So after being out of school for 5 years, I have a HUGE test today, that actually does kinda have a lot to do with my current situation in life--THE US POSTAL EXAM. I have wanted to work at the post office for quite a while now. Depending upon which type of post office and what job you luck up with you may have really long, really sucky hours, but the pay is OUT THE ROOF. I've known quite a few people now who have worked in various positions with the governmental snail mail and I really think I'd like the job.
Current person that I know who works with the USPS is my best friend Miranda. Miranda works at a local post office (that doesn't have the long crazy hours and what not) and luckily for me they got approved to hire someone the other week. So she has already been talking me up to the postmaster, letting him know I'm really interested and all that jazz... But you have to apply for the post office online. AND you have to wait for THEM to actually post the job you want before you can apply for it. So for weeks I'd been checking the website nearly everyday just waiting for the job to post.
Wednesday morning it did. So I applied. The next step in the application process is doing one of those survey things that lets them get to know what kind of a person you are and all that it seems EVERYONE is doing now-a-days. THEN you have to register to take the exam. Also lucky for me, Miranda had bought one of those test prep books 5 years ago when she was going to take her test so I'd borrowed it when they said they were going to have a postition. I had not actually USED it, but it was there. I didn't realize that I would be able to schedule (and take) my test so soon after applying or I would have practicing since the day I brought it home...
Thursday my sister wanted me to check the website and see which other post offices were hiring right now. I logged on and checked the website and the post for MY office was GONE! I called Miranda, worried maybe there'd been a mistake or maybe they'd already hired someone... But no. Apparently so they could hire someone faster they only posted their position for one day so not many people would have applied. (Thank GOD I happened to check it THAT day... Also, THANK GOD not very many people will be going for the job. Also, they may be hiring two people, not just one, so that increases my chances as well!)
So I scheduled my exam for today (so JD can drive to Atlanta with me...). I was going to go yesterday, but I decided to study and I did one of the practice tests and did NOT do very well on it (I was very slow)... So I figured maybe I needed an extra day to prepare.
The test will have 4 different sections. The first is matching addresses... or well, more like, tell if there's a difference. The "questions" will have 2 addresses that will either be slightly different (like, one letter off, etc) or EXACTLY the same. Sounds simple enough, but there are 95 and you have 6 minutes to do it. Miranda says that they only count the ones you answer. If you only answer 70 you only get graded for those 70. I really hope she's right. I'm not incredibly slow or anything, but answering 84 out of 95 and those 11 being automatically wrong would just completely fuck me up. So... Here's praying she's right.
Another little tid bit on that particular test part... when I said EXACTLY the same, I mean that. I kept practice testing and practice testing and kept having like, 8 wrong. I was like, that's impossible. When I went back to see which ones they were, they were ones that I would say were the same address. I mean, 124 Main Street in real life is the same as 124 Main St. Well, on the test, THAT IS DIFFERENT. And I mean, yeah, it IS different, but the practice book didn't exactly explain that they have to be absolutely identical. But anyway...
The next part of the test they give you 5 boxes with 5 addresses in each one. You get 11 minutes to study and memorize it. Then you have each of the 25 addresses repeated randomly 88 times on your test paper and you have to mark which box (a-e) they belong to WITHOUT THE PAPER--ONLY from memorization, in 5 minutes. I could go into how I maneuver this, but that's WAY too much detail to bother with.
The third part of the test is just 24 number sequences and one has to find the next numbers in the sequence. For me this is the easiest part... Plus you get 20 minutes to do this test, which I find a little long. I mean, 5 minutes is barely long enough to Christmas tree a scan tron if you fill the bubbles in correctly, let alone actually looking for the correct answer to 88 questions, but then they give you 20 minutes for this?
Some are simple just adding, subtracting, and multiplication, but then you get these random ones you have to decipher. For example...
2 4 6 8 ___ ___ Easy enough, right? Well, take THIS one
49 40 36 39 31 22 42 ___ ___ *And my actual practice EXAM ended up having nothing but those kinds in the sequence part of it...
The next part is following directions where they'll give you a situation and if such and such is true mark THIS but if not then mark THIS. I didn't actually get to practice any of those, but I read through them and it's easy as long as you are a good listener.
The End.
I'm not incredibly worried anymore... I mean, I was not worried about making a LOW score, but worried that someone else would make higher than me and they would get the job that I have been wanting for over 2 years now. I mean, I was lucky the job even OPENED (the postal service's budget had been so low they let people take their early retirement and then did not hire people to replace them)... Lucky enough that I have a pretty good reference... Lucky enough I checked the website that day and actually even got to APPLY... And I surely don't want to not get it just because I have a slightly lower test score than someone else.
I really need the job. It will be delivering, but as relief (for when people are out, etc), the money is AWESOME, the hours will vary, I'll still have lots of time off, I'll get off pretty early in the day everyday (as opposed to 7 and 8 pm, thank you DOC)... And if I'm sick (which I am quite often it seems lately) all I'm doing is driving around so I should still be able to manage to go! Hopefully I will still be able to model too, but if not, I guess oh well... I really need they money that comes along with all the other greatness of being a government employee...
But great news, IF Miranda is correct and they only score you on the questions you complete, I made a 98 on the full practice exam! So, wish me luck people, send up a prayer, and if I get the job, the celebrations on me!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Blurple? Seriously?
I did indeed get up on Tuesday... Or well, actually I stayed up all night Monday night... But anyway. That night I had resolved that if I am going to have to actually start living in our bedroom then I was going to make it a place I would actually want to live. Maybe I should give a little background information on my situation here so you can better understand.
I'll just get to the point. The house was terrible. I'll put it this way as well... this was not JD's choice. We'll not talk about whose choice it WAS, but it was not HIS. The layout isn't awful, but the rooms are sort of smallish (for now)... Well, crude as it may be, here is the layout before
The rooms from left to right, top to bottom are:
Mudroom - Bathroom - Music Room - Kitchen
Master Bedroom - Living Room - Dining Room
Focus on the kitchen for a moment. Notice the stove at the END of the counter... Just stuck there, at the end of the counter AND at the EDGE of the doorway. Like, it lined up with the edge of it. Ugh. The block in the corner is a freestanding antiquey pantry. The block further down in the corner is the fridge. Next to that is a small freezer. Ok.... The little niche those are in was light blue color. The rest of the kitchen was a dark royalish color that was not... very nice... I mean, it was just, ugh. Add the halfway done glossy white tile "backsplash" behind the stove, awesome.
Moving on, Dining room. The dining room is teal. Teal with like, dark peacock green trim. The living room is somewhere between seafoam and mint. the guest room was just an ugly beige. The bathroom was a weird dark "periwinkle" color, but not quite, with mainly green stone looking linoleum that actually is pretty nice. To go a little further on the wretchedness of the bathroom, said OTHER person had painted the trim the periwinkle color also (which is just... flat out stupid. I'll go ahead and say it). To make it even worse, the room has "wainscotting" So white wainscotting, but then the trim around the wainscotting the same color as the wall? What the hell? Ok people, NEVER do that. Mudroom was also just beige. And the Master... Ok, the MASTER bedroom was blurple. Blurple is a color Allen and I came up with which describes a blue that can't decide if it is purple or a purple that can't decide if it is blue. And like, the wordy descriptions almost make them sound pretty, compared to the mental vomit session you have when you see them... But anyway. Of course we got right on that. The following is the layout now... (so far only the kitchen has actually changed layout wise, but it makes MUCH more sense.
So anyway, now the walls in the kitchen are black. Yes black. We moved the counter over, added a galvanized steel backsplash along the entire stove wall, painted all the trim white, AND knocked out the wall and put a 4 feet wide archway to the dining room. We also added wall back so the counter would not be ON the edge of the archway as it had been before. Facing the archway in the little niche there will be a butler's pantry at some point and the left wall of the niche will be black board paint with a 6" drink ledge going across it at chair rail height.
The dining room is still teal, but for now it's not the worst thing. We're going to move the wall between the dining room and living room over to make the living room larger and the dining room smaller so we'll tackle all that then. The living room is still seafoamy mint (but that will be changing in the VERY near future...) Eventually the living room will be fabricated with red damask, but for now we'll just paint. The other week I got fed up with the bathroom. I also realized that the trim color in the dining room is actually pretty if IT had've been on the walls instead of trim so I painted the bathroom that color and painted all the trim white. Now it is glorious. ESPECIALLY with the floor. Allen took the music room so now the mudroom is the "music room" (really just musical instrument storage right now). Allen painted his bedroom a very nice smokey blue.
I believe, well, every room should be nice, BUT I especially want luxury in my bedroom. I mean, I go all out with expensive comforters, 6 pillows (not including the accent and neck roll pillows), at least 400 thread count sheets... I mean, I like my bedroom to be NICE. All of my furniture is black. Black does NOT go with blurple. Neither does gold and peacock damask or black and "taupe" damask... you get where I'm going with this. So now the master bedroom is a rich golden color that's utter perfection. The current comforter is the black and "taupe" damask and now all is right with the world. I'm still getting it put back together, but once I do, I'll definitely put up some pictures. For now, I'm off to buy curtains!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Well I'm not dying...
So it's been a few days but I am FINALLY feeling better. After work Friday (which was without unattractive naked coughing fits, thank God) I went to see the ol' family doc. Well, actually I went to see a nurse practitioner... I personally have VERY little faith in Nurse Practitioners... Nurse Practitioners like to believe they are doctors, but they are, in fact, NOT doctors. If they were doctors, they wouldn't be called Nurse Practitioners. They would be called Doctors (which they are not). Every one I have ever had the pleasure of being examined by either really didn't know what the hell they were doing, either really didn't know what the hell they were doing and acted like they did cause they were too embarrassed to get help from the doctor, OR they either really didn't know what the hell they were doing but TRULY believed they DID and actually believed themselves to be doctors and ordered tests and what not without asking the doctor if that was indeed what they should do AND without telling you in advance how much it was going to cost you. In all of these experiences I was always diagnosed wrongly and had to return at a later date to see the DOCTOR to FINALLY get well, But ANYWAY....
So my sister used to work at said doctor's office and has a little pull with people so I called her on the way to work to see if she could get me an appointment. She called (and of course did) BUT the only person who could see me was the nurse practitioner. I thought she was referring to the only nurse practitioner I knew to be in the office. As it turns out there is another one in the office whom I was assured was much more thorough and I would really like. So I said fine and went. I knew what I needed and you can't really mess up an infection diagnosis when a person has green stuff coming up out of their lungs....The only little bit I was worried about was the MRSA part... but I also know how big a deal MRSA is and that NO ONE is willing to play with that...And I also knew that if she didn't have a good enough excuse not to test me then I would ask to see the doctor and ask her what she thought (cause I'm ... "assertive" ... like that).
So I get there barely after 230 (my appointment time) and I was out of there by 308. I found this to be probably the shortest amount of time I have ever spent in a doctor's office as an actual patient. I weighed a whole 94 lbs that day (wearing a coat and boots, etc...so probably still around the normal 87, which by the way will be addressed in an entirely different blog. SOON), didn't actually get my temperature checked (cause I couldn't remember if I'd had anything to drink in the past 15 minutes. I was pretty sure I hadn't, but since I had a bottle of Cranberry juice WITH me the assistant said she'd check it when she came back... but she never came back). Blood Pressure 110/72. At least she was able to check it. The last time I was in the office the CMS (certified medical assistant) couldn't take my blood pressure (after attempting a FEW times) AND then couldn't find my pulse! She gave up and just listened to my heart instead and someone else had to come take my vitals...Anyway... Shortly after she left, the NP came in.
It's kinda funny telling a medical professional what you do for a living (when you're me, anyway). After the preliminaries we got into my leaky faucet symptoms, the fact that I didn't have a runny nose until I went out in the cold the night before at 2 AM to buy an Xbox, the green gunk, and finally my most recent close contact MRSA experience. A little note to all of you, luckily (as I kinda figured, but wanted to be sure) one cannot catch the pneumonia causing MRSA from a skin infection causing MRSA. So that's good. She listened to my lungs (no pneumonia...But ironically enough my grandfather was admitted to the hospital the same day for pneumonia), did the whole check up deal...
I'm assuming it's an upper respiratory infection (which I have had 3 times now since Thanksgiving...What's up with that?!). She never actually gave me a diagnosis... but I have chest congestion, runny nose, sneezing (began on the way home from the doctor... typical), fluid behind my ears, etc. So I have an antibiotic that is weird (the medicine is weird. Not the fact she gave me an antibiotic. I knew I was going to get one of those). Because of odd circumstances (and after talking about giving me like, three other antibiotics) she gave me Ciprofloxacin, which has like, really odd warnings and restrictions and side effects. I mean, I know not to drink a lot of milk or whatever when congestion is involved cause it makes the congestion worse, but with this medicine, you like, CANNOT have calcium period! It's insane. The actual bottle says: This medication should be taken with plenty of water. Take this medicine at least 2 hours before or at least 6 hours after magnesium or aluminum containing antacids, or other products containing calcium, iron, or zinc. DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICINE AT THE SAME TIME AS MILK, CALCIUM-FORTIFIED BEVERAGES, OR YOGURT. So yeah, anyway. AND she gave me a cough medicine that was supposed to take care of everything else.
I asked specifically if said cough medicine had an expectorant or a suppressant in it. She made out like it ONLY had an expectorant. As far as I read the papers made it sound like it only had a suppressant. I have never understood giving someone with chest congestion a medicine that has a suppressant in it. Why take away the urge to cough when the best thing is to get all that junk out?! But anyway.... Apparently it sucks all the water out of the mucous and what not that is everywhere (chest, nose, sinuses, etc). The bottle instructed to drink plenty of water as well cause apparently since it sucks all the water out of the mucous then it obviously gets dry and boogered up in your lungs and will make it even harder to breathe. So lots of water. Great. I really cannot stand drinking water...It's nearly like sticking my finger down my throat. The lack of taste just works on my gag reflex... This cough syrup though is weird too. It's like liquor. You could freeze it, but when it gets in your mouth it heats everything up. But then after you swallow it feels like everything is numb, like you've been sucking on Sucrets. THEN you get very dizzy. Like, the first few times I was so dizzy I fell over and couldn't really even hold my arm up, let alone get myself up...
While we're discussing medicine, another little handy tidbit. Publix has FREE antibiotics. There is still uncertainty whether or not this is ANY antibiotic or if there is a specific list, BUT FREE antibiotics. Funny enough, I'd told the NP that was why I wanted to use Publix as my pharmacy and she had said that if the Ciprofloxacin was not free it would be cheap (as I am a self pay patient, she and I both were concerned over my cost of, well, everything). Anyway, why did I start that as "funny enough" you ask? Because my antibiotic was, in fact, free. Which was great! BUT after after being concerned about the cost of the antibiotic, she gave me a cough syrup that was $28 AND that there was no generic for...awesome.
OH! While we're discussing the cost of health care (not that it's going to matter much longer anyway... but that's a completely different subject as well), I have found that I was CRAZY to pay for insurance. I mean, Yes, I know that if I ever have an emergency or a surgery or a hospital stay that I'm pretty much filing bankruptcy, BUT I used to pay $40 a WEEK for insurance. That's OVER $2000 a YEAR. Friday I paid 40 whole dollars to see my doctor (because they will discount the visit for self-pay patients). I paid $28 for my medicine. That's $68. Some people would have still had to pay that amount or higher even with insurance! I have been to the doctor twice in the whole of 09 and so far into 2010. That's like a total of $130. Hmm... You're intelligent people... You can see my point.
So anyway. Of course after you start taking medicine you start feeling a lot worse before you feel any better, so after Friday I have spent the past 3 days sleeping. Which is kinda how I'd been spending the last week as well, but I slept more these few days. Which both medicines say they can cause dizziness and drowsiness, so I'm assuming that is why. But today I actually got up (at like, 9 PM) and took a shower... I feel ok right now. The nose has stopped running more or less so I can get to sleep a lot easier too. I still didn't quite feel like DOING anything today, but maybe by tomorrow I will feel like getting up off the futon and getting my house somewhat back in order (it's a wreck when I'm sick... Like, dishes all over the living room, trashcans by the couch overflowing with Kleenexes...etc, you know how it is).
I had a note from Allen (our new roomie) today which read:
Fluffy,
I propose a cleaning orgy either tonight or tomorrow.
You dig?
-Pookie.
It made me laugh. But I digged it A LOT. He's off tomorrow so hopefully we can get this place back in order after my week long infirmary convalescent futon stay and his moving in! HOPEFULLY I will feel like getting further than taking a shower tomorrow. Either way, I'm not dead yet, I'm feeling much better, and I don't want to go on the cart!
Thanks for the well wishes guys!
So my sister used to work at said doctor's office and has a little pull with people so I called her on the way to work to see if she could get me an appointment. She called (and of course did) BUT the only person who could see me was the nurse practitioner. I thought she was referring to the only nurse practitioner I knew to be in the office. As it turns out there is another one in the office whom I was assured was much more thorough and I would really like. So I said fine and went. I knew what I needed and you can't really mess up an infection diagnosis when a person has green stuff coming up out of their lungs....The only little bit I was worried about was the MRSA part... but I also know how big a deal MRSA is and that NO ONE is willing to play with that...And I also knew that if she didn't have a good enough excuse not to test me then I would ask to see the doctor and ask her what she thought (cause I'm ... "assertive" ... like that).
So I get there barely after 230 (my appointment time) and I was out of there by 308. I found this to be probably the shortest amount of time I have ever spent in a doctor's office as an actual patient. I weighed a whole 94 lbs that day (wearing a coat and boots, etc...so probably still around the normal 87, which by the way will be addressed in an entirely different blog. SOON), didn't actually get my temperature checked (cause I couldn't remember if I'd had anything to drink in the past 15 minutes. I was pretty sure I hadn't, but since I had a bottle of Cranberry juice WITH me the assistant said she'd check it when she came back... but she never came back). Blood Pressure 110/72. At least she was able to check it. The last time I was in the office the CMS (certified medical assistant) couldn't take my blood pressure (after attempting a FEW times) AND then couldn't find my pulse! She gave up and just listened to my heart instead and someone else had to come take my vitals...Anyway... Shortly after she left, the NP came in.
It's kinda funny telling a medical professional what you do for a living (when you're me, anyway). After the preliminaries we got into my leaky faucet symptoms, the fact that I didn't have a runny nose until I went out in the cold the night before at 2 AM to buy an Xbox, the green gunk, and finally my most recent close contact MRSA experience. A little note to all of you, luckily (as I kinda figured, but wanted to be sure) one cannot catch the pneumonia causing MRSA from a skin infection causing MRSA. So that's good. She listened to my lungs (no pneumonia...But ironically enough my grandfather was admitted to the hospital the same day for pneumonia), did the whole check up deal...
I'm assuming it's an upper respiratory infection (which I have had 3 times now since Thanksgiving...What's up with that?!). She never actually gave me a diagnosis... but I have chest congestion, runny nose, sneezing (began on the way home from the doctor... typical), fluid behind my ears, etc. So I have an antibiotic that is weird (the medicine is weird. Not the fact she gave me an antibiotic. I knew I was going to get one of those). Because of odd circumstances (and after talking about giving me like, three other antibiotics) she gave me Ciprofloxacin, which has like, really odd warnings and restrictions and side effects. I mean, I know not to drink a lot of milk or whatever when congestion is involved cause it makes the congestion worse, but with this medicine, you like, CANNOT have calcium period! It's insane. The actual bottle says: This medication should be taken with plenty of water. Take this medicine at least 2 hours before or at least 6 hours after magnesium or aluminum containing antacids, or other products containing calcium, iron, or zinc. DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICINE AT THE SAME TIME AS MILK, CALCIUM-FORTIFIED BEVERAGES, OR YOGURT. So yeah, anyway. AND she gave me a cough medicine that was supposed to take care of everything else.
I asked specifically if said cough medicine had an expectorant or a suppressant in it. She made out like it ONLY had an expectorant. As far as I read the papers made it sound like it only had a suppressant. I have never understood giving someone with chest congestion a medicine that has a suppressant in it. Why take away the urge to cough when the best thing is to get all that junk out?! But anyway.... Apparently it sucks all the water out of the mucous and what not that is everywhere (chest, nose, sinuses, etc). The bottle instructed to drink plenty of water as well cause apparently since it sucks all the water out of the mucous then it obviously gets dry and boogered up in your lungs and will make it even harder to breathe. So lots of water. Great. I really cannot stand drinking water...It's nearly like sticking my finger down my throat. The lack of taste just works on my gag reflex... This cough syrup though is weird too. It's like liquor. You could freeze it, but when it gets in your mouth it heats everything up. But then after you swallow it feels like everything is numb, like you've been sucking on Sucrets. THEN you get very dizzy. Like, the first few times I was so dizzy I fell over and couldn't really even hold my arm up, let alone get myself up...
While we're discussing medicine, another little handy tidbit. Publix has FREE antibiotics. There is still uncertainty whether or not this is ANY antibiotic or if there is a specific list, BUT FREE antibiotics. Funny enough, I'd told the NP that was why I wanted to use Publix as my pharmacy and she had said that if the Ciprofloxacin was not free it would be cheap (as I am a self pay patient, she and I both were concerned over my cost of, well, everything). Anyway, why did I start that as "funny enough" you ask? Because my antibiotic was, in fact, free. Which was great! BUT after after being concerned about the cost of the antibiotic, she gave me a cough syrup that was $28 AND that there was no generic for...awesome.
OH! While we're discussing the cost of health care (not that it's going to matter much longer anyway... but that's a completely different subject as well), I have found that I was CRAZY to pay for insurance. I mean, Yes, I know that if I ever have an emergency or a surgery or a hospital stay that I'm pretty much filing bankruptcy, BUT I used to pay $40 a WEEK for insurance. That's OVER $2000 a YEAR. Friday I paid 40 whole dollars to see my doctor (because they will discount the visit for self-pay patients). I paid $28 for my medicine. That's $68. Some people would have still had to pay that amount or higher even with insurance! I have been to the doctor twice in the whole of 09 and so far into 2010. That's like a total of $130. Hmm... You're intelligent people... You can see my point.
So anyway. Of course after you start taking medicine you start feeling a lot worse before you feel any better, so after Friday I have spent the past 3 days sleeping. Which is kinda how I'd been spending the last week as well, but I slept more these few days. Which both medicines say they can cause dizziness and drowsiness, so I'm assuming that is why. But today I actually got up (at like, 9 PM) and took a shower... I feel ok right now. The nose has stopped running more or less so I can get to sleep a lot easier too. I still didn't quite feel like DOING anything today, but maybe by tomorrow I will feel like getting up off the futon and getting my house somewhat back in order (it's a wreck when I'm sick... Like, dishes all over the living room, trashcans by the couch overflowing with Kleenexes...etc, you know how it is).
I had a note from Allen (our new roomie) today which read:
Fluffy,
I propose a cleaning orgy either tonight or tomorrow.
You dig?
-Pookie.
It made me laugh. But I digged it A LOT. He's off tomorrow so hopefully we can get this place back in order after my week long infirmary convalescent futon stay and his moving in! HOPEFULLY I will feel like getting further than taking a shower tomorrow. Either way, I'm not dead yet, I'm feeling much better, and I don't want to go on the cart!
Thanks for the well wishes guys!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
