Putting Out Fires

Well, I had another weird experience today. I learned how to put out fires. Like, literally.

We had fire extinguisher practice in the parking lot today. It cracked me up, because they actually *set* fires for us to extinguish. It's one of those skills you really hope you never need, but just in case, I have practiced the left-to-right "swoop" motion.

Speaking of fires, I had my first monumental stress today as well. I had about 7 hours of meetings (all of which I attended). At my second meeting, my boss (the CEO) asked that I write a presentation for him, for a series of meetings on Wednesday. I was fine with it until I sat down to write. I realized I didn't have time to sit down and write. I had to rush off to another meeting (one about Risk Management and HIPAA). I pretended I was enthralled by the new regulations, diligently taking notes. In reality, I was brainstorming presentation ideas and formulating an outline. This worked until I seemed *too* enthusiastic. The meeting organizer asked if she could have a copy of the "minutes" I was recording! Whoops. I made a graceful escape from that meeting 30 seconds before it formally adjourned.

Speaking of esophageal fires, I had my first chest pain today. It didn't worry me nearly as much as it did when I worked at corporate. I work in a freaking hospital; if I code, I literally work right below the Surgery department.

The chest pain died down as I dug my heels into the presentation. Well, I actually have two presentations to write this week, but this one was waaaay more important and it took precedence. I went back to my office and it was nice and quiet back in administration. My secretary has this amazing jazz playing all the time; it's that classy New York jazz (not the smooth jazz crap). I listened to that for a while but when that started to relax me too much, I played my "fast lane" song mix that I created for my commute. It contains a bunch of those dance/europop songs and it motivates me to drive aggressively enough to not die in the fast lanes. Coincidentally, it also makes me think and write quickly! When I finally hit "send" on that presentation, I felt a new surge of adrenaline. I finished my first real executive presentation.

It feels like I just turned in a massive paper for school! And I'm braindead from the endeavor. Should I admit that I've been regularly watching "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" as a stress reducer?!