Certified Nursing Assistant.

The blog of a girl who who loves to charge blindly into life. The blog of a girl who was tired of death long before she signed up for the class, long before she passed the test, long before watching someone wither away should have ever been an option. Call my cynical. I probably am but this is what I noticed in the life a a Long Term Care Facility Certified Nursing Assistant. 

My first day on the job was so full of excitement. Two days before I took and passed my test I was hired as a full time Aide. I was walking on air. They introduced me to the other full time gals and guys that would become my second home for 40 hours a week plus overtime. Day one they teased me, it was harmless right? Then I met the nurses. They all looked so tired. Nothing like the ICU nurses I remembered from my childhood but they still acted the same. Self righteous and better than everyone. My first day, such a whirlwind of activity. First day turned into first week,  first week into first month. Light teasing into harassment. Self righteous into god complexes and those willing to walk slowly when a code was called.

This was what I remembered wondering about as a girl. How did they tear each other apart like rabid hyena's and still come together at just the right moment to save a life? Well the answer to that was, they didn't always. I remember going up to a nurse I had offended and begging her to come look at one of my patients, I thought something was wrong. What did I know I was a CNA. Hours passed, she told me she would get to it. She never did, not until I got a nurse from another unit to verify what I had been saying all along. Something had been terribly wrong. 

Then they told me what had happened that day. Funny thing, I didn't remember most of it being that way. Then I was the bad guy because I called the state inspector. The thing that really got to me, I could live with poeple dying around me. It was sad but I could accept I had done all I could. As a CNA what I could never live with was the way the employees treated each other. They harrassed, sexually assulted, some slept with husbands of others, and all talked behind each others back. How could a field that is supposed to be about the greater good and helping others be just as equally about being self righteous and hateful? Why did they do it? 

To everyone. Employees came and went like a revolving door except the five of us who were full time. No one was able to pass through without the gossip and attacks being directed at them just as brutally as they did toward those who they called close friends. After a time I started to become ill. It took me a while to figure out I was only ever ill on the days I had to work. I would vomit and have headaches. Part stress, part dehydration from the vomiting, I cut down to part time. For the second time during my work at this facility I had betrayed them. Until they hired someone else, they were short some days and they never let me forget. Not that I had an alternative life style, not that I had reported the facility to state, not that I had gone to my superiors for abuse and been told it was all in good fun. 

I wasn't laughing. Eventually I moved states. I thought myself to be free of them. Even now one of them will text me or shoot me an email, why don't I talk to anyone any more, I told them, I wasn't laughing. Now for the second time in my life I am working as a CNA. I want so much for it to be different. Tomorrow is my first day all over again. I know it will be filled with excitement and new job joys.  Even know I know somethings will never change. The nurses will be self righteous and 'overworked' the CNA's will pick up their slack and huff that the nurses don't work. I am ok with this. I know I do it to. I have saved lives. I say with pride. The patients think me proud and self righteous. It comes with the job. You have to be that way or they won't trust that you are capable. 

My biggest hope? That this time I will not be walking into a den of wolves. That this time I will not have to call the state and tell them I can't accept what happened as part of life. They say ever facility is different. I have worked in one. Another whose opinion I hold dear has worked in six. In all she has reported that they still back stab and gossip like school girls. I am more willing to turn the other cheek. I have faith that there are those who go into nursing not for the pay but to do good in the world. They still exist don't they? 

If any CNA reads this I hope you can leave me messages of hope. Something to say that it's not always this way. While bad things do happen there are those who live and act with good intentions.

Am I cynical? Am I jaded? Maybe. 

Corset looking for the good in the world

Signing off.

I see the Moon

I've had this on my mind for the past few days. I've know this since I was a little girl but I don't recall who wrote it originally so I can give proper credit. Since I've been singing it a lot this week, I'd like to be able to tell people when they ask. I am normally a pretty good googler but this one has me stumped. Now I would not recommend listening to it on youtube or anything. I also remember hating whoever was singing it. It's one of those things you want to set to your own tune. I am working on some art associated with this song. Maybe in the future I will finish it and post it up. 

"I See the Moon 

I see the moon 

Over the mountain, over the sea,
Back where my heart is longing to be,
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.

I see the moon; the moon sees me
Down through the leaves of the old oak tree.
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.

I hear the lark; the lark hears me,
Singing a song with a melody.
Please let the lark that sings for me
Sing for the one I love.

I kiss a rose; the rose kisses me,
Fragrant as only a rose can be.
Please let the Rose that comforts me
Comfort the one I love."

 Now if you want a song worth actually listening too, Try Chris Rice I see the the Moon. Or Ayreon. You know. Whatever floats your boat.


Corset missing someone,
Signing off. 

The Joys of Retail

Have you ever wandered through a retail store and thought what in gods name are those people doing? They circle certain patches of product like vultures, they try to ring up every sale no matter how long the line, they avoid returns like the plague and see fitting rooms as the door way to hell. It's a little bit hysterical to watch them. Especially at holiday rush hour and double fun if you have a friend willing to sit with you and ad lib them all.

Well Corset is easing back into blogging so let's do a break down of the things I said before. If you see an associate circling product, it's for a couple reasons. With the exceptions of places like Wal-Mart, in retail it's a big no no to sit behind your register and wait for a customer. They want you to be active. What does that mean? Active means you approach every customer and push selling by striking up conversation and 'wardrobing' in every possible way. Now wardrobing is just a silly way off adding on extras the customer might not have thought of. Like You want a shower curtain so obviously you need new bath mats, matching towels, a new tooth brush holder, soap dispenser, bath room curtains, etc. If it can be remotely connected to what the customer is buying, they want it to be suggested in a cute little, did you know kind of way. Or the associate is lazy, it's so they appear busy and the manager or guys behind the camera in loss prevention don't call down and remind you that if you don't want to do it their way, there is someone out there willing to replace you.

Now if the associate is expected to be wooing customers on such a personal level then why do they try to ring up every person who even attempts to enter a check out zone? I bet you know this one. Sales goals. Even if you don't get paid commission the company wants to know that you are pulling your weight. They do this by setting sales goals and if you don't consistently meet a certain percentage of that goal, you go on probation because obviously if you are doing it right, you will be meeting the goal. Every transaction is added up and you can track your goal during the day, an example. If you work an 8hr shift, in some places that means you will have a sales goal of roughly $2500. This brings us to returns.

I find this aspect of the system poorly set up because in my opinion it leads to customer neglect. Just as every sale you ring up brings you closer to the magic number, every return you ring, subtracts from it. So if you are providing good customer service by helping the person everyone else treats like a leper, you're shooting yourself in the foot at the same time.

This brings us to the fitting rooms! Now granted many places don't have these but a lot do, or some equivalent where customers pile merchandise without care to let you find out where its home once was. In my example we shall use the fitting room. When trying to find the right pair of jeans or the right top for the whatever occasion, it's not uncommon for people to pick up and set down over ten items. While good for you your looking for something in particular, the sales associate is loosing progress trying to put it all back. For every moment that an associate is having to return merchandise to a shelf, another associate is taking their sales. Not only that but it's quite a lot of work. If you're staring down a pile of jeans from ten brands and companies and that's only one side of the fitting room AND it's not even noon yet if you try to tackle that, you'll be at it for a while. Now remember, you have 8 hours to sell $2500 worth of merchandise. Now subtract the Three hours you are spending being a good human being and putting things back where they belong. So if you want to be a decent human being and help out with the fitting room you are really trying to sell $500 worth of stuff an hour in a place where most of the purchases are going to be $50-100 total. Now that doesn't sound to hard until you remember you are competing with five other people to get those sales.

Retail can be a bit cut throat. I can't imagine what those poor men and women in commission sales have to go through.

Having been on both sides of the counter,
Corset signing off.

Uh oh.

Blogs will resume on Monday the 14th!

Maybe sooner.

Probably not. 

Corset being Corset.

Signing off.

Christmas in July.

Is it just me or has everyone else noticed that Christmas sales are starting early, the decorations and trees are cropping up sooner and that this has been reoccurring for the past few year. I remember about two weeks before Halloween I was looking for some supplies to finish my costume and the seasonal section of the store was decked out in red and green with an automated santa laughing at me. I felt like I had fallen through a worm hole into the future. Where was all my Halloween gear? I asked an associate. Well it was hiding in a corner. They were already putting it on sale to get rid of it so they could replace it with more Christmas gear.

Yikes.

Then it got worse. Last week I was speaking with someone where they proudly announced they had finished their Christmas and New years shopping. I haven't even bought a Turkey yet and Thanksgiving is in two weeks. Whipping out the Christmas gear wouldn't even be on my radar for a few more weeks if it wasn't for everyone else flaunting that they have done it already.

What ever happened to Thanksgiving day decorations! When I was in kindergarten we had turkey center pieces and I even say an inflatable turkey on someones yard! There was an entire isle at the grocery that would get dedicated to random things redone to be decked out with falling leaves and turkeys and indians and pilgrims. I mean, I know the thanksgiving in cartoons is a lie. I did take a history class back in the day, but damn it, I loved those old decorations. I also remember some cartoon that come on early that day before football hit about the first thanksgiving.

I demand Thanksgiving nostalgia. Where after Halloween you put up turkeys and not Santa and the napkins are covered in leaves and not snowflakes. While it's not often depicted like what actually happened I don't think that is a reason to gloss over and forget. If nothing else you should remember what it symbolizes in fiction if not in fact. I'm so tired of political correctedness going through a rewriting and erasing the things that people think we shouldn't look at. Covering your eyes won't make it go away and if we lose sight of our past its going to come back and bite us in the future. So leave the N word in my Tom Sawyer books. Teach me about what happened to the Indians. Instead of telling me, We changed our minds! It never existed. Tell me why it was wrong. Don't blind me, educate me.

Corset putting up Turkey decor.
Signing off

Thinking Like A Geek.

Or if you want to get nit picky, I'm thinking of ThinkGeek.com. Now usually I don't want to talk to much about websites and the stuff they sell because in most cases I really don't care. If your like me you don't have a lot of money to throw around on the internet. Think Geek is my exception. It's not that I buy from them really often. Maybe twice a year. The big Christmas splurge and then an untimely end of summer small shop for a birthday present.

 I hope you've already Googled the site to see who I'm talking about. Or are you doing that now?

Well for those who'd rather read about it than look it up, the wonderful thing about think geek is the vast variety. It's the only place I've seen where you can buy a licensed Dr. Who coat or sonic screw driver then turn around and get some t-shirts or even a new bib for the baby all in style. There are USB Doomsday devices and T-shirts and one of the only places I have found that sells all my favorite geeky shirts in baby doll cut instead of the atrocious unisex they try and pawn off on people. I can buy caffeinated lolli pops or candy coated hibiscus flowers. They have night vision goggles and cameras, they have bacon scented car air fresheners and they have my favorite tech humor books.  Whenever someone asks me what I want for a birthday or Christmas I can say just go to think geek. If it's to expensive, that's ok they have a clearance section and they also have a point system. The more you buy the more points you get to get something shiny and fun for free and some of the free items cost upwards of $50 on their own. So getting it for free makes me squee like a preteen at an anime con.

It's more than just that though. I have never had a poor customer service experience with think geek. Once for Christmas I placed a large (it was for me!) order and when it arrived, I had received a duplicate of one thing and was missing another less than two weeks before Christmas. I was in panic mode but I emailed them and less than a day later they had the replacement items on their way out to me in overnight delivery before I ever had a chance to send the duplicate back. There was no harassment. No being told to call a number and waiting on hold for hours on end. There had been a mistake. They apologized and fixed it. If only all companies were this polite and obliging.

Even on their facebook page, if you comment, they will reply to you. They hold contests to win free money and they donate to charities that they let the masses help decide what charity deserves. What's not to like? Well, being who I am they sell games and books and amazing shirts so I wanted to work for them. I'm not sure I can forgive them for only have a branch in Virginia and a bunch of jobs I'm not qualified to do.

I don't know who I am kidding. Think Geek would probably have to triple charge my credit card and refuse me my money back before I actually got miffed at them. It's hard to find problems with a company that treats you right and packs each box with pouches of monkey breath so your things come to you in one piece. I think the only thing that could place thinkgeek.com any higher in my good graces would be a Think Geek credit card. Oh how I don't need it but I want it. I would be perpetually thousands of dollars in debt to them but I don't think they'd mind as long as I paid every month.

So Think Geek I guess what I am saying is my top hat goes off to you!
Corset Signing off.

Sleep and Alcohol

Well there are somethings I have noticed over time and some things I have been told so I thought I'd share. Did you know that if you consume a moderate amount of alcohol you are effectively botching your sleep and the more alcohol you consume the potentially worse it can get. Well, now you do but I bet you want to know why so let me tell you what I think and we'll start with some definitions. A moderate amount of alcohol means that your blood alcohol levels average is  0.06–0.08%. That's not a lot of alcohol to get there. However do not despair, approx one 12oz beer can help lull you to sleep without the side effects I'm about to get into. 


Now the thing about moderate alcohol consumption isn't that pop! You sleep poorly. It triggers chemicals in your body as it is metabolized and removed from your body and in most cases this happens only in time to ruin the last half of your sleep assuming you are getting from seven to eight hours. There is some preliminary studies to show that the adverse effects could take as much as three days to correct the changes done to sleep patterns. 


So what are the changes? Well as far as I can tell what happens is shallow sleep is induced leading to awaking multiple times during the night as well as rebounding REM. The rebounding REM is associated with nightmares and vivid dreaming due to the brain attempting to wake and the general activity induced. The after effects of the poor sleep lead to the additional drowsiness during the day as well as trouble focusing. 


There are also studies shown that suggest alcohol increases sleep apnea symptoms. It is unfortunate that sleep is commonly used as an aid for insomniacs however poor sleep is debatable better for you than no sleep. 


While on the subject of alcohol I thought I'd throw this out there since so few seem to know it. The effects of a hangover are caused by dehydration, a side effect of drinking. If you want to not get a hangover when you are done drinking alcohol for the night, drink several glasses of water. You will have to hit the bathroom a bit more often but I'd rather excuse myself for a moment than deal with a pounding headache in the morning. 






Corset hoping to have raised some questions and peaked an interest, 
signing off.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Tikka Masala is absolutely something people must try at some point in their lives. In either Chicken or lamb, both are quite intriguing but please don't buy it from the grocery. Make a night of it and go out to an Indian restaurant and enjoy yourselves. Now here are some things you might want to know. Chicken Tikka Masala consists of roasted chicken cut into cubes served in a creamy orange coloured sauce. The sauce tends to be thick and involve tomatoes but the tomato flavor isn't particularly present. Now it is a curry so expect some spice. The wonderful thing about this dish is there are dozens of ways to make it and even just changing out the chicken for lamb can alter the flavor in the best way but the main ingredients tend to be as follows : Chicken, Yogurt, cream, tomato, onion, chili, coconut. The rest of the spicing is really up for debate and any Indian cuisine that's worth its salt will be served with Basmati rice. Now you can make your own at home but since the Chicken is marinated in spiced yogurt then cooked in a clay oven, you tend to loose something. This is how I do it though.

• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 nice sized splash lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 
  

Now you want to mix all of the above and let it sit in the fridge over night if you can but if not at least give it a few minutes. Then remove the chicken and discard the marinade. I have a clay pot that I bake the chicken in, a pan works just fine too. But like I said, I've never mastered how to make it as well as the restaurant does. Depending on how small you chopped the pieces depends on how long it takes to cook. My way tends to be a half hour. Or I have my man grill it.  Now while that is cooking::

•  
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped (this is optional)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro  (save some to make it pretty on top)

Mix all of this set together in a pan on stove top. When the chicken is done cooking, add and let simmer for I give ten minutes to let the flavors mix.  Serve over basmati rice.

Now MY Tikka Masala isn't this pretty but Wiki has it right. This is what it looks like if you go out to eat. <3

Corset signing off. 

Sleepy Sunday

Blindfolded girl using fire to light her path. This one makes loads of sense. Well  it does to me.

Wondering where time has gone,

Corset Signing off for a sleepy Sunday.

Aristotle

Ok. For quite some time Aristotle has rubbed me the wrong way and I think I've nailed down the reason. All Aristotle did was develop a brilliant system that meant he was always right. Now bear with me, Aristotle defined ethics as being an inexact political science and an art of how to achieve the highest intrinsically valuable, practical and supreme good. This supreme good is happiness. To Aristotle Happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with complete or moral virtue. Or another way to define it would be to live well and rationally, do well rationally, and function rationally. The mean between the extreme.

Oh Aristotle! Why can't I finish a sentence about you without having to define a half a dozen words or more!

Now what is soul and morals? Let's start with soul, believe it or not, it's easier to understand. The soul is broken down into two parts, the first being the irrational soul. The irrational soul is fairly vegetative. It controls appetite, nurturing, growth, it controls primal functions to survive. On the flip side you have the Rational soul. The Rational soul's primary function is to have the capability of virtue.

Virtue in and of itself, is not a natural thing according to Aristotle. We naturally have the capability to acquire it but it is not of nature. Virtue is also considered a mean between two extremes. Now to break Virtue down into two parts. There is Intellectual Virtues which we are taught through school and family. Then there are Moral Virtues which we learn through observation and habit. Despite my readings, I have not found a virtue that is simply one or the other. It looks something like this.

But oh my Aristotle! All of those terms that you ask us to look at, all of your virtues are broad open terms. While every will say that you should have these traits, to everyone they have different meanings. Where is the line between Courage and being Fool hardy? Well say's Aristotle, if you want to know more you should ask the prudent man! Well who is the prudent man? He is of course the one who has lived in happiness. Well he has dedicated his life to his so by his own teachings he is the prudent man. Circular logic to the rescue? I feel as if I am missing a vast important piece of Aristotle.  Oh my. Maybe next week we will see what James and Kant have to say about this. Or if I am feeling up to the challenge I will talk about Nietzsche. If you're like my class everyone reading this and a few who won't know why let out a collective exasperated disgusted sigh. 

Well corset hoping one day to say something outrageous enough to warrant hearing from a reading,
signing off.

Artistic Nude?

So I was living life one day, like you do, when I noticed someone was selling a gorgeous artistic nude, my only problem was that there were smiley face stickers covering up particular bits of the art work. The artist noticing my confusion approached me and told me those were not part of the picture, he had to cover them up because the art was on display in a local restaurant and a child might come in and see it. To which I responded, so what? Children fall into two big categories when it comes to artistic nudity. Eww coodies/meh, or There's better on the internet. Well we went back and forth for a few moments but it came down to this, why are children allowed to see movies depecting people have sex and all the naughty bits there but it someone presents the human form in a still tasteful manner, it's all of a sudden something we should be ashamed of? This makes little sense to me.

 Parisian nymph painted by Jules Lesebvre

The first argument we discussed was parents prerogative. If they do not want their child to see nudity on display, they should have that right. What this means is that in his case, they were right to tell him to cover up the bits. A parent should get to chose if they want their child exposed and how they want their child to learn about sexuality.

The Second was that in the light of liberalism, if people stop acting so shamed by the human form and repressed their children less then there would be less in the way of bullying of gay children and those who have different body shapes. Later on in life as well, they would grow to be more comfortable in their own skin and would have a general increase in self confidence. If you think even remotely like me the second sounds awfully optimistic, however I do see the basis where this is coming from and while I don't think it will be in such a dramatic manner, I can see the benefits of letting children grow up aware of the human figure.

This led to our third great disagreement. The differences between male and female nudity. It is excepted a lot more commonly to see an image of a naked woman and call it art however if you even show full male in a movie you are looking at an R or X rating. Yet you can show full frontal of a woman? How does this work? Not well was my answer but we had to agree to disagree on this front.

Then, as it happens when talking about artistic nudes, we began to discuss, what is art? Is a picture of a naked woman with an innocent gaze holding a type of cloth in one hand to cover herself art? Or is it in poor taste? How about naked fae dancing under the moon? Oh my said we. We are roaming blindly through the realm of opinion. One mans art is another mans trash. So does it really matter if a man is forced to cover up an artistic nude? I think so.

What do you think?
Corset signing off.

NaNoWriMo

Oh my shame in having forgotten NaNoWriMo.
Otherwise known as the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write approx 50,000 words (about 175 page novel) in one month, both starting and ending at midnight and it runs the duration of November. You can track your goal via the official site and I believe there is even prizes available to be won. At nanowrimo.org you can also sign on to forums for support and meet fellow writers which I think is a nice concept. Especially when you have a bad case of the block and couldn't form a coherent sentence to save your life, that's a good day to have a support forum. Now a few things to note, when you submit your work to the word count it just about automatically gets deleted. They also have a system set up to scramble your work so there is no fear of thievery. Also to be eligible for the prizes, you have to meet the 50,000 word mark. 

The rules state that, to be an official NaNoWriMo winner, you must…

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

 See? Doesn't that sound easy? So why don't you head on over and see what kind of adventure NaNoWriMo can take you on. 

William James on Absurdity

If you have forgotten how I defined Absurdity you can always recap to when I talked about Melville.

Well as always William James' work is a joy to read. However sometimes he says some things that irk me the wrong way. He starts the particular piece I was reading by basically telling Walt Whitman, Enough! Not everyone is a pathological optimist! Anyone who has read a great deal of Whitman, knows he doesn't have eternal optimism, though at does persist more often than not. James' focuses on Logotherapy or meaning centered therapy based on the premise of despair surrounded by the struggle of life and asking the question, Is Life Worth Living? Unless my history is off the answer to that question is yes because I do not believe that James' committed suicide. Instead he created steps to make the world work a touch better.

Steps
1)  Understand the Essence of courage. What he means by this is do you  believe in something enough to stake your life on it? Is it worth living for? If the answer is no, then he saw suicide in your future.
2)  Understand the Essence of faith. Meaning to believe that the possibility exists.
3)  Make the connection between courage and faith.

So what this breaks down into is the premise that you have faith in possibility that something exists and courage to bet your life on it.

Of course it's all a lot more complicated than all this. James was a psychologist as well as a philosopher making for a potent combination of, at times, despair. As always I challenge you to question my work. If you know better, tell me so! Philosophy is at its best when discussed among people with differing minds!

For someone who is a little less bleak, tune in tomorrow to hear a bit about Schopenhauer.
Corset signing off.

Corset Baked A Cake!

Cake is also known as filler. For someone who had nothing to do on Halloween I didn't have time to write anything. After taking a test on absurdity. Perhaps I will sit down and write on it this afternoon. 

I thought I would mention the cake is layered. The Chocolate covered half is choco cake. The vanilla half is vanilla cake. I did bake both halves in the same pan. Some heavy duty foil made it come out nice with the swirl and there was no seam when it was done. 

Corset signing off.