Does this mean you'll hear me ramble every day for a month? Hell yes it does, son.

So I've been convinced (strong-armed, threatened, tortured... or maybe just email invited) to participate in National Blog Posting Month .  Hence, the subject of this post.

Tonight I feel like discussing several dilemmas in my life.

1) Newest dilemma: Job.  Background: I've been working at my current job for a little over a year now, at my current location for a few months (obviously).  I've always loved my job- flexible hours, competitive pay, good environment.  However, lately it's become a little reduntant, less challenging, and I've become mildly frustrated with the hierarchical structure of my company.  The average lifespan of a person in my position (I feel it relevant) is around a year, coincidentally.  Burnout is high, and I (as well as a few of my colleagues that I've spoken to) am feeling it set in.  Problem: My company knows these issues arise and provides a very generous performance-based compensation which ... puts a little honey on it, shall we say?

So I just received an email from one boss telling me that I'm another boss's first choice for a new assignment.  Pros: that's flattering, they offered to pay me a decent amount more because it's a far drive (~100 miles round trip), it's only one day a week (a pro for me, considering school), and it's a job [the nature of my job is such that I can have "dry spells" - aka 6 week to 6 month unpaid "vacation", until I get a new assignment].  Cons: it's a ~100 mile drive, it's at 10 am on nearly every Saturday of my spring semester (meaning I'd have to be up at 8 am), and once you factor in what I used to get paid for mileage, it's actually LESS by offering me more per hour to do this job (which means not only would mileage work out better, but I'm getting paid the same amount to do a job I could do 15 minutes away, and really no actual compensation has been made for the inconvenience).

I need money - yes - but at what cost?  I won't go hungry if I don't take the job; that's what student loans are for ;).  I don't really want to be spending my savings now and taking out more loans next year though to pay for utilities, food, gas, etc. because I didn't feel like working. A lot of people don't work during professional school -I was surprised at the number.  Until recently, I really wasn't feeling my job at all, in many ways, for many reasons, and I didn't like that.  So what to do, what to do? I really don't think I'll take the job as offered, but at this point I'm trying to decide if I want to negotiate to get a better situation (more $, possibly a later start), or whether I really want my Saturdays free.

2) A good dilemma rant would not be complete without a medical dilemma.  I've been dealing with these pains for over 6 months now, and I don't know what to do about it.  I've seen a doctor once, in Tucson, but I sound crazy when I describe what's wrong with me (a feeling I didn't like), and his preliminary tests didn't show up with anything wrong (though he did say that more involved things could be at play, which would require- you got it, more involved tests).  I have these pains: type = usually a pinching/stabbing feeling, though sometimes an ache in my bones, location = everywhere (ribs, thigh, back of neck, chest, bone in finger), though most often in my extremities (arms, hands, feet, legs).  The pain can last from 5 seconds to 30 seconds, and sometimes it comes in waves (i.e. hurts for 10 seconds, goes away for 30, then hurts again).   Sometimes I won't hurt for days or weeks at a time, other times it'll be jumping from my legs to my fingers to my shoulderblade and back again within an hour.  Generally it's a specific pain - I can point to a particular spot on my calf the size of a quarter that feels like it's being stabbed, or the half centimeter of my finger bone that's burning hot, but sometimes it's widespread, through my entire thigh making it difficult to walk normally.  During this post I've had chest, ankle, neck, and hand pain.

I haven't gone back because:
a) I can't even concisely say what's wrong with me.  I get immensely frustrated whenever I try to explain it to anyone, and it makes me feel very hopeless that I'll ever be able to articulate it well enough to fix it.
b) What if it's something serious?  I know ignoring it won't make it go away... but I do hate all of those tests.
c) What if they decide that there's nothing wrong with me?  I don't know if I could handle feeling crazy, then being told that I was.
d) Who knows how long it will take.  Even if insurance covers every investigative test (which we can hope for, but not rely on), I still have a copay.  On a grad student budget, those stack up fast.  Plus, when do I have the time for doctor's appts?

*Sigh* I promised Brian I'd go to a doctor when we got to NC, because I avoided going to the doctor in Arizona again because they wouldn't be able to do a follow-up.  For the first few weeks we lived here, I don't remember being in any pain at all.  Then it started happening, for a short time, only once a week or so.  For the past weekish, I've been dealing with them (cumulatively) for hours a day.  It's been so long and I've dealt with it so much now that I'm starting to think - No! It's normal to feel a hot flash in your thigh, a twinge in your toe, or an ache in your wrist several times a day! Everyone feels these things, and only YOU make a big deal of it.  But I did promise him I'd go, and I'm getting close to just giving in and making the appointment.

I had more dilemmas, but I'm too tired now to think of and articulate them.  (Oh yeah, the other symptom of my pain - the worse my pain is, the more fatigued I am.  If I keep going, I'm fine - a momentum kind of thing.  But by the end of some days, I literally feel like my skin is heavy, and can feel it being pulled down to the ground, and no matter how much sleep I get - 5 hours, 9 hours, 13 hours - I still wake up and feel tired.  One time I slept 26 out of a 36 hours - yeesh.  As such, bed time for me.)

Night!

(P.S. I would like to state, for the record, that I did not blog November 1st.  I will either consider my Halloween entry to count for that, or will blog an extra day into December.  We shall see.)