Author: riggledo

Oh Where, Oh Where Has That Riggledo Gone?

~ riggledo ~ 5 Comments

Remember when I used to write a blog?  Remember when I said I was going to make a habit of writing more regularly?  Yeah, me either… apparently.

I spent the last 17 weeks in a strange, other-worldly, vortex in the space-time continuum, in which time flew by while seeming to drag on FOR. EVER.

Gracious!  When you say it like that, 17 weeks, it hardly seems like any time at all, and yet, it feels like a lifetime ago that I started my EMT Class.  Maybe it’s just by comparison to the roughly equivalent time I spent anticipating the class, never really fully grasping the magnitude of what I was about to subject myself to.  I knew it was going to require a lot of work.  I knew it was a significant commitment on my part; returning to school at all, let alone for such a significant undertaking, after so many years.

I enrolled in this class in May, but then there was nothing to do until class started.  I sat around thinking about the class and wondering what I was getting myself into.  When my textbook came and it was more than two inches thick, with over 1500 pages, I thought surely it must be more than one class worth of material.

I knew I was going to have to work hard, but I never imagined how hard.  I had no idea how all-consuming this class would turn out to be.  The first half of the semester was, admittedly, more work than the second half.  Most of the reading, introduction of new information, intensive testing and general trials and tribulations took place before the mid-term with the second half focusing more on learning the skills and learning to put the information into practice.

But the second half of the class also, included the more anxiety inducing tasks of spending 10 hours on a ride-along with the Oakland Fire Department and an additional 12 hours in the County Trauma Center.

Amid all that work and stress, I also had a real, paying job to do and I found myself unable to live up to my usual level of slacking off and screwing around on the computer on company time.  (I won’t lie.  I found that part disappointing.)  As a result, my time to read and write blog posts was significantly diminished and as a result, I have published only 20 blog posts in the last seventeen weeks, which frankly, is more than I thought I had.

The class is over, it ended last Wednesday, and now, finally, I have a minute to breath and tell a little more about it.

~~~~~

Well, anyway, I thought I could.  I wrote several more paragraphs after this but wasn’t able to finish the story in the time I had available to me so I’ve copied them into a draft and I’ll attempt to finish the story tomorrow.  I’ve got a lot more to say.

Read part two here.

Freaking Out

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

Tomorrow morning at O:dark o’clock (to those of you who aren’t complete morning whimps, that would be 7:00) I have to be AT the County Trauma Center to start my twelve hour day, doing I don’t even know what.  It’s a required component of my curriculum for the EMT Class and so naturally we waited until the very last two weeks of the semester to do this.

I haven’t thought too terribly much about it until now, but now it is upon me and I have to admit, I’m terrified.  When I don’t think about it then, of course, everything is fine, but when I do think about it, I feel sick to my stomach and light headed.  Thank God, I saved some of the Ativan my Psychiatrist gave me a while back to use until the Buspar kicked in.  I’ll defintely need that tomorrow morning.

I’ve never been to this hospital before, and while I found an address on-line and found it in my GPS in my car, I don’t know where the hospital is.  Normally, I’d have done a dry run by now, but I just haven’t had time and I won’t have time tonight unless I do it after class (which I might – although with as much as it’s ranined today, I’m not so sure it can be called a dry run.)

I’m flat broke right now, and it suddenly dawned on me last night that I didn’t know what the parking situation was or if there was a charge.  I called the hospital today and found out that there is a charge, but I spoke with a woman in the facilities department who told me she would validate my parking, if I come see her during her office hours.  That shouldn’t be a problem but if I don’t catch up with her, I’m kind of screwed.

No one has been able to tell me what to do when I get there.  Where am I going?  Who am I supposed to report to?  What should I come prepared for?  Whatever I’m doing, I just pray that it goes better than my Fire Department Ride Along did.

And yes, of course, I know, “it’ll all work out” and I’ll “do just fine” and all that other crap stuff people tell me when I freak out like this, but yeah…  Right now?  I’m freaking out.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

I don’t really know where this is going to go.  I really shouldn’t even be writing right now, but I can’t seem to focus on anything else so maybe this will help clear my mind.

I’m feeling so lost right now.  So many things going through my mind and I don’t know how to sort it all out.  I genuinely hate feeling this way.

~~~~~

My class ends next week.  I have the final exam on Wednesday and I’m terribly afraid I’m going to fail.  I don’t really have a lot of time to study and I’m kind of all studied out.  Thursday I have a twelve-hour shift in the county trauma center as a part of the curriculum for my class and I have no idea what to expect from that.  I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I’m terribly anxious right now thinking about it.  I’m so ready for the whole thing to be over except I don’t really know what comes next and as long as I’m in class I don’t have to think about that.

I feel like everyone’s expectations, including my own, are too high and I’m not going to live up to them and that could be really embarrassing and hurtful, if I fall flat on my face.

~~~~~

Late one night last week, when no one was paying any attention (which is usually when I have – and post – my most pitiful, feeling-sorry-for-myself thoughts) I posted to Twitter, “I wish I could see what you see.”  I only got one response to that, which really was one more than I wanted, but that one response was about the inches of snow on the person’s back patio.  Definitely not what I meant.

I’ve made a lot of connections with people on the internet and those people all seem to like me.  The thing is, I genuinely do not understand why.  I just don’t see all the apparently good things they seem to see.  I certainly don’t see the “sexy” guy some of them talk about, when I look in the mirror.

But those people are all on the internet, they’re not physical beings in my life and with a couple of exceptions, they’re all far away.  Why is it that I can’t make connections with real people, one’s who don’t live in the box on my desk, or the slip of a screen in my hand?  Why is it that I can’t connect with people who live near me?

~~~~~

I had lunch with, Lori,  a friend from work, today and after the course of our conversation lead to how I spend holidays alone, she invited me to come to her family’s house in Modesto on Christmas Eve.  It was a very generous offer which I sincerely appreciated but which I also declined.  I told her that I feel like I’m intruding on other people’s family time that way and that Christmas is a particularly complicated day for me.  I don’t enjoy being alone, but I don’t enjoy feeling like I don’t belong either.

~~~~~

Being alone has sort of become a recurring issue for me lately.  I am really tired of being alone.  But there are so many reasons why I am and I couldn’t even begin to guess at how to change them.  It’s not just that I’m tired of being alone, but I’m tired of being… God, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I can’t think of another way to put it… I’m tired of being single.  I’m tired of not having anyone to share my day with and have conversation with and laugh with.  I’m tired of going to bed alone every single night and waking up alone every single morning.  I’m tired of coming home to an empty apartment and cooking dinner for one and cleaning up all by myself.  I’m tired of having no one else to clean up for and putting it off because of it.  I’m tired of feeling apathetic and lazy because I don’t have anyone to be accountable to or for.  I’m tired of feeling lonely and unworthy and unwanted…

And I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself.

Seriously???

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

I took Lil’B to see Tangled yesterday.  Nothing terribly interesting to say about that.  It was a cute movie.  Zachary Levi does his own singing.  I was impressed with that.

What was memorable about the experience was this commercial that played before the show started:

At the end, when the logo hit the screen, the entire theater groaned!

I Truly Did Not Know This

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Las Vegas Churches accept gambling chips

THIS MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO THOSE OF YOU NOT LIVING IN LAS VEGAS , BUT THERE ARE MORE CATHOLIC CHURCHES THAN CASINOS.


NOT SURPRISINGLY, SOME WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICES WILL GIVE CASINO CHIPS RATHER THAN CASH WHEN THE BASKET IS PASSED.

SINCE THEY GET CHIPS FROM MANY DIFFERENT CASINOS, THE CHURCHES HAVE DEVISED A METHOD TO COLLECT THE OFFERINGS..

THE CHURCHES SEND ALL THEIR COLLECTED CHIPS TO A NEARBY FRANCISCAN MONASTERY FOR SORTING AND THEN THE CHIPS ARE TAKEN TO THE CASINOS OF ORIGIN AND CASHED IN.


THIS IS DONE BY THE CHIP MONKS.

YOU DIDN’T EVEN SEE IT COMING DID YOU? —