Thesis, What Next, Recession

I have a rare Wednesday off and lucky me I get to work on my thesis. (sarcasm, folks) I used to love it, but now I hate it.  I have a few more people to interview, that always brightens my feelings about the project. Maybe I'll start with that. Mostly I'm sick of writing, sick of reading, sick of looking at it as it barely exists.  It's also very frustrating to keep writing something that people critique so closely.  That's all I can say about it.  It's so entirely frustrating.

People in my class are starting to look for jobs.  I started a long time ago.  It's how I chose my integration site.  I picked a place I wanted to work at.  I don't think they'll be hiring this year though because they just hired someone who will start next month (she just passed her boards, yay for her)  So maybe they'll want me, maybe they wont.  Maybe I won't want them, lol.  Who knows.  My point is, I'm not really worried right now. I am actually surprised by how unworried I am.  I have never been one to be too, too worried about finding a job... I always seem to find something.  I have a large skill set and interview well.  But I'm not really looking right now because I have no idea what I want to do in 6 months.  That's so not like me.  Well, the truth is that I know exactly what I want to do (live in a cottage on the beach in the south of France) but since that's not happening, I have no idea what I want to do, lol.  The midwife who precepted me on Monday's shift gave me lots of advice (she is an alum of my school) about marketing myself and about what to do/where to work if I don't want to be a midwife right away (like if I want to be a L&D RN or a GYN only provider, etc) and about how she went about choosing where to live and making it work with her husband, etc.  It was really good to hear a midwife talk so openly about these things.  It was also good to hear a midwife say "you might not want to be a midwife right out of school if the timing isn't right, and the other options are just as good" and not be freaked, thinking OMG she doesn't think I'm ready. (She followed it all up with "You'll be ready, you're going to be great" and some side comments about how the practice likes to hire those they've trained themselves) I'm still trying to convince myself that I want to live in this area for the next few years.  As the economy flounders, I am more and more tempted to move to a place with a much lower cost of living.

The economy is really hitting poor people hard.  Every time I see the news about the bail out and where the money is going I'm infuriated.  In a whole morning of clinic I didn't have one patient with appropriate weight gain.  I had several patients who've lost weight... and they're not in the first trimester with nausea and vomiting, nor are they obese benefitting from better diets.  These are women of a normal BMI without any income or one-earner incomes of 12-16,000/year.  Women who are getting a large portion of their food from WIC. Women in the second and third trimesters, losing weight... total weight gains of 7,8,9,13 pounds over the course of a pregnancy.  Women measuring significantly "size smaller than dates" with accurate dating.  Women we must send for untrasounds they cant afford (and likely wont get) because they aren't eating enough. Women who flat out admit that they aren't eating enough.  And we ran out of our free vitamins, so we have women who have not taken witamins for 6 weeks.  I keep writing prescriptions, telling them that they can fill them for $4 at Target or Walmart.  

newFNP and lesbonurse are seeing it too.

I'm looking forward to a 3-way chat this afternoon with my girls, and for the man to come home saying "I got the job."