The Key to My Allergy/Past and Future Concerns

I'm allergic to nickel. At least I think I am. I was handling a lot of keys yesterday and today my hands are all contact dermatitisey - itchy, itchy, itchy. I think most keys are plated in nickel so that's what I'm assuming it is. Could be a brass allergy, but I doubt it. Also, I think nickel is a somewhat common allergy, but it's usually really mild (Oh, Billy, soon-to-be-doctor friend of mine, ya wanna help me out with this one?). This same thing used to happen to me all the time while I was working at MMR and I couldn't figure out what it was. I knew it happened after I handled the cassettes when I was processing, but I figured maybe I was having a reaction to the ethyl alcohol or something. I wasn't always in contact with the alcohol, but it was always around so I just chalked it up to that, but I always doubted it a bit. I considered the actual cassettes, but I always thought they were aluminum. They must have some nickel in them. Who knows, who cares, I won't be working for that company in the near future. . .

Speaking of them, I'm just so glad to be gone. They were like psychological warfare gone haywire. If things had worked out the way I thought they would I would have been happy with them, I think, but nepotism gets involved and things go down the drain. I didn't realize how very unhappy I was in general for the past year until I got away from it all. Being here is a huge wake up call. It's so easy to stay in bad situations because it's your routine, but once you finally figure out how to walk away it's like the weight of the world is off your shoulders. Things like that make this whole thing that much sweeter for me. If I had stuck it out with MMR I wouldn't be where I am now, which would be a shame. Who knew there was a whole world outside of MMR? Ha! I've spent so long worrying about where the future will take me that I've been standing still. I need to start moving ahead and doing things that I think suit me instead of worrying that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do, which is what this whole trip is about for me.

I already miss some of the great people I worked with there, but I'll never miss the way the business was run. Still, I can safely say I'm happy where I am now, and that's all that counts! Now if I only knew where life would take me after this. . . ah, who cares.