Raleigh North Carolina at last! While the initial introduction to it has not been the greatest, I definitely think that it has a lot to offer and I am SO excited for the opportunity to explore the area. When I arrived in Raleigh my first obsticle was that mapquest had said to turn the wrong way on one of the streets and so had me wandering around lost for a little while trying to figure out what was wrong. I quickly realized that they had said to go right, when in fact I should be going left and so I soon found the apartment complex where I would be living, and my own little corner apartment. I walked in and well...it isn't exactly a little apartment. It is quite huge in fact. Incredibly huge for someone such as myself who doesn't really need a whole lot of space. So i marvelled over that for a while then I walked through the place to check things out a little. I soon deduced that this particular apartment was built handicap accessable. All the doors are extra wide. There is a handicap bathroom, and everything in the place is very spacious. There is also an emergency call button by the bed in the bedroom. But other than those few things it is a perfectly normal apartment. My exploration continued and as I looked around it dawned on me that everything was dirty. The place looked like someone lived in it, except that they didn't have any stuff. It was just gross. You know the normal dirt that gets around when someone lives somewhere. It is normally not too disgusting when it is your own dirt, but when you are walking in to live in someone else's dirt, it's really, really sickening. I decided that whoever had lived here before me either had something wrong with them, or they had little kids because the table and chairs were crusted in food that looked like it had been smeared there by someone apparantly trying to finger paint with food. The carpet hadn't been vacuumed, let alone cleaned and there were stains everywhere and food particle's ground into the floor. The stove top was dirty and the little burner bowl things were crusty with crumbs and food slop. The bathroom, though it didn't look too terribly dirty, had some hairs on the floor, etc. UGH!!!!!!!! Gross! It was such a disappointing and angering discovery. Now what was I to do. I had been driving for 24 hours, practically with no break. I was dead tired, hungry, sore. All I wanted was to take a hot shower and go to bed. But I didn't want to touch anything in the apartment until it had been cleaned. Didn't have the energy, nor the supplies to clean it, and of course the apartment office was already closed when I arrived. What a dilemma. Oh misery and despair. What a very large poopstain on the rug(ha ha, thats for you pfeif) So anyway, I ended up driving to the getto wal mart, which is more getto than any wal mart i have been to yet, even the one in Del Rio I think. And bought many cleaning supplies. Went back home, and went to bed. Today i complained to the apartment people, thoroughly cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, was able to finally take a shower, and unpacked some of my things. And now...the lonliness birds have started circling around my heart once more. Or something like that. So anyway, more adventure's are on the way, without a doubt.

Song of the Day: Nick Cave- The Kindness of Strangers

i will be on the road tomorrow. i am nearly all packed now, but still have all the little crap that i don't know what to do with to take care of. i am so beat.

the time just flies and i am about to embark on a whole new adventure. my excitement is great, but as the time draws near a small bit of dread is creeping in to my mood. this never fails to happen and is always a precurser to the unknown. i am generally happy with the changes i choose to make, but that small doubt lingers deep within, wondering...is this a mistake? I am going to a place where i know no one. And no one knows me. I have never had a problem doing that before, but it has been a while since I have been in that situation and it forces you out of your comfort zone. I guess maybe that is why i like it. Forcing myself to meet new people, do new things. Well in anycase, I leave for north carolina in a matter of days. 9 to be exact. I wonder what new twist to life awaits me there. A new beginning at least.

Song of the Day: Tom Waits-Invitation to the Blues

so plans have changed since last i wrote. i heard from several different hospitals since and the direction that things are now taking is that i will be going to Raleigh NC, to take a med/surg position at a hospital at the Central Prison there. Quite exciting to me really. I am interested in the change of scenery and the change of patient type. It is an all male prison and from what i understand the inmates are all sentenced to at least 10 or 20? years. I have talked to several people who have done prison nursing(for all of you who are having the shocked and worried thoughts) and they tell me that it is a breeze. The environment is always super controlled and the patients are well behaved. Probably more so than just regular patients are. God only knows we get some psychotic weirdo's as patients where i work now and there is no control over them. So i think it will be a welcome change. Now to just figure out all the little details of moving, etc.

...i bought myself a keyboard. finally. i had been thinking about it for some time. i had been really missing the relaxation that i get from just sitting down and playing music, and so now finally i can and it feels really good. i have missed it more than i realized. it's a very healthy form of destressing.

As to other things...life is an ongoing enigma which i think i shall never solve. I am just hoping that i can at least get some of the pieces right.

Song of the day: Prelude No. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach.
(yes i am very much enjoying my keyboard:)

wow, so i just got home from work not long ago. the world feels full of promise. the weather outside has that fresh, new life, feeling of spring(not to the extent that you get up north...where it just so overwhelmingly bursts out everywhere, but still that freshness), the birds singing. I have three days off now, so my spirits are high, for that reason, but also because a hospital called me last night. One in Danville, Va. It is a telemetry floor, and the idea of that is not a bad one to me. I would like to learn more about telemetry and so think that it might not be a bad learning experience and plus i would be broadening my possibilities for future jobs, the more i expand my knowledge. Danville Va. hmmm, hmm, hmmm. we shall see what happens. I haven't interviewed yet. I am just happy that someone has called me because i was almost beginning to get worried as i had not heard from any hospitals yet and the time for me to leave draws ever closer. so lets just see what happens. well now i must call and awaken my friend from her slumber so that i can resist falling into a slumber of my own. i don't want to waste a moment of this day.

Song of the day: Cat Steven's-How can i tell you