I.M.I.

What a night! I wasn’t a party animal when I lived in Hungary and I am not one now in the UK, so it was interesting going out last night. Generally the gay scene is the same than it was 2 years ago. There is one club called Alterego to go and time to time a party called Candy. We went to Alterego. It was very crowded, the music was OK and I had a chance to meet and catch up with quite a few friends. That was my first time out since I have come out of the closet that I went out in a loose T-shirt. I used to show off on every occasion in the past, but now I am in love (it happened before, but this is something different, trust me), so I decided I would be decent and quiet this time. Well, I couldn’t manage it. LOL
I met my friends and they wanted to know what had happened with me since I had left... body included. LOL They insisted that I had to remove my top. I tried to resist, but they were so demanding... LOL
I ended up dancing topless and enjoying the attention from the guys. I also got a few offers and it was so nice to decline them. I hope I was polite enough, because they really were flattering.
I also met a friend of mine who has been living together with his boyfriend for 6 years. I was so happy for them!

I hope one day I can tell my friends that I have been living with Gary for that long!

I love you, baby!

It is strange to be in my home country again.

Strange, because it’s only 2 hours and 10 minutes and I am in Budapest from London, about the same time that I can get from Birmingham to London or let’s be honest, sometimes the same amount of time is required to travel through London.

Strange, because although my Mum was waiting for me at the airport, I felt such a foreigner visiting this city. I have been living in the UK for one and a half years and I called that place as home in these years.

My Mum has been preparing for my visit for at least 2 weeks, cleaning the apartment and the windows and planning dishes, cakes... Bless her, I am the only child of her. It was so nice to see her again, it was in May when I saw her last time and I haven’t been in Hungary since last December.

I also popped in the University today to do same paperwork (I needed an official stamp for my ECFVG application) and to catch up with some good old colleagues. It was so nice to meet my long-ago tutor and my second mother, Agnes. She was interested in everything. My career, my love life... She was so sweet and it was a nice feeling that she was proud of me. I also saw the new clinic which was very impressive and shiny. I asked the guys there and they said it operated well, but there were problems.

It was a successful day so far, but my Mum could top it with an amazing lunch. I am having a very good progress on my body fat, so this nice dish definitely did not help, but who cares if it is my Mum’s food. LOL

We do some shopping in the evening together and now having a quiet time. I hope my Mum won’t read this, but the happiest moment was when Gary came online and we could chat a bit. He mentioned some surprise to me and I am so curious... I love you, Gary!

Surprisingly I did not miss the train to London. Last time when I booked the ticket in advance to London I left the house later than I should have and inevitably missed the train from the New Street Station, so I had to take the longer one from the Snow Hill Station. I did not mind though, I like traveling with train. To be honest, it is much better than flying. You can see the places you are passing by. The only things I like about flying are the check-in, the security check, the boarding, the taking off and landing. I am a weirdo, I know. LOL That explains why I wanted (and still want) to be a flight attendant. I mean I want to try not as a career, but to try something else, to learn something different.

So I am on the train now, waiting for the departure.

Yesterday was the big day. One of them. The first one was when I made the decision. The second one was when I gave the ring to Gary and asked him to accept me as his partner. Yesterday was therefore the third one. I had a meeting with my line manager and my friend (yes, he is my friend as well), Andy. I wanted to meet with him to tell my decision of resigning from my position and leaving the company. I made up my mind months ago, but I did not want to tell the news over the phone or in an email. I think we must have the decency and respect of others to tell important things face to face. As it turned out I was right, he appreciated my effort. Poor man had a very tough day or days, my senior nurse is going to resign as well and Andy had a rough meeting yesterday before he met me. He hoped he could have a relaxing time with me. Bless him. I ruined him more. I was blunt, I told him that I was leaving. He was disappointed, but not surprised and wished me luck in my future. He also offered his contacts to use in New York.

It is tough though. I liked and still like to work for Vets Now, although it is not the same company I started to work for. It was like a big family when I started in last May. Less employees and more fun. Then the company had started to grow and changes have come inevitably. Departments, managers multiplied, commercial decisions were made and new forms were implemented. We started to shift from the friendly big family company to the big organization. It felt and feels like a break-up. You are not in the relationship any more, but you still remember and recall the happy moments and might try to go back and continue, but it is not possible any more. You are single and it is hard until you find the someone again. Well, the company is somewhere here now. It is not a big, professional, structured organization yet and not a family like company any more, but somewhere in between and it causes uncertainty in all employees. This is a tough time and there will be losses. I am one of them. Fortunately we separate without hard feelings and Andy reassured me that the doors will be open for me. Nice!

After our meeting I went in to the clinic to talk to Rachel, my nurse about the senior nurse position. It is a sensitive topic, because there were issues when she started at the company between her and Suzanne, the current senior nurse and although she wanted the job, she did not get it. I wanted to pursue her to apply, but I already knew her answer. Part of her wants to do it, but finds it hard to change attitude towards others. It happened with me as well when I started. You are pals, friends, buddies with others and suddenly you have to tell them frankly that they don’t do the job properly and in that instant you are not a friend any more. So I can understand Rachel’s concerns. However, she can’t imagine a new person taking over the position and learning everything about the clinic and the stuff while she knows everything. So at the end she gave me an honest answer. She either applies or resigns as well...

The rest of the evening was quiet, I packed my bag for the journey and chatted with Gary. It was so nice, because we couldn’t speak for quite a few days due to the crap internet connection at work and of course the time difference. I told him about my meeting and he was so happy for me. I love that guy, he loves me, supports me. He also showed pictures of our home. (I hope he doesn’t mind putting one on here...) Certainly I remember the nice and cosy apartment on the 11th Street, but it was nice to see and remember the good moments we spent there and going to spend in the future together. Amazing. Thanks Pumpkin!

Well, that’s my way. When I calculate the duration of the journey to the airport and add an extra hour assuming signaling failures (very popular in the UK) or delays, cancellations (also popular), everything runs smoothly.

The bus was at the centre in unusual short time in Birmingham (the drivers are mad, by the way), the train was in time, the tube in London operated without delays and the train to Gatwick was one with only a few stops. Therefore I arrived to the airport 4 hours earlier, instead of the planned 2 hours.

Waiting again... Never mind...

I am. Last night was my fourth night in a row and none of them were quiet at all. I am not moaning about that, it is my job, I chose it. I am fed up, because we have a brilliant (please note, being cynical...) head office which support (cynical again) us all the time, so they started to call themselves and made us calling them Support Office. Oh yes, in your dreams. I am at the point where I prefer to say that they rather abuse us. You know, when you work at a place with great colleagues (eg. me on the clinic level), you don't want to let them down, so you are happy to do extra things. Well, that is what we do here. Especially my senior nurse and I. When someone call in sick, we are ready to jump in and do the shift. The support office people know this, so they don't do to much effort to help us in these situations. What they do is making decisions and want us to apply them on every clinic without knowing what is going on at the clinic really.

I got a phone call from them 2 weeks ago to inform me that they signed a contract to a vet and he is going to do every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shifts for 3 months. I was happy and angry at the same time. Certainly, it is good to have a vet for 3 shifts a week, but the fix days mean that I have to do the weekend nights every week. Ok, I don't have family here and not too many friends, but working in every weekend is a bit much. At least they would have had the courtesy to ask me whether I am ready to work in this pattern. Well, they haven't called me. Now Mr. Fixed Days vet called in sick (actually his wife called) and I have to do tonight and find someone for tomorrow and maybe for Thursday as well. So they didn't bother to call me before they contracted the vet, but are calling me now when they need my work. Certainly I said yes, because the reasons I'd mentioned earlier. Thanks for the support, anyway!

That is why I am fed up. That is why I am going to quit.

I did not post anything over the weekend. I started to worry that the same thing was going to happen and the initial excitement faded away and I lost interest in blogging. Then I realized that I worked all weekend and when I am at work my days are not really interesting. Usually I am tired in the morning, but make my way to the gym, after that I go home, eat lunch and a few hours later I am back to the gym and work again.

I don't do mornings! To be honest this job just ruined my cycle, Ok I was always a night person, prefered to stay up late (just check the time of my blogs). I simply think I am more creative that time of the day. Contrary the mornings are horrible. Especially getting up "early". Well, that is a relative expression and my definition is very different from average people opinion about it. If I have to get up before 10am, I consider it early.

Saturday night and the following morning was horrible. The tendency is that we are usually busy, but managable in the evening, but after midnight we can't predict what will happen. This Satuday was something we call lately as usual madness. It pisses me off, frankly. People think that we are there for convenience. The way the world goes around these days is that you can do everything non-stop. You can shop, eat out, require customer service, etc. So people started to think that veterinary service is also something similar. It could be, but it is not their decision. As I explained earlier, my company and all the clinics consider themselves as dedicated emergency service. First of all I don't agree with this, because the setup we all work in is not suitable for emergency medicine. Our patient can stay on the premises 15 hours the most through the week and 45 hours in the weekend. Now, if we are talking about proper emergency and critical care (ECC), this timescale does not allow to provide the most advanced ECC. There are other obstacles though. The one-vet-one-nurse setup also makes it very difficult to look after and treat animals properly. We can only dream about working up a case as it should be done. The vet, but especially the nurse can be so busy that the in-patient care is less then efficient. The infrastructure is also against any state-of-the-art medicine. And at last, but not least the client's financial circumstances are also in the way to do our best to save, treat and cure the patient.
Considering all of the above, what we do rather could be called "battlefield medicine".
The patient comes in, go through a quick and most of the time not full physical examination and get the basic and essential treatment for the suspected problem. Quite often we only keep them alive for the usual practice, so the cilent can take them back to their vet and they can do the proper or more appropriate treatment. I understand the concept, certainly. We do not want to interfere with our member practices and "steal" their money doing more than absolutely necessery, but it could be very frustrating from time to time. One could say that a good vet does not need more time to work on cases. I thought that it was true and it was only me being not good vet enough when I looked up things in books and calculated drug doses accurately. Then I have been in the States and saw that internationaly well known lecturer vets opened up reference books or searched the Internet for articles relation to the case they were dealing with. So the reality was just the opposite than I had thought. A good vet do look things up and research and invest time into the cases.

Certainly there are advantages of the battlefield medicine. One can learn how to prioritize, make quick assesments, do effective consultations. There are also important attributes of a good vet, but not enough.

Oh and for me it was a very good opportunity to improve my English.

I was told once I got back from the US and introduced my idea to my staff and my managers that the UK is not ready for that kind of emergency service I had seen in the US. I can see where they are coming from, but I always say, if we wait for the country and the people to be ready for something, either they won't or someone else will do what we planned to do.

I am not a business person, I have a degree on veterinary medicine, but I read things and listened to people and learnt a few things about how to run a business well.

It seems to me that my company is either without concept which I doubt or without knowledge to accomplish what they planned. It is just common sense. If you start a business, you need to have a plan, a target group and financial background.

Now, we know that the proper emergency and critical care is an expensive hobby. I'm sure I would start the whole process to research the market and find those people who have enough money to spend on luxury (keeping animals is a luxury, trust me) and also have the intention to spend it. I would go to offices and companies who do surveys and statistics about the population and buy information (or if possible get it for free). Then I would take a map and a marker to mark the areas where these people live. So this way I would have the location of my future clinics. The next step would be to persue them with my idea (because the idea was good at the begining, offering OOH service, so not being competition to them) and choose only a few of them as future partners, mostly those who have large client basis. So doing these I may secured a fairly wide client basis packed with money ready to spend on their pets. The rest depends on how much money I have to invest. My company's concept was to use the premises belonging to one of our member practices, so this way they could save money (lots of...) on building a clinic. The downfall is that the building is not the company's property, so no alteration, remodelling is possible without the permission of the host practice and also the staff won't consider it as theirs, therefore they will be less enthusiastic to develop and improve it. So if I thought of a long term investment, I would build or buy a building. Buying is difficult, because veterinary clinics have special needs. So by this point, I have a building which is my own, a client basis through my member practices with money and a good plan which will be accepted easier by the member practices. The next step is the staff and I could face with the usual dilemma: hiring experienced and well-educated people for more money to pay them or find less experienced, but eager people, educate them on-site and pay them less money. I don't have so clear opinion on this as I had on the others. As I am very maximalist, I tend to hire experienced staff for more money. Again, in the long run it would be worth the investment, I am sure. Ok, here comes the maths now, playing with the mumbers such as expected number of clients per month, expenses per month, profit, etc. That is not my cup of tea, I would hire someone to do it. Well, so far we have the building, we filled it in with staff, contracted the member practices and secured a wealthy client basis, did the maths, so we have a picture of what we can expect financially. Certainly we need equipment on the premises, so let's go shopping. This is the area where I can't compromise. It is not possible to work with cheap or faulty ones, so I would buy the best. I am not saying not to look for discounts, sales or other ways to save money. Probably I would contract with suppliers for long term supply. Opening. Maintenance. Support. Relationship. Important things to concentrate after start. Finally playing hard. As the stand alone OOH practice is not feasable, eventually (after proved the highest quality of service to pet owners) turning the practice to a 24-hour clinic and being a referral center with high prices, but with even higher standards of care!

Well, that is my vision of the ECC service...

Here I am again. I mean at the clinic, working. We are not too busy tonight, so I have time to post something here... I haven't been so good at it lately.

The only thing helps me through the shifts coming that next Thursday I am flying back to Hungary to visit my Mum. I haven't seen her since May and she was complaining. Bless her. I am gonna be there for 5 days. I can't wait. Just out of here.

Uneventful day, I was at the gym twice and on the way home, tired, waiting for the bus I was wondering about the people in Birmingham and generally as well. The other day Dan (Have I talked about him already? I think I have. He is my housemate.) asked me whether I would go out with a guy whom I am not physically attracted to. I said it depended on how the guy looked like. I mean I don't have any problem with a little belly or love handle. As long as someone does some kind of excercise and looks after himself, a little excess is perfectly fine. However, if someone is really obese and it is not a condition due to some medical problem, I would say, it is unacceptable for me. I am sorry, but eating junk food, drinking fizzy drinks with loads of sugar in it or beer and not doing any activity or sport, the is definitely put me off. I was walking to the bus stop today and saw these homes at the neighbourhood of the gym. Small flats or houses occupied by people on low income most likely. And I saw a few inside as the doors were open. They were dirty and untidy. Don't get me wrong, I think if somebody is poor or has a low income, there is nothing shameful in it. Nothing. Not all of us lucky enough to be born to or brought up to the circumstances when one can go to the university to have a well paid job afterwards. So being poor is not shameful. However not cleaning the place where you live, just like eating and drinking junk and not doing any excercise is something one should be ashamed. Before I went to the US, I was prepared that I would see lots of fat people, because that is what I knew about the country. Honestly, I saw more overweight people here in Birmingham, than in New York and Milwaukee altogether in 6 weeks. I know very well that the way we eat and what we eat is something we brought from our childhood. That is why I am outraged when I see parents giving chips and other bad food to their kids. I have never seen a kid chewing on a piece of carrot or apple here. I have never seen a kid drinking plain water here. Sometime I would like to shout to them that 'you stupid cow, how can you ruin your kid's life and health'.

I couldn't chat with Gary to much today, he has guests in his apartment now and he has to do his shows as well, so he is pretty busy, bless him. I miss him so much, but even though it is not that bad. You know, when there is someone out there and you know and most importantly feel that you are loved, it does not matter if you are not actually with the Loved One. In the past when I had a partner, I felt that I had to be in contact with him all the time... Text messages, emails or calls... Now with Gary it is different! Certainly I want to be with him, but as long as I know he is alright and doing what he needs to do, I am happy. I know that there will be a time when we are going to live together and I will see him more, so I can wait. You always have to wait for the good things in life!!!

All my nurses are in bed and sleeping, we don't have too many inpatients (one cat with human painkiller poisoning, an other cat with fractured pelvis, a dog with a fish hook in the throat and a cat with fractured leg) and they don't need constant monitoring, so it is quiet now. I am still up though, writing this and then doing some admin work as well. I am not sleepy. Now. See me in the morning. I don't do mornings!!!

I think I go back to the admin work now and leave the rest of the bloging for tomorrow.

Good night!

This day has finally come. Tomorrow I am back to work for 4 nights in a row. I don't know what to say. I didn't do to much in the last couple of days apart from going to the gym and chatting with my Love. The problem is that I don't enjoy my job at the clinic any more. Right, I stop whining.

Today was delivery day again. I am terrible, I know. I can't help myslef, shopping makes me happy. I need counseling. LOL... Ok, so I got some Nike stuff (track suit, trainers, long sleeve shirt) and an external hard driver. What a combination, huh? LOL

I spent hours to fix my Mac baby, because it played up which I wouldn't have expected. Anyway, it works now. So I can blog again.

It is kinda boring blog today. Probably I am not excited enough... I haven't talked to my boyfriend today and I am missing him...

It is better to finish this nightmare and go to bed.

Good night!

I have found it!

I spent significant time on the Internet to find veterinary clinics in New York City. The first hit was a huge referral center and teaching hospital. It was appealing, because the one I had visited in Milwaukee was very similar and I enjoyed myself there this summer. I wasn't happy though. I am not sure any more that I want to work in a fancy, shiny, state of the art animal hospital. Yes, I know. That is the best place to improve my skills and learn everything about medicine. However, I am not sure I want the long hours, the night shifts and the stress. One can say I am not ready for challenge any more. It might be true, but I prefer to say that a friendly, quiet (when I say quiet, I don't mean zero patient, I mean a place where you have time to work on cases and if required, you can have a chat with the client as well) and patient + client oriented place of work does appeal to me more. I want to settle down, I don't want to be the best, though faceless, unreachable doctor, I don't want to discover new diseases, drugs and methods. I want to help people and animals in a more personal way. I know I am a veterinarian, but I would like to spend time with the owners as well. I would like to educate them to be better owners, I want them to understand what and why I am doing with their beloved pet.

So I did not stop looking and found an other practice in New York. When I saw their website, I immediately fell in love with them. It is crazy, I admit, although understandable. They are situated on the West 18th Street and Gary (and soon me) lives on the West 11th Street. So the place is in walking distance from my future home. In the gaybourhood, so to speak. LOL... And if this wouldn't be enough, they are not a usual practice. They combine the conventional Western medicice with the traditional Eastern one. They use homeopathy, accupuncture, etc. I love that. I have some background as martial arts are strongly bonded to the Eastern philosophies and I used to learn Kung Fu. I kept checking out the site and saw the photos of the doctors and the staff and got more and more excited. They looked like nice folks. In that instance I decided that clinic was my first choice. I certainly will contact the big and fancy one as well, but on the second place only.

I worked on my resume and cover letter in the afternoon, I wanted it to be perfect. I have finished and I like it, but I am not sure whether it can't be better. I am going to post both here, so anyone can check them and post a comment.

I was chatting with my Love earlier today and he said he did not blog, because nobody would read it. I explained to him that I write this blog only because of selfish reasons and not for the people out there. Finishing the day with some writing helps me to clear my mind and organize my thoughts. It is like swimming. When I swim, especially long distance, my mind is empty. It is an amazing experience. It is like meditation.

It seems today is about spiritual expreiences. Except the time I spent at the gym I was at home all day trying to fix my Mac, the Mail application was playing up. I love computer technology and especially love my fairly new Mac and therefore I hate when they are not running smoothly. I am not a computer geek though, so whenever I try to fix the problem, I make a mess. However, I have learnt through the years fighting with computers (mostly PCs with Windows) that the most important two words were 'back up'. So I was focusing on the problem and suddenly the doorbell rang. Delivery. Wow, I completly forgot that I had ordered books online a few days ago. Two books from the Dummies series. Judaism for Dummies and Buddhism for Dummies... One can ask why those. Well, I used to learn Kung-Fu when I was 17 and this martial art is strongly connected to Buddhism, so I had the interest from that time. Judaism is something different. Let me explain this a bit. I have had this feeling for a long time. If I have to specify, it started when I met my third boyfriend seven years ago. Without details now, he was Jewish. Certainly not orthodox, more likely reform jew. While we were together, I met a guy on the Internet and started to chat. He was not my type at all, but he was a decent, nice guy and I enjoyed talking to him as he was intelligent and open minded. We also met face to face and I introduced him to my boyfriend as well. As the time went we developed a strong friendship. He lived (and still lives) on the countryside in Hungary with his wife, so we visited them often. They don't have children, so we were kind of a substitution for them, but in a good and honest way. Surprise, surprise, he is Jewish as well and in addition he has a strong bond to Israel, he used to live and work there and he still visits regularly. He invited us to go with him and his wife to Israel for holiday. We have been there twice and it was an amazing experience. The average people have a concept about Israel based on what they see, hear and read in the media. I had one as well. I was scared of bombs and guns. Again, as quite often in life, the reality was different. We had a round trip from the southest point, Eilat to up north reaching the border of Lebanon. We saw Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, the Dead Sea and Masadah, the Sea of Galilee and much more. Certainly we have seen no violence, no bombs or anything like that. We have seen soldiers and metal detectors everywhere though, but there they were part of the everyday life. The most shocking experience was that I did not feel as a foreigner. I know it sounds exaggeration, but I felt kinda like at home.

So let's see... I had a Jewish boyfriend, I met and became friend with a Jewish guy and I visited Israel twice and felt like at home. I do not believe in coincidence. I do believe that everything happens in this world for reason. After we came home my Mum told me something which kinda affirmed my feelings. She said that there was a secret in the family about someone who was married, but sleeping around and got pregnant and this way there might be Jewish blood in the family, particulary on her side. I couldn't speak. From that moment I started to read about Judaism, the history, culture and religion.

Back to the present, today I got these books and I started to read the one about Judaism right away, it seems to be a good one. This would not be so interesting, but something happened again.

As usual I chated with my boyfriend this evening and he said that he has been asked to be present at a Bat Mitzvah... He told me that without knowing that I have had these books. I know one would say it is a coincidence, but I still do not believe in that.

I told him about all of this and mentioned that I had been thinking about becoming converted for a long time. He laughed at me. Laughed out loud. I was shocked by that. He thought I was only joking. Bless him. He apologized when I told him I was serious. I am. It is not definite, but I am thinking about it.

We are living in a fast world. Everything is fast around us. Fast food, fast broadband, fast delivery, quick sex. I am part of it, I am not complaining. What I am trying to say is that I am missing something. I am missing the rituals. The moments when you slow down and spend some time with your loved ones and think about important questions. The christianity I know does not appeal to me. Certainly I have only experienced a small portion of the whole religion, but I don't like the idea of Jesus as the son of God and the Messiah. I do believe a power which drives this whole thing around and inside us. One can call it God or Allah or Jehova... I just use the word Power. So the Catholic Church and the whole death on the cross are not for me. Buddhism could be the choice as I already had some experience. My problem with Buddhism is that it is so far fetched for the western civilization (or just for me) that I found it difficult to apply it to my life. Probably it is my fault and not the phylosophy though. Apart from these two I only know something about Judaism and what I know about this one is very close to my ideology and moral. Obviously I still don't know enough to understand the complexity of Judaism, but the rituals they practice today as their ancestors did in the past are deeply rooted in their past and the sacred book, the Torah. It seems to me that these rituals are there not because of political or financial reasons (collecting money for the Church) opposite to a lot of catholic one. Circumcision, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Sabbath, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Chanukkah, etc. So everybody can laugh at me, but I am serious.

Finally here is a funny story, well, at least it was funny for me when it happened. I was at the gym this evening and just started my workout on a machine used by an other guy. He was a fit guy, a bit older than me I guessed and very friendly despite the fact we have never bumped into each other at the gym. I did not care to much, I was politely smiling and doing my workout. A few minutes had passed and he asked me whether I used other gyms from the same franchise. I told him that occasionaly when I was in London I used the one in Covent Garden. He laughed and pointed out that I was familiar for him, but he did not know why. It turned out that he lived in London and went to that gym often. So he was gay, I told myself. He was a chatterbox. Usually I don't like to chat in the gym, I prefer to focus on my workout, so I continued the polite smiling. He seemed to be very happy to meet his kind (i.e. gay folks) and tried to invite me discussing the guys at the gym. He did that quite markedly. I am out and have no problem with my gay identity, but this is Birmingham and not Covent Garden where all the members of the gym are gay and the gym and especially the showers are considered as a cruising area. He obviously did not notice this fact.