So 2012 ends...back where I began

SO.
2012.
Whatcha think?

It's been a year of enormous changes. I've missed blogging tremendously.  Especially as I navigated the end of grad school, taking on a job that was a dead-end, though I didn't know it at the time, taking another job that could lead to midwifery (inshaAllah), and handling my emotions and desire for love and romance through it all.

On the way several of my good friends had babies- two had babies in the same week at the same hospital!  And one very special couple allowed me the pleasure of being present at the birth of their son, may he be blessed and a blessing to them.

It's been a glorious year.

Right now, I'm sleeping on a pallet on the floor of a room I rent from a nice Muslim couple. I'm not homeless, just broke.
A lot of people are wondering about that; but what they don't know, what I didn't know, was  that a master's degree, in the nursing field, doesn't mean automatic salary increase. One has to have experience.
I don't have experience, and believe it or not, most places won't hire a new graduate who doesn't have experience.

"So, how are you 'sposed to get experience if no one will hire you?" said my bestie Amouna in an echo of, oh, everyone I know,

"That's exactly MY question," I answered.

Still, I'm making enough so that if I hold off on getting a car, or if I find a part-time position somewhere, I can make ends meet. What I really don't want to do is lower the $950 (!) monthly payments on the loans that got me through the master's degree (which in turn did not get me the experience to have the salary to pay the loans).  Because 10 years is quite enough to be paying loans. If I lower the payments per the (really nifty, don't get me wrong, can I say a hallelujah for Obama and co. getting the loan companies to lighten up on my generation?) graduated repayment plan the government loan places have set up, I'll be paying it for 25 years. No, thank you. I can hardly believe I'll see 40 years before these loans are finished.

Riba'a is a bitch, y'all.

So, consider me back for the short term. I'm back to where I started- fresh out of school, living in conditions that are alternately dubious and wonderful, isolated from my old friends, and just needing someplace to talk. I'm hoping you'll listen. I'm hoping you haven't all gone away. I missed you!

Twenny