Well, I'm back in the swing of things, school has officially started. I have classes Monday-Thursday. Wednesday I have my Med-Surg clinical where I will be going to a major NYC hospital that I am super psyched about. I met my group and instructor yesterday and am so thrilled about getting started doing "real" nursing stuff!
My plan for this semester is to continue working at the pool but stacking my workweek towards Thursday-Sunday so I have my schooldays free to study and focus on school. I got approved to double my Work Study money (wohoo!) so I can work more hours than last semester.
I can only work 20 hours a week, but if I max that out, I can potentially make $800 a month, not including my work on the side. I'll be coaching swimming twice a week @ $30 a practice, giving me a potential income of $240 cash. And I'm continuing with my freelance work with my old company. Last week I did some work for them that will bring me $240 to start this semester with.
I started my tax returns (I'm waiting for my W-2 from my current job and a 1099 for my freelancing income and I'll be done). So far with all of my other stuff computed in, I should get back $3,000! I am super excited about this, because it basically pays for my semester, which was $4,000. So I will only lose $1,000 from my school fund! I am so happy about this, because last semester really did show me how difficult it was going to be to actually save a lot of money during school. There always seems to be some new bill popping up (such as my insurance) and my fixed monthly bills.
I think my student loans for this semester are going to be posted in the next few days, so I will (gulp) add the new amount to my new student loan bar. It's going to hurt to see $12K on that list....but I must remind myself if I only took out $12K in loans for this year, I'm in pretty good shape. I wish I could pay this all in cash, but that's just not going to realistically happen.
On the internship front, I am nervous I am not qualified for the internships I applied for. My fellow students told me some of them require us to have our Med-Surg experience before applying. I don't think it's fair, since I will have completed my clinical rotation before beginning the internship. I'm glad I sent in my applications already, because the old saying goes, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." At least I can say I did all my due diligence and put myself out there as much as possible. If nothing comes through for me, I may consider taking summer classes to accelerate my degree. There's no sense in just sitting around all summer not getting any experience. This is all still up in the air soooo...I'm not going to freak out just yet!
Hopefully I'll be blogging about my full tax refund soon :-)
I hope this semester is great for you!
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