a week and Voice lessons for an hour a week. It’s 6 credits in all, I think, but that still sounds like a good breather from the RN program. I’ll be able to use the internet while I’m at school so I’ll spend some time expanding my song repertoire in the afternoon of school days with the help of youtube.

Speaking of songs, I’m beginning a systematic effort to put together a collection of celtic folkish songs singable by me unaccompanied. So far, here’s a few I have memorized and can do decently. More to come. There’s plenty on the back burner that need some work on lyrics or melody. (One familiar with the Corries will guess my attraction of late.)

Loch Lomond – both versions
A Parcel of Rogues (Burns)
Scots Wha’ Hae (Burns)
The Trees They Grow So High
The Streets of Derry
The Water is Wide
The Rose of Allendale
Grace
Treat Me Daughter Kindly
Wild Mountain Thyme
Westering Home
Come O’er the Stream, Charlie
I Will Go
The Skye Boat Song