Robyn.Bowles.es

I really miss nursing – not my job at GVHP so much, but the medicine, the comfort with the knowledge I have, and the opportunity to learn more. I fear that I will forget it all! I do not know if there will be any opportunities for me to use my skills in that area until I learn Spanish, and even then, it would just be voluntary. But that would be fine.

Teaching is the pits. There are several reasons: 1) I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing! Although I do recall feeling the same way when I entered nursing. At least I can’t hurt anyone doing this! I may tell them to use the wrong words, but that’s nothing compared to the wrong medical advice! But seriously, it is very humbling. In every class a student will challenge what I’m teaching them because they learned it differently somewhere else. And I always find some sort of typo on the materials I give to them – most of which I don’t create myself, but print off from a database at the company for whom I work. Every day I feel completely inadequate and afraid that I will get fired. 2) The traveling is exhausting. Walk. Metro. Change Metros. Walk (fighting crowds), get on a really hot bus, walk more. . . or the same thing, only train. I much prefer the train. It gives me 20 – 30 minutes of relaxed sitting. I can read and write a bit, and watch the mountains in the distance. 3) Preparation time. I spend more time preparing than I do teaching; mostly because I have to learn it myself first! 4) Kids. The kids drive me nuts. I am so tired of yelling at them. Some days I’m calm – those are the days that I just don’t care and have no effort to try anymore. Unmotivated kids are extremely difficult to deal with. After just 5 hours a week for only a month, I can understand why my Dad quit teaching so many years ago.

Since we moved in, there has always been some weird, annoying thing going on in this house. First was our shower problem: Basically, while Isabelle was away in September, the shower drain started leaking into the neighbor’s ceiling below us. So we used the bathtub for weeks. A few weeks ago someone finally came to look at the drain in the shower and took it apart. Later, the neighbor from downstairs came up, rang our bell, then proceeded to talk very fast with a lot of emotion about how her ceiling caved in and there was water everywhere! (That was our interpretation, at least). Of course, Isabelle was at work at that time. Eventually it was discovered that the drain from the tub feeds into the same drain under the shower, which was still apart! There was nothing at the end of it to stop the water, so although we were using the tub (and the sink) water from both was pouring out under the shower, into the floor and into our walls! We have water damage all around the shower and into the walls in our bedroom that is on the other side of the shower! We are still using the bathtub, which is a pain because it takes so long to fill and after about 7 gallons, it goes ice cold for awhile.

Isabelle went to London last weekend, and of course something else had to happen! Bugs! Tiny, white bugs, the size of salt grains. They are everywhere in the kitchen. Despite vacuuming, scrubbing, washing everything – they persist. My theory is that their eggs must have hatched on Saturday. I found several piles of eggs, which without closer scrutiny, I would have passed off as dust. I felt itchy all weekend just knowing they are there. I’m afraid we may have to get an exterminator. We’ve been spraying the kitchen with Raid everyday, but they always come back. Really, they are EVERYWHERE! Any ideas?

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