So about the new job...

Hey All, I guess i should post about stuff that isn't italy. Again, I don't know what's wrong with me I don't have a lot of deep thoughts to publish about issues that I'm pondering at the moment. I know I do, but now I'm working I think I come home too tired to locate my thoughts and put them down. I of course have loads of feelings about the middle east situation at the moment, but again, it almost seems pointless saying anything except for that it is a travesty that Lebanon and the Lebanese population are being targeted so much. Lebanon had made some great moves towards greater freedom and democracy, separation from Syria and just a better situation all round, now Israel is effectively destroying a stabalizing state and future potential friend, it's just a tradgic decision. What's worse is the countless lives that have been displaced, and also the 140 something Lebanese civilians that had been killed as of yesterday (by a regime that supposedly doesn't target civilians) and the 20 something Israeli civilians that had been killed (by Hizbollah terrorists). Anyway, I have no answers, we all want peace, we all disagree on how to get there, I'm idealistic but I don't believe peace is most effectively (if ever) achieved through repaying violence with violence.

So now about the job... On the overpriced bus into brussels (21euro return) from the Airport, I got a text from my dad, saying that Loughlinstown Hospital had called saying they had work for me. I'd applied there at the begining of the summer, they gave me the whole line saying that I was top of the list but that at the moment there was no current work available. After getting laid off from Amnesty, I phoned back and left a message saying I was still available for work. So on getting that text, I immediatley called dad and got the woman's number. I phoned her and was told to come into work Thursday morning, and that they were perfectly fine with the fact that i'm leaving in the end of September. God couldn't have scheduled things in any better time. I had a day to recover from my trip then was straight into work. I seriously knew nothing about my job, I hadn't a clue what I'd be doing or how much I'd get paid, but when I went in I found out quickly enough that I was going to be a "ward assistant" which means that half of my time is devoted to cleaning rooms and things (i.e. counters, sinks everything except people really -thank God-). The rest of my time is devoted to getting food from the kitchen and serving it to patients during meal times. I also do different things during that time, like get things for patients (serve LOADS of cups of tea), help move some patients around and just whatever else people ask me to do. It's a good job. It's great experience of a hospital, it's sort of lowest on the pecking order of the great big hospital hierarchy, so that's invaluable experience for me, it'll help me a lot rather than starting in close to the top as a doctor.

It's local and I even walk to work (it takes a half hour each way). Again it's great pay, it's the same as my Amnesty job, with double that rate on Sundays. And with a lot more hours (8:00 - 5:30) than I'd been working at Amnesty I'll be making a good bit more. I've been working in Accident and Emergency over the past two days and really love it. I just like being around the hospital environment and seeing how differnet doctors, nurses, workers do things differently. Anyway, that's the job. We'll see how it goes and I'll post more if anything changes. Peace.