a minor conundrum in polyester

What to do with decommissioned uniform shirts? After nearly seven years of continuous service, my old French blue uniform shirts are obsolete. I no longer work for the agency that issued them, and now that Holy Name has finally received its new winter shirts, my old ones are expressly forbidden.

I am astonished that the shirts have held up as well as they did. I have only ever thrown one out, and that was for decon purposes, along with the pants, boots and belt I was wearing at the time. (That particular job deserves its own post.) However, while they remain intact, they are far from new, and they are embroidered with my last name. It would easily take me an hour per shirt to take out the stitches with a seam ripper, and the results would be a poor return on the time investment. So donating them to current JCMC employees is out.

In the absence of a way to remove the name and leave the shirt wearable, I see no other viable choice than to toss them. I think that I'll also toss the half dozen paramedic patches I salvaged off old summer shirts last year. They are also intact, but they show where the shirt sleeve crease had been ironed in a couple hundred times. This isn't the Second World War, and there is no shortage of nylon; women aren't using eye pencil to create the illusion of stocking seams. Why the hell did I hold onto this stuff?

I am relentlessly sensible about a lot of things. A steady routine of address changes does not leave room for holding onto much for sentimental purposes. It still seems wrong, somehow, to just shitcan the stuff. I could blame my New England ancestry if it were frugality, but it's not. It's much closer to superstition. What still resonates in those shirts that can't be pressed out with an iron or picked out with a seam ripper?

back from blogging hiatus

I'm trying not to squander much of a precious day off noodling on the Internet, but I miss blogging of late, so here is a taste of what has been going on lately:

1) My next big deadline, for Teaching Across Cultures, is April 28. I have a few hoops to jump through: a ten page paper, a teaching plan, and a video of said teaching plan. I finally started drafting the paper a few days ago. I haven't even begun on the video yet. Call your stockbroker and buy up some agave futures. Trust me.

2) I paid for my Research in Nursing exam, but I have yet to schedule it. I have to re-wrap my head around some of the quantitative stuff that we didn't quite get into in statistics over the summer. I am looking at a ton of journal research reports for the Teaching Across Cultures paper, so I am trying to exploit the synergy between the two requirements.

3) I am looking at some local post-bacc premed programs to backfill some of the hard math / science I skated around at UD. If I plan to continue along the clinical track, I will have to climb back into the ring with chemistry, calculus and physics -- it's just the way it is. And it would be worth going to a prepackaged program, and benefitting from an advisory staff when it comes time to start writing applications.

4) I continue to keep the lights on in this place by working the truck. It just makes more sense than nursing right now. I am preparing paperwork for paramedic recert number three, having entirely avoided refresher classes this time around. While I am forever complaining about how silly some of my BSN requirements are, I have to admit that I am really happy with some of the critical care nursing continuing education I have access to now. I have learned a LOT in the last two years.

5) I am still planning to graduate at the end of the summer. It's getting to be time to start planning what happens once I have the diploma in hand. The USAF is still Plan A, although I am having some second thoughts about active versus reserve of late. I am using Nike+ iPod to finally, finally get past my distaste for running. I'm astonished to discover that I kind of like it! I can do a 5K in about 38 minutes, which is not going to get me any medals, but is a good place to start, and enough to get me through COT without being sent to remedial gym class.

Anyway, that's all for now. I know that this post won't get me a Pulitzer for either style or content, but I wanted to catch up after over a month of not getting around to it.