Still in the in between...

Not for blog abandonment; just for lack of things to say, really. Though I'm sure I'll remedy that with some rambling!

I got an email today saying I had US health clearance and that was being sent to the clinicals, which means, crossing my fingers, I may get my final placement soon! Woot!

It also means that someone at SGU was working on a Saturday at 9 PM. I'll let that sink in for a minute.


Ready?


My preliminary placement was for Brooklyn, which I really really want. Now, I'm in sort of a scared holding pattern for it, because I've been looking at housing, and it's freaking me out. Grenada offered the safety of the dorms to kind of satellite out the housing options in the area until you inevitably lost the housing lottery or went insane from the construction noise, so you could scurry out to an apartment and scurry back which offset the high cost of living and allowed you to get familiar with the area.

Of course, I say this with the comfort of someone that lucked into an apartment I really really loved that somehow wound up relatively cockroach free and proud despite being in the tropics. Others were not so lucky.

So now reality's back, and it needs a place to live in Brooklyn.

I realized that NYC housing would be a challenge, but figured I'd grown accustomed to astronomical housing rates due to Grenada and I don't have a problem with small spaces or lack of light. On that note, apparently, an apartment that doesn't have an actively running meth lab requires an application fee, a credit check fee, an income, a guarantor, your first month's rent, your last month's rent, a security deposit, and possibly a broker's fee, which is also equivalent to first month's rent. Possibly also your firstborn.

The problem? I don't get my loans until the start of clinicals and I've been off in neverland studying for the step 1, which doesn't give me 5000 dollars worth of free spending money to drop on my first month's rent when I was planning on a much more reasonable month's rent plus security deposit. It would, on an unrelated note, give me enough money to have a luxurious month-long diving holiday in Borneo though. Just saying.

It may get easier once I get the final word on the placement. For the time being, I think part of the stress is in the hypothetical. I can't start ferreting out roommates or arrange appointments until I have an active placement lest risk backing out on someone at the last minute, but I feel the burden of time ticking away, plus I'm in California, so I can't just alleviate my fears by going and *looking* at places, even casually, to get a feel for it in the interim. Google maps street view is helping somewhat. I'm also surfing craigslist, which is kind of inundating me with a billion apartments and roommate options, any one of which could prove either my dream apartment (meaning no roaches, reasonable distance to the hospital, and internet), or could provide me with the opportunity to have to utter the phrase: "Officer, I swear it's not mine!!" or worse, "Why am I in a bathtub full of ice?"

So I've got a little case of the cold feet.

On a not "holy crap I need a place to live" note, I headed up to the little town of Columbia, CA yesterday, which is a pleasant little gold mining town from the wayback that reminds me of a more mountainous version of Old Sacramento. Then, since it was pouring and I was carrying more than one portable electronic device, I headed to the Moaning Cavern, which probably has the distinction of being the only cave in gold country without gold. Since I dislike yellow gold and like limestone, I consider this a plus. It also has the distinction of having a number of people fall through it's cleverly disguised top opening over the last few thousand years, so when it was formally discovered, there was a pile of bones at the bottom of a 160 foot drop. Kind of a "we are the world" moment when you realize the number of people over the centuries that shared the exact same "walking through a fiel ahhhh" moment regardless of class, culture or creed.

For something that's been a tourist attraction since the gold miners went "hey, there's no gold here", it's actually not hokey, the cave itself is gorgeous, and the winding spiral staircase that goes down is old (but tested) and made out of a recycled ship, so I got a more authentic feeling out of it, which I appreciated.

I also got to meet an awesome fellow-guitar player that lives and works up there, so that was a highlight.

Diving on Tuesday, aka Cinco de Mayo, so we'll see what my return to cold water diving after nearly 3 years looks like. I'm guessing it'll involve a lot of shivering.