Well after a phone interview on last Thursday that I thought didn't exactly put my best foot forward, I was called on Monday to say that I got the job! It's with a fellowship in Wisconsin, and while my placement is yet to be finalized, I hope to be working on state health policy. This is a great opportunity for me for two reasons (among others): 1) A fellowship allows me to be working but also will supply me with some extra on the job training; great for me as I don't have a whole lot of experience in the real world of public health, outside of what I did for my summer field experience. 2) There is a lot going on in Wisconsin as far as health policy goes. As one professor said to me "Minnesota likes to think of itself as the state with the most health policy work going on (and to a degree it does have a lot going on) but Wisconsin is really where the action is." Very exciting for me. And also quite a relief to know and now I don't have to worry about it so I can just concentrate on graduating by May. I'll let you all know more about what I''ll be doing for the next two years when I find out where my placement will be.
As for school, I've been in 'calm before the storm mode' for about a week. There hasn't been a whole lot going on recently in school work, but that will change abruptly. In the next two weeks I will begin conducting key actor interviews for my master's project, finishing a midway report on medical devices on the market for treating obesity, completing some last-minute tasks for the conference that I am working for (which is on March 6th), and also keeping up with anything Ethics or Social & Behavioral wants to throw at me. Should be an intense ride for two weeks, but what else is new?
Ethics has been going alright; however, it's one of those classes that I wish was in person for the sake of discussion. We are supposed to post our thoughts on a given case study as an assignment, and it is interesting to read those, but I think in person we would have some better conversations. Same goes for Social & Behavioral, where I am still trying to master the art of online group projects. It's like passing notes around and hoping a good product comes out at the end. So far so good.
Despite the freezediculous (new word Websters) temperatures of late (I think we've been above freezing one time in the last month), I have been going out and seeing friends. Last weekend a friend that I worked with at the same candy shop in high school (check it out here: http://beerntsens.com/) visited the cities. Hadn't seen her in six years, so it was a lot of fun just checking up. We went to the Herkimer to accomplish this. You may remember the Herkimer being mentioned in this blog numerous times last semester, as it was THE Packer bar where I would go to watch the games. Then last night I visited my friend who was recently given a corporate apartment for her work in Minneapolis, right by Lake Calhoun no less (not bad at all). Anyway, she wanted to get together for dinner and wanted to cook, so she gave me a grocery list to pick up and she would cook. What a deal!
Well I'll be in Chicago for the weekend seeing some friends, and then back for a nerdy two weeks. Well, exciting to me at least.
See you around the blog.