Weekend fun of sorts

On weekends, besides catching up on chores around the house, I often volunteer. This weekend, I volunteered at PrivateU interviewing students for scholarships. It was very interesting.

I was assigned to a team with a current scholarship student, another alum, and myself. Here are some things I noticed.

1. The kid who wanted to major in computer science, really was a computer nerd (nice, but totally freaked out by my interview question I asked all the candidates).

2. Of the applicants our group reviewed, only two of the candidates were boys. The rest (about 10 in all) were girls.

3. Everyone (except for 2) came because PrivateU has a special early admit program to medical school.

4. Not surprisingly, everyone could tell me how medicine was so important and why they wanted to be a physician. Not one of them demonstrated a real idea of what other professionals do in health care, including the kid who planned on majoring in biomedical engineering.

From the description one gave me, it would have been more appropriate to tell her she could spend more time with patients as a nurse, but blowing her mind right then and there seemed like a bad thing to do.

5. I had all of their applications on paper, but was not sent any other details. My co-interviewers obviously reviewed their homework, but I did not. They seemed a little irritated by this at first, but they got used to me, eventually.

One gave me her form, and I reviewed it. I opted out and asked a non-standard question, which they liked, and was not on the suggested questions handout.

Not surprisingly, many more alums will interview more kids next weekend. Frankly, I thought one weekend of that was enough. 

A lot of good kids and only so many scholarships. Now I know what I have to do to get Bubba in shape for college. A whole lot of work.

More to come...

Ode of the tired (of the BS) nurses

The boss told me today it's important to network in your field, if you don't have any grinches (aka the Professional Development committee) at your hospital.

Lately, I've spent way too much time justifying my needs in nearly 50 pages of forms, brochures and supporting material. And if life were really like a Hollywood musical, this would be my song to perform below. (My apologies to David Bowie).

To the committee:

I've nothing much to offer/There's nothing much to take/
(How many more forms can I possibly fill out?)
I'm an absolute beginner/And I'm absolutely sane/
(and I absolutely read every stinking thing in the handbook twice)

As long as we're together/ (me and all the other nurses at the conference)


And to the bureaucratic horses behinds...y'all
(The rest) can go to hell