Days Ahead...

So I have not blogged for a few reasons: 1) as this is my last semester of nursing school, I rarely have time for anything other than reading about nursing, studying about nursing, or going to school to learn how to be a nurse. 2) If I am not doing school related stuff, then I am either at work or trying to spend some time with Andy… mostly at work though. 3) Since I am about to finish nursing school (nine weeks to be exact) I figured I should start looking for an RN job.

Oh yeah, I got hired as a staff nurse on the Oncology unit of Valley Hospital in Ridgewood N.J. last week (www.valleyhealth.com). I am very excited because that is where I want to work since I work there already. Valley is a good place to start your nursing career, they pay better than most hospitals in the area, they treat their staff VERY well, and RN positions are hard to come by. Getting this job was a great accomplishment for me. My manager actually told the nurse recruiter that she wanted to hold the position for me and to please not fill it. So now all I have to do is actually graduate and pass my NCLEX-RN exam (National Center for Licensure Examinations-Registered Nurse), which should be some time in June/July. For those of you interested, I graduate May 17, that’s when we have our pinning ceremony. I went to last year’s graduation ceremony and it was very cool. First, we have a guest speaker welcome us into the profession, then we actually walk the stage and get our degree and our pin that identifies us as nurses, then we take our nursing oath. The oath is very traditional, and from what I understand, all nursing schools do it exactly the same. We all light a candle from the same flame as our Director of Nursing’s candle, then they dim the lights and we take our oath to heal the sick, care for the dying, comfort the ill, and so on… in front of our friends and family. When we are done, our Director of Nursing introduces us as nurses to the audience (tears, applause, standing ovations, etc…) as real nurses (even though we are not until we pass the licensing exam).

Anyhoot, Andy and I are going away to Key West in two weeks. I cannot wait! I love Key West, we are going to meet the usually crowd there, Jeff and John from Virginia, Dan and Bob from DC, Mark and Mark from Maine, Scott and Tim from Wisconsin, and Vinnie and Scott from San Diego. It’s always a lot of fun being on vacation with friends, we stay at the Coconut Grove/ Oasis guesthouse, which is exclusively all gay men, kinda like our own little bubble of fun and caddyness. In June we are going to Toronto to visit our friends Scott and Phil, who we met in Costa Rica last year. It should be a really fun time because as I may have mentioned, Scott is Scott Thompson from “The Kids in The Hall” and Canada’s premier gay export, sort of the Elton John of England or Pedro Almodovar of Spain (or at least he is in his own mind). Also, in November Andy and I will celebrate our tenth year anniversary so we are planning a trip as I type… perhaps a cruise to the Mexican Riviera, or a Romantic get-a-way to Europe, or maybe that dream Hawaiian vacation we all hope for… stay tuned, I’ll let you know what we decide… BTW, if you have any suggestions, please tell me (and just to make it clear, Austin TX is not an option!).