Heather Skille:  

ology students. After graduating, I decided to continue my graduate education there in speech therapy. However, 6 weeks into school, I decided that I no longer wanted to be a speech therapist. I dropped out, and it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. In February 2004, I went back to school, though I took a different direction. I went to an allied health school called Newbridge College, located in Santa Ana. I'm currently studying to become a surgical technologist, to work in the operating room, handing instruments to the surgeon. It's an accelerated program, so I've been going four nights a week for a year straight through, with no summer, winter, or spring breaks in between. Thankfully, it's almost over, at which time I will be pursuing an externship. Workplace I started out in retail, which I think is the lesser of two evils when compared with food service. It takes a special person to work food service, and I'm not it. I worked retail for four years, and hated every minute of it. I got out of it in 2000, when I started working for a homeowners association out in Rancho Santa Margarita. That was fun for a while, especially in the winter, where we would hide in the back office on the weekends and play on the internet all day. After about two years at the HOA, I started working for a vitamin company, as an office clerk and data entry person. I actually really enjoyed that job. The work itself was okay, but I loved the people that I worked with. However, I had applied for a job at a school district before starting that job, and about a year later, the school district contacted me. I interviewed for a position just a few days before my wedding, and got a job as an office assistant. Two weeks after getting married, I started at the school district, where I am currently waiting out my time until my externship starts.