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| I wonder if any of my blog readers are still "sticking" around? |
Howdy Readers (if I have any left)!
I just wanted to take a quick moment to let you all know that I am still alive. I have so many post ideas, videos, and things that I want to share with you all. However, I am ashamed that I have let my dedication to posting slack so much!
I thought that this short post could be used to sum up some of the changes that are about to occur in my life and to state what I have been up to. First of all, I have now successfully defended my thesis and only have a few tiny edits and format changes to make before finally submitting it. Secondly, this means that I am only a couple of weeks from completing my Master's degree at Illinois State University. I had a lot of great classmates, and instructors with a variety of backgrounds and personalities that have helped me diversify how I think about, look at and treat my patients. I owe a huge thank you to all of them.
This also means that soon I will be finishing my tenure at Illinois Wesleyan University as a graduate assistant athletic trainer. This is a bitter sweet feeling for me. I have made a lot of good memories, learned a lot, and met some great people over the last two years. I will miss working with the Men's Basketball team at Illinois Wesleyan. I had a great time working with them and it was a blast when they went to the NCAA Div. III Sweet Sixteen last year and the Final Four this year. They were the first team that I was solely responsible for after becoming certified as an athletic trainer. My interactions with the players, the injuries, coaches, fans and parents have been integral in influencing my clinical practice. Over the past few weeks I have received a lot of praise from them, their parents, and the coaches but the truth is I owe them just as much thanks.
What makes this even more bittersweet is the fact that they will be the first and last team that I solely work with for quite a while. This is because I have decided to accept a doctoral student position at the University of Miami (Florida) to get my PhD in exercise physiology. There, I will work as a research assistant instead of being a clinician like I did with my master's.
This is going to be a huge change of pace, culture, and life for me. I have lived in the midwest all my life, loved cold weather, and never attended a private college before. I am definitely in for some culture and climate shock when I get there. However, I do look forward to trying my hand at continuing my clinical skills in a non-traditional fashion for an athletic trainer. I don't have anything set in stone and who knows how busy I will be but I may attempt to do some small-scale concierge or private 1on1 work clients that will focus on injury prevention and performance enhancement. Coincidentally, there was a very fitting article related to this type of service over at The Manual Therapist today.
I am getting to the point of this post where I need to wrap it up, say good bye and get back to work. There is much to be done with moving, preparing my thesis for publication, scholarships, and getting back in shape myself. It is a very exciting time for me and I hope that from this point on I will be able to contribute to my blog more frequently than I ever have before since it's inception. In fact, this blog is now over a year old! I know this because I just received a domain renewal notice ;) I have received about 100,000 page views in the past year. I hope that I can increase that exponentially over the next 365 days! I wish you all the best.
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