Breast Cancer Fundraising!!!

Hi All!

In honor of my mother's current fight with breast cancer, my little sister is walking in one of the Susan G Komen Races for the Cure. If you would like to make a donation to sponsor her, please click here.

Search for Amanda Babcock, and please give what as you can. Thanks!!

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Breast Cancer Awareness

My Mother is fighting her second battle with breast cancer.

The last time she had cancer I was in 5th grade, which was about 14 years ago. I was just a kid, and my Mom was lucky. It was her first mammogram every, and they found it very early then, so it was just a few scattered cells.

This time, it's not so small. There is a tumor about 8 millimeters in diameter. The problem is, upon examining the MRI, there is a second area that may or may not be cancerous as well, and unfortunately they won't know until they operate on it. The surgeon has recommended a course of treatment, and they will be doing a full mastectomy in order to prevent any further recurrence.

For those of you who don't know me very well, I am lucky enough to have a Dad who treats cancer patients for a living. Mom is lucky, too, because we have someone who is extremely well aware of what's going on with her treatments, etc. But, Dad's also working a consulting job in Kansas right now, and is a little far away to be as available as he'd like to be. It's rather inconvenient timing.

My brother is flipping out. My sister has yet to really react. Dad is trying to "be there" for her as much as he can be. Mom is generally, and understandably, mad at the world.

As for me? I'm doing what I can. I am the kid in the family that the parents and siblings like to call, and they end up putting me in the middle of everything. I'm like the U.N., just for my relatives. So, as you can imagine, I don't exactly have the luxury of flipping out.

So anyway. If anyone was wondering why I was stressed (besides starting another job, and Smitty having mono), that's why. I'm just doing my part to hold my potentially cracking family together.

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WOOHOOOOO!!!!!

Due to the loss of the two contracts, they are reducing the staff here at the Tampa office. Yes, I am included, along with the other girl that works here.

I so called it!

Looks like I just had my mind made up for me, doesn't it? I feel like such a grown-up!

Hooray for chaos!

I'm taking next week off. I need the break.

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*whew*

So here I am again in the office. Hopefully, the police will not be joining us today. They didn't arrest the lady from yesterday but they did forbid her, and her husband, from ever returning to the workplace.

Moving on, I met with an acquaintance last night about a job. He's been trying to hire me for about 10 months now, and he owns a mortgage company. He has about 15 people on staff, and wants to start me as the Office Manager. After about a month, he wants to start passing me around the office to each person, so that I can learn each function within the office. I'm going to learn compliance, processing and then possibly brokering. In a year, I will be able to go and be a broker on my own, if I get licensed, or I can stay processing the loans.

Basically, it's a well-paid internship. I will learn more there in a year than I could anywhere else in a year. I'm seriously considering it, because of the opportunities I will have in the future. We'll see what happens, I guess. He wanted me to think about it over the weekend. Well, thinking is what I shall do.

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The saga continues...

And now the police are here...

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ghet·to

According to dictionary.com, a ghetto is defined as the following:

noun, plural -tos, -toes.
1. a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
3. a section predominantly inhabited by Jews.
4. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment: job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly.

Ahem. I'd like to propose a 5th definition, that definition being the following:

5. my current place of employment, where I happen to be writing this blog entry.

Seriously, folks. One of the employees that the staffing agency has on staff was let go from her job today, and she was not exactly happy about this. So what does she do? She goes to the place that didn't want her anymore, after talking to us of course, and hits one of the supervisors, and threatens a couple of the other employees. She's now here in the office, sitting across the room from me, yelling at my branch manager.

I'm being totally serious, folks. They also lost a huge contract on Tuesday, which accounts for probably at least 1/3 of the business of this office, if not closer to 1/2. They're basically screwed, and you know it's a problem when the branch manager tells you she's looking for another job, too.

*sigh* Maybe my previous job wasn't so bad after all, right? Needless to say, I'm already looking for another job. Since I've only been here a week, the transition will be easy for me to make. So, the question is, how can I fine tune my interviewing skills so that I can sniff out the bad companies first?

Oh, and just for the record, my blood pressure has not dropped at all. My apologies to my Doctor, and to Smitty. Thanks for putting up with me, honey.

*bangs head on desk*

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