Is It Over Yet?

Too Soon to Feel This Wiped Out?

It’s Thursday, I’ve been here 5 days, but it feels like a month.  After I posted last night I went and talked to Jane to try to figure out what was going on with my car and it turns out that this little car hauler’s communication was once again piss-poor.  As it turns out, when they called Jane, they determined that I’d be picking up my car early in the morning and not her…which is what they told me.  I sent the original driver a text message verifying pickup time & place…surprise surprise! No response.

Any who, last night was my worst night of sleep since getting here.  I got an early (for me) jump on it, falling asleep sometime around 10.  I woke up in a panic around 1AM, thinking it was time to get ready for school (See yesterday’s post about being a DIC head).  There were several other times throughout the night/morning that I woke up before my preset alarm for 6:30, finally around 6 I just said ah screw it and got up for the day. I tried to warm up Jane’s car for her, so we could go get my car, but I didn’t realize it was a stick…FAIL!  We found the truck in the big truck stop parking lot rather easily and there was my old Achilles heel at the back.  It looked like the driver was trying to pull away but we eventually pulled up next to him.  He got out of the truck apologizing and at the time, that was enough for me. Then we walked to the back of the trailer and it sounded like her muttered something about Milwaukee, as in he was apologizing because he got hung up in Milwaukee, but he actually said “it’s not working, I’m sorry.” I yelled, “What’s not working, my car?!!?!” He was referring to the ramp so they weren’t able to get my car off and their office didn’t open for another hour.  Great, class starts in an hour and we take a quiz everyday right at 8! I know life could be much worse but is it wrong to feel that nobody has worse LUCK than I do?

We returned home but before I go any further I gotta say this, all things considered…I’ve been blessed with some fantastic roommates in my life…minus that kid that killed his father with a samurai sword after our freshman year at Stockton. 

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=3402092

http://blogs.app.com/saywhat/tag/michael-janicki/

Nick & Jane have been superb in helping me get through this whole ordeal; well I should say got me through this whole ordeal.  I was sitting in class this morning but all I could think about was finding out what was going on with my car.  During one of our breaks I tried getting a hold of the office to find out where the e-mail confirming my payment was, considering it was a week late. I nearly hung up from being on hold as class was starting up again and I very politely let Emmanuelle have it.  He said he’d get me the e-mail in 15 minutes, I said, “You’ll get it to me now. This entire transaction has been an absolute nightmare and I will never use your service again.”  I had the e-mail by the time I reached my seat.  I missed the beginning of our segment on shock, and after catching up on the notes, Jane calls me and I run out of the room to catch her.  “The truck is here, your car is here, but he won’t take it off because he doesn’t have the money.”  She relayed the message to call Emmanuelle and my car was released to Jane.  Finally it was lunch time and Nick ran me to Jane’s office and we followed her to my car, loaded the stuff I asked Jane to take out BACK into it because I forgot she wasn’t going to be home tonight, and returned to school.

I’ll be honest; I feel I’m in way over my head with this WFR course.  For awhile I was looking forward to it more than the ranger training but the way I feel right now, I’ve never wanted to quit anything more in my entire life.  I got another 80 on a quiz & a 100 on the homework, so I’m still doing decent there…I’ve always been good at regurgitating information, but when we’re going through lecture and then doing the hands-on practice scenarios, I’m almost oblivious.  I feel like I get everything a day late. Case in point, I was dejected by my inability to get a good splint on yesterday, well today I did a bang up job on 1 for a shin.  The entire class liked it and I had to explain what I did in front of everybody.  It was a super B.U.F.F splint…Big Ugly Fat Fluffy…the more BUFF the better. Feeling pretty good about myself, I volunteered to help with the 7 man patient move demonstration in which I was referred to as “The Yellow” (my new NAU sweatshirt).  That and the texts I received from Laura about her being closer to 1 of her goals and the 1 from Simpson just being Simpson, were the only highlights of my day. 

Nick & I ate our lunch in some sort of lounge setup by some faculty offices that had some giant comfy couches in the short amount of time we had left after our car journey.  When we sat down we saw one of our classmates was there reading, Rachel.  Rachel was from Alaska!  That’s pretty cool that I meant somebody from Alaska and they actually do have 30 days of night; it’s not just one of my favorite vampire movies. She informed us that they actually set a record with 45 days of no sunlight last year. Can you imagine?  She hates the sun…I never thought I’d hear anybody ever say that, especially a girl.

Later in the day we broke up into our groups, team NY/NJ was back in full swing.  I got to talking to Tim and that suddenly made me feel like my car situation wasn’t all that bad after all.  When he moved out here from NJ, his car didn’t arrive for THREE weeks after the time he was supposed to have it. YIKES!  I also later found out that he’s taking the course with his brother, sister-in-law, and their son.  Family affair!  It came time for a scenario and I was one of the rescuers in the group.  The scene was a mountain bike accident and once I pulled the bike off of our victim, Travis, my brain kicked into overdrive & I couldn’t figure out what to do first.  Tim was in charge of supporting C-Spine, immobilizing Travis’ head, so I basically had to do everything.  I kept flip-flopping from assessing Travis to writing stuff down.  We just covered how to stop bleeding, so that should’ve been my first act, it came after awhile.  So did realizing I had to apply traction to his fractured wrist and then splint his wrist, figure out some way to pad his bruised stomach, which was supposed to be internal bleeding, and do the essential vitals checks and everything else.  I was basically saved by the bell because I was just a jumbled mess.

I used this comparison when chatting with Maureen today and she asked how I was doing. “I feel like Buddy the Elf.  It seems like everybody else has the same talents except me.”  Am I human amongst elves?  Size wise? Maybe.  This class is littered with wilderness junkies with the majority of them having extensive backgrounds as EMTs…so why the hell are they taking this course?  Most of them are taking it for college credit so it’s an easy A for them.  Of course I shouldn’t get so tied up with others but they hold up the class to ask these super detailed questions that tend to throw instructor Matt off course which makes me wonder what the hell we’re supposed to be focusing on.  I hate know-it-alls & ask-it-alls!  In some of the group work we’ve done, my more experienced partners fix my mistakes by applying things that we didn’t even go over in class.  I’m sure they mean well but cut the crap!  Bottom line, I’m not having a good time with this course.  In about a week, we head out for our overnight mock mass causality scenario. Overnight, in these freezing ass mountains, dealing with actors in Hollywood style makeup to simulate severe injuries and some even die!  I gotta get my scenario skills up to par or I’m gonna sink…and freeze my ass off!  I can’t even find a pulse correctly. This blows!  Those in the ranger program all started talking about what we were looking forward to.  I got to drop some knowledge on them about the O.C. experience.  Man I can’t wait for that program to get going!

I promised Nick I’d buy dinner as a token of all my appreciation, still gotta think of something for Jane, and we planned on going to the burger joint he tried when he first got here called Bun Huggers.  After the days’ events I was also hoping to get a beer at some point. Well we ended the day with another scenario that involved smoke inhalation, something we didn’t cover in class, and then we were sent on our way. When I got to my car I noticed that my front license plate was missing.  WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?!?!  Good thing in AZ you don’t need a front plate.  Bun Huggers was cool!  For 1, it was a burger joint that served beer but looking at the prices, I decided to maintain my Jeff Ward Style and opted for a root BEER instead hahaha.  This place must’ve been a tourist trap, the prices reminded me almost of those of a theme park.  You order you burger/food/drink whatever and then go sit down with your drink.  The cashier calls you up, you pay, and then take your burger to the FIXIN’s BAR!!! Roy Rogers style baby!!!!  The food took forever but it was delicious!  I was hungry, inhaled my burger, fries, and ramekin of pickles (Maureen style).  I think Nick was only 1 bite deep by the time I was done haha.  It was at Bun Huggers that I had my first TV sighting, some ESPN playing some college bball highlights and some songs I used to hear on the radio back in NJ playing over the speakers.  I started to feel a little normal. 

After dinner, we separated.  Nick had to go to Walgreens and I needed a new headlight bulb…once again.  I didn’t think I’d be able to but I found my way to Auto Zone on my way home, beat up my bumper pulling into the parking lot, and right as you walk in the door they had a big display of headlights and spray de-icer…I got both.  Somebody in a Steelers jersey made a comment about my Giants hat…but I didn’t mind, I like the Steelers too ha.  My sisters Katie & Maureen checked in on me on my way home and Maureen tried sharing some encouragement, but I was just feeling deflated.  Got home, got my car unpacked.  Unpacked my trail backpack thing, hooked up the TV & PS3 and watched the new Family Guy Star Wars DVD (love it) while researching fever for our presentation.

That’s what I got for now.  There might not be a post tomorrow as we’ll be finalizing our presentation and I’ll be applying for the Sandy Hook ranger job.

Today sucked so bad that I didn’t even hear anything funny!

You’re all in my thoughts.

MOUNT UP!!!