I was reflecting back on 2011 and I realized that my trip to Haiti was THIS YEAR. Really? It seems like forever ago! (I never did post any pictures or post anything about my trip. Shame on me.)
One last semester of nursing school is on the agenda for the new year, as well as the NCLEX licensure exam. It's really hard to fathom that in less than 4.5 months I will be graduating and embarking on a new career. Time has flown by! Hopefully this next semester will fly by too! The focus this semester will be on Maternal/Newborn nursing and Pediatric nursing. Hopefully they'll be enjoyable and make this next semester enjoyable too.
What am I looking forward to in 2012?
(In no particular order)
- Graduating (in a little over 130 days!) and achieving my RN credentials this summer
- Turning 38 and starting my "Marathon to Forty" training (okay, more like run a marathon before I'm 40)
- Starting my first nursing job, being gainfully employed and putting money into savings! YES!
- Getting my '96 Honda to 250,000 miles! (Already +220K)
- Losing another 25 lbs.
That's only my quick and easy list. I'm working on a longer wishlist that I may share later (i.e. kayaking and/or camping trip).
I do wonder if I'll still be living in my same community this time next year. I am concerned about finding a hospital job locally (Magnet status hospitals generally do not want to hire ADN's--and that's all we've got here). I guess I really should start thinking about where I'd be willing to move. South Carolina is an easy one, as I have many high school and college friends there. But I'll probably need to consider other parts of Virginia and maybe Maryland (where I know no one!). I could do Columbus, Ohio as my sister and her family live there (and it snows there!). I've never up and moved where I knew no one before (even in Liberia, I knew a few people before I moved there for a year). Could be a nice fresh start or it could be painfully lonely. Sigh. I do need to consider that my parents are aging, so it's unlikely that I'd move to Colorado or California or Hawaii. Hey, new nurses are needed everywhere (except here I guess). I could move to the Southwest, work on my Spanish and then move back to Virginia. I'm pretty neutral about staying local, so I think I could go just about anywhere. Okay, maybe not back to West Virginia. Three months was enough for me.
As it is, no location really sticks out to me and no specific area of nursing sticks out to me. Which in a sense makes it doubly difficult. I wish I knew one or the other as that would give me a bit more direction. I'm hoping that this next semester I will gain a better sense of what I'm looking for. HOWEVER... I should be applying for jobs now. Crazy to think I should be applying for jobs that would start late in the summer! Aarrgh. The other thought is that if I decide to stay local, and no job offers... I maybe going straight into an RN to BSN program and getting that done first. We'll see.
Well, I have a list of things to do before I head off to ring in the New Year...and of course a nap at some point! haha!
May grace and peace be yours in 2012,
Joy
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