July 28th, 2015

I woke up at 10 and headed out the door. I went to the book store and bought an EMS field guide. My next step was the bank to deposit my tips. I then went to Walmart to look for a map, which I didn’t find. I then rode to the embroidery shop to order my shirts for the EMT class. I found out that I need to provide the patches myself. I rode to the college to see about buying the patches, but was told they won’t be in until next week. I headed to the EMS department and asked about the map book which was required for the class. The director came out of his office and told me to follow him. We went to the class room and he handed me the map book and said he found it while cleaning the classroom, and it was mine to keep.

I went to the rainbow drive in for lunch and then went home to study. I read a chapter and wrote one of the two papers due before class starts. Rebecca came home from work, and we went to the grocery store to stock up on food supplies and we scurried home to cook some frozen pizza and watch the latest Hobbit movie. I went to work at 10:30 to check my schedule for tomorrow because I have yet to receive my schedule in an email.

July 27th, 2015

I woke up at 10 and headed to work for my noon bar shift. It wasn’t very busy, so I had time to talk to the customers. I was chatting up two guys from Australia about rugby, and halfway through the conversation the guy stopped me and said: “I was here in January, and you and I talked about Tim Tams for 20 minutes.”

I went home around 5:30, and managed to get 1 hour 41 minutes of overtime. I have a feeling I might hear about this on Wednesday. I took a quick shower, and then Rebecca and I headed over to our favorite burger place for dinner. We headed home and I studied for a while before going to bed.

July 26th, 2015

I was up at 6:30, and at work by 7:30. One of the managers who closed last night was also opening today so I had him send me his coffee order. He left last night at 1:30, and returned to work at 6, he lives 40 minutes away.

I started my morning prep and didn’t have my first customer until 10:30. My back up bartender arrived at 11 and took over the tables while I made drinks. The restaurant was busy, which meant I was making a lot of drinks, but the bar was slow, which meant we weren’t making a lot in tips. I volunteered to stay an entrap hour so the other bartender could take care of some stuff at home. I left around 5:30, went home and went straight to the shower to wash off 9 hours of sweat, fruit juice, beer and liquor.

Rebecca made chicken and we watched a show on Netflix while I took a nap. Once she went to bed, I did a load of laundry, which was 3 days overdue, and ordered 2 pair of EMT pants for $75 each, which I will need for class. I still have to buy 2 shirts at $70 each, but that will have to wait until after payday.

I watched more of the documentary about cocaine wars and went to bed around 1.

July 25th, 2015

I woke up around 10 and spent the morning trying not to sweat. It has been hot and muggy again.

I left for work around 1:30 just because there is air conditioning. I was planning to sit in an empty section to study, but the restaurant was full so I went to the balcony near the stairwell and read my EMT book.

I started my shift at 4, it was mildly busy, but my heart just wasn’t in it today.

I got home around midnight and showered and went straight to bed because I have to open the bar tomorrow.

July 24th, 2015

I woke up at 6:30 and got ready for along day. I was at the college by 8 for the orientation meeting at 8:30. There were roughly 15 other students there, some with their sponges or parents to learn about the program. We went through a power point lecture talking about the demanding schedule of the class, and then some students who had just graduated from the program came in to talk to us. The class will be Tuesday-Saturday from 07:30-11:30, but the students from last semester said they would stay until 8 or 9 at night every day studying. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to see Rebecca, or work. I am very nervous about this class. When I took my first EMT course back in 2002, I was working at a restaurant from 10-3, class from 6-10 and making bagels from 2-6 in the morning. I don’t remember even opening my text book outside of class to sudsy and I still managed to pull a “B” average. I ma nervous that the instructors, not to mention myself, will hold me to a higher standard as I have already taken the class, and worked as an EMT for nearly 6 years. I am worried that I will either stress out and ignore my other responsibilities, or go completely apathetic and assure myself that I don’t need to study.

After the orientation, I went to the financial aid department to inquire about when my tuition was due. I was informed that I wasn’t even registered for the program, and tuition was due today by 4 pm. I rushed home, registered for the class, which I thought I had already done in April, ad the rushed to the bank to transfer the last of my money into my checking account to pay for tuition.

We have a few assignments to complete before the first day of class, as well as a lot of reading. 4 of the assignments are FEMA courses which deal with incident management. They are 2-4 hour online classes. Luckily I have already taken 3 of them back in 2007 when I was trying out for my companies “Incident Response Team” which was set up after hurricane Katrina to travel to areas affected by a mass causality incident. I took the one class I still needed and then Rebecca and I made fajitas for dinner and I watched a documentary about the war on cocaine.

July 23rd, 2015

I woke up around 10, made breakfast and did the dishes. I spent the majority f the morning watching a documentary about what World War 2 would have looked like if being viewed from outer space. It was mostly CGI shots of the battle fields and showing which country occupied which territory at any given time.

I left for work a little earlier than usual so I could get a sandwich at Aloha Subs. The shift stared out slowly, but they started sending people home around 7:30 and then we got busy. There was nothing unusual about the shift. I think the highlight of my day was the sub sandwich. Rebecca had her first official day back at school today, though she won’t have any students until sometime next week. Last I heard, she thought she had an ear infection and was going to the doctor today to et it checked out. Since she is now back in school, and I start school in a month, I probably won’t see her until I’m done with school at the end of December. I’m going to try to work as much as I can during school so we can keep the lights on.

July 22nd, 2015

I woke up at 10 something and made breakfast. Rebecca had a dentist appointment so I laid on the floor in front of the door waiting for her to return home.

Once she got beck it was a whirlwind of fun activities like going to the post office and the office supply store for a desk calendar, pens, and flash cards. We walked over to Bucca Di Beppo’s for either a really late lunch or extremely early dinner for happy hour at 3.

After we finished all of the errands, we went home to celebrate Rebecca’s last day of summer vacation by me watching a nature show, and her watching CSI, or NCIS, or LNO SVU, one of those crime shows. I made pasta around 7 and then settled into watch a movie. Rebecca went to bed around 10 and I stayed up watching movies and doing squat thrusts.

July 21st, 2015

I woke up at 9 and was at work by 10:30. I was training someone today, but in the classroom setting. I quickly grew bored of going over the ingredients of the drinks, and took her to the bar and let her watch the drinks being made. I then had her garnish the drinks and run them to the tables so she could learn table numbers.

Around 3, I left her to study for a few minutes and I walked through the kitchen. I heard someone yell “a guy at table 104 stopped breathing call 911!” I walked over to the table to find an elderly man slumped over in his chair. I turned to my manager and told him to grab me some gloves and got permission to treat the patient. Someone was on the phone with 911 and they instructed us to lay him on the ground. Someone came up and gave me gloves and directed people to assist me moving him to the ground. The man had a pulse, and was breathing normally, but was pale, cold to the touch and very diaphoretic (sweaty). We rolled him to his side as directed by the 911 dispatcher and someone went to cover him with a sweater because his body was cold. In a firm voice I told them to remove the covering as he was probably suffering from heat stroke. He remained unresponsive but I continued monitoring his vital signs and trying to wake him up until the fire department arrived. I gave one of the firefighters a short report on his vitals and the medical history we could obtain and then I casually walked away and went back to my trainee. The server who was helping the table was visibly upset, thinking it was somehow his fault for serving the man alcohol, but there was nothing he did wrong. I finished working with the trainee and went up to the front as the medics were placing an iv in the man’s arm and carrying him out on the gurney. My managers were coming up to me shaking my hand saying I was a hero, people were crying, some of the girls hugged me thanking me for what I did. I really didn’t do much to be honest. I have been in that situation probably a thousand times, it was just second nature for me.

It took about 15 minutes from the time the medics left until I started with the jokes. “We weren’t very busy today, you could say the restaurant was… dead”. “Don’t seat 104, that table is haunted.” The server who was helping the table was in the back still upset, I went back and sat in front of him, and in my best Good Will Hunting voice I said “it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.” One person got the joke and had to walk away to keep from laughing out loud. I have developed a dark humor from being an EMT for so long, I have to be able to laugh at terrible things or they will eat me up inside.

I stared my night shift at 4 and quickly became tired. It was moderately busy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was still unbearably hot. One hour before closing I had a party of 10 sit down, they ended up leaving $10 on an almost $200 tab. I rushed to get out of there as I had been there for almost 13 hours. I left at 11:30 and went home to unwind and watch Netflix.

July 20th, 2015

I woke up at 10 and after a quick breakfast, drove to the moped repair shop for my tune-up. I walked home and prepared dinner while I waited on my moped. The tune-up took longer than expected so I watched a movie while I waited for the call.

I left around 4, picked up my inhaler, grabbed my moped, drove to the eye doctor and picked up my left contacts as the right ones were temporarily misplaced. I then drove to a uniform shop to inquire about pricing for my uniform for EMT school. Each shirt is $70, and the trousers are $67. I decided to see if I could find something cheaper online.

I rode home, started dinner and began watching a nature program on Netflix. After dinner I continued my show, but fell asleep. I was watching salmon fight off bears and woke up to a lion taking down a wildebeest. I ended up going to bed around 11.

July 19th, 2015

I woke up at 10 and had leftover spaghetti for breakfast. We drove the 6 blocks to church and on our way home, the connection lady stopped us and told us that the people in charge of the missions, first-aid team, and nursery department would be getting in touch with us sometime this week.

We drove home, had lunch, changed and headed to the store to buy a screen cover for my phone. We left the phone store and headed to a new beach. I had fun splashing around while Rebecca worked on her tan. On our way home we stopped for groceries. Apparently it is national ice cream day so we needed ice cream. I never see this much enthusiasm when it is national hot wing day, or national taco day.

We went home and Rebecca made burgers while I played with my phone and then we watched a movie, during which I fell asleep. Rebecca went to bed at 10 because she had to go to school tomorrow for meetings, and I stayed up learning about the solitary life of the hermit crab.