Computer School

For any of my old acquaintances reading my last post and wondering, "Accident??", I should clarify things.  I totaled my Caravan on the back of a slow-moving 3-axle dump truck west of Winslow, AZ, in 2006.  I now own a permanent handicapped parking placard, a cane, and enough hardware south of my left knee to sell to the Chinese for scrap, as my son Tom put it.

Because of same, I qualify for vocational retraining from the state of PA, since I can no longer tolerate standing in one place for more than a couple of minutes, or walk more than the length of a WalMart to get to the restrooms.  Goodbye skating, cross-country skiing, sledding, or even a good hike.  Goodbye lab tech, substitute teacher, or even librarian (I did interview, and was passed over).  Never mind I did volunteer library work for my kids' schools 14 years.

And it still hasn't dawned on my husband that MOM is not 'official' work experience, even though We Girls Know Better.  Roseanne was right, if the kids are still alive at the end of the day, mom's DONE her job.

So after so many dud resumes and applications, and my husband hiring on as a local bus driver - and being fired, I'm being set up to go to a local business school to become a Certified Medical Administrative Assistant.  Doctor's secretary, that is.

Once upon a time, i.e. when I was in high school, wasn't all one needed to work in an office were courses in typing, bookkeeping, and filing?  Now one needs Microsoft Certification, Intermediate, in Word and Excel, QuickBooks, an O-fish-al CMAA course,  course in HIPAA (those annoying privacy practices), insurance coding, and an online course in medical terminology.  And to think I never wanted to get good at typing because I was going to be a Scientist, not a Sexatery.  Who knew Bill Gates was going to overturn the business world so that the best businessman entered his data himself? (sexism intended here)

Prayers appreciated as I start this in February.  At least medical technology doesn't scare me; chemistry and geology have $1.98 words.  Try igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary; or our grad school favorite, biopelmicrite, which means petrified doo-doo from ocean bottom bugs.  Coprolite is the same, from dinosaurs. Or try pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a lung inflammation caused by inhaling microscopic silica particles blown from a volcano; e.g. breathing Mt. St. Helens ash. (If you are reading this, Bill R., smile, since you inflicted this word on Anne in 6th grade.  Yes, Anne got the extra credit. I can hear Tom laugh.)

If I can figure out a Schatzger 6 fracture (how my leg got wasted) I should spout gobbledygook as well as any doctor.