fresh start (Seattle, Tacoma, Bremerton: apartments, condos, loans)

[michaelchef]

Hello I'm a recovered alcoholic sober 2 1/2 years I will be out of debt this summer. I am looking for a new beginning out west witha few caveats. I need great seafood, a beach of somesort, and a nursing school. I used to be a french chef am now a nurses aid in a rehab facility. Any new ideas about this? Small town or big town or inbetween town don't really care. Just the most direst route to becoming a nurse i guess. Any help will be geatly apppreciated.

[Sandy Nelson]

Michael,
Off hand West Seattle came to mind. Alki beach is a great place to sit by a fire and enjoy the gorgeous views across the water to Seattle. There are good seafood restaurants, as well as schools. I don't want to leave your post without saying that I have a lot of respect for you, recovering from an addiction. It seems like you're starting a new life, getting out of debt, going to school and relocating to a new place. I hope you'll find a happy place and wish you the best of luck.

Sandy

[allforcats]

Hi, michaelchef. Welcome to the wonderful idea of living in this beautiful area of the Pacific Northwest!

Congratulations a thousand times for your great achievement of sobriety!! You are within yourself everything you want to be!! What a great gift you've given to yourself, and to everyone whose path you cross!!

SEAFOOD -- The Pacific Northwest abounds with superb seafood, so don't worry about that caveat when you choose a location. The supermarkets overflow with variety, the restaurants are chock full of possibilities, and chef supplies are available in lots of kitchen stores and even, in lesser quality, in the better supermarkets (and also online, of course, for absolute convenience). It's heaven for the mouth here :-)

A BEACH -- You're from Akron, eh? Yes, I can probably understand what you mean by "a beach". In the immediate Seattle area, we have a couple of different kinds of "beaches": Puget Sound beaches (Puget Sound is a protected arm of the Pacific Ocean), and the shores of many lakes formed by glacial activity.

In the Seattle area, apartments, condos and houses actually AT a beach are often prohibitively expensive, but you can get to the public areas of those beaches by car or by local public transit in 10 to 30 minutes, so they're easily accessible. But Sandy Nelson's idea of Alki beach in West Seattle is one of the few exceptions, and it looks and feels like the photographic Pacific Northwest.

To get an actual Pacific Ocean beach, out there where you can see the end of the Earth, you have to drive and/or take a ferry west, to the ocean. Worth every minute because of the beauty of the countryside and the shock of the amazing beauty of the ocean.

FRENCH CHEF -- Could I please adopt you?? :-) This is a pursuit you could continue here, if you want to. There are world-class restaurants, world-renowned chefs, and culinary schools with serious reputations. I think I read somewhere that the Seattle area has almost as many restaurants per capita as New York City! My point is that if you want to go back in that direction, the possibilities abound here.

NURSING SCHOOLS -- Did you Google for this info? When I Googled nursing school WA, I discovered there are tons more possibilities than I had realized. Here is a mire pois of resources:

"The University of Washington School of Nursing, ranked the top nursing school in the country": Welcome to the UW SON
Most of the programs of the University of Washington are the best in the U.S. so this is no surprise.

Washington Nursing Schools (http://www.allnursingschools.com/find/WA/ - broken link)

Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed


Those links should provide you with lots of research material to help you learn what's available, what they offer and cost, and what specifically interests you.


Have fun checking things out! C'mon back with your questions.

[ginanews]

Hey, I would like to say, if your looking for a more laid back sort of community, Olympic College in Bremerton has a great nursing program and the medical community here is really booming. There is alot of progressive change in Bremerton right now, it's very affordable to live and the big city is just a ferry ride away. Rush hour traffic only lasts about 15-20 minutes! There really is alot to do and see here. It's very green & wet but there is not many biting bugs at all.

Good Luck
Gina

[FoxyKnox]

Have you completed your pre-reqs? Nursing school is extremely hard to get into (as I'm sure you are aware.) If you haven't finished pre-reqs, do them, apply for school and move to wherever you get accepted, then graduate and move to the place of your dreams.
If you have completed pre-reqs, UW has an amazing program, but don't bother to apply unless you have at least a 3.7 GPA. PLU in Tacoma also has a great program and is a little easier to get into. Seattle U (I think) has a program. You would graduate from these 3 with a BSN. If you go community college route, you can get your pre-reqs and upper division done at the same school. This will be cheaper, but you will not get your BSN and will not make as much money in the long run.

Hmmm....that's a lot of info for you. Hope it makes sense. I'm just starting my 4th out of 5 semesters of nursing school, so I think I'm qualified to help you somewhat with schools. :-) Good luck to you!

[sean98125]

If you get a job with one of the major hospitals, you'll probably find a tuition reimbursement program. Swedish will pay for 100% of tuition, fees and books up to $5000 a year, for example. They'll pay for 2 and 4 year RN programs.

A lot of the nurses here get a two year degree and then use tuition reimbursement when getting their BSN. If you are just getting out of debt you can do it this way and not be saddled with college loans that will reduce your earnings over the long run.

[bmsea]

Grays Harbor County has
(1) a community college with a nursing program (Grays Harbor college)
(2) a community hospital always looking for good staff
(3) 2 resort/beach towns where you might work as a sous chef or line cook to earn some extra money in the summers
(4) a very casual atmosphere
(5) low cost of living
(6) close proximity to the ocean beaches
(7) access to the Westport fishing fleet and the freshest seafood (dungenous crab, salmon, halibut, tuna, razor clams, oysters) that you will find anywhere in Washington
(8) lots of social services in case you need help staying on the wagon

[swsha4]

Wow! What fantastic information here! If MichaelChef cannot decide on whether to move here based on this, I will be amazed. He can even find school! All he needs to do is decide which wonderful Western WA town he would like to live in.