A very looooooooong life update--lucky you!!!
I was thinking about updating yesterday, but I obviously didn't do it. I'm not sure why, I guess I just hadn't reached that point of procrastination yet.
My life hasn't been exraordinarily exciting lately. Same old, same old. My current life consists of the following:
(a) INTERNSHIP--I spend 30 hours of my week sitting in front of a really old computer with like 12MB of RAM (yes, I'm exagerating. But it is slow!). It freezes at least once a day, and the task menu won't come up, so I have to just turn it off and start it back up again; I know this is bad for it, and it makes me feel expecially guilty because there are very clear labels taped to the computer saying "Do NOT turn of the power or shut down the computer." Shhhhhhhh...
Also, I work in the most uncomfortable workstation EVER. The chair is uncomfortable and the keyboard tray on the desk is too low for me to cross my legs, so I end up swiveling the chair to the side and crossing them, and then the twisting of my upper body and reaching of my left side to reach the keyboard causes now chronic pain in my shoulder, back and neck. I guess I should learn to sit comfortably with both feet on the floor. But can I really be limited to one position for 6-7.5 hours? I need an ergonomic chair.
As far as actual work goes, things are pretty slow and relaxed, which is nice. I have a speaker scheduled to speak at the first seminar, and I've completed various other tasks. My boss got back from Armenia last week, but he doesn't seem terribly interested in my being there or in giving me work to do. So far I just kind of do my own thing (resume note: Self-motivated; does not require supervision; works well as on a team or independently ;-) ). I think I will start talking to him on a more daily basis, as he will be completing my evaluation, which will ultimately be part of my grade.
(b) ASSISTANTSHIP--same job, boring as ever. I'm actually a little more of a slacker this semester than last, in a way, because now my hours are divided among four days rather than 3--that means four very long email-checking routines per week. But on the upside, I show up every day having just surfed the internet for like 6 hours. So chances are at that point I've run out of stuff to look at.
Right now I'm working on coding my data from my interviews. I also have to write up another IRB application, which now means that I have to do some online "IRB training," essentially to make sure that I can read. Unfortunately, this will require about 3 hours of staring at a computer screen (though that's what I would have been doing anyway). Fortunately, this is a mindless task that I can use to fill up 2 afternoons without feeling too guilty about it.
We finally have a new employee to replace Brooke. She started at the beginning of December, and so far I like her. She is a small, cute little woman who I can't believe is married, because she looks like a teenager. This is her first year in the MPH program, and she seems to be having a lot of feelings similar to the ones that I had last year (impatience, boredom, etc.), so I can sympathize with her; she also has the same feelings about traffic safety. Now I'm not the only one who lies to get out of going to boring conferences! But she seems to be catching on very quickly, and she has been very useful. The only thing I'm a little wary of is that she is apparently a fundamentalist Christian. However, I only know this based on her internet searches that pop-up on the auto-fillin when I used the work laptop, some books that she left on her desk, and the fact that Wayd told me that she hums hymns while she works. This means that she's never mentioned it to me, and her work and conversation to not reflect it. So I got no beef with her; she is good with me. I wonder how she likes sharing an office with a gay man? Or if she even knows yet?
(c) SCHOOL--I don't really go to school right now, per se. I don't go to any classes, that is. My closest thing is that I have an anatomy and physiology independent study with Dr. O. Luckily all I have to do for that is to write 5 essays, one on each of the body systems that we didn't cover during the first A&P. Fortunately, I'm working with Colleen on that one. Unfortunately, I haven't started them yet (though we might be tonight).
I haven't started the A&P essays because all of my "homework" time has been dedicated to answering the questions on my study guide for my oral exams, which are coming up on March 6. There are 82 questions, and so far they have required about a page each to answer. Ew. My goal was to have it done by the end of this past weekend, but that didn't happen. However, I only have two questions left in the theory section, and I think that the answers after this one will be MUCH shorter. I just had/have to waid through this section, and then it should be smooth sailing.
Another good thing about that is that I've technically already studied everything on there at some point. I'm not learning any new things, really. So although it will end up being a ton of material to study, I don't feel terribly overwhelmed, because it is all review of stuff that's been beaten into our heads for over 1.5 years now. However, I'm really trying to push myself and crap out these answers now so that I can have a hard copy of the study guide that I can carry around with me and study in free moments; this way, the hard part will be over. My new goal is to finish it by the end of THIS weekend, which will leave me with about 6 weeks to study it. I think that that is sufficient, provided that I don't keep putting it off. I will be sooooooo happy to finish that exam.
(d)HOME--the biggest news on the homefront is that Jason got a puppy. His name is Stewie, he's half Italian Greyhound and half Blue Heeler. He is 10 weeks old and ridiculously cute. He seems to take after his father, the tiny greyhound, more (which given the option of that or a blue heeler is a good thing). He has one ear that flops to the outside and then one that flops to the inside.
He is also not housebroken. This does not make me happy. BUT he is peeing on his paper more and more consistantly every day (though pooping is a different story), and consequently I like him more and more a little each day. Overall he is a nice, laid back little lap dog, but a little to "puppy" for a cat person like me.
Due to an unfortunate combination of a puppy and the fact that both Jason and I are gone for about 50 hours a week each, the house is a pig-sty. I've actually had messier, but that still doesn't make it a good thing. But I wake up each morning at 6:30am, leave at 7:15am, and don't get back until around 6:00pm every day. I am tired. I guess I will tentatively schedule a cleaning session for the weekend after I finish my study guide (someday!).
(e) PEACE CORPS--so I guess there's not too much news on this front, but it is still an ever-pervasive bit of my life. So far I have legal, medical(!) and dental clearances. I need one more before I can get an invitation--placement (where they look at your skills, qualifications, medical restrictions, etc. and decide what program you should go to). I know that I'm not nominated to leave until September, so I can't reasonably even BEGIN to expect an invitation until around March (which means that placement review might not occur until then either), but I still get to work and check my email each morning hoping for that email telling me that my application status has been updated. It wouldn't be uncommon to get it a little early, and since I can't get an invitation until March at the earliest, it is the one thing that I can reasonably hope for right now. I'm trying to break this down into smaller steps so I'm not counting down the days until September (because that would just be depressing). So yeah, waiting! Woo!
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So it basically boils down to this: My life revolves around working towards counting down the weeks until graduation, and impatiently waiting on the Peace Corps. The main reason I want to go ahead and graduate is so that I won't have to go to school anymore for a very long time. The other reason is that by that time I should have hopefully gotten an invitation from the PC and would know where I was going. The thought that I will have a master's degree rarely even occurs to me, though I'm sure that I will be more excited about it as the date nears, especially after oral exams are over and I have (hopefully) passed them. Luckily procrastination seems to make the days go faster (therefore inducing that feeling of procrastination-panic), and that means that one month is almost down! 3.5-ish to go!