A week I'd rather not repeat. Ever.

First, let me start off by saying that I'm sick. Again. All those years I watched 40 gazillion children in my home and I never got anything worse than a sniffle, yet 4 months after I quit, I get sick - really sick - twice. I have coughed so hard that my ribs hurt and I pee my pants every time I even think about coughing now. I may require surgery. Or a cork.

Tater had it a few weeks ago and she's still living today so I'm holding on to that hope. I really don't have the money to see the doctor and I'm fairly certain it's viral, so I'm just going to stick it out here at home. So I can pee myself in private.

--------------------------

Okay, so y'all know how Paul has this wonderful, amazing job at The Casino That Shall Not Be Named? And y'all know how I had a job there, too? (Anyone notice the use of the word "had"?)

I quit after my first day of training. While I have jokingly referred to myself as The Quitter all week, I don't want anything to really call me that and be serious about it because I'm sick and cranky and I will cut you if you make me mad. I might even pee on you.

First of all, I was kind of misinformed about the training schedule. I moved heaven and earth to make arrangements for Kady on Monday so I could go (she even missed Lab School, dammit) and then found out once I got there that I had to be there on the day shift for the next two weeks. I not only have a Kady at home, but I still watch Princess five days a week and part-time watch a baby. I don't have vacation time, PTO or anything like that. While watching 1 1/2 kids is way more flexible than the full load I had before the year ended, it's still not something you just call in whenever you feel like it. Okay, so that scheduling snafu aside, then we were all told that no matter if we were hired on part-time or not, everyone would be working full time for the first two months. Where I was told in my interview that I could work 6p-midnight, I was actually on the schedule from 5 pm-1am or 6pm-2am, my choice, except I had to take the 6-2 option because of Paul's schedule.

Have I not whined on here enough about how hard this first semester of college has been? Right now I have all A's and I am not about to jeopardize that 3 weeks from finals. Working from 7:30am to 4:30pm here at home while working in some studying, working from 6pm to 2am at the casino, arriving home around 2:30 if I get off on time, then having to get up at 6:30 to get Paul and the kids off to work and school.....um, when would I sleep? Or see my two oldest children? Or do any quality studying? Or write those last two papers, much less do the research for them?

I came home Monday night and promptly burst into tears that didn't stop flowing until I cried myself to sleep. I bawled into my sister's ear on the phone and it got to the point where all that would come out was, "I (hic hic hic) love (hic hic) YOUUUUUUUUUU!" Yeah, I'm precious when I'm freaking out. I bawled in Tammy the Queen's ear for over 30 minutes. I bawled at Paul any time I wasn't bawling into the phone.

So I quit. One day of training and I quit.

I will have to say that the Supervisor I Almost Had was stoicly nice about it. He's former military and doesn't emote a whole lot, but he was as nice as I think he could be. The gal that actually hired me said that if I got things worked out and wanted to come back this summer, they'd probably have something for me. I doubt I come back this summer, but it was nice that she said that.

There have been two times in my life before this that I have had such visceral, vehement reactions to a situation and in both previous situations I went with my sobbing, wailing, emoting guts and things worked out, so I'm hoping that this situation proves to work out the same. I sure feel better now that it's over. Well, as better as I can feel with displaced ribs and an overactive bladder.

-----------------------------------------

And then, to top it all off with a nice big fat cherry - I got an email from my advisor at NEO. She is leaving at the end of the semester and they have decided to neither replace her nor continue on with the newspaper. She is THE Print Media chick and it looks like the program is defunct.

After 12 years as a stay-at-home mom with no direction whatsoever, I finally decide to grow up and pick a field I'm interested in, pursue a degree and then wham, now that's gone, too. Poor Cap'n Neurotic, he was the first person to IM me today and bless his heart, he's received the brunt of my whining. Well, Paul's the lucky one who has gotten it in person, but Cap'n has received the IM's full of grrrrr's and whines. What a good friend.

I guess I'm going to go with an English major now and check into other colleges' Print Media programs. *sigh* I loved being a Norseman. "Go, go, NEO - find someone to continue the Print Media Mass Comm program!!"