A break from your regularly scheduled drama..

As part of my effort to get the hell outta dodge, I am working toward getting myself into a Radiological Therapy program that is set to begin in September 2010. I briefly mentioned this in one of my intro posts, but I thought I should elaborate. I realize this blog is becoming a ranting space for things that happened with Daniel. It's going to happen, as I need to work out all the kinks and get the pain of the break up out of my system. I also want to be sure to keep my eye on the prize which is, as we know, saying goodbye to Brooklyn -

I take my entrance exam on May 7th. That's 9 days away. If all goes well and I get into this program, I will be putting myself in every possible form of debt via student loans galore. The ultimate plan includes quitting my full time job and paying the rent and bills via loaned money at what I imagine will be an outrageous percentage rate. I am probably just communicating my fears. The truth is, I haven't shopped the loans just yet. I did, however, speak with the financial aid liaison at the school and he advised that they've only got one private lender willing to work with their students. Considering I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with respect to student loans, shopping them and/or any of that other fun stuff, hearing that there may be only one available option has created a bit of hysteria on my end.

There are a lot of fears involved with this decision. You have to understand something about me in order to really get the gist of what I am trying to say here. I have been working in a "professional" capacity since I'm a teenager. For those of you who are unfamiliar with a Co-Operative Education system to sum it up as easily as possible, it's a program that allows you to alternate weeks attending work and school. At sixteen years old, I was working in the corporate offices of American Express's Catalog Order division in the World Financial Center. The pay was minuscule but I felt like a big girl in my business suits and Zodiac shoes. More importantly, though, was that in addition to the small salary I earned, the work time counted toward High School credit toward graduation.

Even prior to my alternating weeks at work for chump change, I earned my keep doing whatever I could. My mother, during one of her better lengths of life, had the galley-portion of a charter fishing boat in the Sheepshead Bay area fall into her lap. She basically owned this small business and kept it stocked with various edibles. The keep wasn't much but it paid the bills. I would often work shifts for her and earn a $30.00 shift pay plus whatever tips I could ring in. I was a hustler before Jay Z made it famous.

In summary, I have been gainfully employed for the better part of the last eighteen years of my life. I don't know what it is to not be employed and earn a paycheck every week. I have no idea what it is to just trust that everything is going to be OK. The only point of reference I have to ensure that things are going to be OK is to make sure they are!. And, if all goes well with the entrance exam on May 7th and the 4 hour admissions interview to follow that, come August 2010 I will be handing in my resignation and entrusting in the universe (and a shit load of loans) to take care of me.

Holy fuck. I am terrified!

At the end of the two year program I am eligible to sit for the exam that will render me a certified Radiological Therapist. According to everything I have read the market is going to boom approximately 26% between now and 2016 as a result of baby-boomers getting older and sicker. Makes sense. Graduation will be August 2012 at which time I will be bordering thirty-four years old. I feel like I'm starting from scratch, but I suppose anything that is started is started from nothing.

Keeping the goal of leaving the city in mind, I figure Medicine is an excellent industry to enter. The fact of the matter is that people will always get sick and barring a major advancement in Cancer Care, or an outright cure, care will always be a necessity.

One of my favorite places happens to be South Florida. It has nothing to do with Daniel coming from there; that just happened to be a nice coincidence. Florida's scale of pay has always been substantially less than that of NYC and this is something I need to take into consideration for a number of reasons. There is some strange driving force that constantly tells me I need to be there. I really can't identify what it is but I have an irking feeling inside and have had this feeling for quite some time now. With what may turn out to be close to $70,000 in student loans accrued in the next two years of my life, I am wondering how I will afford to not only relocate - but live in an area where the rate of pay is undoubtedly less than the norm. This is just one of the many fears that are entering my mind at this point and I realize that these apprehensions are going to grow stronger by the day. I hope I have the strength to push through this and not succumb to the fear that has held me back from moving forward in this life to date.

I really need to do this!