Yesterday was a big day for me.  It was my annual review day.  It made me laugh a little, my manager acknowledged that I’m a perfectionist — she noted that I’d told her that in my interviews and that it is both a strength and a weakness. It’s something I need to relax on and work on but I’m well aware of it so I wasn’t surprised or concerned. I chuckled more than anything because I told her exactly that in my interview for my job (and she commented that she remembered this).
It was an important day too, because it’s the day when I knew I had to present what I want to do with my career, where it’s going and how I want to get there.  I’ve been holding this quite closely and I’ve been very vague here on this blog (such as this post) — not mentioning it on facebook or in public (it’s this reason I’ve not posted my blog on my FB profile — though it may be a while before I’m ready to post this there openly), because I’ve been concerned that colleagues would find out — to me, I feel fairly ‘find-able’ on the internet. That being said, I have two close friends at work who do know the story, but my manager didn’t. Until yesterday.
I presented it gently, as ‘here’s what I’m thinking of doing’ rather than bluntly and ‘I’m doing this’.  My plans are defined, I know what’s going to happen, but I didn’t want to force my hand or back my manager into a corner. So she asked me how definite I was and I picked 80%. I’ll clarify that it’s 100% in a week or so once she’s back from holidays, but I wanted to let her know I would take the opportunity to think now that we’ve spoken. I also let her know that if I had to decide right away it was 100% and that my gut says to go forward.  The question becomes whether I’ll be working there part time or whether I’ll be looking for a part time job on campus.
My plans in the fall, the uncertainty of employment is why I’ve been focusing on my to do list, my finances, life and home organization: I want to be ready to do as well as possible in my plans.
So this brings me to my title. What the heck have I been alluding to in all my posts?!?
I know many friends read my blog and they already know what my plans are (how anti-climactic!), but many people read this blog who are unknown to me.  So for those who have been patiently reading and wondering and waiting: I will be going back to school, changing my career path and going into Nursing. I’m attending one of the major schools in town.  I start in September.
I’m pretty excited — it now seems real to me. Eventually I hope to connect the biotechnology/biology/science background and career that I’ve had, but for now I am pursuing nursing. Once I’m done school my plans will be to perhaps travel with nursing for a while, live as conservatively as possible, pay of debt and move forward with this new stage of my life. This is a huge bend in the road, and my gut is telling me it’s the right one. One I think I’ve resisted for a long time.
It’s created challenges too. My family doesn’t understand my career path, that people have many careers in a lifetime now, and that I’m doing what will make me happy. I’m stressed because I had hoped to be out of debt before I started school, but the reality is that I was paid more conservatively than I should have been (good stable company, but low paying compared with the market and industry. sigh).   I’m wrestling with what to do about this. There’s nothing I can really do to get out of debt completely in the next few weeks.  Especially since I’m not making ends meet as it is.  I need to be more proactive about managing my finances — as conscientiously as I did when I wasn’t working. That was helpful. Right now, I’m so stressed about money that I’m hiding it. I do the basics, pay bills, try not to use my credit card, try not to eat out too much. But I’ve been avoiding looking at numbers exactly.  But I need to sit down and face them.  It will make it better overall.
I need to organize my place. I want to go through things, as I described in this post as well as this post. Well, there have been a lot of posts lately about the upcoming changes.  Home, finances, personal life. It’s all integrated. And I want to have it in order before I go forward.
A few other things I’ll do:
1. Cancel my cable. I don’t need the distraction while I’m in school. I can watch movies or download shows and the news from the internet.
2. Get rid of my landline once It’s no longer needed (long story, I don’t pay for it right now).
3. Be more conservative when I eat out, or don’t eat out. I try not to buy my lunch very much. It’s been ramping up a bit lately, and ironically tomorrow I’ll buy my lunch.
I’m also thinking of trying the ‘No Spend Month Challenge‘.   Is anyone into trying this with me? Perhaps it would go well happening in September?
Anyhow, that is what the heck I’ve been talking about. I’ll be updating my profile now that I can be more public about what’s going on and I can now be more clear in posts. YAY.