MMXVI

Happy new year! I hope your new year is better than the last.

I had YarnKettle over for New Years and was reminded that I haven’t updated in a while. It was nice to have people over for New Years. I’ve been a bit of a hermit during the semester. Every second of free time was spent either with the Husband and OP or doing homework. I did see my college besties a couple times, which was awesome, but I missed my non-school friends more than I realized. I need all my friends to stay sane. Or sane-ish.

At least I’m finished with my first semester of the internship. Wait, let me rephrase. I survived my first semester of the internship. Yay! It was tough, but so amazing. It confirmed that I am following the right path for me. I loved each rotation. I may not have enjoyed every location or every task, but I absolutely loved what I did each day. Next semester is 10 weeks at a hospital. I’m a bit scared, but it will be good.

Wow, I sound way too sappy, but I’ll take it. I’d rather be sappy than crying my eyes out.

I am so tired…maybe

I’m three weeks into my internship. Where the heck did time go? I am tired and frustrated by this experience, but I’m not as tired as I like to think and am really enjoying it. How’s that for contradictions?

I’m tired because I get up at 5am so I can get in a short 20 minute workout, eat, get myself together, get the child together, and sometimes drop her off at day care before I leave. (No, I don’t leave her at home on the other days. The Husband drops her off). All that to get to my rotation at 7:30. I spend most of the day on my feet, running around like a mad woman and not eating. Yeah, I lost 3 pounds in the first 2 weeks because I couldn’t figure out when to eat during the day. That’s getting better, thankfully. I come home, make and eat dinner, get the child to bed, do homework for about 30 minutes, watch 5 minutes of TV with the Husband, and then go to bed between 8:30-9:00.

It sucks.

I have to go to bed early so I can get up early, but then I don’t seem to get homework done. Thankfully, I had the brilliant idea to keep getting up at 5am on the weekends. This means I don’t have a screwy schedule and I get used to these hours AND I have 2-3 hours on the weekends guaranteed to get work done. That and my in-laws have taken the child a bit. Although, right now I feel overwhelmed. As soon as I get something done and feel accomplished, I turn around and have 5 more things due. *sigh*

Oh my goodness, my life is dull. BUT I just have to get through 10 months and all the schedules will be different. In theory. Oh please, don’t have a rotation where I have to get up at 3am.

In the meantime, I haven’t gotten much non-school things done, but this is okay. I did knit a few items over the summer and I used up 4 skeins! I went from 70 to 66 and have more stash-busting ideas! Is it bad that all my projects right now are chosen for their stash-busting properties? I don’t think so, because I do like the projects I have selected on top of stash busting. Of course, there may be a yarn festival coming up soon which could potentially mean more yarn. No, I will be strong.

What else? I’m currently making oatmeal bars, muffins, and egg things to act as quick, on-the-go breakfast items to streamline my mornings. That, or I’m procrastinating by baking. Still, I do need to do it, which is what I’m telling the Husband. Don’t tell him it’s really procrastinating.

The Great Unknown

My orientation is complete and my first internship day is Monday. First and foremost, I’m scared. It’s a new experience and I am often worried about what I don’t know. It was worse before the orientation. I now have a list of my tasks and I now know what I can expect going in. So, I’m scared, but I’m more excited now.

I also question if I’m making a terrible mistake. I admit, I felt this way after quitting my job and going back to school. And I continued to feel that way until I made a few friends and got the rhythm of the program (so, about a week into the first semester). Once I got the hang of school again, I fell in love with nutrition and knew this was for me. I can only hope that after the first week of internship, I feel the same way. Of course, it’s food management, and the DPD classes for food management make me less inclined to work in that area. But, I’m keeping an open mind. I may find that actually doing the work is what I love, not learning about it. Maybe I’ll want to run a kitchen. Or maybe not.

I worry that I will fail miserably and let down the people who accepted me into this program. I’ve worked at a few jobs in my time and I know, logically, that I can do it, but I’m still worried that I will fail. I also fear that I will ask too many questions and annoy the preceptors. I do ask a lot of questions because I want to make sure I understand the issue. I suspect this is from programming since I needed to make sure I understood my client’s needs before I spent 20 hours on the wrong thought process.

I have a tendency to focus on one thing at a time–work or family or self. I can’t, during the semester, focus on more than one. Work always wins, followed by family, and I ignore self. Which may be why I gained 10 pounds during the last year of classes–I only had time for food, not exercise or meditation. I really want to use my time better to maintain balance rather than go for the A. I mean, I need to get that A, but an A- is okay. Of course, I do tell myself this at the beginning of every semester and fail miserably. This time I will get it figured out.

Right now, I’m ready to get started and just want to get the waiting over. That’s really the hard part.

Back to Sanity, of a sort…

When I was a kid, my dad would jokingly tell me eating something or trying something new/hard was “good for you! It would put hair on your chest!” Which is what every young girl wants. This semester? It put tons of metaphorical hair on my chest. Four hard, project-filled graduate classes coupled with working for the department grading papers (another class in its own right with the number of essays I had to read) equaled me curled up in a ball crying for the first five weeks. I complained so much to the Husband that he took a pair of knives and gouged his ears so he would never hear me speak of it again. So, of course I mimed my suffering until he did the same to his eyes.

He didn’t really do that. He just ignored me. A lot.

So, the semester was intense. It’s my fault because god forbid I do less than perfect work and pay attention in class and get an A and make sure to talk to professors so they know me and can write a reference and do well even if I have no clue what I just learned. For example I gave up on a paper, declared it was crap but a B was good enough for me! I got an A. What I consider B-level is apparently A-level work and trying to do A-level work is putting in too much time. Next semester, I’m aiming for B’s, which is what I said this semester and the semester before….

Of course, I slacked in most areas of life in my quest for an A, especially exercise. And I comfort ate like you would not believe. I’m not happy, but I’m determined to get back into a healthier habit over break. Which means it’s the perfect time for my knee to go out! The Husband took my to New York City to see Pippin (one of my favorite musicals and an amazing performance) after the semester ended, and I torqued my knee trying to let someone through the aisle at the performance. Fortunately, the knee only took me out a couple days and I could exercise again. Until, that is I got knocked flat on my back with a nasty cold…illness…thingy. Yeah, two weeks of break and I was a pathetic mess.

But the pity party is over. I’m healthy again (mostly) and my knee is fabulous. I got a work out today and I even vacuumed part of the house! I am determined to turn things around and stop wallowing in negativity. I’m getting my butt out and putting my health first. I exercised today instead of cleaning the house and I’m doing it again tomorrow! Heck, I may even read for fun instead of clean a toilet. Or not. The toilets are getting gross.

Digging the Hole Deeper

When last we left our intrepid blogger (uh, me), we were cuddling with a sick little girl after a night of vomiting. Sunday she refused to eat (I mean, you would too if you threw up 7 times), but by Monday she was doing better. Unfortunately, having vomit in your hair/down your neck/in your shirt and cleaning up very loose stool means by Monday night, you are vomiting. 5 times.

Question 1: Why is the vomiting always at night?

Question 2: How could I not beat a 4 1/2 year old in the throw up count. I mean, really! I have, like, 34 years of experience on her!

Insight 1: Tomato soup burns on the way back up. Really burns.

Insight 2: I like to talk about vomit a lot.

So, yeah, I got sick Monday night (Labor Day). I missed school on Tuesday, but felt better as the week wore on. Until, that is, I got sick on Friday with a coldish thing. Flat on my back exhausted all weekend. Needless to say, I fell very far behind on reading and homework, which is very bad because this is the worst semester ever. Wait, we need all caps. WORST SEMESTER EVER. We have a lot of papers to write, journal articles to decifer, and teachers to decrypt. I’m still trying to catch up and it feels like I’m getting nowhere. I’ve been breathing very deeply just to prevent myself from screaming. Or crying. I can totally see myself crying.

Fortunately, this week a lab and class are both canceled as is a class on Monday. I think I’ll be able to dig myself out of this project hole of doom. If not, I may start hyperventilating from all this deep breathing.