Life Update! It Has Been A While
I think that this is the longest that I have gone without making a post if my memory serves me correctly. The past 5.5 weeks have been simultaneously busy and calm. I'm not entirely sure how to make that oxymoron make sense, but that is the best way to describe this period of time in my life.
I left Ireland on July 30th and was grateful to have my great aunt who lives in Dublin accompany me to the airport and help me say farewell to my Watson Year. The flight was fairly uneventful but it did have a bit of turbulence that I could have done without. Rather than flying back home to Cleveland, though, I flew into Boston since I needed to be on the campus of Bowdoin College in Maine on the morning of August 1st. One of my lovely friends from high school is living in Shrewsbury, MA while doing a PhD at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and she agreed to not only pick me up from the airport but also allow me to spend two nights at her apartment before dropping me back off at the train station in Boston. A few important spots gave me a warm welcome back to the country (and a bit of reverse culture shock) - Target and Savers. Those days in Massachusetts were nice to get settled and rejuvenated before heading to the Watson Returning Fellows Conference. For reference on the rejuvenation front, I stopped being able to keep my eyes open both of those nights around 7 pm.
Then, I took a train from Boston to Brunswick and made my way to the conference. I'm not sure that I can appropriate summarize this conference and gathering. It is the kind of thing that feels most appropriately summed up with the phrase: You had to be there. Overall it was 6 days of connection, sharing, and processing. I made so many quick friends and realized that many of the unique feelings and moments of joy and hardship that I had during my year were shared by other fellows abroad at the same time. This recognition was extremely validating and a bit funny too, since each of us thought we were the only ones going through what we were experiencing.
During my conference, I gave a very brief 15-minute presentation that gave a snapshot of what I did during my year and what I learned. Folks (both fellows and other "adult" staff) who I spoke with throughout the conference helped me find more pride and a sense of accomplishment in my work and reinforced that I was on the right path and working towards the right calling.
After having to rearrange a few fights and a stressful few hours thinking I wouldn't make it home on the intended evening, I was able to return to Cleveland around 10pm on August 6th. That was just a handful of hours later than what my original flight path had promised me. I was greeted at the airport by my older sibling and treated to my favorite pad thai from a place down the street from my house.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I reconnected with family and friends, I unpacked and sorted through the life that I carried in my luggage for the past 12 months and the life that was left in my childhood bedroom while I was away, and I did a lot of reflection. But, I think that the biggest portion of my time at home was spent sleeping, if I am honest. I slept longer and more than I have since I was an infant and still felt pretty tired. In between my stretches of slumber, I also visited many doctors offices, took my film camera out to experience NE Ohio with the eyes of a tourist, moved my younger sibling into her college apartment, wrote my final quarterly report for the Watson Foundation, finalized my Watson budget, updated my resume and LinkedIn, and prepped for my upcoming departure.
This new adventure has just begun. I am writing this blog post from the room in a house I have rented for the next 4 months in New Haven, Connecticut. While I am here, I will be completing a 16-week, 40-hour/week internship with the Child Life Department at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. I will have 2 flex weeks but the rest of my time will be split into 2 parts: first a rotation in the surgery center, followed by a rotation on the inpatient oncology ward. I made the 8.5-hour drive from Cleveland to New Haven yesterday. Today, I am all unpacked, have a fridge stocked with groceries, and a route mapped out for how to walk from my apartment to the hospital each day for work.
Since my internship is unpaid, a few times a week I will babysit for some local families to earn a bit of money to cover some of my rent, or groceries, or maybe a bit of my utilities. I'm hoping to leave the internship with some money still left in my bank account. Wish me luck!!
I'm going to try to keep up my blog as I continue on with this next chapter. I hope to share more learning, insights, and adventures that I find myself embracing.
But for now, I think that this update will suffice. Below, you will find some of the film photos and iPhone pictures that I have taken recently. Plus.... there is also my One Second A Day Video that documents my Watson Year below.
If you want to stay up to date on my blog, consider subscribing to be notified when I post!
Comments