I graduated from nursing school in June of this year. You would think that it would be easy to find a hospital job in this environment, but you would be wrong. Every new grad residency in my area gets 500-1000 applicants for every spot. I am now 6 months out from graduation and still have not been able to land a hospital residency, so I am what they call an "old" new grad -- too old to qualify for a residency at many of the hospitals around here (which won't take you if you are past 6 months out from graduation), but also lacking the year of hospital experience that is required to be hired as an "experienced" nurse. So, I am basically stale goods and totally screwed. I've been sending out resumes and interviewing, but so far have nothing to show for it except RN experience at our county psych hospital (which is not viewed as acute care) and as a nurse vaccinator at CVS. Recently, I thought I had an ICU position, only to be ghosted by the hiring manager that seemed pretty keen to hire me. It turns out that the ICU had to put hiring on hold after our interview because they simply did not have enough preceptors to bring any new grads on board. That's the problem with us newbs -- someone has to be around to at least answer our questions and supervise, if we run into trouble, and nurses are so stretched right now they simply don't have the ability to bring on new grads because they don't have the time to precept us. So, here we sit on the sidelines watching everyone drown, wanting to help, but not being allowed in to do so. It's awful. I wish I thought single payer would solve these problems, but as much as I support Medicare 4 All, I don't think it is a panacea for these issues, alas.

"More recently, thousands of nurses have left the industry or lost their jobs rather than get vaccinated. As of September, 30% of workers at more than 2,000 hospitals across the country surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were unvaccinated." Way to conflate nurses with healthcare workers. This article makes it sound like nurses are leaving in droves because of vaccine mandates, which just isn't true. As others have pointed out, nurses are leaving because of burnout, low pay, terrible ratios, moral injury, and the horrors of dealing with the unvaccinated public who are, on the whole, abusive towards healthcare workers who practice evidence-based medicine. Moreover, the term "nurses" is so broad as to encompass everything from diploma nurses, LVNs, and associates-degree nurses with two years of community college, post-secondary education all the way to doctorally-prepared nurse practitioners. There is a very high correlation between education and support for vaccines; the majority of nurses that are actually leaving due to mandates tend to be those with the least post-secondary education.

I'm totally with you. My youngest holds triple citizenship, but for some reason, has always been partial to his citizenship of birth (Mexico). He brags about it to anyone who will listen and really identifies with it. I could honestly see him checking a Latino box when he gets older (I don't check this box when filling out forms for him, obviously), despite being a lily white kid with an American mutt mother of French/Irish/Italian/English descent and a French-Canadian father.

I am feeling a bit uninspired this year. I picked up Maracaibo, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Underwater Cities, and Orleans at Game Nerdz. Am mulling over 7th Continent as well, but it is still very pricey and more than I want to spend on it. I also still have Isle of Cats, Barrage, Res Arcana, and a few others that have been sitting in my Amazon cart forever as well. What games are on your list this year?

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/thirdhand-smoke/

This sounds like a warning you'd find in a horror movie. "Stay to the roads." "Beware of the moon." 😆

Same. Hardly ever smell cigarette smoke anymore. Cannabis is *by far* more common, and a lot of people use cannabis vape pens/consume edibles and those don't smell. So, I am sure the number of cannabis users is actually way higher than my nose imagines. I was vaccinating a guy the other day who studies third-hand tobacco smoke, and I said, "Oh gosh. That's so interesting, but no one smokes here anymore! Thankfully." He said that he has to travel to the Midwest to get samples/data/controls because of how infrequently they were able to get what they needed out here (So Cal) to do his work. We also joked about how he could his work if he was studying third-hand smoke from weed vs tobacco.

I'm not an expert at anything, but I would have cleaned up on Name That Tune if I'd been born a few years earlier. Naming songs in a few notes is my superpower.

Also, if you are worried about getting your Moderna booster because you got walloped by dose #2, know that the booster is only half the dose of the original. Also, if you got the J&J and want a Moderna shot for dose #2, it is also only a half dose. Anecdotally, I am hearing from patients that the half dose in the booster is causing less side effects than what some experienced in dose #2. Obviously, everyone's experience is different, but that's my anecdotal feedback on the Moderna booster, for anyone who has been on the fence about it. (My personal experience is with three Pfizer shots and had zero side effects each time.)

4 weeks is for Moderna, which is not yet approved in children. 3 weeks is for Pfizer, which is approved for ages 5+. Same spacing in kids. 3 weeks after your first dose.

CVS was looking to hire 25,000 nurse vaccinators for the rollout and I am still praying for a hospital residency in the ICU, so in the meantime, yours truly got hired to help. So, I have been vaccinating patients at a busy San Diego CVS since Tuesday. It has been non-stop for me -- between flu shots, Covid boosters, and now the kids -- I am going 8+ hours of non-stop vaccinating. It makes me SO SO HAPPY to see more people getting vaccinated!!! ETA with a pic from my first day.

I can think of very few places that I have lived, here in California, that would allow clothes lines outside/on a balcony/patio.

I think a lot of homeschoolers would like to see access to AP exams become as easy as access to SAT exams, for example. I know that, especially for kids that need accommodations, getting access to schools that will administer the exams is extremely difficult. The bay area is a bit easier than So Cal, if you can afford to pay the exorbitant testing fees that some schools are charging, but it is extremely difficult in So Cal to find schools that will allow homeschoolers to test. Now that SAT2 tests are gone, and the UCs have gone test optional for the SATs, AP tests have taken on a more important role -- hence why people want the CB to do a better job.

For the budding physicist: https://thephysicistscloset.com/ Get 20% through today with the code Neutrino

I reversed my IR with a gastric bypass, but that's obviously not my recommendation for you. I will say that my anecdotal observation is that sweet tea is a real killer. I've never seen so many amputees as when I worked in an ICU in East Texas (near the LA border). You would have thought I was working in a wartime hospital of the bomb squad. The amount of diabetes in the South is crazy, in part because the people that live there are marinating in sweet tea their whole lives. I saw the same phenomenon when we lived in Mexico. So much sugar!! The sweet tea has got to go. I need something carbonated and I like some flavor, so I drink zero-cal, fruit-flavored sparkling water all day.

Mine will sound ridiculous, but I am being honest. 1) I wanted to clerk on the Supreme Court. I didn't achieve that goal because I was a mediocre law student. I could blame the fact that I was seriously depressed during law school, and had undiagnosed/untreated bipolar disorder, but really, I was just a mediocre law student among really talented peers. 2) I wanted to be the Secretary of Defense. I didn't achieve that goal because I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2006 and any chance of obtaining the security clearance I once held, or public office, were eviscerated by that diagnosis and the stigma it holds. 3) I want to write a screenplay. I may still do it, but I haven't done it because my parents are still alive. It would be too hurtful to write it now. Not that they were bad parents, but the blowback, if it became successful, would be painful for them, and it isn't their fault that I am who I am and have done the things that I've done. Similarly, I am not sure that I will write it because of how it may affect my children if I went public with it all. Some things may just be better left unsaid. Maybe. Not sure. 4) I want to open a no-kill shelter for animals. I will probably do it when I retire. I will buy a big piece of land in some place beautiful, close to both mountains and water. I will have a vegetable, herb, and flower garden. I will become fluent in Hebrew and study more limudei kodesh. I will cook from scratch. I will have horses, chickens, and goats of my own. I will still love EDM, tacos, roller coasters, and good dialogue. I will be known in town as the chill old lady with the long gray hair, who knows how to heal things, drinks good wine, helps people, and takes in all the animals. I am good with that as my legacy.

If you would like to file a claim against the College Board, here is your way to affect change: https://fairshake.com/take-action-vs-college-board/?fbclid=IwAR2k-t0BrRbjSoOCQXg4nrVTTjQfKRRYWA9Eq7aushMgWbBZOQ3FxvxLJAw This is the only way we are ever going to get action from the CB.

Since it is warm here most of the year, I live in these little shift dresses from Cabana Life (I only buy them when they go on sale). They don't wrinkle and are have SPF protection. I love them. https://www.cabanalife.com/collections/best-selling-dresses I also love these hippy dippy sandals. They are unique, and so cute and comfortable: https://www.springstepshoes.com/collections/lartiste-sandals I am also a huge fan of my Hoka One One Bondi 7s. They get me through 12+ hour shifts on my feet. https://www.hoka.com/en/us/womens-road/bondi-7/1110519.html And my crazy compression socks: https://procompression.com/collections/newest-arrivals

See if her doctor will rx her fluvoxamine. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-antidepressant-fluvoxamine-drug-hospital-death

You know what else is not shocking? There's a reason why employers can't fill jobs that has nothing to do with extended unemployment. It's called 750k dead people. Lots of them worked. And now they don't. Why are people surprised that the loss of 750K Americans has an impact on our economy? ETA: I am very sorry for your loss, Quill.

I'm with you. You'd have to pry online shopping from my cold dead hands. I just don't know how to people in stores anymore. Shopping is way too draining.

Irks me? I think I was pretty clear, "The fact that almost every one of these posts mentions people's moms makes me sad." Almost every post started from the assumption that it was a mother's job to teach a kid how to clean. The fact that no one was even questioning that assumption was shocking to me, and telling re how firmly rooted gender roles remain in our culture, IMO. None of that was about you specifically, or your lack of a paternal figure. It was a general comment.

Same. I love my middle name and always use it. It is a part of my identity and people remember me by it.

Can't stand it. Almost as horrific as mail sent to Mr. and Mrs. His Name. Because, you know, she doesn't exist apart from his identity. Ick.

The fact that almost every one of these posts mentions people's moms makes me sad. Why is it a woman's responsibility to clean? And to teach people how to clean? Just... no. The whole thread just reeks of the patriarchy.