If Only I was a Dog

So we've been back in Atlanta for a little over two weeks now, and I gotta say, things for me are just kind of "blah." I'm so tired of unpacking boxes I could scream. In fact, now that we have the necessites out (kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom stuff), the rest of the unpacking has come to a squealing halt. I have absolutely no motivation to unpack the books, the pictures or any of the other miscellaneous boxes that we still have lying about. For some reason (I can't imagine why), I really just don't feel like unpacking stuff that has been sitting around in a storage unit for the past year, especially when I really haven't missed it. Not to mention the fact that it will just sit around for another six months until it has to be packed up yet again so that it can be moved again. Uuugghhh! It makes me cringe just thinking about it.

I'm also extremely restless and stir crazy. This is about 99% due to the fact that I have been basically unemployed for the last four weeks. Apparently the travel nurse market in Atlanta is either very saturated or just nonexistent right now. This could be due to one of the following: 1) There are just too many travel nurses in Atlanta right now, 2) Permanent staff nurses are taking up all the jobs, so that there is no need to hire travelers, or 3) Even though hospitals may still be understaffed, they may just be too cheap to hire travelers (which cost more than permanent staff). Whatever the reason, I finally got my first interview on Friday. Normally, I start interviewing for the next contract a month before the current contract ends. So basically, things are running about two months behind!

Today I went ahead and accepted the position that I had interviewed for, but I'm not exactly thrilled about it. It's a 12 week night shift Medical ICU (MICU) position at Emory University Hospital. MICU is probably the area that I have the most experience in, but I've also been getting very, very burned out on it. The patients tend to be very complicated cases with several different disease processes that compound each other and just tend to make things worse. They tend to be very sick with high acuities and tend to have long hospital stays. These patients can be very labor intensive. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm not willing to work hard, but it's just that it tends to be very stressful and physically laborious at times. I'm also not too thrilled about the night shift part either, but I kind of had to take what I could get.

Since I've already been in kind of a funk lately, I'm trying not to focus on the parts that I know I'm not going to like about it. There are some good things too. One being money. It's been a little sad watching my bank account dwindle, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting paid again. Also, this position happens to be the highest paid position that I have ever found in Atlanta, by quite a margin. (I'll be making as much as I was in Boston, if that gives you any perspective). I'm also excited about working at Emory Hospital because it will be nice to be working with intelligent people that actually know what they are doing, as opposed to those that I worked with in coughHighPointcough. While working at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, I realized that I really enjoyed working in the teaching hospital environment. Not only did I learn alot, but I also liked having residents around 24/7 that could come and check your patient in the middle of the night (instead of having to call and wake up sleepy, grumpy community hospital doctors). Furthermore, this contract will end December 22....yay! I won't get stuck working on Christmas yet again this year!

My first day of work won't be until October 1st, so I still have two more weeks to burn. I never thought it could be true, but it seems like it really is possible to have too much vacation time. Oh well, I guess now I really won't have any excuse to not have everything unpacked by then....darn!