Summer is off to a good start. Per usual, time is flying, and I cannot believe that June is almost half over. I went on a tubing and camping trip last weekend, and had an amazing time with friends: brats over the fire, pre-dinner hike around Canyon Lake, a balmy midnight swim in the pitch dark, and then settling into the tent under the stars. I love camping. :-)
This week was my first week of summer class, and I’ve also started my summer work for a professor. The class is much better than I thought it would be – it’s stats heavy and I’m not statistics’ biggest fan so I was a bit worried going into it, but the teacher is great and keeps the class interesting. I think it’s good to be getting back to a diurnal schedule, too. All too easily I fall into my night owl fashion of sleep/wake cycles when I don’t have a structured schedule of responsibilities. I’ve also been good about going to the gym after class, and have been managing to do about 3 miles daily, plus yoga a few times a week. I think I want to try and move my running outside, though. Running in the heat has never been my thing – I get dizzy and nauseous very easily in it, but a half-marathoner friend of mine shared a few tips with me: run before the sun comes up/after the sun goes down (something I’m used to doing anyway), run with a few water bottles (fill them halfway and freeze overnight, and then top them off before heading out), and wet and freeze a bandana or two to wrap around your wrists, forehead, or carotids (great way to cool the body down when it’s too humid for your sweat to help with temperature-regulation). I’ve been looking into hydration packs, and considering purchasing one.
I’ve also started taking a daily multivitamin again. I stopped taking them a year or two ago because they bothered my oh-so-sensitive stomach, but after getting sick so many times in the past year, my sister gave me a mini-lecture on the benefits of taking them and I decided to take another stab at it. With enough food it doesn’t hurt my stomach, and I’ve actually really noticed a huge increase in my energy levels – it’s amazing! I’m not a caffeine fan and usually around 2-3 pm I find myself yearning with absolute ardor to crawl into bed for a 45-minute nap. After taking the vitamin daily for a week, I felt my energy level stabilize and don’t crash so easily.
Oh gosh, speaking of food….how much do we love love LOVE summer and all of the fresh produce it brings with it??? Goodness gracious, I’ve been eating myself silly with strawberries, mangoes, zucchini (with Israeli couscous, perhaps my new favorite carb), corn on the cob, avocadoes, tomatoes, fresh basil….oh so GOOD! My Mom sent me an article about how this year will be one of the best peach crops in ages, and I tell you I am salivating over my keyboard just thinking about it. I know I’m kind of a weirdo, perhaps, but I absolutely adore delicious fresh produce. I can’t wait until my one friend comes back from traveling abroad so we can clean out the farmer’s markets!
Many of my speech path friends have been embracing a very challenging summer. Word on the street is that the third term (i.e., the summer between first year and second year) is the most challenging because you become more fully immersed in clinic and diagnostics. I’m so excited to start, but also nervous: I see what they have been going through and it’s rewarding, but no cakewalk. The program really challenges your time management skills, your academic competence, your ability to clinically apply what you’ve learned in the classroom, and perhaps hardest and most important to learn, your ability to take constructive criticism (lots of it) – to learn how to use it to shape you into a better clinician and not take it so personally. It’s exhilarating to realize I will be there soon, too, with my own patients and charts to write and lesson plans, but also a bit nerve-wracking. It’s going to be an adjustment – I just need to have faith in myself that I can do it.
I’ve been thinking about some of the changes that have gone on in my life over the past year, and the changes that are also coming my way (um, mostly starting clinic). Change can be scary, but it’s inevitable and sometimes necessary. Sometimes we choose to create change and sometimes change chooses to create us. I’ve been thinking about the changes I would like to start, parts of my life I would like to take more seriously and just things about myself as a person I would like to….mature. There are personality aspects I would like to ripen, and skills that I wish to further develop. But I also don’t want to get so hung up on trying to change that it distracts me from the natural course of my personal evolution. I’ve been thinking about embarking on self-betterment, and dang it can be overwhelming. I saw a quote the other day that made me stop and think.
“Start where you are.”
Because, after all, isn’t that all you really can do?
Goodnight, friends. Love. <3
