Super frustrating...

My wife purchased a new laptop for me for Christmas, specifically for me to use at school as I needed one to be able to do my school work on. It's a samsung and a really nice laptop. One of the cool features of the laptop, one of the main selling points, was that I can link my phone to my PC and be able to essentially use my phone from my computer. Pretty cool huh? Well,I've only just recently had the down time to try and out and after an hour of frustration, I came to be told from a samsung customer rep that my phone does not support the software I need to be able to do do this feature. So, basically, what I have now is a computer that I am not able to enjoy the full features of because I have the one phone that is not supported. Super frustrating, especially for the amount the computer cost. And, its to far over the time period to return the product...

First World Problems....

So today, I started looking back through some potential Partner visa nformation as my wife and I have been talking about moving to Australia.

It has been very difficult for us with this decision. We have talked about it since we have been together and we have both wanted to move to Australia. We definitely do not want to raise a family in this country due to all the negative social conventions that have been going around lately. Kid's beng kidnapped, schools having children massacred, teachers having child pornography... There is just too many reasons why we do not want to have our children raised in this culture.

We have been back and forth on the decision for many years and I think right now we have come to the decision to finally move. We are both tired of the antics that go on in this country. For being an apparent "free country", nothing here is free. You're free to speak who you want as long as it doesn't offend someone. People who have killed someone have just as many rights as the person whose rights they took away. The system is astronomically flawed n this country. This country's priority's are all sorts of messed up.

However, moving to Australia is not that easy. We have to apply for a visa for my wife. That alone is $3000+. Not to mention, it takes 12+ months to get approved as well as all the interviews and doctors appointments and every other such thing...It's definitely not going to be easy. We are going to need God's help to get there...

A day in the life of a Phlebotomist

A phlebtomist is someone who draws blood using various different sizes of needles.

It is a job that not a lot of people are comfortable doing. It isn't an easy thing sticking people with needles, knowing that what you do hurts people and the discomfort that comes along with it.

Every day is completely different, but i'll give a few examples of what I encounter on an average day.

Our hospital has many different clinics. We have an ER, in Inpatient Services where people have been admitted to the hospital for various reasons such as surgery, illness or mental disabilities such as Alzheimer's and other behavioral conditions. We also have 3 other clinics that have numerous doctors with various specialties.

In my lab, we have 4 phlebotomists upon which we have various schedules. Sometimes, with the small amount of phlebotomists we have, work gets incredibly busy and makes it difficult to get days off work because there typically isn't anyone to cover the shift. But I digress..

On a typical day i will stick between 15-30 people during my shift. That may not sound like a lot to some people, however, not only do I draw people's blood, it is also my responsibility to process each specimen and get it ready to be tested for whatever the doctor has requested.

These are some of the type of patients that I get;

• Pediatric- the youngest child I have drawn blood on was 7 days old.
• Geriatric- The oldest patient I have drawn blood on was 103 years old.
• IV drug users- These are my most difficult people to draw blood from. Most of them have destroyed their good veins and the ones they haven't destroyed as so tough, that sometimes needles will not penetrate the vein wall. Not only that, but other times, their veins are so weak from abuse,, that the pressure created from the blood test tubes collapse the vein, allowing no blood to come out.
• Psyche- Some people with mental and also physical disabilities such as Alzheimers, muscular dystrophie, para/quadriplegic. The list goes on. These people are also difficult to draw blood from as physical pain sometimes acts as a catalyst for physical outbursts. One patient I draw required 6 people to hold them down. 

I get any combinations of the above people, plus other various patients. Some are a lot more difficult then others and fortunately I have not had the pleasure of being physically or verbally abused, however, every time I walk into the room, I can already tell that the patient does not want me there. They make quips of "Oh, here comes the vampire!" which is really obnoxious. The first 2 or three times I heard it, I chuckled, but now I hear numerous times a day. 

Truth be told, some days I really dislike my job. Some days are definitely easy then others, but ya know, over all, at least I have a job. Maybe not the most glamorous job, but there are definitely worse jobs out there.

I have really dropped the ball this week on my blog writing. So many thing's going that it's been hard to find the time to just sit down and put my thoughts onto paper.

This week, I have been reading and learning a lot about the bill of right and the constitution in my PLS 101 class for school. It has been so interesting to see exactly what the rights and these "amendments" I keep hearing about actually are. It's nice to know that these rights also affect me and how I live my life, but from reading about it all, I still see so many constitutional injustices plaguing this country. It's sad to see that the minority of our time (gay and lebians) still aren't equal in the eyes of the law. Now, I'm not saying that I agree with their lfestyle, as it goes against my belief system, however, the constitution isn't there to affirm my beliefs, but it's there to protects somebodies right to live their life without the fear of persecution. For a country that claims to be free, it appears some people are more free then others...

A day with not a great deal to say

So today is honestly a really slow day in every which way. I really don't have anything insightful or anything new or big happen today. The only thing that's note worthy is that my mother in-law went in for a surgery today and everything went a whole deal better then expected. Her doctor was expecting to have to do an open surgery due to how bad her condition was, however, with the grace of God, they were able to do it laproscopically, which severely reduces the healing time and is huge decrease in susceptibility to infection. She is going to be able to go home tomorrow morning instead of the expected 4 day hospital stay. Truly a miracle.

My Personal Creedo

The definition of a creed that  really liked the most was from the Merriam-Webster dictionary;
        
  Creed; an idea or a set of beliefs that guides the actions of a person or group.


Usually, a creed is found in religious organisations and is used in a similar way as a contract. It is used to 

create unity in a group or organization. It is a promise and a vow to uphold the guidelines that have been 

written or agreed upon.


My creed is something that is very dear to me. It is a scripture that defines the type of life that I want to lead. 

This creed is something that helps remind me of who I am, where I am, and whose I am. My creed comes 

from the book of Ephesians.

"1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved 
us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God"

When I first read this statement, it was a very challenging scripture for me. The verse continues on saying that those who do not follow this cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is why this is such a powerful scripture for me. Every day i ask myself "Am I being an imitator of god? Am I pouring as much love on them as god pours onto me?"

The sad part is, almost every time I reply to myself with a "No". But, it is a bar that I want to reach and is something that I strive for every day.

So my question now, to you, is this...

Are you being an imitator of God?

School So Far...

So far, School has been really stressful. Not only that, but my wife is also taking 18 credits online at MSU and we are both working full time. This week was the first week that I had any big tests for some of my classes and so far, I am kind of impressed with myself.

I just took my first proctored exam for Math 130, and , too my surprise, I received 100%. I'm more surprised because I didn't use a calculator, and it only took me 20 mins for a 90 minute exam. If only I could just take 4 math courses a semester and get a full math degree, I would be happy. I'm also surprised that in all my other classes I have all A's. I have not been in school for 4 years and the last time I had to write an essay was in 2006. I am very happy with myself.

My wife is getting a little stressed out however. She is taking the same level of math class as I am and the teacher she has just isn't teaching. I have seen her her blackboard and went through everything and I am so grateful for the teacher that I have. It just goes to show that its not just a students ability to learn, but also a teacher's ability to teach. This is very apparent as I can learn for easily, but I cannot teach. I have tried. I use different things to make me remember hows things happen. I see patterns, and the patterns I see is not something I am able to communicate. That's just the way God made me.

Overall, I think now I can let my stress levels lower. I have been stressed out like crazy, but now that I am comfortable with the online environment, I think now I can settle in at the pace I need.

I's the Winter Olympics!

I've never really been a fan of the Winter Olympics. I've never snowboarded before and I've never had the craving to do so. While I do love colder weather, I feel that the older I get, and the longer the winter is, the more I dislike it. Coming from a country where the is no snow, I love it. I could watch it snow forever. But this winter has me craving for summer, but when I think about it, I hate summer.

Nothing I hate more then sweating, and I'm sure that I am not the only one. this is one of the main reason I also love wearing black, Sweat marks always show through your shirts so much more on colored shirts then on black ones.But I digress..

Back to the winter Olympics. There are so many sports that I just don't understand, like curling, or figure skating. I understand that they are competitive sports, but I just have the beliefs that sports are on team against another. The has to be an attack and a defense. It's a one on one game. Such as soccer, football, boxing etc. To me, dancing on ice just doesn't seem to have much merit. But that's just me. It is cool to watch though, and I know it takes alot of talent to do it. But I just don't get the excitement out of it that I do with other sport.

Am I missing something??...

First World Problems...

It seems to me that life has become a struggle. Working full time and going to school full time has been a lot more stress then what I am used to. To add icing on the cake, my wife and I will be starting our adoptive classes in 2 weeks. I have a quote that I use a lot these days as it helps remind me of where I am in life.

The quote is:

First world problems....

This helps remind me that not matter how bad things seem to get, It surely cannot compare to those less fortunate then me. The narrative "Be cool to the Pizza guy" that I had recently read for my Composition I class for school, really helped remind me of this lately. While I have stresses at work, at least I have a job. While I have stress from school, at least I have to ability to get an education. While becoming a parent my have a new type of stress that I'm not used to, at least I have the ability to have a family and to give another child an outlet of love that they may never had had elsewhere.

The whole concept of being happy where I am is still something new to me. I have always wanted more. I've always wanted to best of what I can accomplish. Sometimes I want more so bad that I forget to be thankful for the blessings that I already have. It's easy for anyone to get caught up in the things of the world. Money. Success. Material things. In society in these times, it's especially easy to feel left wanting more. Sometimes I wish I had actually lived in a different time. A time where there is no TV, no internet or computers, no cell phones. Just life, work and love.

Knowing your Audience

So after our "Knowing your Audience" discussion board, it's clear to see that the audience that I am writing to is extremely eclectic. My audience is from so many different back grounds, locations, ethnicity and gender.

The question I posed was "You are trapped on a desert Island. You get two items and one person, who and what would you bring?". Unfortunately, I was hoping for a little bit more fun responses from my audience. There were a few people that had fun with the question, but the majority of people's responses were very similar. However, it does bring an interesting point that with so many different backgrounds, the majority of people focused on survival, and family, which does show's an aspect of maturity and life priorities. The majority of people picked their spouse or children, showing what's important in life to them. Only a few people mentioned celebrities, which showed that some people thought more as a fantasy type of an answer to my question then an actual ‘if it really happened’ scenario.

          It was also interesting to see the type of questions posted from our classmates. A theme that I did see was that the ‘younger’ students tended to ask more social life type questions, for example, what do you do with your free time? What’s your favorite movie? etc, however, the older students tended to ask more ‘life’ questions, for example, “Once done with college, what do you plan to do?”. This is just an observation of mine, and it can help show generational differences with what is important in someone’s life.

          Over all, I am quite happy with the audience in my class. I love having a wide variety of individual with different experiences. You never know exactly what type of response you are going to get out of it, but you can be sure that while some may agree or have a similar opinion or approach, there will always be someone that sees the same thing in a different manner. It helps break up the monotony of school and makes life more interesting.

This is more difficult then I thought.

So far, I have already missed two days of my blog posting due to life. Sometimes its impossible to get on here every day just to write, but hey, that's life and I am the only one to blame. Sometimes I can take on more then I can chew.

this week has been busy and kind of depressing. I was in line for a promotion at work. I had it all in the bag. My manager even started me on a training schedule to get me to where I needed to be, only to get told on Friday that the position went to someone else. Needless to say I was devastated. Not only did I have all this stuff worked out with my manager, but I lost the position to someone that has no where near the experience I have for the position. Unfortunately, this is also not the first time that I have lost a position to someone with far less experience to me over here in the United States. This country is clearly built on who you know, not what you know. Could this explain why things are crashing so much around here?

Something New

So this starts the first blog in a series of daily posts. To be honest, I am a little nervous about this writing assignment. I've never been one to be one of routines and have to do something every day for an extended period of time. The closest thing to that would be reading my bible.

My friend and I really wanted to pursue a greater knowledge and understanding of the Bible, so, we challenged each other to read three separate days worth of the bible in one day from a Chronological Bible. A chronological Bible splits the bible up in order from start to finish, and even intertwines different books that was written in the same time, and outs them all into order. It then separates everything into 365 chapters, one for each day of the year. However, we didn't want to take a full year to finish this challenge, So we amped it up a notch to do 3 days worth in one, essentially reading the whole bible in 4 months. We did it, but I must confess, after this, I have not readily opened my bible to do my readings like I should be.

This is going to be a challenge for me, but I know that I can do it. I will be honest, It was a little intimidating for me to read that we would be having to do this, as I work a full time job and also take 3 other classes for school. There is a part of me that thinks that I may have bitten off more then I can chew, especially as it has been a long time since I have been in a school environment, let alone an online class. I hope I can learn something about myself in the process.

02/05/14

I believe Freewriting

The statement “I believe that technology has both helped the world and destroyed the world” is make outlook at technology in general. I have always loved technology, but technology has not always been as kind to me.

Technology has helped the world in various ways. Probably one of the most noticeable is cellphones. Cell phones have been a great advancement in so many different ways. The ability to communicate with someone on the other side of the world its astounding in comparison to how quickly things were communicated even 50 years ago. Could you imagine life without such things like internet and having access to so much information in the palm of your hand? The ability to be almost anywhere in the world (assuming your have reception of course) and be able to call someone (or even visually seem them with programs like Skype or Face time) has been, I believe, one of the greatest advancements in history. Even before the phone, the quickest way to communicate with the other side of the world was “snail mail” and who knows how long it would have taken 20 years ago.

However, it’s also been detrimental to society in forms of physical contact and relationships with each other. No longer does someone have to worry about confrontation as all they need to do now is send a text message or an email. There is no face to face contact and while some people are okay with that, how long will it be before we have no contact with each other? At what point do we lose our humanity and not have the same character building moments of the first break up? The first fight? Or even other things like the first “I love you”?

So while there are so many advantages of technology, I believe that it is slowly taking away our humanity.

314 words/10mins

I Believe...

• I believe in God
• I believe people were originally created to have a good heart
• I believe all people in their hearts have good intentions
• I believe society has lost its way
• I believe that the world has become selfish
• I believe ice-cream can turn a bad day good
• I believe my cats know when they are being annoying and they annoy me on purpose
• I believe that technology has both helped the world and destroyed the world
• I believe bad things happen to good people but good things happen to good people as well
• I believe a lot of people are selfish in nature
• I believe that if it wasn't for technology, the divorce rate would not be as high as it is
• I believe everyone needs at least one day a week to relax
• I believe everyone should be treated equal
• I believe that there is always work, but people are just not willing to work
• I believe that if you want something bad enough, you will earn it
• I believe that to be a parent, you need to pass a class
• I believe that there will never be world peace
• I believe that not everyone can be made happy
• I believe that you win some, you lose some
• I believe you should treat someone the way you want to be treated.
• I believe that you should always wear a smile
• I believe there is life on other planets
• I that one day I will be a dad
• I believe that I will move back to Australia
• I believe that pajama pants can make everything better
• I believe that there can never be too much of a good thing
• I believe that there is more to life than just living
• I believe that rugby is more of a 'man sport' the NFL
• I believe that the weather man is a highly paid professional gambler
• I believe that what makes a man a man, is the legacy he leaves behind.