Sigh. Perhaps starting a blog along with this insane program was a bit ambitious. Well, clearly, but here I am, trying to catch up my sweet floating duck people.

I finished the first year-and-a-summer, though, and despite my certainty otherwise at the time, actually did pass my licensing exam to become an RN. The end of summer term was pretty much awful, though.

Thank goodness for summer break - over five weeks of stretching out in time and space and returning to a sense of my self. One week for decompressing, two weeks in Mexico with my sweetheart, a quick visit for the first time ever to San Francisco to visit beloved friends, and a scrambling return to Seattle for catching up before the school year began.

We saw ducks in Lago Chapultepec, in the huge park of the same name in Mexico City. The lake, as you can see, is very, very green, and the ducks are adept at avoiding the zillions of visitors in our bright plastic paddle boats.



One of those beloved friends in San Francisco told me that when she gets really sad and disillusioned, her partner likes to remind her that baby ducks exist in the world, and it tends to make things better. We really bonded over the ducks in the nearby park:



It does feel different, starting this final year, the midwifery year. I feel much more responsible for my own education all of a sudden, which is alternately awesome and terrifying. I'm determined to learn even more, to be an even better student (despite my waves of "imposter syndrome," I've had all A's & B's each quarter), and to grow as holistically as I can into the kind of provider I'd want to see, and want other people to have.

This quarter I've lucked out and my clinical rotation is at Swedish Ballard with the midwives there. I'm really excited, and hoping to integrate well and be a good advocate for my own learning there. Mommas and babies and midwives, oh my!