Cats and Ghosts of our Past
Cats and Ghosts of our PastOK wow
Finally I am in my new pad.. And oh what a difference it makes.. I have completely done it up to resemble my humble little 6 tatami mat room I had in Shimousa Nakayama, Tokyo.. it even has a traditional Japanese entrance curtain (Noren) at the door of my room that I had bought in Shin-Koiwa … I have really sweet, friendly roommates, who strike a great balance between socializing and giving each other our own space. They are all professionals as well; 2 are college professors and the other teaches grades7/8. The most significant differences I noticed right away are that they have such great positive attitudes and have lots of energy and drive in life, they are always on the go and love to chat.. so the Italian in me is just loving this place… they are also the types that would take responsibility for thier actions and have had to actually work to get where they are today.. on the weekends I wont have to worry about them constantly being drunk/ hung over or strung out on drugs. Its great to be hanging out with people who are doing things were thier lives vs just sitting around spending thier parents money and never amounting to much...Which is an amazing change from the past 3 months. The one thing I will totally miss is the puppy Kikki, I totally grew attached to that little furball.
Things on the work front would be totally awesome if I was bi-polar. When I’m teaching the residents or the clinical clerks we have a blast, The way these men and women handle such stressful situations with little or no sleep absolutely amazes me…I got the great opportunity to teach with one attending physician, Dr. Patulo.. Who is one of the world’s leading Infectious Disease practioners… well we totally hit it off and got the medical students in stitches with our stories from living overseas.. he really liked my teaching style and others have also said I would make a good physician if I ever decided to go into the field. The residents were all jealous that I was on a first name basis with him after only 15 minutes, and the look of shock on their faces was soo funny. Working with the physicians is like being in an Old Boys Club, once your in, your in and they are soo friendly…I’ve even been invited out to poker night with some of the attendings…
The nurses are another story…. They despise me with a passion and have no problems telling me to F’ off during my RN training sessions. On Monday I found myself coming to tears in one 4 hour session I was leading… it was me and 23 female nurses in a room..
I felt like I had been dipped in fresh blood and then thrown into a cage full of feral cats……I was trying to be my usual smiling self and show them the new system and all the wonderful new functions of the system… well they just didn’t like it, like computers nor did they like me.. on the course evaluations I got all zeros or negative numbers for the question “ how would you rate the instructor”
They were not just nasty to me but also to each other…. I have no idea what could possibly have happened in their lives to make them this bitter.. but they were out for blood.. I swear the next class I am wearing full body armour and a cup just to be on the safe side.
I think for most of these women who are getting close to retirement age they don’t want to learn something new.. they couldn’t seem to understand that with an electronic patient chart, we would no longer be having paper requisitions and printing their med sheets will be something of the past,,, the current system many have been using was first brought into Calgary in 1964, with an upgrade done in 1988 to make it a DOS based system and since then there has been no computer upgrades… so for many who have been practicing they have been doing the same routine for 40 years and now everything is going to change… I keep telling myself this to help me understand why I am being screamed at..
its just kidna hard to get up in front of 20+ people to train them in a computer lab when every 5 mins someone is yelling “ Die you mother F*ing Liberal C*k S*ckin F*g F* U”
Who knows maybe these women have a bad case of group Tourettes Syndrome..or maybe I should bring holy water and a cross with me, Linda Blair’s possessed character had a cleaner mouth. But whatever it is… I will just keep on plugging along
But I have been sending my resume out very aggressively.. and not because of the verbal abuse.. my skin is starting to thicken now…. But because of the crazy workload
They have us training back to back to back classes but across town… on thursday I have a class at 7:30am till 12 at SAIT and then another class at the Rockyview General that starts at 12:30 till 5… and a third class from 530 – 10 at the Lougheed Medical centre…which means I have only 30 mins after each class to drive across town, find parking which is not on site but rather a 10 minute walk to the hospital, prep for class which on average takes 15 mins if I rush, eat lunch as this would be my only break,,, and Calgary is a large spread out city.. it would be like driving from the Hamilton General to Dundas to Caledonia….and with all the construction and street closures it can be easy to get lost in this city…and during the classes its not like I can take a 15 minute break because during the break I’m answering the students questions.. English teachers in Korea have better working conditions.
Anyways.. I will keep plugging along…. I have more physician classes this week and fewer exorcisms to perform
On the Boy front- THIS IS GOOD
Not good for me… but would make for a good movie
In the last blog Tristen and I were getting along famously.. he is the first person in Calgary that I have really meshed with… but being the free spirit he is, he is of course seeing other people.. which is totally cool with me… as I have come to learn to just accept the things in life I can not control..
So I say power to him… and if and when we do hang out, I know I totally enjoy my time with him…
So I tried to go on another date with someone else.. and we went for coffee… and the moment we sat down… this other “True” Calgarian really hit a nerve with me… the second question he asked me into our conversation on the patio at Starbucks was “ how much money do you make?” and I looked at him… and asked why was that important to this conversation… and his response was “ well Matt, I make 55,000 a year in oil and gas and I don’t want a boyfriend who I have to pay for everything…”
Well that just floored me… that how much I made would be a casual first date conversation topic… well I may be fairly liberal in how I treat my friendship with Tristen, but then again I found I really got along with him.. this starbucks guy though was another story… he just had this typical “ Calgarian” im better than you attitude.. so I politely said.. “ I actually make more than you.. and Im going home now, good evening”
Its something I never thought I would have the bulls to do…. Maybe the constant feral cat attacks at work have really started to toughen me up a bit
Anyways… on a funnier and weirder side…it came to Tristen and I’s attention this week.. that he used to be good special “friends” with my ex- finance back in Ontario…. I mean how “ Sex-in-the-City- Carry Bradshaw” ISH is that???
I travel 4000kms to the other side of the country.. and the ghosts of relationships past come back to haunt me…since this discovery Tristen hasn’t been returning my calls…in a cell phone txt message he basically just said that this was too weird for him…
I do hope we can talk about it… I fear that he is totally weirded out that he too came 4000kms to get away from his past.. and once again it gets thrown into his face… I have no idea about what happened in their (Tristen and Darius’s) past to cause any friction but what an important life lessons I have learned these past few weeks
1- no matter where in the world you run to, your past is always a part of who u are and follows you
2- people don’t like change
3- never go into a room full of Calgarian nurses without candy and holy water
posted by matt @ 2:56 PM
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