Dream of the ones who came before

2004-06-28 - 10:20 p.m.

I'm home again and guess what--I passed the law test! Yeeehaw! All my tests are passed! Unfortunately, there are still hoops to be jumped through before I can get my license. One of the steps necessary to get my Washington license is to have the California board write a letter to the Washington board stating that I am currently licensed in California. I did that back in September, but my license expired in January. I renewed my license, but the Washington board won't believe it until I get the California board to send them another letter. And it's impossible to contact the California board any other way than snail mail with a $10 check attached. So I sent off a letter to the California board today requesting that they send a letter to the Washington board. After the Washington board receives that letter then they will send me a letter saying what I have to do next. As you can imagine, this will take a while to get back around to me. It's all so frustratingly slow sometimes.

But on the other hand, it's relatively effortless and guaranteed to happen, unlike passing those tests. I think, at this stage in the game, it's safe to start applying to jobs. I can tell them with confidence that I will be licensed soon. The weird thing is that I really don't know the best way to go about applying for jobs. I haven't finished brushing up my CV or writing up a basic cover letter yet, but even when I do, what's the next step? Is there job application etiquette that I should know about? I mean, if I was applying to McDonald's or something I wouldn't worry much at all about how my application comes across, but I think it's very important in my case. Only I don't know the right way. I wish I had a mentor. But no, I've basically lost contact with every pharmacist I ever worked with. I think I'm going to have to get in contact with Milkshake again. He's the closest to a mentor that I have. Except I haven't talked to him in almost exactly a year now. It's not good that I only contact him when I want to use him. But there's nothing I can do about that at this point, is there? The year has gone by.

And that leaves my other question of putting references on my CV. Probably now it's no longer a good thing for me to have pharmacists who precepted me when I was a student as references. Possibly I could keep the pharmacist who was my boss when I was an inpatient intern, but I really don't want to contact her again because I haven't talked to her in two years and even when we did talk it was briefly and infrequently. So...the Mole? I wonder if he would be a positive reference for me. Again, there's the whole year without talking to him business. There's one more guy who was a preceptor of mine when I was a resident who I'm thinking of contacting and asking to be a positive reference for me. He seemed to have a higher opinion of me than I expected and he also seemed like a really nice guy who would be willing to help me out.