My First Assignment
Mood:  irritated
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Ah. The internet. How life went on without it, I can't imagine.

Well, I'm finally (somewhat) settled into my new place, and it's been everything but pleasant. My first assignment as a travel nurse is in Kankakee, Illinois, which is an hour south of Chicago.

So far, I'm not having a good time. I've been here two weeks, and it feels like it's been two months. I arrived on September 30th, after driving up 20 hours from Texas. Since I drove up with my mom, we spent about, oh, 19 1/2 hours arguing.

The place I was supposed to move in to was occupied, which I knew already. So I had to stay in a hotel for two weeks until the people moved out. Okay. I was fine with that. The Holiday Inn I was staying in was awesome, so I was pretty content...for all of five seconds.

I've been living on my own for a while now, but this is the first time I've been away from everything I knew. Where I'm working now is completely different from what I was trained to do, and I feel completely over my head, and incompetent. My shift is 8 hours, which really bugs the shit outta me. Yeah, 12-13 hour days sucked, but then I'd only work 3 or 4 days a week. This 5-day-a-week shit I'm not digging at all.

Not only did I feel incompetent (and still do), I had gotten a case of homesickness that had me bawling for days. Ya'll, I hadn't cried in over six years. And in one week I had cried more than I had in my entire life. I cried as I got ready for work, on my break, and on my drive home. I couldn't get my shit together no matter what. I was seriously contemplating breaking my contract. That was how depressed I became.

But then the place I was supposed to move into was ready. I was happy at first. The area I'm in now is a bunch of million-dollar homes...except for mine.

I'm in a cabin. My house is a god damn cabin.

At first I thought it was cool. It was furnished of course, with TV's, cable, working bathroom, huge closet space, and a loft on the second floor with my bed. To reach it, I have to go up a latter. Really cool. Next, my backyard is the Kankakee River. Literally. I go out my door, walk ten feet down, and bam. The river. Nothing is holding it back from the land, so I can walk right into the river if I want to. My neighbor canoes in it every day.

But I'm afraid that's where the fun stops. I was here for a good hour, and discovered some serious faults. One was no internet. I would have to set that up and pay for it. Shit. Another problem was that my cellphone didn't work out here, and I would have to get a landline and pay for that as well. Shit again. The next problem was the washing machine/dryer. They were in the garage. In Texas, houses are built with the washer/dryer in the house, or if in the garage, there is a door that leads TO the garage. Not here. I have to go OUTSIDE to get to the garage, and open it. When I went to close it, it got stuck. I had been here a whole hour when that happened, and had to wait another hour for the service people to come and fix it.

Next was the smell. It smelled like a cabin. (Big stretch there). But I didn't know until then that I didn't LIKE the smell of cabins. So I would have to buy a bunch of smell stuff and candles to fix that. Shit, shit, shit.

Next, and I kid you not, there is a god damn deer head on the wall. Now, I come from Texas. I have seen many a live deer, and nearly hit a few as well. I don't need a fuckin' deer head on my wall. Worse yet, it's angled towards the couch. So when I'm watching TV, it's watching me. And when I go to bed at night, I swear it winks at me. I want it gone.

NEXT, whoever previously stayed here had a cat. Now, I'm not an animal hater, but I don't have too much love for them either. But I can't STAND cats, and there was cat hair all over the place. I mean ALL OVER. There was cat hair all over the couch, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, on the mirrors... everywhere! I was so fucking disgusted! I could tell the company tried to clean it up as best as they could, but it's cat hair. There was only so much they could do. So I had to order slipcovers, which cost me $130. I feel much, much better now that they're covered, but I could still smell the cat whenever I land too hard.

NEXT AGAIN, is the heat. It snowed on Thursday, and the temperature plummeted. I turned on the heat, and discovered, to my dismay, that the heat didn't work very well. No matter how high I turned it up, it was programmed not to exceed 65 degrees, and I couldn't figure out how to override that. Plus the heat didn't work too great anyway. It wouldn't heat up the entire cabin, just the kitchen. It was 52 degrees when I woke up Friday morning. Outside, it was 60. That made no god damn sense. So I bought an electric blanket, and today I finally got off my ass and bought two space heaters. Those cost about $80, the blanket $60.

What else could I say about this place...

(1) The lighting isn't very good. I have to turn on damn near all of them to see.

(2) The microwave is disgusting. It needs replacing.

(3) I have bruises all up and down my legs (and broke the hell out of the skin of my knee) because I keep nearly falling down that stupid, stupid piece of shit latter.

(4) The wildlife here is ridiculous. We have deer, possums, squirrels, ducks, coyotes and racoons. Racoons. I don't like racoons.

(5) Another problem is the foliage. The trees here are walnut trees, and now the walnuts are mature and falling off. But they fall hard, and ricochet all over the place. The first time I heard it fall, it sounded like someone was knocking on the door. I'm afraid I'll get beamed in the head or that one will break my windshield.

(6) The walnuts hitting the roof keep me up at night. And when they don't, the ducks do.

(7) The first twenty minutes I was here, I lost the keys to the place. I've only found one. I have no idea where the other key is, and it'll be my ass if I don't get another made.

I'm trying to stick it out since I had to go thru so much hell to get situated in the first place. We'll see. But I hope to God that things improve drastically this week, or else I won't know what to do. I'm at the end of my rope, and I don't think I'll be able to tolerate much more. My contract ends December 6, and right now I don't think I'll even make it thru tomorrow.

I've never been one to need comfort, but I'd kick ass for some lovin' right now.