Day 1 @ MRC

Today, I concluded my first full day at the MRC. It consisted of meeting Linda Wilks (who is a Vocational Evaluator there) and Connie Chapman (a Vocational Tester).

I was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. However, Angel and I had miscommunicated and she thought that I had wanted her to set the alarm for 8:30! After hurriedly showering and dressing (what else is new here??!), I jumped in the Green Turtle and we headed for work! I was tres excited!!

I finally arrived at approximately 9:10 a.m. to meet, for the first time, Linda. Linda and I spent the morning together going over my history. During the interview, I broke down and cried a couple of times. Those times were when the answers to her questions involved Mother, Harvey, or my incident at Florida State Hospital.

We broke for lunch. I met a nice gentleman on the grounds having a cigarette. Smoking is banned on all hospital grounds. In the course of our conversation, he gave me a unique saying which was created by his nephew. We had been talking when I had used the phrase "... get your s#@! together." I apologized to Dennis; to which he related a story about his nephew using that exact phrase.

Dennis had chastised his nephew about his use of the phrase. He says that some time later his nephew threw a new, but similar phrase, at him:

"Get your poop in a group!"

I immediately pulled a piece of scratch out of my purple journal and logged the phrase. I mentioned to Dennis that I would be blogging this conversation (to determine whether he would be opposed). Since he was not opposed (indeed, he gave me his name and phone number afterward), I recorded details of our conversation.

I continued onward to the afternoon session. This session was conducted by Connie. I had met Connie yesterday when I had come in to verify that I was free on Monday. In fact, Connie did something which I believe is "above-and-beyond" the call of duty.

When I mentioned to her that the local library had a daily usage fee of $1 for out of town guests, she reached into her drawer and handed me the fee. I thought that the gesture was one of platinum! Thanks to her, I was able to get online yesterday and pass the time in a productive way.

The afternoon session consisted of my having to complete a series of surveys and tests. It was uneventful. I put on my test-taker's hat and went at it with full speed.

At 3:00, Linda and I decided to close for the day to re-convene at 8:30 tomorrow. This was great for me, because I wanted to get my butt over to the library to blog.

When I arrived at the library, I realized that I did not have the guest fee. I spoke to Cindy and explained my situation to her. Cindy told me that the library had waived the fee previously for folks in similar circumstances.

Thus, here I am doing what I love to do... ;)