Busy week

Well, it turns out that they liked me pretty good at that last tryout, because last Tuesday I missed a call that they would like me to come in for an interview if I liked it as well. Which I did a lot! :D Today they called again and I've got an interview for May 11th :D Very much looking forward to that :D Now I just have to sort out my current job and what on earth to do with the fact that I've still not had a contract :S


I've been so busy today with cleaning it's insane! I've thrown out two full black bags of stuff, mainly papers. And we changed how the house looks a bit as well. Not much though. We just turned the table, which we thought at first would be pretty impossible, because we weren't too sure where to keep the chairs, but we tried anyways. And it turns out that there's more then enough room for the chairs and it gives a lot more space as well, which we're going to need, since Steven is coming over this week :D 
So looking forward to that, he'll have some money of Sue to help out :) And creme eggs and Smarties Cookies! I've already got him the cookies he likes so much as well :) That way there can be an exchange of cookies :D


Tomorrow is Queensday over here, and first we thought of going into the centre of Amsterdam, but we decided not to do that, as Steven only arrives at the airport at 13:30, so before we've been past home to drop off bags it's probably going to be pretty late. So now we're just going to the Bijlmer. There'll probably be some markets and stands there as well, and it means we can pass by the shops to get some stuff he might need. We will however drag him to the centre of Amsterdam at another point :P He's got to see some of the city while he's here of course!


School is going pretty good as well at the moment. I've emailed the girl I'm going to coach for an introduction conversation for after the holidays, so that should get all that started. Now I'm thinking about it I'm getting pretty nervous about having to help another student with something I don't know much about, but well that's coaching I guess :)
The project is well on it's way as well now. The project plan was handed in today and yesterday we had a conversation with the woman we're working for now. We're actually working for the school, which just gives such another feel to it then working for a hospital. I hope they really use it, that we come up with something useful in the end even more then normally because I know that if we do now it's going to be other students benefiting from it :)


The knitting is going pretty good, kinda slow though, but that's because it's actually a lot of stitches per row, but it's getting pretty big already :) Getting used to the abbreviations finally as well, and the silly odd stitches too. If I carry on this way it might actually look pretty decent :P

Another job tryout!

Yes, that's right, yesterday I had another job tryout! 
It's for basically the same kind of job, just for a different company. One that seems to fit with my views of nursing a bit more. I really liked it, so I hope they can offer me what I need apart from that as well. One of the issues I've got with Cordaan is that it seems like there's no time for actual patient care. You get to a house to do something, like putting on or off a sock, or giving someone medication, and you only have the five minutes you need for that. And that while for a lot of these people you're sometimes the only contact all day, they want to chat, which is fair enough. And I think there should be time for that. To give healthcare that fits the patient, not something that's handy for the nurses. 
One of the other things is that I think a lot of the people that work at Cordaan might have lost feeling for the job. It's quite close to a calling, something that you need to enjoy doing, and it definitely shouldn't be a routine! Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression, and these people actually act differently when they are with a patient then when they are with colleague's, I don't know that of course. But the ones I've seen at work are not different, they are harsh and somewhat rude at times. 
But I don't feel comfortable saying what I think is right healthcare in such a big organization. I mean, it's not like I on my own can change the way they work anyways. So I'd rather not loose my job trying to do so.. 


But this new place, I got introduced by my mom, a friend of hers works there as a nurse. She was interested in me as they have a lack of nurses there as well. It's fantastic, they work with self regulating teams. I'm actually not sure if that's the right wording, but they have no managers and such. All there work is nurses, no managers and no planners. It does mean that once a week every one has a mobile phone for a day in which they'll be able to be called for emergencies and such. And they have to make their own work planning. But, I don't think I would mind that. 


I made a case for Dan's MP3 player this week. I finished it in a few days, because it was rather small. It was still though though, as so far I'd only tried the one stitch yet (E:Knit/D:Recht), but not the other one to make the stockinette stitch (D:tricot steek). It was a bit of a struggle at first to get my head around it, but now I've made this little thingy I got my head properly around it and it's even going nearly as fast as the other stitch now! :)
I've started on my next project already as well! It's going to be a shirt from the magazine I got for my birthday. I'm currently working on the gauge, which I want to do right, as I'm working with entirely different yarn and needles now. Bought a second set, a bit bigger, as advised in the magazine, yesterday. This shirt is being made with bright orange 100% cotton yarn, while all the other stuff was made with 100% acrylic yarn. This yarn works so different, but well. I've found a nice pattern for a pillowcase as well, but I don't have the money for the pillow to put in it at the moment, so the pillow has been put back a bit again. I've also found a nice pattern for slippers which I might be making at some point.
But you all want pictures of course!

On this first picture the MP3 player is in the case and it's all finished and done. I used stockinette stitch to make it, but Dan liked the 'wrong' side more, so I made that the outside. I put a button at the front so he could close it. But because it's so small, and I don't know yet how to make a buttonhole I didn't make one :P So I used a bit of yarn wrapped around itself to make a loop which attaches to the button. It looks quite good if I say so myself, and Dan likes it very much :D

 This second picture shows the case slightly open with the MP3 player still half in it. Oh, please don't look at the messy right top corner, my desk sadly isn't bigger :P

And that's the MP3 player out of the case. On the inside of the top bit that goes over to the front you can see the right side of my stockinette stitch. 


Last night I also figured out how to count rows in stockinette stitch, quite handy to know when you've got to make a 22 stitches wide and 28 rows long gauge square :P

First week of coaching

This week was a fairly boring and normal week. We did have some stress over the fact that I got paid far less then expected. I should still get the money, but they have some weird way of paying in advance and completely miss guessing how much I would work or something.. Which made me end up with less then a weeks pay for the entire month. Does mean we'll have some extra for the next month, but still, that doesn't help paying the bills this month :S


I've started on the last minor of my study, coaching. It's promising to be a very fun and good period I think, apart from the one and a half hours travel to Alkmaar once a week and the ridiculous days.. We start at 8:30 in the morning nearly every week and have to go till somewhere between 15:00 and 18:00 as well. Just because they are trying to fit it into one day instead of two. If they would just make it two normal timed days out of it we would have some time to work on the project before or afterwards as well, but well. 
There's one super boring teacher who just gives examples with everything and further reads of the powerpoint presentation.. :s Also, all the projects have to be handed in on paper and aren't allowed to be handed in just digitally, luckily we're in a project group which contains a few people from Alkmaar as well, so hopefully they won't mind to hand it in without us having to ride all the way down to be there as well!


I've finally had enough time to finish off Dan's scarf as well! The last bits were pretty tough, but well, I got it done. Of course it could have been a bit longer as well, but Dan said that after I finished it :P


But here are the pictures of the scarf. On the first one it's laying folded around and double on the sofa.

The second is Dan wearing it. He's not looking very impressed, but I think that's more because of me taking the picture while he's playing a Xbox game :P

Two days of typing

Well, considering I've been typing for the last two days pretty much non stop I figured I may as well put up my blog already. I had to make a massive project for a lesson that basically goes entirely to try and make you think about what you want, what kind of job and what future plans you might have or want to make. They told me to start a few weeks ago, but silly and student like as I am, I started yesterday! So, now I've written 32 pages all about myself in about 2 days. Well, I have to say I'm impressed with that. Finally having Office installed on my pc, and not having a tree of papers I need to look at all at the same time means I didn't have to sit on the bed with the laptop and get a sore back so I actually managed to write that much in so little time. I can't even remember the last time I wrote that much in such a short amount of time. 


Today we got a letter of Sue which included some job offers from a Welsh newspaper, it was supposed to be for looking what kind of jobs are around for Dan, but it contained a very good job in Cardiff for me. Very happy to see they're still looking for nurses even in the recession and with the NHS changing so much now.. I've also been looking around on UK job search websites and they are indeed still looking for nurses, and I'd be getting a decent pay, pretty equal with that I'd be earning here. 


Due to all the schoolwork we've had the last week or two, as it's our two testweeks last week and this week I've not really had much time to knit, so the scarf is still equally long as last week. Which is still pretty long! I've also found a nice pattern for a pillowcase which I'll probably be making next.


Next week my next period of school starts, and I'll have to go travel a lot again. Because there's so little students left they've combined the schools in Amsterdam and Alkmaar (a place close to my parents, an hours train ride away from here) and for this period the group from Alkmaar had to go to Amsterdam. But that does sadly mean that for the next period we'll have to go to Alkmaar and travel for over an hour and a half... For some reason they also put the days too full as we've got to start at 8:30 quite a bit and go till around 15:00 or even later a few times! :(

New job

Well, last Friday I started at my new job. I very much like the fact that I keep on getting the same route if I work a few days after each other. I actually have the feeling I get to know these people now, and I get to know the route, which makes it go a lot faster. That was something that annoyed me about being a flex.

The first day was a bit painful though, because there was a person ill, which meant that one route had to be split up and be done by all of us. But because my route is in the end of the area we cover I had to do quite some extra biking. On top of that I had to search for the way I had to go as well of course as it was a bit of a new area. So all in all I had barely had time for dinner and to do a lot of biking, so my legs are like really painful now :( But after the muscles stop hurting every thing should be fine again :)

The knitting goes quite well, I'm about half way through the third ball of yarn and it should be long enough when I'm done with that one. So hopefully I'll be able to finish it somewhere in the next two weeks! Just in time for the nice weather to kick in again! :P