Medical Clearance

Peace Corps Medical Clearance!! Check it out....



So this means that I am just waiting to hear from the Placement office to find out about my official invite for service. If I get the position I was nominated for (Pacific Islands, Health volunteer), I will be leaving in August at the earliest. It seems so close all of a sudden! Kinda scary and kinda exciting to think that I might be leaving within the next 6 months. Nothing is guaranteed, so I guess I'll just have to be patient and wait some more....

Beth

P.S. Sorry I've been slacking on my blog posts! I'll do better this week I promise...

The happy post re: CTA

I just reread my post on CTA and decided to do a continuation on the same topic because I definitely did not do it justice. I was pretty frustrated with my own CTA fail the other day and only described some of the negative aspects of the trains. So today, I’m just going to talk about what I like about CTA and why it makes my daily commute an interesting experience.

Here’s a list of positives about CTA:

1. It’s convenient and cheap.
2. I get to people watch!
3. I’m learning to live with less personal space (I’m thinking this will be handy for PC!)
4. I get time every morning to listen to music, read, homework, finish a crossword puzzle, and most importantly, WAKE UP before I get to work.
5. I feel a sense of accomplishment every time I do not get lost.
6. I’m learning to have “train legs” and maintain my balance when there is standing room only.

There are certain things that I really really love about my commute each morning and evening. For example, I love using the blue line twice a week because it pops out from the subway tunnel onto ground level all of a sudden. I don’t know why I think it’s cool but the bright natural light surprises me every time. I like seeing the huge mix of people on each train. The businessmen and women, college students, moms with their kids, people with really loud music playing on their ipods, stressed people, little people, old people and everyone bundled up from head to toe. I like the fact that the announcer says that the doors are closing a good ten seconds or more before the doors actually slide shut. I like seeing people running down the stairs to make it to the train that’s about to leave. I like seeing young guys willingly giving up their seats for older people. I like watching people lose their balance when the train jerks to a halt unexpectedly. I like pretending that I’m texting or staring at people’s shoes when I have to stand or sit really close to strangers. I like reading the advertisements on each side of the train walls. I like traveling alone because I feel like a capable adult. I like it how a lot of people feel it is necessary to get up to stand by the door about a stop before they are actually going to depart. Honestly, there’s more, but you get the point right? Good :)

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I thought I would add a little bit of an update about my Peace Corps application since it’s been on my mind a lot lately. So I completed my medical application during the fall semester and it was received on October 14, 2009. Technically, I was supposed to get a decision from the medical office between 8 and 12 weeks after I submitted the information. Well you can do the math and yea it’s been about 16 weeks since I got the paperwork in. I called my medical assistant a few weeks ago only to find that the Nurse in charge had a supplementary form regarding my “fainting and/or blackout spells.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful that PC is thorough about the medical aspect because I want to be sure I’m physically fit to serve. The thing is, I fainted twice about 15 YEARS AGO! The first time, I was 4 or 5 and I watched as my brother accidentally sliced a finger with his new knife and then proceeded to puke. Who wouldn’t faint at that huh? Then in 1st grade when I was 6, I must have overheated during P.E. or something and fainted while in line for a drink of water. I was never seen by a doctor, and it never happened again. Needless to say, I’m really really frustrated that this hang up occurred right now when I’ve been waiting patiently for a month longer than expected. And to top it off, the envelope was mailed to my home address in Montana AND somehow the supplementary info form was not even included!! AND it’s incredibly hard to get in touch with anyone at the PC medical office, so I haven’t gotten through to tell them my new address or that the form was missing. ARG !!

I guess the good news is that no one has been invited for positions that leave during my nomination period which is early August. I still have about a month before those invitation go out. I am really really hoping to get clearance by then, but I’ve learned long ago not to hold high expectations for anything. Honestly I just want to leave sometime in 2010. I’ll keep you updated on how this medical clearance debacle is going…

Let me know if you have ideas/questions for a future post!

Beth

Beth vs. Public Transportation

I decided to start a series of posts about random aspects of my new life in Chicago. Since I spend a good part of every day on CTA (public transportation including the L and bus systems), I thought this topic would be a good one to start on. I’m including a map of the train system because otherwise this post would be unclear for anyone not familiar with CTA. Sidenote: I live north of the Loop near the State/Division stop and I get off at the Central Park stop on the Pink line.



Yesterday as I was starting to write this blog about CTA, I was pretty happy about my new found navigation skills. I felt like I had at least the train system down, granted it is pretty straightforward and user friendly. I had never gotten REALLY lost, maybe a little turned around or unsure of the direction I was facing, but never ever lost. I was pretty proud of my confidence and skill, so today was ultra disappointing because I messed up big….twice. Two times in one day!! And to really top this day off, the CTA put into effect changes just today to cut back on routes (along with about 1000 jobs) which means that the trains are less frequent and more packed than usual. So I got lost on the one day when a mistake will likely cost you 15 minutes instead of 3, and also the day when CTA regulars everywhere in Chicago are freaking out about the cut backs. Awesome.

My first mistake was pretty simple. I usually get off the red train near the bottom of the loop and transfer to the pink line. I like this strategy and it’s only a short climb to get from the red subway to the elevated platform for the pink line. Well I accidentally got off at a stop that is at the top of the loop which I have never used for my transfer. I acted all cool until I realized that I was walking up the stairs marked “exit” against the flow of people traffic composed of frenzied commuters who were very frustrated about the lack of CTA trains today. Oh well right? No, not so much. I ended up standing on the platform for about 20 minutes instead of being able to walk right onto a pink train like I usually do. I don’t know if the lack of pink trains was the result of the cutbacks or just because it was a different stop. Either way, my commute was extra long today…

My second CTA blunder occurred as I was traveling from my internship to the Chicago Semester Office downtown. I had looked up directions quick before leaving work, so I was sure I knew exactly how to get there. All I had to do was transfer from Pink to a southbound Red train, take a left on Addams St., and 50 feet later, I’d be inside the nice warm office building. The tricky thing about the red line is that it runs underground so it’s very important to find the correction exit so you climb up to ground level around the street you want to be on. I’m terrible at this because usually I just follow the crowd until we surface and then I try to figure out what street I’m on. Tonight I found out conformity really is a bad thing! I ended up walking about 7 blocks when I should have been able to cross one street and walk into my office building. I think I came out around in the middle of Monroe and completely forgot the order of street names. It should be kinda easy since they are named after Presidents, but that useful fact also apparently slipped my mind. And then of course I was too embarrassed to just do a 180 and walk back the down the street when I realized my mistake, so I crossed and found a huge map sign on the other side to reorient myself. Pretty sure I looked like an idiot tourist, but eventually I found the office and accepted the fact that maybe I don’t really have CTA down just yet.

The first 7 Days

This has been one of the longest weeks of my life, but I mean that in the best way possible. I can't believe that only 7 short days ago I was literally shivering I was so nervous about orientation and starting my internship. This week has gone even better than I imagined it. I love Chicago, I found great roommates and a place to live, and now it's up to me to pack as much living, exploring, and learning as I can into the next 3 months.

This blog post is difficult for me to write because so much happened during my orientation week. It's pretty much impossible to sum up all my initial experiences here, but I'll try and go over some of the highlights:

I found roommates! (Whoah, breathing a sigh of relief)

I knew going into Chicago Semester (CS) that my #1 priority would be to find roommates. And quick. I think we were given about 24 hours total to find roommates. It seemed like an impossible task, but CS is set up really well so that each student has the opportunity to meet a lot of other people in a really short amount of time. I was really nervous the first night because I didn't have any idea who I was going to live with, but by the next morning I had two roommates and an apartment. Not bad.

I have a place to live

Once again, CS took really good care of all of the students and everyone was able to find an apartment within the first two days. As you can see in the pictures above, our one bedroom apartment is pretty small, but I live about two blocks away from Michigan Ave (Chicago's main shopping district). The neighborhood is really great and it's been fun setting up house and exploring the area.

Work

I'm working at a hospital on the west side which serves a mainly low income minority population. My supervisor, Lisa, is the director of the Maternal and Child Health branch. I think at some point I'll put statistics up here from the neighborhood where the health center is located because they will just disturb you! The clinic was developed specifically because the standard of health was one of the worst in the entire Chicago area. Factors such as infant mortality and lead poisoning are more than double the national average and many pregnant women do not obtain appropriate health care during their pregnancy.

I was interested in this site mainly because I knew it would give me the opportunity to work in a few different settings. My schedule is a little hectic because I will be working at 3 branches of the health clinic. My schedule looks like this:

Mon/Tues: Spend the day at the large clinic shadowing a high risk health worker and a midwife

Thurs: Work at the main office with Lisa, work on a research project with the MSW interns, and update resource list

Friday: Work at the High School with an MSW intern who provides preganancy and STD/AIDS tests, counseling services, and referrals to other services.

I spent my first two days just getting oriented to the different offices and clinics. I met about 60 staff people and was thoroughly overwhelmed by the end of the day on Friday. The real work starts this week when I actually get to interact with clients, attend meetings, and start some of my big projects. I'll have a lot more detailed explanation of my internship this week, so stay tuned.

**On a side note, I know this post is somewhat vague because I didn't use the actual name of my internship site. I'm not exactly sure the rules of confidentiality on this one, so just to be safe I won't talk about specifics for now…

See you next week.

Beth