Depressed and Guilty Beyond All Reason

Right at this moment, I feel very depressed. The immediate problem is that I have work in the morning. Now, if you just pushed the random button and stumbled across my blog you need to know that I'm a nurse and work three 12.5 hour shifts a week. This week I worked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday 7pm til 7:30am. I finished up on Wednesday morning and am not back in work til Monday night, so I don't particularly appreciate going back into work tomorrow for a totally useless First Aid study course. I work in A&E, you know, so the likelihood of me ever needing to practice first aid are remote.

The logistics of going back into work are this: I need to wash my hair. Guh. I also need to get a smart, stylish set of clothes together so that my colleagues so me as smart and stylish. Because that's important to me. I also need to buy two birthday cards for two of my former work colleagues and drop them off, along with two biology textbooks for another former colleague. I also need to try and get a reasonable degree of sleep together but given that I'm still nocturnal, I'm not likely to head off to sleep until the small hours and then have to get up at 5:15 to get into work for 7am. Gah gah gah. Plus I need to pick up a parcel from the post office and something for my mother's birthday, despite being told not to what with the financial situation at the moment. Then I'm look at hours and hours of housework tomorrow afternoon. Then it'll be 9pm and my boyfriend will be here wanting to stay over and my room is totally messy and I'll have done no studying.

I feel even more guilt about not studying these days because I may have to work bank so I need to up the ante on my studying and I'm not so my guilt is increasing exponentially. So that's my headspace. Plus my parents are looking at potentially losing theirs jobs and given that I'm the only one with a stable job,I'm the one that's going to have to work my hours and jeapardise my career. And that's totally selfish but it's how I feel.

Grr! Argh! Etc.

Haven't had the greatest morning ever. Firstly my aunt and uncle dropped off a few engagement cards and a cheque for £80, then sat and talked with me (and then The Mothership) about work, the credit crunch etc. They left about half an hour ago and since then, the Mothership has got quite angry and upset, as usual. You see, my aunt is an annoying person. Firstly, she has never worked, while my uncle works six days a week to support them. Since she doesn't work, her time is spent at the gym, with friends, on the internet etc. Between the Aunt, her friends and the internet, they know everything, and you can't disagree with them. Naturally, the Mothership gets irate when the Aunt preaches about people who have £55,000 of debt then brags about a £63 mortgage payment each month. The Mothership has £40,000 and a £663 mortgage payment a month. Ouch. The Aunt has also managed to scrimp together £1,700 for a holiday to Florida this year. *sigh* As the Mothership put it, we can't get £170 together. It's the reason I'm doing four months of night shifts.

After they departed, the Mothership started complaining about how the Boyf and I can't afford a house. The Aunt's daughter, a little older than I am, has bought a house and is nicely settled in. When I dropped it into the conversation that I want to go to university i.e. there's no point getting a house, the Mothership (and this is boiled down to its essence) told me that my aspirations to be a doctor are here *raising hand above head* and that my effort is here *indicating the floor* and that I shoud realign them and become a nurse.

I have no concluding remarks except that I know she's right (to a point). I could be a doctor so I really want to show her but *casts eyes around messy room* I feel like I can't start studying until the room is sorted. *heavy sigh*

So you've had a bad week, can't even sleep...

Right now I'm waiting for a call from the Boyf to let me know that he's home, fed and watered and awaiting my arrival to fix his internet. I think he's switched broadband providers and they've supplied him with a wireless modem and since his computer is not wireless enabled, he needs our laptop (which is wireless enabled) to check that his new modem works. So I'll be off there in a little while. I can't say I'm thrilled about the prospect because I would rather stay home and play on the Wii or read but hey, now that we're engaged I should show more of a commitment to going over to his house.

This whole week has been really bad for me. Working nights really kicks me in the nuts in terms of doing things I need to do. For example, last night (the worst night of the whole week) I didn't get to sleep until about 3:30am. I'd been in bed since 1am, played on the DS, tried to sleep, played on the DS some more....then the last time I checked the time I was 3:05am and I was not in the slightest bit tired. Naturally, it falls that I don't get up until later on in the day. I'd set my alarm for 8:15am but it was 12:15 before I pulled my scrawny rear end up and out of bed. I skipped breakfast and went straight to work, emptying the dishwasher and then separating the washing. The Mothership later whined about the fact that I'd separated the washing and not hoovered the bathroom first. I felt quite frustrated because hoovering the downstairs (to her standards) is hard work, involving moving the furniture and especially now that we have a vacuum cleaner who thinks it's part leaf blower. I've been up here since we finished, tidying my room and internally whinging about how much I have to do and how I have no idea of how to get everything done.

On one of my late nights this week I searched for piano and singing teachers in the area. There is a female piano teacher in the next valley and I may phone her sooner or later and ask about lessons. I also found two very pretty fairly local opera singers who teach... I'll probably opt for the piano lessons because it's less noisy and much more useful, plus I think I'd be a better pianist than singer. Having said that, I haven't got the time management skills for piano lessons so it'll be a way off before I even think about calling her.

I'm getting slightly stressed about university. I want to go to medical school in 2010 but I need to start looking at universities now and going to open days etc. The trouble is that my mother is convinced that I should nurse. She tells everyone that I'm going to nurse and won't discuss the subject with me. Now it's getting towards crunch time, where I need to sift through the 60 or so medical courses listed on the UCAS website and start looking at their grades, locations, open days etc. and involve my parents and my boyfriend in my decision. I really don't want to start the process because I know what will happen: we will end up fighting, I will win my mother's disapproval and I may end up not going at all or worse, end up on a nursing course.

I can hear her now: why do you want to move away from home i.e. her? Why do you want to live in grotty student accommodation? Do you want to break up with Stuart? Why can't you just nurse in Cardiff? Guh. The simple answer is that I want to live away from home and away from Stuart for one point in my life. I want to be on my own, on a great adventure all by myself before I have to rein myself in and get a mortgage and some kids. That is what I want. And I don't want to nurse because I already do 75% of nursing at the moment and it's rubbish.

My mother, however, won't accept that I already wipe bums, take samples and roll people and that I don't want to do it for the rest of my life. She, howver, is convinced that I should because our cousins nurse and my grandmother wanted to nurse etc. She feels like it's "in the family". I just don't want to do what I already do for the rest of my life, not even in theatres, ITU or palliative care. But we're going to clash heads over the issue and it makes me worried about starting down the path.

*sigh* Time's getting on...I guess I'd better pack up and head off to the Boyf's now.