Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Post to procrastinate working on final projects for school

I am going to be interning with the person from whom I hoped to hear, which I'm really happy about! And I'm becoming more certain about letting go of the idea of becoming a fitness specialist in favor of becoming a health promotion specialist / wellness coach. It just seems like a better fit, I think. Wellness is a more global concept (of which physical fitness is just one aspect). While I definitely had an interest in fitness, it was never the only thing I was interested in. And it feels sorta repetitive for me to go into it again, so I don't know if I will too much. It's just on my mind, that's all. The idea of what makes us feel happy. Sometimes it's being active, sometimes it's being creative...but it's always about being in a state of 'flow.' When you don't have that, that's when wellness (be it mental or physical, because they're so connected) is impacted. I know this. I've been trying to find a way into it, trying to figure out how it fits/applies to my life at the same time. And I feel like I'm on the precipice of getting into it, of joining my interests with my work so they'll finally be merged. I hope!
And I want to form new relationships like the ones I formed in undergrad. I want to recreate that feeling I had upon joining a close-knit community (like theatre school) where simply being present gives you a sense of belonging and an almost automatic erasure of lines that divide professional from personal. Where you can just share everything. Because as adults, we have so many secrets and protective walls and it's kind of rare to break those down because we always have to be professional, ya know? But I can feel new opportunities on my horizon. They have to be there. It's funny, one of my best friends used to say that if people could read her, great – but she wouldn't volunteer information about herself unless someone asked. I often feel like I have so much I want to volunteer but it's the type of stuff you just don't. So you secretly hope and wish for someone to ask, lol. For that opportunity to arise where you can break down walls. I guess it's the old theatre person in me that still longs for that and still is obsessed with human nature. Obsession with human nature can manifest itself in theatre, literature, psychology...all the subjects I was interested in – and science. And wellness and health. Now that I think about it, I suppose there's some sense in grouping the terms 'arts and sciences.' (Universities often have 'colleges of arts and sciences.') They can go together. Maybe I'll have a unique marketing angle for myself as a wellness coach someday – 'background in theatre and exercise science.' Lol.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

4th semester almost done!

Well, there is much to keep up with regarding my physical health, and I don't know if it's worth writing about except that it's interesting to me. Is 'interesting' even the right word? Maybe important? Relevant? I don't know. Anyway, I'm now taking four vitamin supplements because I was deficient in them. I didn't have anything abnormal show up from an upper endoscopy, but the doctor just now suggested I do the hydrogen breath test, which seems like it would target my symptoms a little better. (SIBO, intolerance to certain sugars, etc.) If anything shows up from that, the treatment I think would just be diet and probiotic (or maybe antibiotic) related. Which I'm kind of already doing, but I guess it never hurts to dig a little deeper. It's just that the digging gets expensive after a while. Like I really need medical costs right now, right? Another suggestion that had been mentioned before was a gastric emptying test to check transit time of food. That sounds like an interesting test because I've always been curious about it, but do I suspect any abnormality there? I think it's one of those things that can vary from day to day depending on lifestyle or hormones...but that's just my non-medical guess. So while it may be interesting, I don't know if it's actually necessary.

As for summer plans, they're still up in the air. I didn't get any of the corporate site internships which I was a little bummed about at first. But my professor gave me another lead and I got a 'possibility depending on schedule which I'll know by mid-April' response from the wellness person my classmate is interning with right now. I also got to thinking if I didn't get a corporate internship, maybe it'd give me a chance to volunteer a few hours at more than one place simultaneously?

I'm also not sure if there will be any wellness center training over the summer. The once-a-week training that was supposed to happen this semester got cancelled so the coordinator said she'd try to do some over the summer. Guess I'll see about that too. But so far I have my one online class, the task of starting to search the job boards for a real job for when I get done in August, and the rest of my medical appts which are still gonna be happening throughout the summer. Oh, and maybe studying for the HFS certification exam. See? I'm gonna be totally busy even without having a 40-hour a week internship. I still do want some practical experience, of course, but it's nice to know I could maybe take half a day off if I need to without worrying I'll miss something. I hope everything works out. Right now I need to get through these last few weeks of the spring semester. (At least comp exams are done, I passed those). Won't life be grand when I get a job in my field and I'm healthy and I'm paying for things and I can relax like a normal person? That's not to say I'm not normal now; it just feels more like 'life is on the line' or 'so much is at stake' or something. But even when things are like that, you can still sometimes step back from it in your mind, read a book, be with friends, pretend that everything is the way you want it. Technically, if you're doing something by choice, whatever 'stage' you're in should already be 'what you want.' Even if it's meant to lead somewhere else. It's about being in the moment I guess. And while my current stage is definitely challenging, it's where I've chosen to be.