I suppose it’s about time that I take a shot at writing again since I haven’t done so in a couple of weeks….sorry about that, you all know how busy life can get.
Two big things happened since I last posted about donating my hair to Locks of Love: 1) We have a new pastor and 2) I started my last semester of classes.
While Kyle and I were visiting in OH we got a call from the leader of the worship team telling us that we had a pastoral candidate, Patrick S., coming up the next week with his wife and two daughters, and she wanted to know if we were going to be in town so that we could be involved in the interviewing/greeting process. I said “sounds great” and we had a low key picnic supper with the S family on the back lawn of the church overlooking the ocean on their first night in Rockport. It was a fun time and I really enjoyed their company a lot.
Over the next few days the church met with and got to know the S family and they left on Sunday after Patrick preached. It felt like a really good fit to both Kyle and me so when the special meeting was called to say yea or nay, we both said yea. Apparently we were not the only ones; we had almost a unanimous vote to call them to be a part of our church. There was a bit of a wait, however, since they were also candidating at another church in MA the week after us. Monday we received a call from one of our elders that Patrick had said yes to be our new pastor. I’m so excited. It will be very nice to have some age mates at church; Patrick and Kyle are the same age and Sarah is just a bit older than I am. We don’t know when they will be arriving, but it could be as late as January since they are moving here all the way from CA, but I think we can wait a few months since they are looking at being here for a long time.
To switch gears a bit, I am extremely excited to be in my last semester of classes for my Masters. Graduation is set for January 25, 2007, but I definitely have a lot to do before then. I’m taking four classes this semester: Perinatal Epidemiology, Evaluating Quality of Care, Public Health and Women, and an overview course on Managed Care. The first three classes listed are 2:30p-5:00p Monday through Wednesday and the fourth class is on Wednesdays 6:00p-8:45p and doesn’t start till late October. I’m thrilled to only have one late class this semester. It’s really nice to be able to walk to and from the train and not have to drive.
It will also be nice to have both Thursdays and Fridays off so that I can keep on top of my assignments. I have a lot of work to do for these last classes; I think I have three or four presentations to make and two or three papers to write by the end of the semester as well as midterm and final exam tests. I also still have to present a poster about my summer internship (since I wasn’t able to present with the other summer interns) or the culminating experience paper that I have to write for my department as a part of my graduation requirements.
I’m also going to use that time on Thursdays and Fridays to look for a permanent job. I’m still trying to narrow down just what I want to do for work. Mostly I want to get a job that will help me pay down debt as fast as I can that is within the realm of my schooling. I would also really like to be closer to home and not have to commute very far but I’m not going to limit myself if a good job turns up in Boston.
I think right now I would most like to work in upper level hospital or nursing home management in a patient care evaluation position, or something to do with care coordination either at a hospital or community health center. I’m also interested in working at a birth center or with women and infants since I eventually want to become a certified nurse midwife. There are lots of things that I’d like to do but I mostly want to be where God wants me to be. I would really appreciate your prayers on this one as I start to look for where I need to be for the next few years. I really am very open to different types of positions, but I know that I definitely need God’s wisdom in this to make the right choice.
I think that’s all I’ve got to say for the moment and I really need to get to work of some other things, like that culminating experience paper. I am starting to contemplate posting more frequently about things that I come across in the realm of public health. I have an RSS feed that I read from MedPages Today as well as a subscription to the American Journal of Public Health that I would like to use as a spring board of sorts to talk about what I think is going on in Public Health. I haven’t run across many other blogs that are talking about Public Health and I thought it might be nice to at least get my ideas out. As a conservative woman in the field, I’m sure that I have some different takes on the issues than most other people in the field and I just wanted to give you a heads up on where I would like to take my part of the writing on this site besides just real world updates about our lives here in the frigid north (and yes the trees are already loosing their leaves and we’ve had to change the bedding for something warmer). Right now though, I need a bit of time to get settled into the semester before I start writing more.
neumatikos 