major changes to come in june 2009
Just got an email from my Peace Corps Regional Recruiter saying she's nominated me for:
Program: Health Degreed
Region: Sub Saharan Africa
Program Info: All nominees must be learning French in preparation for service. All nominees encouraged to gain HIV/AIDS experience prior to departure.
Stage Range: June, 2009
How exciting is that?!?!?!?Aside from that my holiday thus far has been fantastic, as you know dad's party was amazing with all the people who came from all over and apparently dad must have some sort of connections with the weather gods because it didn't rain during the party times.
I left upstate NY after a visit to Saranac Lake to see my former boss for a chat at Blue Moon Cafe. It's always great to see him. He taught me a lot whilst I was working with him & then when I announced I wanted to go to grad school he stood by me 100% (even was the one who pushing towards applying to LSHTM). He's been so supportive of everything I've done since we met in June of 2001 AND a big plus he makes an effort to get together (unlike some other friends of mine who can't be arsed to make a date to meet up). Okay back to the point we met up for brunch & had a great catch up chat. I also ran into a great mate of mine Eric who just happened to be there as well. It was great to see him since he wasn't at work that day so I'd have missed him if I'd dropped by like I'd planned to. I also had the chance to see his son who was graduating from HS that day & to meet his girlfriend who I'd heard a lot about but being so far away hadn't yet gotten to meet.
After that I ran down to Scott's Florist to meet with my mate Kathy & then we went back to Blue Moon to see my mates Betty & Kate (bonus as I hadn't planned on seeing them, but news of my arrival traveled fast in such a small town). Following those chatting sessions we headed to meet my mate Dan for lunch. During which we ran into another mate of mine Kristen. Do you believe me now when I say it's not a big town? She & I had a 5 min catch up while Dan & my mom were sorting out seats & drinks. After a long lunch we walked mom's dogs & headed back home. I'd had a horrible cold & so we didn't want to stay up north too too late, plus my sis was coming back from CT & we didn't want her to arrive at an empty house.
The rest of the weekend we spent celebrating my 30th birthday, yes yes I know my b'day was in January, but since none of my family was there to celebrate with me we had it during the weekend. Mom, Patty & I went shopping in Saratoga. Auntie Ann, Patty & I went out on Schroon Lake for a few hours both days. Dad cooked dinner one night & we had homemade chocolate chunk walnut brownies with vanilla ice cream another night - YUMMMMMMMMM.
On Tuesday Patty & I headed to NYC, stopping along the way to see Paul in Westchester for lunch before hitting up Lou & Jeremy's place on W 52nd. We had a great evening with them & on Wednesday I had my interview & then Patty & I buggered outta the city (WAY too hot in NYC for me!) We met up with my best mate Kristen & her husband PJ for a wonderful Mexican dinner before driving to Patty's condo in CT.
Yesterday we woke up early got picked up my rental car, went to Lowe's & got flowers for potters & wedded her front garden area. That evening we drove to Old Saybrook for dinner with Aunt Pat & Diane at Bill's Seafood in Westport, before I headed to Wallingford to stay with my wonderful mates Anne & John. When I arrived to my surprise Katie came out to greet me, which was just awesome! She just finished her masters in May & is in limbo at the moment but we got to catch up on her internship in the Philippines. We of course couldn't shut up once we got going so we were up till 1.30am.
Today I slept in till 9am & have just been vegging out with Katie, Anne, John & Matt who arrived around 1pm. We had charcoal grilled cheeseburgers, cold slaw, potato salad, tater tots, and red/white/blue frosted cupcakes :-) Later we're going to see the fireworks.
Tomorrow I'm going to see Matt's "new" house & on Sunday I'm going to see Kev, Sylwia, Owen, Maya & Grace and best of all Sylwia, her sis & I are going out alone . . . first time ever - a girls afternoon - yeah!!!!
Hope you're all doing well & enjoying your 4th of July, I really just wanted to give you the PC update, but then figured as the Sox Yanks game had such a long rain delay I had time to give a full up to date report. That's all for now
Labels: future, holidays, jobs, peace corps
When I grow up I wanna be . . .
a question I've been asking myself a lot recently! Can I see myself doing research 30 years from now . . . not so much. Why you ask? Well to be honest I'm not totally sure, but to the best of my ability I think that I don't find it to be as rewarding as I would like it to be. I've thought about this quite a bit & asked advice from lots of my mates here in the UK and abroad. Here is the email I sent out asking for their thoughts on my thoughts:
Seem to have been bitten rather hard by a travel bug, here is the update: In May I'm off to Rome for 1st bank holiday & then to St Petersburg for 5 days at end of month, 2nd bank holiday probably going to the lake district (northern England) June 11-15th I'm in Berlin for a conference, June 19th headed home till July 12th. August 16th in Jim & Beck's wedding in Nottingham. September Dad & I are in Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days. October possibly gong to Rwanda. After that I'll be totally skint, but hopefully have cool photos & fun stories to tell from it - but don't expect any Christmas presents - LOL.
Aside from that I've got another meeting with the people who fund me on May 15th & I HAVE to prove I'm worth funding cause at the moment they want to cancel my grant in December. This being said I'm thinking more & more about not staying past December. Maybe it's the crap weather we've been having or maybe it's me finally getting "home sick" if you can call it that after nearly 3 years, but I've been thinking more & more about moving state side sooner rather than later. I'm still up in the air about what to do with "the rest of my life". I'm still in search of a possibly a new job where I feel like I'm making more of a difference. I know the possibility of me finding a cure or vaccine against the disease I work on is NOT going to happen anytime soon. Not sure that time frame is working for me - if you get my drift. It's weird, it's not that I'm not having fun here, it's just that I sorta feel like I'd like to see my family & friends more often than once a year when we're all rushed at Christmas & I have to rush to see them all in just 1 week & share them with other friends & relatives who are in the same situation (if that makes any sense). PLEASE, PLEASE don't mention this to anyone I work with or put any sort of message which could be seen by them (ie facebook), I don't want to jeopardize anything here, in case I decide to stay past December. Any thoughts???I received lots of replies, primarily saying "I will support you in whatever you feel you want to do" which was not really the answer I was looking for, but appreciate that you're being supportive in my time of need. But I did get one really really good reply, which I'll share with you now:
If it helps at all none of any of your contemporaries back here seem to know what they want to do either; K and M want desperately to move back up north but M hasn't received any job offers yet and is making great money working here. K.......well you know. S can't decide if he should stay with NYPD or move back to CT to work in Manchester or East Hartford, etc. TM likes working and living in Boston but now his wife wants to move back to Oregon and T wants to live in VT. I can't decide if I want to take a job with our plain clothes investigative unit, move up north, join our SWAT unit, stay where I am, etc. JC doesn't know what he wants to do other than he is enjoying teaching. WR wanted to build a house in Keene Valley, but then he decided he would go live in Utah for six months and we haven't seen him since.If it helps the decision making process at all TW is about to get a job with NYPD so I'd say living in the city is a bad idea on the grounds alone that they are going to give that little goofball a gun.
So that's where it seems we all are. Never happy or content with ourselves and I don't think we would have it any other way. I will say this though I love my job and look forward to going to work everyday and I don't see that changing anytime soon so you see it's not really work at all. Beyond any advice I could give you about being home sick and away from friends and family I would offer that you should make sure you are still happy with your career. If not than you definitely need a change. As far as friends and family go I'm sure we'll always be "around".
Enjoy the travel and keep me posted on what's new.
-pjcThis mate of mine always has an excellent perspective to give. He was the one who when I wasn't sure what to think after my parents got divorced & I was feeling really lost said to me, "Sara, they did what they thought was best for you & Patty at the time. They never intended on hurting you - any lies that were told were said with the best intention . . . and look at you both now - turned out pretty well in my opinion." He was right then and once again he's hit the nail on the head. I'm not so much missing my friends & family as they're always "around". I'm not lacking in friends in the UK - I'm just lacking in my job. So back to the drawing board I go . . . where it will lead I don't know. What I have figured out is I want a job where I feel like I'm making more of an impact. No I don't want to save the world or get a Nobel prize (I mean those would be nice, but a bit out of reach of reality). I just think a job where I feel there is more reward is what I'm leaning towards. Teachers can see their students learning. Cops arrest "bad guys" and help little old ladies. Plumbers fix leaking pipes for people. I LOVED working at boy scout camp - I helped scouts to learn leather work, woodworking, and how to ride a horse. Since then I haven't felt like someone has benefited from the research I've done - I know small steps have been made, but given the choice I'd prefer a larger step be made & seen my me. So I'm going to keep mulling this over in my head & see what I come up with. Maybe even try to speak with a life coach or do some sort of aptitude testing - who know . . .
Any comments/questions/advice is more than welcome.
Labels: advice, feelings, friends, future, jobs, thoughts, unknown
In London
Hi from London, I'm sitting at my new desk after just having a 1.5 hour chat with my
new boss about
Burkholderia pseudomallei and what we hope to be doing over the next year or so. Lucky for me I had not forgotten ALL of my science knowledge!!!
I arrived safely a week ago yesterday (4th) and proceeded to New Southgate where I'm currently living on a sofa bed at my friend's luxury flat. I was really good & stayed up all day so as to aclimate to the UK time zone as fast as possible. On Monday I met Amanda & her parents at Paddington station around 9am to catch the train to Bath for 2 days. We visited the Roman baths & even tasted some of the (not so wonderful) mineral water. The second day we went on a half day tour of the local countryside (Avebury & some of the Cotswold area). While having a wonderful pub lunch back in Bath we recieved word that the Scottish trains were going on strike so our plan to take the sleeper train was foiled. Thanks to a bit of quick thinking we got back to the hotel, retrieved our luggage & caught the next train back to Paddington & made our way over to Kings Cross in order to catch the 5pm train to Edinburgh. We arrived at 9.30pm Tuesday night so we were able to spend 2 fulls days exploring Scotland, before catching the 11.30 train back to London. I spent this past weekend relaxing at "home" (aka Jim & Rob's) and catching up with my old flatmate Louise.
Next big step is flat hunting - fun fun fun (that was sarcastic)!! I do have one lead, but it's just for one room & since I have a lead on a flatmate I will have to follow up on that as well.
But for right now I have to sign up for my
BSI membership, get my ATM passcode sorted, buy desk stuff, and read some papers, speak soon . . .
Labels: jobs, London
job interview
SOOOOOOO I just heard from my potential future boss (fingers crossed) and I'm going to have my interview next Wednesday at 10am EST (3pm GMT) and I've just emailed my application to the school :) :) so it's all official!!!!!!!!!sooooo next wednesday keep positive thoughts coming my way PLEASE!!!!Here are a few photos I just found, starting with my arrival back in the US & trips to visit Aunt Jinny & Pete
Labels: jobs
