Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Step five. Yipiii!!!!


Oh, Jebus! They called me today to tell me that I passed the first interview and I was scheduled tuesday afternoon for a second interview with the chief! I just can't believe it! I am so excited! I guess now we are down to 30 candidates and they are going to keep 20 for the academy. See you after tuesday for the result!

Ouah, ils m'ont appele aujourd'hui pour me dire que j'avais bien reussi mon entretien et j'ai donc mon deuxieme entretien avec le grand patron cette fois ci, mardi apres-midi. Je n'y crois pas! je suis carement excitee et nerveuse a la fois! Alors maintenant il ne reste que 30 candidats et ils vont en prendre 20 pour aller suivre la formation. Alors a plus, pour les resulats la semaine prochaine.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Step five. I don't know what to say


Well this morning at 11:00 I had my oral board interview, in front of 3 intimidating captains all dressed up in uniform. They of course asked a bunch of questions and I sometimes stumbled with my answers but tried to do my best to show them I was mature and ready for this hard work job and that I was eager to learn and blablabla... I almost laughed when they asked me to describe with my own words what I thought the job of firefighter really was. Because you see, if I had said it in my own words, to them it would have sound something like "blobli pa pujigo ratatouille, fusivoka redotula" or something like that. But after 20 minutes of questioning and answering (and I kept all my words in english to stay professional and understandable), they finally let me go and that is the worst time now, I have to wait a whole week before I know if they liked me or not and if I have a second interview with the big kahuna. I don't even know if I did well or not, they just stayed so stoic.

Alors ce matin a 11 heures, j'ai eu mon entretien. Il y avait 3 capitaines qui font peur avec leur super uniformes. Alors ils m'ont pose plein de questions et je me suis parfois un peu embrouillee dans mes reponses mais j'ai tout de meme essaye de faire de mon mieux a leur montrer que je suis une personne mature et prete a faire ce boulot difficile... Mais j'ai presque eclate de rire quand ils m'ont demande de leur dire avec mes propres mots ce que je pensais qu'etait le boulot de pompier . Parce que vous voyez, si je leur disais avec mes propres mots, et bien ils entendraient "blobli pa pujigo ratatouille, fusivoka redotula" (c'est comme ca le francais aux oreilles des americains). Alors apres 20 minutes de questions et reponses (et en gardant tous les mots en anglais (merci beaucoup)), ils m'ont finalement laisse sortir, et je suis maintenant dans la pire des situations: Ne pas savoir ce qu'il en est. Je ne sais meme pas si je m'en sui bien sortie ou pas, ils sont restes sans emotions et sans reactions. On m'a dit que je recevrai un coup de fil la semaine prochaine me disant si j'ai ete elimine ou si je vais etre admissible pour le dernier entretien avec le grand chef.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Step three and four : I kicked ass!


Yippee! I passed the skills and the medical questions. I kicked ass too! A lot of people got eliminated today. Too bad for them.
And now I am scheduled on tuesday for the oral board interview.

Youpi! J'ai reussi mes tests aujourd'hui. Plein de monde ont ete elimine. Tant pis pour eux. Alors la prochaine etape est pour mardi, et c'est le premier entretien.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Step two : Success!


That's it, I had to do the difficult physical test today and I did it I passed. I am so happy. I still have to do my best to stay in the game, I have much more to come. Tomorrow I have 2 more tests: The firefighter skills and the medical station.

Ca y est, j'ai passe aujourd'hui le test physique, qui etait bien dur. Je suis super contente. Mais j'ai encore du boulot pour rester dans la course. Demain j'ai le test d'aptitude de pompier et aussi le test de reponses d'urgences medicales.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Step one out of 6 : Success!

Right on! I just found out that I passed the written test. I have to get ready for the rest now. Saturday is my test on the firefighter skills. Come back after the weekend because I will know the result of the next step.
_________
Super! Je viens d'apprendre que j'ai reussi les ecrits. Il faut que je me prepare pour tout le reste maintenant. Samedi je passe le test d'aptitude de pompier. Revenez apres le week-end et je saurai le resultat de la prochaine etape.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

My little secret, not a secret anymore
















Ok I didn't want to say it, by fear of failing and feeling ashamed of it. But I will say it, then it will give me a little bit of stress and push to try harder (just for my pride).
I tested for Golder Ranch Fire District (click on the name to see their site).
So last week I had the written test, and if I passed that, then there will be the skill test, followed by the physical test, then the EMT medical test. Then if by any chance I didn't fail yet at those, I would have a first oral board, and then if that works out, there will be another oral board with the chief.
Anyway, all of this seems quite impossible since I found that we are 140 people applying and there are only 15 spots open. But after 33 years of life experience I found that nothing was impossible, so I am going to try this to the end. And if I succeed it really would prove me that with a little perseverance everything is possible, even in a country like the US. But if I fail, then I will just try again next year. I remember 7 years ago, I couldn't even speak english. And even farther back in junior high, my english teacher never forgot to remind me how much I sucked and that I was the worst student she'd ever had. Pff, I bet now I my English is better than hers, that bitch!. I don't remember her name (too bad).
Anyway, two more days and I will know the result of the written test.

Bon, je ne voulais le dire a personne, par peur d'avoir la honte si jamais j'echoue, mais apres tout, je vais quand meme vous le dire. Comme ca ca me donnera un coup de stress pour mieux reussir.
J'ai postule la semaine derniere pour un des plus grand departement de pompier de la ville.
Voici leur Site internet si vous voulez jeter un coup d'oeil. Golder Ranch Fire District. C'est le departement de pompier qui couvre toute la partie nord de la ville et aussi la ville atachee au nord.
Alors j'ai eu le test ecrit la semaine derniere. Et puis si jamais j'ai reussi les ecrits, et bien il y aura 3 autres tests ce week end (1- test physique, 2- test de demonstrations de connaissances des pratiques de pompiers, et 3- test de reponse d'urgences medicales), et puis si je reussi ces trois autres tests, et bien je pourrai aller au premier entretien et puis si jamais je reussi bien au premier entretien, et bien il y a le deuxieme entretien avec le "chief".
Bref tout cela me parait bien impossible vu qu'il y a 140 personnes qui ont postule pour seulement 15 places offertes. Mais avec mes 33 ans d'experience de la vie, je me suis bien rendue compte que rien n'est impossible alors je vais tenter le coup jusqu'au bout et puis si ca ne marche pas et bien je repostulerai l'an prochain ou bien ailleurs; et puis si ca marche et bien ca prouvera bien qu'avec un peu de perseverance on arrive a tout, meme dans un pays comme les USA. (je me souviens il y a 7 ans, je ne parlais meme pas l'anglais, et puis je me souviens encore plus loin au college, ma prof d'anglais n'oubliais pas de me rappeler que j'etais la nulasse de la classe. Je parie que je parle mieux l'anglais qu'elle cette petasse (je ne me souviens plus de son nom, dommage.)) (par contre mon francais commence un peu a craindre...)
Dans 2 jours j'aurai le resultat des ecrits, alors tennez vous au courant.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Cecile B. - EMT

NO FRENCH - Pas de traduction Francaise (trop long). Pardon I won’t translate this one in French (it is too long, it is funny but too long)





Let me tell you what it’s like to be an EMT.
The night before my shift I usually open my fridge to look for any leftovers I could pack in one of those plastic container that you keep forever because they last forever. You know, those Tupperware things that are the most hideous color ever (mostly because I got them from my mom and she bought them in one of those awful meetings back in the 70’s). So then it takes me 2 min to try to open the thing because of course these containers are earthquake proof and they won’t open even if you throw them violently on the tiles (like I did after my 2 minutes battle). So then I give up with the plastic container and decide to fill a Ziploc plastic bag with the leftover spaghetti with tomato sauce from last night. Yuk! Gross, it looks kind of weird and cool at the same time in the bag, and it is definitely interesting to the touch. It reminds me of some other thing I will see on my shift, but let’s not jump ahead. Let’s pack a mini muffin with chocolate chip for breakfast and a minute soup for dinner. That is not enough food, so I will also bring a mini bag of dried nuts and mixed fruits, and also 2 mandarins and a granola bar. Yes that should do it. So now my backpack is full of food from lunch to dinner, cool! Let’s go to bed.

6am, the alarm tells me to get the hell out of bed, and that… is not cool. I get my stupid uniform on (dark blue pants, dark blue polo shirt with letters on the side of my chest that say “Cecile B. - EMT”. But it doesn’t matter that my f&%#ing name is written right there because everyone, from patients to nurses and doctors today are going to butcher my name trying to pronounce it like it’s out of another planet and then ask me again the ultimate question: “oh where are you from?”…… Ahhhhhhhhh…….. Not that question again!!!
So here, I am ready to rock and roll like they say here, I have my uniform on, I look clean, I have a backpack full of food and let’s not forget I have another huge bag with a pillow, sheet and blanket because I am going for a 24 hour shift and I will sleep on a wonderful bed at the station.

At the home station we get our ambulance from the team that is finishing their shift and are now going back home. I am teamed with someone I usually don’t know because I am still new and I am not at the same station every time. On our way out we stop the ambulance by our cars to transfer our bag full of food and the one with the blanket, pillow…
Let’s go to the station now.
As we arrive there, I decide to make my bed right away. I haven’t even pulled the pillow out of my bag, that our radio is calling us for our first call of the day. Oh!! This is going to be one of those days huh?
Here we go, my partner jumps on the driver side, which means that I will be taking care of the patient. We arrive at the location of the incident to find a lady in her mid 30s who says she wants to kill herself because she is depressed and wants to go to the hospital to be evaluated, she took lots of medication and alcohol and she does not smell good. Ok lady! Jump in the ambulance! As I take her blood pressure (while my partner is driving us to the hospital), I see my patient slowly trying to do her reading of the day on the left side of my shirt. (Great she is reading my name!) And the lady says, “Is it Cecilia?” And I say, “No, it is Cecile. It is French.” (There I said it, she won’t ask). Then she says with her drunken attitude “Oh cool, so you speak Spanish, huh”. Then I look at her with my eyes wide open and say, “No, I speak French”. To what she asks “ah? So where are you from?”
And when she said “from” I could smell her breath full of alcohol and medication… Baaaah, I should wear a breathing mask, it is not human to smell that way.
So after what I said: “so, you said you want to kill yourself today, huh?”
And there I opened the door, because she started to talk and talk and talk about things that didn’t even made sense and I could smell her breath more and more as it was filling and replacing the oxygen in the whole ambulance. She talked about everything and nothing, as a drunk depressed crazy person would. But then she says to me, “You know, Cecilia, you are a good doctor, because you listen very well”.
(Pfff, I’m not a doctor.) But I smiled and said, “ oh you are welcome my dear, and that is why I am here…. Oh look! Here we are at the hospital let’s get out of the ambulance and get some fresh air……”
Ahhhhh! Fresh air.
And that is when she decided to throw up everywhere on the stairs of the ambulance…
(Lady! You didn’t have lots of medications; you just ate a lot of spaghetti with tomato sauce and drank 2 bottles of vodka to make it go down!!!)
Oh, what a disaster, it suspiciously looked like she could have eaten the lunch I had packed for me.
Well, of course we dropped her off to the ER, then got back to clean the mess she made. At least now someone else is dealing with her and not me. I am just glad she didn’t throw up on me.

Then as we are leaving the hospital, we get called to another patient and then another one and another one. After 8 calls in a row it is now 8 pm and I am dizzy because we didn’t have time to eat. We finally get a break but we are so hungry, we just decide to get a hamburger quickly.

As we later arrive at the station, I am looking at my unmade bed and I pull the food I had prepared for me from my bag. The bag of spaghetti makes me want to vomit, so I toss it right away and I am so tired now, I just lie down on the naked mattress there and fall asleep (it is 9pm).
Suddenly the crazy high pitch beeping of the radio screams in our ears (I probably slept 3 hours but I still feel really tired). I look at the clock and see: 9:15pm. …What??... I only closed my eyes for 15 minutes? You gotta be kidding me!! But here we go again on another call. And it will be like that until 7am. I slept 1 or 2 hours all together. It is the morning and we had more crazy stinky patients and a few nice old ladies with a broken hip. And that one homeless guy without his front teeth that told me that I was pretty, and that we could make a great couple and that he could clean up real good for me. (At least he didn’t ask me where I was from). I just gave him a nice smile in return and it was enough for him. (But that was only to keep me from busting out laughing).

I get home around 7:30am. I shower and I fall into my nice clean beautiful bed. What a day!
To tell you the truth it is not like that every time but sometime it is. And next time I won't even try to prepare my meals in advance because half of the time the Ziploc bag (which is not earthquake proof like Tupperware) tear apart in my bag pack and I don't even want to describe what I see and smell there, and I should just buy a good sleeping bag because that is faster.