Ice, Ice, Baby!!

I guess these days I'm into the song titles/lyrics for my post titles, LOL!!!

We had a pretty bad ice storm here in metro DC a few days ago which resulted in me not being able to get my front wheel drive car out of the parking space on an incline (Yeah, I know I shouldn't have parked there the night before). The feds were on a 2 hour work arrival delay, so I figured I had plenty of time to get myself together that morning (factoring in at least 30 mine to get all the ice off my car). I then tried to call my Supv, then her Supv, then her Supv and when I couldn't reach anyone, I sent an email to my Supv telling her I would be late. At this point, I figured I'd better focus on resolving my child care issue since the schools were now closed. Now I normally arrive by 7:30 so with a 2 hour delay, that should have put me at an arrival of 9:30. Too bad it didn't happen that way, I started walking in the ice to the nearest bus stop whose schedule I didn't know because I hadn't ridden the bus in I don't know how long and proceeded to stand there in the 20 something weather for at least 30 mins (good thing I had on my long johns, LOL). When I got to the metro and went up the platform to board the train, the station manager announced that there was a fire and that NO train would be running to my job which was 3 metro stops from where I was supposed to get on. So now I'm saying to myself, this ish isn't going to go over very well I can feel it even though the damn weather is completely out of my control as is the metro systems decision to run or not run trains!

By 10:30AM when I was STILL waiting for a shuttle bus to get me to the station near my job,I decided to call my Supv's, Supv's to tell her what was up (since mine was still unavailable) and to let her know that I had NO idea how long it would take for me to get to work (again, I'm getting a bad feeling). So I finally arrived at work 3.5 hours AFTER I left my house to a Supv with what can best be described as major attitude. Whatever, if the Feds had a 2 hour delay due to weather than the company I contract with should have: 1) Followed suit because if it's too dangerous for other Feds to come to work in ice, then those contracting with the Gov't shouldn't be any different and 2) I had a kid I had to make arrangements for before leaving for work, so I STILL would have been in late because NO "interest" comes before my kid's (I guess it's a good thing I'm not in med school yet)!!!!!. One thing I did appreciate about my day spent using public transportation is that It's really nice to have a great car, that there's a HUGE difference between using public transportation everyday and when you feel like it, and that my knees are almost back to normal!!!!

Over the years, the only thing more professionally disconcerting for me about working with/for women in general, is working for women who have NO familial responsibilities because more often than not, they simply don't get it! When I was in grad school the first time, I had to drop a class after the published deadline because I'd almost lost our baby and was put on a restricted schedule by my OB/GYN. The prof of that class, a woman, went to the extreme to keep me from dropping the class, forcing me to go to the Dean (a man) to overthrow her decision. And I could go on and on and on (turns out this woman had been trying to have a baby for ~ 15 years and had been unsuccessful so I guess bad karma really does bite you in the ass eventually).

Enough about all that negative 'ish, I didn't register for the MCAT course offered by my employer because it was based on the EK study model, which I found pretty useless. I am however doing the damn thing where my own study is concerned, scoring my first "9" in chemistry in a VERY long time! Yeah I know, baby steps especially for a chemistry major but I had developed this mental block thing that I just couldn't get over!! Now I feel like I'm on a roll!

Career wise, looks like Pathology Informatics is gonna be my new "it" thing, and given how interesting everything I'm learning including computer programming (YIKES!!), it's going to be a nice, VERY well paid ride and thanks to the internet, I feel like a kid in a Pathology candy store!!!