It has been almost 2 years since I last wrote here. Since then, I was turned down for the Rad Tech program at school (a blessing in disguise) and was accepted into the new Cardiovascular Technology program as part of the first class. When I graduate at the end of next summer, I will be an Echocardiographer or a Cardiac Sonographer or an Echo Tech - all the same. Pick a title (because I have not).
The blessing in disguise came from seeing my brother try to get a job as a Rad Tech when he finished school. He has one now, but for a while it was questionable.
So, the plan right now is to finish school and get my credentials. I may have to work for a year or so before I can do that, but if that is what it takes - so be it. Ideally, we would like to find a job for me out of Georgia - South Carolina would be good - but I will take what I can get to get started.
That's it for now! More when I'm not studying like mad for a summer mini-mester.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Monday, August 2, 2010
Feeling a little less shaken
I am feeling more focused today than I was the other night. I feel like God has come along and lifted all of that negative feeling I had allowing me to relax. I am still freaking out about financial aid for school, but that's something I can and will handle regardless of when I get my answers about it. I can deal with this kind of stress. Talking to my mom yesterday helped because everything I had worked out in my head as I wrote the other night I was able to put into words and she was with me in that she thought someone had just been toting tales and spreading negative around. I just need to focus on doing well when I get back to classes and what I will say in the essay I have to write to get into the radiology program.
I pulled up the form again, to read it through and mull it over. It asks you to write a one page, handwritten essay on why you have chosen that particular program of study. My story is amusing to me, but I don't know if that's what they're looking for. It doesn't weigh heavily in the admissions criteria, so I think I will just be completely honest and not write any baloney as I go. The scoring for the essay is 4 points out of 100. : ) I think honesty will be more fun.
I had been thinking about going back to school. I think I've already said most or all of this in the last post. However, what made school absolutely click to me was one of those usually annoying ads on Facebook. This one said "become an ultrasound technician in as little as 18 months." Clicking on it yielded nothing for me. It probably yielded lots of mined data for the company that placed it. I did search after search trying to find information on exactly how I could legitimately become an ultrasound technician. Talking to my mom and brother finally revealed the answer - radiology tech. I needed to take the courses to become a radiology tech first. More research into schools led me to Gwinnett Tech. I realize that becoming a radiology tech doesn't mean I will be reading the results. It also will not always be cute images of prenatal babies - once I get to that point. I realize that there may be a lot of hard things to see while learning, and finally doing, in this field that I have chosen. However, if I can be part of the team that helps with the diagnosis of something that has caused someone pains or gives relief to someone who is anxious about their first - or fifth - child I want to do it. It has taken me many years to find a program that I am so very determined to get into and succeed at and finally I am taking the first steps toward this. I know that saying that something just clicked doesn't seem like a very hard and fast reason for wanting to get into a program of study, but that's why I want to do this. Something just clicked when I saw that ad and nothing has swayed me since.
I pulled up the form again, to read it through and mull it over. It asks you to write a one page, handwritten essay on why you have chosen that particular program of study. My story is amusing to me, but I don't know if that's what they're looking for. It doesn't weigh heavily in the admissions criteria, so I think I will just be completely honest and not write any baloney as I go. The scoring for the essay is 4 points out of 100. : ) I think honesty will be more fun.
I had been thinking about going back to school. I think I've already said most or all of this in the last post. However, what made school absolutely click to me was one of those usually annoying ads on Facebook. This one said "become an ultrasound technician in as little as 18 months." Clicking on it yielded nothing for me. It probably yielded lots of mined data for the company that placed it. I did search after search trying to find information on exactly how I could legitimately become an ultrasound technician. Talking to my mom and brother finally revealed the answer - radiology tech. I needed to take the courses to become a radiology tech first. More research into schools led me to Gwinnett Tech. I realize that becoming a radiology tech doesn't mean I will be reading the results. It also will not always be cute images of prenatal babies - once I get to that point. I realize that there may be a lot of hard things to see while learning, and finally doing, in this field that I have chosen. However, if I can be part of the team that helps with the diagnosis of something that has caused someone pains or gives relief to someone who is anxious about their first - or fifth - child I want to do it. It has taken me many years to find a program that I am so very determined to get into and succeed at and finally I am taking the first steps toward this. I know that saying that something just clicked doesn't seem like a very hard and fast reason for wanting to get into a program of study, but that's why I want to do this. Something just clicked when I saw that ad and nothing has swayed me since.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
What's Keeping Me Up Tonight
Yeah. Great first blog. I'm upset or disturbed - shaken a bit, if you will - and have to write about it.
I used to do this all the time, either through journaling in a notebook or on my computer or various blogs. I had things spread out all over the place for a bit. Some things you just can't talk about with certain folks - assuming anyone is reading what you're writing. As a new mom, I was blogging on Cafe Mom and MySpace. I realized after a while that, while I'd met some wonderful moms at Cafe Mom, there were a good many women over there who really needed to grow up and stop creating drama. I removed my profile shortly after that realization. MySpace kinda went the same way. Not so much from drama, but the mass exodus of my friends either to Facebook or just their own lives was leaving things pretty empty there, so I removed stuff from that site, too, and removed my profile. Facebook leaves a lot to be desired in the blog department - everything, really.
So, here I am. With a feeling like I have the weight of the world resting on my mind at the moment, mind racing, switching tracks, and quite often times derailing in the process. I had found a great blog here through another site a few days ago and decided that here is where I would blog, again, if ever I did. Here goes . . .
I am a student, again. Or will be this fall if everything continues to fall into place (financial aid-aaauugghh!!). I have wanted to get back into school for quite some time. My first time around, I had no idea what I wanted from anything, forget school, and as a result just didn't apply myself. I didn't party, but neither did I buckle down and really work. Fast forward to the last few years and my husband and I had a child in November of 2006, I quit my retail job to be full time mom (have loved every minute of it), he lost his job in October of 2008, was unemployed for 18 months while I hunted for a job to help keep us afloat, found one for 3 months last summer, lost it cause the business closed (partly because I was too good at my job), kept up the search for jobs for both of us with him finding a job working for a friend of ours a few months ago, then getting another job recently compliments of another friend. Did I lose you? Doesn't really matter. Point is, we've really struggled and owe a lot (gratitude, love, and money) to family and God for seeing us through. We're not out of the woods, yet, but we are finally starting to see light at the end of this LONG tunnel. Ouch. How very cliche that last sentence was. During much of this struggle, my dad kept mentioning that one or both of us should go back to school. Both of us discussed it a little and decided that I would go first since I had credits already and only had a few classes to take to get into a degree program that would really help change things for the better. I thought about culinary classes because i LOVE to bake. I'm not much into the rest of it, though, and let's face it, the economy is terrible so why would I get a degree that I most certainly would have trouble finding a job with right now. Cooking is my husband's thing, anyway. I'd rather him do the culinary arts and then teach me what he learns specifically about baking that I don't already know.
Now, this is going to sound silly, because it still sounds silly to me, but if you're on Facebook you will be familiar with the ads that are all over the place on that site - go back to school, see who is searching for you, try out this game, product, whatever. I saw an ad one night, advertising for Ultrasound Technicians. Something in my head clicked and so did I. The ad was just another of those garbage ads that I'm sure harvests all kinds of data the moment you click on it, but it really got me thinking about what I really wanted to do. I know that ultrasounds don't just show you your beautiful, unborn child. They show you very unpleasant things, too. However, through that unpleasantness comes diagnosis and the possibility for treatment. I started Googling everything I could think of to figure out exactly what I needed to do to get to that point. I really didn't find a lot other than ads for Kaplan and University of Phoenix. They really don't give you information about the programs they offer. Instead they want your information so one of their reps can call you while you are busy with other things (life, hello?!) and persuade you to what - I really don't know because those people were more annoying than Navy recruiters when I was in high school. I stopped answering and started blocking their e-mails. Tangent. Sorry. Anyway, my next step was to talk to family. Pick their brains to see what they thought and what they knew. My mom nailed it on the head - you've got to go through radiology first. My brother, who is in the radiology tech program, confirmed it. That settled it. I started looking for schools in the area who offered the radiology tech program. I found a local school, read everything I could about what I needed to do (to get in, to transfer credits, to get into the program), and filled out my FAFSA. At the time, I filled out my FAFSA for last year's spring quarter. That didn't work out so hot because out tax return from 2008 had us making too much money to get enough aid for the quarter (dead broke now, but because of the tax return I was sunk). Fine. Undeterred, I filled it out for the 2010-2011 school year and since we were dead broke for all of last year I qualified for just about everything under the sun! Yay! One nice thing comes from being broke last year (I'm only mostly being sarcastic about that, by the way). On June 23rd, I went up to the school with my application and fee check in hand and applied for school. It took about two weeks to get me into the system to view anything else that I might need and as soon as I got access I nearly panicked because I saw that there were documents the school still needed to complete my financial aid file (a week after the deadline to definitely get funds on time). I very promptly got my forms submitted and now I wait. Daily, I checked for my application status. Daily, still, I check for my financial aid status (well, except for Saturday and Sunday cause nobody's gonna be working on my financial aid on a weekend - so I tell myself and hope otherwise). I'm already hoping we don't get down to the payment deadline and I don't have funds. I have two options at that point but hope I don't have to try either. There's nothing else I can do at this point but wait and hope and pray.
This brings me to yesterday. Sorry, Friday, now. Just notice that it is now very early in the morning Sunday. I should be asleep. I would be asleep but something that was said to me on Friday slowly ate at me all day Saturday and is now keeping me awake. I went to the office of a guy we know to pick up backdrop images for a photo project my husband is working on. While over there we started talking about my plans for school. I mentioned that if allowed and to fill my time until I know if I am in the program or not, I wanted to take some of the photography/digital imaging classes the school offers. He immediately got somewhat negative about that saying that the classes weren't very good and there's nothing I could learn in those classes that I don't already know (I am already a self taught photographer who has done many paid gigs, now). Technicalities and terminology escape me, though. I won't lie. I get it, but I don't get it. It's like me with cars. I can repair and replace stuff like nobody's business but if you ask me the technical terminology involved I look at you like a deer in headlights. Same with computers. I can build them and they work beautifully - don't ask me about them unless you want the extreme layman's version of events. And if you speak tech speak to me . . . well you should have the idea by now. Anyway, he put down the classes. Bummer. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's wrong. Don't know. So, we move on to my specific choice in study - radiology technician. I then hear about a friend of his who went to the same school and started taking classes and was shortly told that there was no way she would get into the program any time soon because of the sheer volume of people applying for the same program. Like she was just turned away without even being given an opportunity. I don't know the truth to this or if it was embellished upon of if it was said in a mean-spirited way, but with two negative stories about things I'm interested in it almost feels mean-spirited. I rolled this over and over and over. I refuse to let it sway me, but I feel like I've got the devil whispering in my ear trying to get me to give up before I ever get started. I know that I have just as much chance as anyone else to get into this program. I am going to bust my tail and get my essay in and I WILL DO THIS. My heart is hurting though because of one person's inability to keep positive about this. His opinion and words don't really matter, but I feel them tearing at me all the same. I talked to my husband about this Saturday night and asked him if he'd rather I just keep trying to get back into retail where I felt I had pretty much plateaued. About all I got was, if I was going to do something from this then he was fine with me going back to school but that he couldn't afford to pay for it. What encouragement. He still needs work in that department. I just need some kind of encouragement right now.
I forgot to mention one little piece - one anecdote involved in clinching my decision to get into this field. After I had already made my decision, really, but before I had turned in my application and really had the ball rolling, my son and I were driving down highway 78. As we rode, I looked up and saw a billboard for a new digital imaging facility associated with Emory Eastside that would be located here in Loganville off of highway 81. The same click or certainty or whatever it was happened all over again when I looked at it. The facility is already open and I may never work there, but when I get an "aha!" moment I don't ignore it. Things don't click like that all the time. This is what I will do and if I have to start formulating a backup plan, now, that is what I will do, but I will be in this field.
I used to do this all the time, either through journaling in a notebook or on my computer or various blogs. I had things spread out all over the place for a bit. Some things you just can't talk about with certain folks - assuming anyone is reading what you're writing. As a new mom, I was blogging on Cafe Mom and MySpace. I realized after a while that, while I'd met some wonderful moms at Cafe Mom, there were a good many women over there who really needed to grow up and stop creating drama. I removed my profile shortly after that realization. MySpace kinda went the same way. Not so much from drama, but the mass exodus of my friends either to Facebook or just their own lives was leaving things pretty empty there, so I removed stuff from that site, too, and removed my profile. Facebook leaves a lot to be desired in the blog department - everything, really.
So, here I am. With a feeling like I have the weight of the world resting on my mind at the moment, mind racing, switching tracks, and quite often times derailing in the process. I had found a great blog here through another site a few days ago and decided that here is where I would blog, again, if ever I did. Here goes . . .
I am a student, again. Or will be this fall if everything continues to fall into place (financial aid-aaauugghh!!). I have wanted to get back into school for quite some time. My first time around, I had no idea what I wanted from anything, forget school, and as a result just didn't apply myself. I didn't party, but neither did I buckle down and really work. Fast forward to the last few years and my husband and I had a child in November of 2006, I quit my retail job to be full time mom (have loved every minute of it), he lost his job in October of 2008, was unemployed for 18 months while I hunted for a job to help keep us afloat, found one for 3 months last summer, lost it cause the business closed (partly because I was too good at my job), kept up the search for jobs for both of us with him finding a job working for a friend of ours a few months ago, then getting another job recently compliments of another friend. Did I lose you? Doesn't really matter. Point is, we've really struggled and owe a lot (gratitude, love, and money) to family and God for seeing us through. We're not out of the woods, yet, but we are finally starting to see light at the end of this LONG tunnel. Ouch. How very cliche that last sentence was. During much of this struggle, my dad kept mentioning that one or both of us should go back to school. Both of us discussed it a little and decided that I would go first since I had credits already and only had a few classes to take to get into a degree program that would really help change things for the better. I thought about culinary classes because i LOVE to bake. I'm not much into the rest of it, though, and let's face it, the economy is terrible so why would I get a degree that I most certainly would have trouble finding a job with right now. Cooking is my husband's thing, anyway. I'd rather him do the culinary arts and then teach me what he learns specifically about baking that I don't already know.
Now, this is going to sound silly, because it still sounds silly to me, but if you're on Facebook you will be familiar with the ads that are all over the place on that site - go back to school, see who is searching for you, try out this game, product, whatever. I saw an ad one night, advertising for Ultrasound Technicians. Something in my head clicked and so did I. The ad was just another of those garbage ads that I'm sure harvests all kinds of data the moment you click on it, but it really got me thinking about what I really wanted to do. I know that ultrasounds don't just show you your beautiful, unborn child. They show you very unpleasant things, too. However, through that unpleasantness comes diagnosis and the possibility for treatment. I started Googling everything I could think of to figure out exactly what I needed to do to get to that point. I really didn't find a lot other than ads for Kaplan and University of Phoenix. They really don't give you information about the programs they offer. Instead they want your information so one of their reps can call you while you are busy with other things (life, hello?!) and persuade you to what - I really don't know because those people were more annoying than Navy recruiters when I was in high school. I stopped answering and started blocking their e-mails. Tangent. Sorry. Anyway, my next step was to talk to family. Pick their brains to see what they thought and what they knew. My mom nailed it on the head - you've got to go through radiology first. My brother, who is in the radiology tech program, confirmed it. That settled it. I started looking for schools in the area who offered the radiology tech program. I found a local school, read everything I could about what I needed to do (to get in, to transfer credits, to get into the program), and filled out my FAFSA. At the time, I filled out my FAFSA for last year's spring quarter. That didn't work out so hot because out tax return from 2008 had us making too much money to get enough aid for the quarter (dead broke now, but because of the tax return I was sunk). Fine. Undeterred, I filled it out for the 2010-2011 school year and since we were dead broke for all of last year I qualified for just about everything under the sun! Yay! One nice thing comes from being broke last year (I'm only mostly being sarcastic about that, by the way). On June 23rd, I went up to the school with my application and fee check in hand and applied for school. It took about two weeks to get me into the system to view anything else that I might need and as soon as I got access I nearly panicked because I saw that there were documents the school still needed to complete my financial aid file (a week after the deadline to definitely get funds on time). I very promptly got my forms submitted and now I wait. Daily, I checked for my application status. Daily, still, I check for my financial aid status (well, except for Saturday and Sunday cause nobody's gonna be working on my financial aid on a weekend - so I tell myself and hope otherwise). I'm already hoping we don't get down to the payment deadline and I don't have funds. I have two options at that point but hope I don't have to try either. There's nothing else I can do at this point but wait and hope and pray.
This brings me to yesterday. Sorry, Friday, now. Just notice that it is now very early in the morning Sunday. I should be asleep. I would be asleep but something that was said to me on Friday slowly ate at me all day Saturday and is now keeping me awake. I went to the office of a guy we know to pick up backdrop images for a photo project my husband is working on. While over there we started talking about my plans for school. I mentioned that if allowed and to fill my time until I know if I am in the program or not, I wanted to take some of the photography/digital imaging classes the school offers. He immediately got somewhat negative about that saying that the classes weren't very good and there's nothing I could learn in those classes that I don't already know (I am already a self taught photographer who has done many paid gigs, now). Technicalities and terminology escape me, though. I won't lie. I get it, but I don't get it. It's like me with cars. I can repair and replace stuff like nobody's business but if you ask me the technical terminology involved I look at you like a deer in headlights. Same with computers. I can build them and they work beautifully - don't ask me about them unless you want the extreme layman's version of events. And if you speak tech speak to me . . . well you should have the idea by now. Anyway, he put down the classes. Bummer. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's wrong. Don't know. So, we move on to my specific choice in study - radiology technician. I then hear about a friend of his who went to the same school and started taking classes and was shortly told that there was no way she would get into the program any time soon because of the sheer volume of people applying for the same program. Like she was just turned away without even being given an opportunity. I don't know the truth to this or if it was embellished upon of if it was said in a mean-spirited way, but with two negative stories about things I'm interested in it almost feels mean-spirited. I rolled this over and over and over. I refuse to let it sway me, but I feel like I've got the devil whispering in my ear trying to get me to give up before I ever get started. I know that I have just as much chance as anyone else to get into this program. I am going to bust my tail and get my essay in and I WILL DO THIS. My heart is hurting though because of one person's inability to keep positive about this. His opinion and words don't really matter, but I feel them tearing at me all the same. I talked to my husband about this Saturday night and asked him if he'd rather I just keep trying to get back into retail where I felt I had pretty much plateaued. About all I got was, if I was going to do something from this then he was fine with me going back to school but that he couldn't afford to pay for it. What encouragement. He still needs work in that department. I just need some kind of encouragement right now.
I forgot to mention one little piece - one anecdote involved in clinching my decision to get into this field. After I had already made my decision, really, but before I had turned in my application and really had the ball rolling, my son and I were driving down highway 78. As we rode, I looked up and saw a billboard for a new digital imaging facility associated with Emory Eastside that would be located here in Loganville off of highway 81. The same click or certainty or whatever it was happened all over again when I looked at it. The facility is already open and I may never work there, but when I get an "aha!" moment I don't ignore it. Things don't click like that all the time. This is what I will do and if I have to start formulating a backup plan, now, that is what I will do, but I will be in this field.
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