So ... What You Been Up To?

2015

Around October 2015, I got my first job as a licensed nurse. I work at a large nursing home with 202 beds. Our house was shot by my mom's ex boyfriend's gang rival, so we had to move elsewhere.

My first boyfriend, whom I was in a long-term relationship with, and I broke up around December of 2015. We had been dating since 2009, so our relationship lasted 5 years, almost 6 years even. 

2016

I was single this time, and wasn't looking for a relationship. I was too busy working. I worked every shift and every station at a nursing home. I don't remember everything that happened this time, but I do remember that we moved around a lot. 

2017 

We moved to a three bedroom apartment, and the rent is expensive as fuck. There's a guy who delivers medication from the pharmacy who comes to the nursing home to drop off some meds. Apparently, this guy took a liking to me and I didn't know about it until one of my co-workers notice him smiling to himself. 

2018

Another co-worker gave my number to this guy who delivers medication from the pharmacy. At the beginning of this year, the guy and I started exchanging text messages to each other. During that time, I noticed all of the red flags. He claimed that his parents knew about me, but this turned out to be a lie. He claimed that his parents like me, but his grandmother don't. Again, all lies. He said he was gonna move back to Pakistan. The real reason why he had to go back to Pakistan, was to marry his female cousin. It's a tradition in his country. He's in an arranged marriage. This made me furious, and I cut off ALL forms of contact with him. This is the year that I decided to go back to school so I can pursue at least get an associate's degree in nursing. I want to be an RN. I got my IV certification at this vocational college. It was hard because we have to poke each other with needles, and we didn't have a dummy. I took pharmacology during the summer semester and got a C. The teacher was a tough grader, and many people dropped the class. I took a prerequisite in the fall semester. I was so stressed out during this time because right after class was over, I went to a family vacation in DisneyLand. My uncle, along with his wife, and two of my male cousins had a blast in DisneyLand. We went to Hollywood, and also to Lego Land. 

2019 

In the spring semester, I took sociology and aced the class. My uncle passed away this year. He was placed in the General Hospital in San Francisco, moved to Laguna Honda, and then moved to a nursing home closer to where we had lived at the time. The nursing home he was placed at, isn't the place I work at. It's the sister facility owned by the same company. He died at the age of 51 due to drugs, smoking, and alcoholism. We moved to another city, where we have to cross the bridge and pay the toll, because the rent was way too expensive. It was overwhelming because so many things were happening all at once. I took psychology in the summer semester, but it's a hybrid class. It's part online and we only met the professor in person three times. On the first day of class, one month after the first day, and on the last day of class. I got sick a lot and called off often. 

2020

I took Lifespan Development during the spring semester. It started out as a class where we come once a week, but transitioned to online after the COVID19 thing. I was involved in a long distance relationship with a friend of mine from Florida. He and I were friends for 10 years, and I only found out he liked me because he told me. I didn't notice it before, but he had told me he liked me. That didn't turn out well. We never met in person, because he wants ME to go to Florida first. I asked him to come here to California, but for some reason, he gets mad when I tell him that. I took Human Communication during the summer, and got an A. We moved to another house, yet again. Only difference is, my mom is starting a board and care business. We have our first patient, who's an alcoholic. Now we have a female patient. We're still trying to get more patients. It's not easy, but nothing in life is. Now I'm in a long distance relationship, yet again. This time, I'm in a long distance relationship with a guy living in New Mexico. This guy is 10 years older than me. We have yet to meet in person, and we were planning to meet this month. It got pushed back to December of this year. I was taking anatomy this fall, but I dropped it because my test score was low. I couldn't get an A anymore, but I could still get a B. It's not easy to study during the pandemic. The college admissions dropped me out of the class, but the professor allowed us to go back. The test questions were hard, and I couldn't afford to fail it. I didn't risk it, so that's why I dropped the class. I'm gonna take it next semester. 

After reading all those above posts I'm just like, wow! You guys have all had it tough in so many different ways. Hugs and prayers for you all! One thing this pandemic has done is made me very self-aware. I think, as Raveneye has said, I desperately need community to find myself again. And Facebook just wasn't hacking it, so I missed the kickoff to the reboot. Terribly sorry for that!

2015, 2016, and 2017 were very hard for me. My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I had surgery and big job changes. Had a falling out with my publisher, bought back the rights to all my books and self-pubbed them. My husband took a head coaching job at the high school where I teach (girls' soccer) and our lives spiraled into insanity and business. And then I decided that I needed to go back to school and become a math teacher because I was tired of teaching science.

In all that chaos, there was this sweet, sweet boy in my Chemistry class. So polite, so kind. He finished his junior year and then to my joy enrolled in my dual credit chemistry class. These classes are sort of lax because they have a few days on and a few days off. And honestly, I just fell in love with the kid. He was going to graduate. I couldn't let that happen LOL. So I brought him home and kept him.

He had a pretty tough life. Lived with a family that didn't take care of him like they should have. And now, he's my son. Boom! So now I have three kids. One in college, one in 9th grade and months from driving, and one in sixth grade. We still do the soccer and now I'm a high school teacher plus an online professor for a community college. 

I have been struggling a bit with my health over the past three years, but stubborn me didn't get bloodwork until this past November when I learned I was diabetic. So now the health is much better and I'm looking forward to getting back into the gym post-pandemic and actually having some energy and stamina again. 

Being a teacher in Covid has been next to impossible. I can't even fathom all the things we've accomplished without having students in the building this year. It's literally taken every second of my attention, so I've done very little writing. And of course, travel and public speaking have been at a halt. We are now on a hybrid schedule and I was super excited to learn that next year should be a normal school year with no virtual days. I have teens LOL. They go in their room and never speak to me. And I'm a soccer widow half the year. WRITING TIME!!!!! Whoo hoo!

We are super blessed. We just moved into the house of our dreams. Love all our neighbors! We have a sweet fur baby named Lilac--half Jack Russell and half King Cavalier spaniel. She looks like a potato head with the cavalier face and the Jack Russell ears just popped on her head. My (new) son is getting ready to finish up college with an IT degree and my husband just got a promotion to be Director of Counseling at one of our state universities. And now, LegendFire is back!  Life is good.

Thats really cool ScienceGirl. Glad you found the light at the end of the tunnel. Congratulations on the addition to your family!

I thought I should post something here as I've been very quiet lately. I haven't been writing much but I'm definitely changing that now. I've also been busier with work stuff. I've been a cleaner(janitor) in a special needs school ever since I moved back to England from Australia but this job has been making me run out of steam a lot recently as I don't work many hours and it's not suited to me so this made me want to do something about it. I used to work with young children before moving to Australia and seeing all of the children at work made me really want to get back into it so I've been working 2 longer days a week so I can be in one of the classrooms and then the cleaning afterwards, it's tiring but I'm enjoying it, so much I applied for a full time job to be in the classroom instead of cleaning. I had the interview on Wednesday and I got offered the job which I'm going to obviously accept. I am happy because the job seems to be so much better for me than the cleaning which I will be stopping. I've posted this on Discord so some of you may know this already but wanted to post something to let you all know why I've been very quiet.

As for writing, I am thinking of ideas and stuff for a story and I really want to get back into posting here again as I have pretty much disappeared from here which I feel bad about because I was enjoying the 100 word challenge. I need to get back into doing those.

(Also, I apologise if my change of profile picture/Avatar confuses you haha.)

Right now I am in a holding pattern with a physiotherapy session coming up in an hour or so. But once I get home I will be getting back onto work on the current project. Still a long way to go in the writing stage, but the world feels more alive as I reedit my early chapters. Slow but steady progress.

Oh man, being sick on and off sucks. Plus being busy and not being able to rest up, that makes it worse.

I've been generally good, had some health hardships and some good things happen in my family. Don't really want to go into details for privacy's sake (and since my Dad is also on the site and some of it involves him) but we're all doing better now. 

Mostly, I try to write every day and sometimes I stumble and don't achieve my goal. The contests help force me to push out a decent story or two, which is nice.

I'm stressing a lot about moving, which we aren't doing until the summer of 2022 but since it's across the country there's a lot of prep and it's overwhelming. I don't particularly want to move, but jobs and all...husband got a job during the height of the pandemic and they didn't require him to relocate. Now they're saying we have a year to relocate which sets us at moving before October 2022, so we've chosen the summer because of the kids school schedule. Still holding out hope his job will say "just kidding, you don't have to move because the remote work is so productive" which is true. 

Wish more jobs stayed remote.