Daily Roadtrips

Ok this is ridiculous, I'm the only one blogging. Granted, I'm also the only one who hasn't actually started my rotations yet. I'm sure that after tomorrow, my time for blogging will be non-existent and you'll soon see why....

Last week was orientation where we were given all of the information that we will need for the upcoming rotations and such. On day 2 of orientation I received my rotation schedule for the year and just about vomited on it. Yes, I actually felt nauseous. For those who don't know much about the internship I'll give you a quick run-down of how they generally work. All dietetic interns complete supervised practice rotations through (usually) 3 major categories of nutrition; Foodservice Management, Clinical Nutrition and Community Nutrition. Beyond that, each internship is a little to a lot different in how they break up those rotations, how many of each they require, where they send their interns to complete them and how quickly they are done. Some internship programs are paired with grad classes and some aren't. 

There! you've now received a very general overview of internships in the dietetics world. 

(Oh and most of them are 100% unpaid, very few offer a stipend but no wages.)

Now... My program is 12 months long, a very FULL 52 weeks long. I will be taking grad classes in succession with all of my rotations through Sac State but a lot of them, if not most of them, are shared with the dietetic interns at UC Davis. Kind of cool! Talk about networking.

So, back to my schedule and my nausea. My very first rotation as a dietetic intern will be my least favorite area of the field... Food Service, and I was placed at the facility that is the farthest away. What's "far" you say? Oh how does 60 miles one way sound? yup! 120+ miles to drive 4 days a week for 8 weeks.

When I started calculating my driving time and adding in and 8 hour (possibly 10-12) work day, the drive back, then whatever homework, studying and projects I need to work on, my stomach dropped and I felt a bit of a cold sweat.

But wait! There's more! After my Food Service rotation I get a nice 4 week community rotation in Sacramento (20ish minute drive) phew! Then .... my first clinical rotation is right back at the first hospital for another 9 weeks. All in all, I'm spending over a third of my internship year driving 120 miles everyday. Blech!

Needless to say, it has been a challenge accepting my schedule and what it means for my upcoming year. I'm really in for it. I just have to remember that this is done one day at a time.

Tomorrow is my first day of rotations and I'm kind of excited to just dive in and I'm really apprehensive for obvious reasons. I guess tomorrow I will see how the drive goes... Wish me luck!

The City of Trees

Dear Peas and other audience members,

I made it to Sacramento! I had a few weeks in between leaving my job and actually moving but they absolutely flew by. I had the opportunity to have a couple of days of vacation with my mom, then made a small roadtrip with my older sister up to my niece's 3rd birthday party. Then it was back home to pack up all of my earthy posessions (WHY do I have so much stuff??!)

It started out like this...

 and ended up looking like this...

Pretty depressing huh??

There's nothing quite like seeing all of your belongings packed up and stacked into a car. Such a weird feeling. Thank goodness for my parent's suburban and their willingness to make such a long drive with me.

I had some trouble settling my lease on the apartment and even the night before I moved I still didn't know if I was going to have a place to move into. Talk about stressful. They gave my roommate (my cousin!) and I every assurance that it "should" be ready by the 9th and told us that could be our move in date but they also made us jump through every hoop imaginable and then do it again through the same hoops. So, we showed up at the apartment and were told that paperwork still wasn't approved. SERIOUSLY?! so long story short, we decided to scrap that apartment and stay in the same complex that my cousin was currently in. It's a nicer apartment and it literally took 15 minutes to fill out the application, get approved and have a move-in date for the next day. phew!

So Mom, Dad and I stayed in a hotel overnight and moved in the next morning around 11. Yay!

I find it significant that the only pictures I took of the apartment on moving day are of the kitchen. Haha!

I have a feeling I won't be spending as much time here as I would like to.

Anyway, it's now been a week since moving day and I can't believe it. It's been pretty strange to adjust to a new city, new roads, new home, new people etc. I miss my real home and my friends and my family. It's crazy to think about how far I am from everything and everyone I've known for my entire life.

Yesterday was the last day of our intern orientation and I am successfully overwhelmed. There was so much information disseminated and it's difficult to process much less understand everything that's going on. We met at the director's house today for lunch with all of the past interns which was very enlightening. Everyone definitely expects that we will feel overwhelmed at they are so ready to help us out. It's great. 

There's so much more to tell about what I've found out about my schedule and my rotations and class but I'll have to put that in the next post.

I wanted to write a little bit here before my rotations start and I'm waaaay to stressed out and frazzled and short on time to do it. :)

I'm anxious to get started next week and also extremely nervous. I feel totally unprepared... 

*I'm going to "try" to keep up with my other blog so if you want to see what a soon-to-be-broke intern eats, you can read about it by clicking HERE!