It's funny how quickly your attitude can change.

When I thought I'd be working at this job all summer, I was happy to be there, no doubt helped along by visions of so much money to be made.

This week, knowing that tomorrow would be my last day, I've felt impatient to be gone and just get on with yet another change in direction in my work life.

Another exceedingly boring day today but at least no one suggested I leave early. Well, actually, at my 4 pm meeting the other writer did when she learned I didn't have much else to do besides the one thing I was editing, but since I told her I wanted to finish the full day tomorrow, she is having the junior writer give me some of the sell sheets he is working on. So tomorrow should be easier and I won't feel any particular pressure to finish what he gives me, or not.

One surprise thing I learned was that the person who hired me is leaving for another job very soon. We all just found out. I liked him.

It was very upsetting yesterday to learn that my neurologist's office is no longer going to be able to accept Cigna patients after mid-August due to some sort of contract dispute.

I have Cigna thru COBRA, and that will last til January of next year. I called the prescription company to see how many months worth of my medication remain; my doctor authorizes the med a year at a time so I can renew it each month. I have just 4 months left.

I plan to call the doctor's assistant to have her fax in a re-authorization early so this doesn't cause a problem 4 months from now, in October, when I need re-authorization for the meds.

Aside from that, I need to find out how much he charges for an office visit so I can determine how much more it would cost me to continue seeing him, if needed, on an out of network basis. So instead of a $40 copay, I'd pay 40% of the tab.

As long as I get his office to renew the meds prescription, I may very well not need to see him again before my COBRA expires in January. If I did, I might go to a different neurologist who accepted Cigna and then I'd have the option of returning to the original doctor once I had different health insurance, or sticking with the new one.

It's so hard to say what will happen, if I'll get a new perm job with new insurance, or a contract job, many of which how offer insurance if you get the job thru a recruiter. Or if ACA will still be around in some form so if I had to, I could buy it there.

I am thinking more and more that after my current job ends tomorrow, I may not return to the freelance job I had writing those college and university summaries. Before I left that job, I told her I did want to return when this contract job was up, but it just seems like so much work for the $300 or $600 I made per project. The $600 projects, for example, keep me fairly busy for a good part of the day for 5 or 6 or 7 days, so i average about $15 an hour. After taxes, it's even less, and it then complicates my tax return by having to report the freelance income.

It just doesn't seem like there's much to be gained by it aside from the money, and it demands so much time that I wonder if it makes me "feel" like I'm accomplishing something when really it's taking time away from a more directed job search.

On top of that, the company recently instituted a ranking system for all of its writers, and each one of us has received a "score" based on our writing and they are keeping notes pages personalized for each of us with admonitions to do this, not that. I rank 12th out of 43 writers. It annoys me, given the low pay I'm receiving; there is no incentive to "try harder." In fact, the net result is that it takes me even longer to finish each project because I have to check the notes pages to make sure I'm following their style and all their little rules. I mean really!

This might be a good job if I was in my 70s and didn't want to commute anywhere and was willing to just do it for pocket change, but I feel I need to make a more concerted effort to get either 1) a perm job with benefits or 2) a contract job thru a recruiter who offers health insurance to its workers. Even if that contract job was for just a few months, it would "restart" the COBRA clock, ensuring 18 months of coverage compared to the 7 months I have left now.

So in this light, any freelance writing gigs I find myself offer very little reward. As I've said before, it's the health insurance coverage, not the money, that is most important to me.