I highly suggest you get in touch with a hospital or institution that hires AA's. I did my shadowing with anesthesiologist and an AA and got great rec letters from them. I work a full time job plus grad school courses, so I had to plan around their schedules and mine, which was tough but I made it work. Sometimes I had to dip out of work early to make cases because they don't do many surgeries after 5 p.m. But I had motivation like you do, so you have to find a way. Here is another hint, a lot of the people in my interview class did the bare minimum of exposure time (8hrs of OR observation) and it showed when they talked about their experiences. Plus i'm sure their rec letters did not tell much about their personalities. Show them you're committed, put in the extra effort. Let me know if you have any more questions..