Tonight, because the busy season of music accreditation does not pause to trick-or-treat, we got home kind of late, about 7:30. So we quickly heated up the last of the potato soup and chucked some grilled-cheese sandwiches on the stove. I had been enticed by the farmer's market which sets up shop near my metro stop on Wednesday, and had bought some apples and also a couple of bunches of basil. I was worried this morning because I heard on the radio we'd had a frost, which usually spells the end of the basil, but the lady at the farmer's market apparently grows hers in a greenhouse. So we whipped up a teeny impromptu batch for our sandwiches and sliced up a tomato we needed to use up, and that was that.Other than that, Matt has been busy working early and late and everything in between as he and his colleagues get ready for their annual meeting in Salt Lake City in just two weeks. I am super sad (OK, understatement!) to see him go, but excited for the kinds of opportunities he'll have there and happy he's found work and people he likes so much. Cushioning the blow will be a visit from the lovely Holly, as well as the invitation to crash with my favorite/only law school buddy during the other few days. It will come at what is essentially crunch time for us to be studying for finals, and so that will be a convenient motivator.
Speaking of school, it's going fine. Today I attended a discussion with the chief prosecutor for the US Attorney's Office of DC's division of domestic violence and sex crimes, which was fascinating.
She's a GW alum and was really inspiring. I'm trying to give myself every opportunity to fall in love with law before I leave, so that I don't do anything I'll regret. However, more than anything, I was excited to meet somebody who's so passionate about doing something that I think is so essential. Also, I asked her a question about whether she believed that prosecuting sexual assault was as compulsory as prosecuting domestic violence (being as one has a tendency to be much more habitual than the other; as a sexual assault advocate, you typically don't try to convince people to prosecute because the process is so traumatic and the outcome is so uncertain. With domestic violence, she asserted, it's been found that criminal prosecution is a really important step in breaking the cycle of violence, even if it's not something that the victim thinks is desirable). I also mentioned that given our own experience with the police, which was that they tend to blame victims of crime and have zero interest in trying to collect evidence, had really appalled and disillusioned me. Her answer was that in the case of sexual assault, they're required to call in specially trained detectives in addition to the sexual assault response team, and it warmed my heart because she said "We also turn them over to specially trained nurses, who do a wonderful job." It reaffirmed my feeling that there is an important place for me in that puzzle.
On that note, my hope is to complete training to become a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) during my hiatus from school. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile; during the last hospital call I attended as a rape crisis advocate in Iowa City, the SANE was a nurse I'd worked with before and she said "Why are you doing that instead of this?" Well, at that point the answer was because I was working full-time and didn't have time to complete the training...in addition to the fact that, despite pleas from the current SANE's that they were overworked and could use all the help that they could get, the director of the Iowa SANE program decided that 1.5 years of experience as an OB nurse just wasn't close enough to the 2 years of experience she really preferred. Out here, I think they'll take what they can get.
I'm feeling really excited about the idea of having some flexibility in my schedule between December and August. I've talked to the hospital about working PRN (basically, on an hourly basis without benefits but for a higher hourly wage) like I'm doing now, but in labor and delivery instead of mother-baby and hopefully for 3-4 days a week. They have indicated that this shouldn't be a problem. I'm a little bit nervous because I'm going to have to scrub for C-sections, which I never had to do at Iowa, but which kind of goes with the territory. I'm not a terribly physically coordinated person to begin with, the training is going to be painfully brief, and the reason that nobody likes to scrub is that it makes you a very convenient whipping post for the doctors when the surgery isn't going well. So not only do you have a baby or a mother in some kind of immediate physical distress, you have somebody screaming that it's your fault because you're not getting the instruments out fast enough or because you don't know how to read their minds and know that what they said isn't actually what they meant. Plus, my sterile technique completely sucks. But. There are going to be challenges in any field, and this is one of them.
Anyway, the flexibility. Like I mentioned, I'm hoping to get SANE certified and also hoping to finish training to staff the online crisis hotline for RAINN. The training was supposed to be this weekend, but was canceled due to small class size. The next one will be in January. I've always loved volunteer work and the opportunity to dabble in a diverse array of activities, and I'm finding that nursing (at least, not-quite-full-time nursing like I'll be doing in the coming months) is more amenable to that than a lot of paths. I'm also looking forward to the opportunity to do some more cooking and just being around a little more to do the general running of errands. Matt was kind enough to take on those roles when I was working full-time and so I realize that it's a luxury to have somebody able to do it. I'm also guessing that midwifery school may be somewhat less time-intensive than law school (although I could be wrong about that) which will also hopefully allow for a little flexibility. Ultimately, I think I'd like to enjoy a number of years leading a somewhat crazy but ultimately fulfilling schedule as a midwife, and then eventually move into teaching nursing. The idea of eventual stability and plenty of time off seems like a natural evolution, and one which I'll hopefully be able to pursue.
Matt and I have also decided that our temporary dual-income status probably means that we should take a somewhat exotic trip while we're able. We're still planning to pay off a good chunk of our debt, but have decided that we can probably also swing a trip to...Egypt and Greece. And possibly Italy. These are trips I've wanted to take for as long as I can remember, Matt is similarly gung-ho about them, and with some careful planning, it should be pretty feasible. Definitely more on that as details emerge.
Lastly, just to end on a food note, Aldi had a case of German spaetzle (essentially, thick egg noodles) the last time we were there, so on a whim we picked some up. I cooked them up and combined them with a little milk, a cup of cheese, some chopped broccoli, and a couple of tablespoons of Matt's homemade hot sauce. Then we topped it off with cornflakes. It was surprisingly good! There's nothing like going "off the page" to make you feel like you're really cooking. Literally.
And that's about it for now!
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