An Ending and a Beginning

Finally! My last course requirement!
Why it's taken me four weeks to complete a two-week CNA course, is a pathetic tale, from which I will spare the public most of the details. Some of it has to do with me lacking discipline without imposed deadlines; most of it, actually, has to do with anxiety over an ended relationship which kept me up one night, causing me to sleep through my second clinical.
The results were scheduling complications. I was finally told that since all the clinicals were full, I could just come and sit in a classroom and study for eight hours. So, here I am--sitting in a classroom, studying the art of blogging.
This CNA course has been good for me in more ways than one. Besides giving me the best (and speediest) foundation in health care $400 can buy, I've found it delightfully refreshing being around normal people again. For the two years that I've been home from Chicago's Southside, I have spent the majority with either BYU folk or my family, both of which are notorious for being abnormal (or peculiar) people. When my entire CNA class heard a certain joke from the instructor (a play on the word "angina") and erupted into laughter, I knew I wasn't at BYU anymore.
The majority of people taking this course are not particularly great at academia, business, or sports. They're just decent people, many a bit rough around the edges, that are looking for a good job and, for a few, to progress toward a great job.
Today, after only an hour, consisting of a lethargically hosted mock quiz show game over course material, the instructor proceeded to take our thoughts to where hers obviously were set: "When you leave today, . . . I don't care when you leave after 3 o'clock. . . just sign out that you were here until 4. If the state or anyone else finds out, I didn't have any idea that you'd left early!" And then, if that wasn't shady enough, she added the threat: "If that happens, you'll be back here to make up that hour; and I PROMISE to make it fun."
Now it was my impression that I was going for this day to simply satisfy the state requirement of 80 hours--no participation necessary; this was not to be. Nearing the final two hours of class, the instructor asked me to role-play the part of "an Alzheimers patient that needs a bath but wants to garden instead." I reluctantly agreed to play the part. But, when showtime came, I just couldn't do it. I mean, never in my life have I had a consuming desire to garden; not to the point where I neglected proper hygiene, anyway. So I cut to the point and simply announced, "I WANT TO GARDEN," in a loud, monotone voice. Then, at the first request to bathe from the girl playing the CNA, I abandoned my character's gardening objective with an, "Okay, . . ." The class laughed, the scene ended, and my green-thumbed, Alzheimers days were over.
Such was the end of my CNA course and the beginning of my first ever blog.