By Amy Nielsen

My spring term starts on Sunday - back to the grind, churning onward on the educational treadmill of my Master’s program.

As we are stuck inside today with the giant snowstorm roaring outside I decided to take the time to prepare my folders and brain for the coming onslaught of knowledge.

I failed chemistry by exactly 1.68 points last term, so I have to take it again. I had three options to retake it this time around. I could take exactly the same class I just took; same professor, same lectures, same everything, and be done with it. Bonus to this plan is that I know exactly what to expect. I felt like if I had had three more weeks I could have made up the missing points and passed.

The second option is to take the class online from a different professor. Some classmates say the other professor is clearer, others say she is more difficult. Her class is structured differently with her own quiz and assignment calendar. At this point I am not sure whether it is more important to make the passing grade in the class or actually understand something as dastardly as organic chemistry.

I could also opt to take the class on campus. My classmates who are closer to campus like the professor who teaches the seated section. She is funny, engaging, and makes the impossible material comprehensible. It also only meets five weekends of a 15-week term. The downside is that campus is a five hour commute. The added expense of hotels for the weekends makes it tough to justify skipping the online option.

I ended up choosing to take the exact same class again. I feel that since I know what to expect, the structure of the class and this specific professor’s style, I can pass and maybe even understand an eensie weensie little bit more of a topic that brings some of my most learned friends to tears.

As is required, I get to take another cooking class. This time I scheduled it at the very beginning of the term to get it out of the way, as we have to go to campus for it. That might have been a mistake as it is January and we are talking about travel between New York City and Baltimore. We’ll see if the weather genies play nicely with the snow balls at the end of the month.

I did after all, opt to take one, three-credit class on campus this term, human macronutrients. Everyone in my cohort, without fail, said to avoid the online version of this class - at all costs.

So while I won’t save the travel expense in the long run, I will get a much better experience for that extra expense by taking this class on campus. The class meeting weekends also happen to line up neatly with a few events local on campus that I want to attend.

I hope I have the brain power for opera after six hours of human macronutrients. Mercifully, this class starts later in the term than the others so I have a chance to wrap my head and wallet around the travel plans.

I could take chemistry on the same weekends as human macronutrients, if I want my head to explode.

Rounding out my program I have two more online classes. One is a short, one-credit elective and the other is a core requirement for my area of concentration within my Master’s program. I was excited to get the elective out of the way as later terms will be jammed with my Capstone Project.

Then I went to print off the materials for the little elective and realized that if it looks too good to be true – it probably is. This little, fun, one-credit elective is going to be the biggest pain in my butt this term. We have to go on field trips. We have to post pre-trip exploratory essays. We have to post pictures from our field trips. Oh and it gets better, as if we are not already feeling like grade schoolers, we have to write commentary on each-other’s posts. So much work for a fun, little, minimal work elective.

The silver lining is that with all of the travel to a different city, I will for sure be able to complete the field trips to places I have never been before. But really, busy work makes me nuts.

The last class on my roster is the first of my core requirements for my area of concentration, Community Health Education. The class is Foundations in Health Behavior. This professor may be able to get a person to eat broccoli in 17 new ways but she sure as heck can’t get her class documents loaded to the classroom in the right order or in an accessible format.

I have stepped through the first 8 segments in the opening section of materials for the class and have had to email her for access to or to inform her of missing documents three times already. This does not bode well for this class. I am going to have to keep on top of this one for sure.

So my term seems to be shaping up nicely. I have a lot of travel planned for school. Added to newly planned travel for my daughter’s medical treatment, prepaid events, and well, life – I think I might just take this last gasp of Christmas, Epiphany weekend, and listen to the snowy wind howl, visit some far flung friends, eat up the remainder of the lebkuchen and vanocka, and take a deep breath before this whirlwind tromp to March begins.

By Amy Nielsen

Failure: /noun/ 1) lack of success, 2) the omission of expected or required action. (Google Dictionary)

So I did it.

Completed my first term as a Master’s candidate and, I failed a class. I failed organic chemistry. I was barely failing for the first third of the term. Then, miraculously, I was passing after I got really lucky on a quiz and scored high enough to just pop over the passing threshold. I gained confidence and kept up the miniscule margin of positive points I accumulated, until the final exam. Which, I flat out bombed.

I was fairly certain I would fail the final exam, but after my recent successes, I was tentatively hopeful I might eek out a pass. Even though we only had one chance at this exam, unlike the weekly quizzes which always had two chances, the professor allotted ample time to complete the exam. In fact that extra time is what did me in. Time always does.

This was an online final exam of 70 multiple choice questions, no essays, open book, no proctor. I am pretty certain even if you had never taken a single organic chemistry class in your life, in the four hours we were to complete the exam, given good google-fu and a bit of extrapolation, one could search for every answer and probably pass. I, however, let the clock run away with my brain. Again.

I spent several agonizing hours the night before I scheduled myself to take the test realizing that the time limit gave me exactly three minutes to answer each question. Not a lot of time at all. The week before, I had submitted my timed physiology exam with literally 22 seconds to spare, having posted only a rough outline for the last essay question. I still get a twist in my stomach when I remember seeing that number. Time is my nemesis.

We had a week between our last quiz and the due date for the exam. I took my time preparing to study. I had several obligations to meet both at home and for other classes. I needed a brain break after the final week push of information that all professors are culpable of. I wanted to start getting into the holiday spirit.

I scheduled myself to take the exam a full 24 hours before the due date and time. I have little enough confidence in technology and my track record with it when I am anxious and stressed to expect things to go wrong and I allow time to fix it. This term the error happened in another class, and for that I am thankful. If it had happened with this exam I would have just tossed my hands in the air and given up on the spot.

I spent the morning of my exam day gathering my materials. Thankfully my professor is not a jerk, he just teaches in a style I have great difficulty learning from. To his credit, his exam prep tools and notes were exceptionally helpful and without them I would have failed even more catastrophically. I then proceeded to procrastinate my way through a lingering lunch.

When I did finally sit down at this very keyboard to answer 70 simple multiple choice questions, I was ready to throw up and run away to Mars.

The stinging experience of my physiology exam still smarting on my conscious, I set both the kitchen timer and my phone stop watch to count down in sync. That’s when my brain started running away with me. I couldn’t help but keep repeating the math to calculate 70 questions into four hours. This might seem like a simple mantra like problem for some, but for me it is a lengthy engrossing task – I have dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and dyslexia. Math is especially hard, yet somehow, my brain turns to math problems in times of anxiety – especially when time is involved. So while I am trying to focus and concentrate on how to name the squiggle drawing on the page, I keep hearing the answer three minutes in the back of my mind. Three minutes.

Are you looking that up fast enough? Did I spend too much time on that answer? Oh, that one was easy to find. Wait, that was too easy, look it up again. Ugh, too much time, it was right. Moving on.

I did this until I reached question 70 and looked up at the timer and saw it was only two and a half hours into the exam. I still had plenty of time to go back and recheck the answers. But how much time could I spend on each answer this time around.

And off to the races my brain went with its jockey time.

Which is when I made a choice. I stopped. I listened to what I was doing. I felt how much tighter my stomach was getting as I calculated again and again. I decided in a split second that while there was a remote possibility I could squeeze out a pass for this class if I pushed hard and long – to the end of that allotted time – I could maybe pass this exam. But Lordy, another hour and a half of that jockey on my back, driving me to clench my hands so hard typing they cramped.

Submit.

And in the next instant I had my answer. I had failed.

Not only was the exam grade calculated instantly, the course grade was as well as all other assignments for the term were graded and posted.

I failed by exactly 1.02 points. But a fail is still a fail.

The well of emotion began to ebb and I realized I was not angry. I was not frustrated. I was not even too ruffled, apart from the frazzling I took from the two and a half hours of exam panic. I was in fact almost at peace.

What I had come to realize was that this class was not about learning and passing organic chemistry, it was about learning to be a competent, confident, applied student. While I may have failed organic chemistry the first time, and in that I join a very large club so I don’t really feel a failure, I succeeded in learning how to be a better student and by extension a better teacher.

Redefining a failure, seeing the moral in the lesson is as much a part of a good Master’s program as is passing foundation curriculum.

By Amy Nielsen

I travel for three reasons - for a purpose, with purpose, or without a care.

I have been travelling internationally since I was small. I consider myself a third culture kid. My mother is the one who taught me about the three kinds of travels, though we never talked about it as such. We travelled together with the rest of our immediate family, she went away on her own for business for many weeks at a time – beginning when I was in grade school, and then there were the trips we took alone together – some of my most favorite memories.

When I travel for a purpose I am traveling with a timeline and specific agenda, like most business travelers. I rarely do this anymore, though I used to do it all the time. I spent many years on the road or in the skies. It is traveling without really seeing or experiencing the differences of place you are in. It is a sad and sorry existence, and it takes a toll on the body like no other stress.

I adore travelling with purpose, it is my favorite reason to be on the move. When I say with purpose, I mean that one is traveling either with a timeframe and no specific route, or better, a specific route and no timeframe. Either way you get a modicum of personal choice in the matter. This mode of travel can be the most amazing vacation or a wonderful business relationship if you can get it.

Without a care is actually quite stressful for me. Many people love the idea of being able to travel without caring where they go, how long it takes to get there, or what route you travel. The ability to do this is rare. My own experience with this sort of travel has usually been one when I really had no other choice, move or be moved and land when the feeling strikes because everywhere is nowhere. It is a tumultuous sort of travel.

Recently, I spent the weekend on campus with my master’s program for the first time. I am pursuing a program that can be taken either completely online, hybrid online and campus, or completely on campus. Because of the state I reside in and the degree I am obtaining, I am required to follow a hybrid or campus structure with this school. As a full-time student, I take eight or more credits, of which two or more must be completed on campus every semester.

This being my first semester, I had a conference with my academic advisor before I started. We decided to just follow the designed course of study for the first term. I am happy I did. I needed time to learn to first be a student again – then - a graduate student, on a new digital platform, several states away from the physical campus, knowing no one else who is in the cohort - and worry about passing organic chemistry and physiology. All in 15 weeks.

Of the two options for this class, I chose the one in the later portion of the term specifically so I was more comfortable with the school before dealing with the added fun of travel and a new environment. I happen to love to travel. I do it well and it makes me happy. This was bound to be a grand adventure.

The field I work in is scientifically technical and mushy feely all at the same time, and getting more so every day. It is practiced by a vast array of people in a multitude of ways. How we all go about it is completely and utterly lost in the classes because we never see each other. Attempts are made at interaction between students in the online portion, mandatory weekly discussion groups, check -ins and forums, and the ever dreaded group paper. But for the most part my courses fail to connect students on even a professional level, let alone personal level.

None of the online projects hold a candle to understanding who you are studying with or as spending some concerted time in a classroom working out a problem together. Getting to know the gal you met on the travel thread, the one who helped you understand that students for the same distance away can make the weekends work, is never going to happen in a classroom chat board. Because we were able to sit together at lunch and get the train schedule and Uber driver’s number, I now have plans to take many more classes on campus.

This trip proved that I can make this program be even more than it was. By discovering the access to the range of class delivery options, it opens up a whole new reason for me to travel with purpose on a regular basis to a place where I will fill my skull with completely mind blowing and baffling ephemera and then coddiwomple home slowly digesting it all.

I will get to hang out with interesting students, occasionally see far flung friends who live near the school, and make connections otherwise missed. These opportunities are just too good to pass up. So when I get home I am going to switch my online macronutrient class to the on campus section as it happens to neatly line up with currently open weekends on my calendar. Off I go!

By Amy Nielsen

I have the little black book that I started in culinary school. Get your head out of the gutter. It is my master recipe book. It’s a black heavy cardboard spiral bound thing, four inches by six inches with thick textured paper inside – like those sketch books angst-ridden teens carry around. This one has graph paper inside it and a sticker of the conch republic on the cover. That alone should tell you something about me.

On a left hand page in the last third of the book near the bottom of the page, are the recipes I need this week. My Mom’s stuffing, Alton Brown’s brine, and Chef Keith’s green bean casserole.

The book became somewhat infamous at school when several students approached me to make copies of it as we neared final exams. My master baking instructor did make a copy of it, marking it up with red pen penned errors. I don’t know where that copy went, and I never made the changes in the book – but I know what they are.

I have added my, and other, special recipes to it over the last 15 years. In the beginning I added recipes quickly. I added the best of the best from my classes in school. I added recipes I tasted in restaurants. I read everything foodie and would create something and plant it in the book hoping to use it to impress later. There are recipes for every day and for special occasions. Some I have never used again and some I use almost weekly – so much that I no longer need the reference I put down.

I would add anything that came to mind that I didn’t want to lose, my Mom’s chicken curry and dolmades were among the first recipes I added that didn’t come from school. I went through a cake making phase thinking I would eventually write a book and the back has several pages of recipes I developed, a favorite is a chocolate whiskey cake. Maybe I’ll make that one this week too.

For a while I was collecting flavor combinations rather than recipes and those pages read like an Avant-garde beat poem; radishes, peas, mint - foam. Then there are the shock value recipes; black squid ink pasta, with hot pink beet and ricotta filling served in neon green spring pea and parsley pesto cream or sweet apple aspic over orange and cherry cream cheese “salmon” complete with candied lemon slices and sugared parsley.

After school ended and I landed my first real cooking gig, I recorded information useful to a production kitchen. I have a great recipe for chicken pot pie for three hundred and fifty that requires ten gallons of milk and two pounds of roux. Need coq a vin for a hundred? I have that too. I also have the secret recipe to the most amazing cold curry chicken salad ever, dictated to me in Spanish by my head production cook - closed in the walk in so no one would hear us – and no – I won’t share it.

When I finally moved on to a new position and place in life, I started adding recipes for household meals. One pot wonders, casseroles, quiche, and quick fixes. I was a military wife and I was in the thick of home entertaining. Let me tell you, military spouses can cook the pants off of some very famous chefs I have studied.

There are recipes for spam musubi, kartoflesalat, kimchi, and lumpia. The most amazing collard greens I have ever had, a recipe from a white chick from Alaska by way of her Puerto Rican neighbor in Singapore. Recipes for ingredients impossible to find outside of the region; mango lassi from mango in the front yard, sassafrass root beer from the trees over the hedge. Delicacies from far flung hang outs; huli huli chicken, sausage gravy, and peanut soup.

Somewhere along the line I stopped being able to write on the pages. I have stuffed recipes in margins, on the bottom of half used pages, and even in the front and back covers. I began to add slips of paper with scribbles ratios and perhaps an ingredient list, rarely any method.

Sometimes I can decipher what I was squiggling and have rewritten a more full recipe out, though usually not bothering to transcribe it to a fresh sheet of paper. Other times, well, it took me three weeks with a slip taped to the cabinet door to figure out that it was for naan. There are clippings from magazines, printed pages, and cards handwritten by friends.

When I began my proper herbal studies, I started adding herbal remedies to the pile. Tonics and teas, formulae for spice mixtures and tinctures. I found a few notes reminding me of forgotten herbs and the occasional change in a long written recipe of an herb that might fit better.

These days it takes a lot to get into that book, both as a recipe and as a researcher. Somehow it has become more of a repository for memories than a place I search for recipes. I have Pinterest for that. This book is a place I go when I need to be reminded of where I come from.

I suppose I should start up volume two but somehow I just keep stuffing scraps of paper into this one instead. It looks more like a file folder than recipe book, with papers sticking out at odd angles and corners bent and fraying. It's held together by a straining silver spiral on one side and a fat hair tie - as is proper.

Maybe next year.

By Amy Nielsen

I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Temple Grandin speak this past week at a very small theater in our rural community. Hearing her speak has been on my bucket list since I first read one of her books in the mid-nineties in college. Reading her words was the first time I understood that people are allowed to think differently. I grew up thinking differently.

As a young girl I knew I couldn’t read the way other people did. I was an avid reader, but I rarely remembered the plot of the story. I could, however, tell you everything in the book after I reread the first paragraph. I am terrible at computational math – I still cannot add a simple string of numbers, but I adore doing conceptual math – geometric proofs and calculus functions were my favorites. Every bubble test I took, I scored off the charts in reading comprehension but well below average on math and spelling.

In college I was finally diagnosed with dyslexia. In subsequent years I have come to learn that I am not only dyslexic, but also dysgraphic and have trouble with dyscalculia. My high school math teacher regularly threw me out of class for arguing with him about a particular problem, once famously for asking why roots and squares were the same. It mattered to me. I needed to understand the theoretical principles, he needed me to get the answer four.

Once I learned that I was dyslexic, a whole lot of things suddenly made sense. Some things made perfect sense. Well, of course I can’t spell, sometimes it’s so bad even the great Google can’t figure it out. I trip up autocorrect pretty much every day with interesting consequences. Some were a bit more subtle, math is really hard when the numbers keep switching places.

Then there were those that made no sense to anyone but those who work with folks with different minds, like I can take a two dimensional line drawing, pick it up in my head and rotate it three hundred and sixty degrees and know how it all goes together. I can’t, however, answer an incorrect question on a written test correctly the second time without changing how I input the information. My brain will always choose the answer I have already selected once.

What on Earth does this have to do with either higher education or career? I would argue absolutely everything. If you are aware of how you best receive information, it make it much easier to set yourself up for successfully completing tasks.

Ask a visual/pictorial learner to read a book on a subject and they will remember some of it. Ask that same person to watch a movie about it and they will remember much more of it. If you don’t understand something the first time, it might be that you need it in a different format. Easy to fix once you know which one suits you best.

Personally, as I am in school again after some decades away, I am learning much about how I learn and how best I provide information. I have two classes this term that couldn’t be a better example of how one fits my learning style and one absolutely does not.

My physiology class is a learning challenged student’s dream. My professor provides clear, concise well filmed video lectures. Those lectures incorporate a well laid out power point slide show. The web based resources are of various styles and placed in appropriate chapters within our module based system. The text book reading is more in depth but not so over my head that I get lost without extra explanation. The professor uses the - tell ‘em, show ‘em, make ‘em do it, test ‘em on it - strategy of teaching. He makes sure everything is covered in each of the three principle learning styles, reading, visual/pictorial, and auditory/heard.

My chemistry class is nothing more than molecules by firing squad. This professor prefers to have each piece of information hidden deep within three different locations, book, video, lecture – all the while regaling us with fantastical tidbits we will ostensibly need in later courses, but will not be used farther in this course, nor will they be on any quiz. Of course he tells us this after spending thirty minutes on a tangent that I have been furiously scribbling to comprehend. His most charming habit is to call a process by three different names in the materials then use a forth on the test.

Because I know how I learn best now, I know that I can spend less time in physiology as I know that the same information will be well covered in my preferred learning style. I can be less panicked that I will miss a crucial detail in those formats that I have a harder time with. Chemistry is another ball of wax all together and I find myself spending at minimum twice as long to make sure I have all of the steps in each process understood.

I wish it were routine for adults to have state of the art learning disability testing at least once in their mid-thirties to mid-forties. Heck, I think it should be part of school testing at least once in the elementary grades and once in high school to determine ones basic learning style and if there are any glaring difficulties. Most people if they are ever tested are only ever tested in childhood. With the advances in understanding in how people learn over the decades, it makes sense to get retested again in later years as your career is jumping off to make sure you have every tool in your box for the ultra-competitive job market. Take the time to learn how you learn. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses can only help you be more successful.

By Amy Nielsen

It is time to register for my second term of classes for my Masters degree already. I am a bit at a loss as to how I got here this fast. I feel like I just started this whirlwind journey last week.

On the student-run Facebook pages discussions are flying about which teacher is best, online vs on campus options, and how to tweak the plan of study to make the program all you need and want it to be. 

First let's discuss that my school works on trimester schedules. As a woman of childbearing years, this word makes me feels suspiciously nauseous, edgy on the verge of crying, and with a distinct need to re-organize the linen closet while eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's at 3 a.m.

I can't deal with that word association for the next some odd years, so I call them terms. Makes me feel less bloated. 

I started this journey with what I thought was at least a somewhat clear idea of what I want to do when I grow up. While I still want to do that, I think there might be a better path to get there. 

The degree program I am working through is a big part of the eventual position I want to hold. Since it is time to choose classes for next term, I decided to re-read the entire course catalog to make sure I know what the school really has to offer. I'm not sure I ever did that when I applied. Biggie mistake, as my favorite employee used to say. This school has so much more to it than I thought.  

Now I have to decide not only if I am in the right program, but also if I need to add an extra term to make sure I have all of the learning I think I will need to be successful in my career. In short, I want to do it right the first time and I have too many options. 

I am currently enrolled in the non-licensure track for my degree. I chose it originally because it sounded more like the policy and politics side of the program. I want to help change the culture of health and wellness in my community by integrating our abundant alternative and complementary care practitioners with our overtaxed and under-supported biomedical system. I had originally thought perhaps a more policy-oriented program would fit.  

I now think I should switch to the licensure track, which in this school has a complementary care concentration in a subject I already hold a certificate in. I wonder whether being a licensed practitioner in my regulation-heavy state might be a better place from which to begin to bring together people and organizations where ideology and terminology can often be insurmountable differences and squabbles over shrinking grants can be vicious. 

If I want to change to the license track, there are three options. Two still fall under my current department, the third is in a different program all together. The two are still Masters of Science programs and while still two-year programs, they require supervised clinical hours rather than a capstone project or thesis. The third is a Master of Arts which does not require supervised hours, but a does require a capstone project as well. 

With a little bit of sleuthing I discovered that there are at least three agencies in my county that do supervised hours for clinical students. All of them are run by people I already know through my recent foray into local community service volunteering.

Doing clinical hours in the organizations I want to integrate would afford me an understanding of the needs of both, a task not possible to do as a policy wonk. The clincher would be whether they can take clinical students who attend school, virtually, in another state. 

Creating and participating in a capstone project in my community would be a more difficult task. Finding a sponsor, creating and running the program then getting the sign off will be harder with the smaller resource pool our rural community draws from. However, I could use the project as the foundation or trial for a post-graduation collaboration. 

The other key to the decision hinges on the transfer of credits from my previous school. If I change to the MA program, I lose a whole lot of credits that I have to make up in an extra term. If I stay in the MS program I can switch my degree path and my concentration and still keep the credits. Which reminds me, I need to make sure I mark them off on my plan of study so I don't take ones I don't have to. More room for cool electives. This school has a lot of cool electives. 

My next step is to call my academic advisor and really spend some time talking through the degree options and my projected plan. With his help I am sure I will be able to come up with a suitable course that will cover all the bases to step me up for success when I graduate.  

Until I can set up the discussion, I will spend a few hours making sure that I pass my organic chemistry class. Because if I don't pass organic chemistry this first term, I'll be taking it again at the end. 

By Amy Nielsen

It’s midterm. I’m stuffed full to the brim of new materials and I need a break. One of my classes is done for the term, it only ran half the time but with double the work. It was one of those classes that makes you stop and rethink everything you thought you wanted to do with your career. It almost makes me wish it were continuing for the rest of the term – almost.

I thought I would just go on to a bigger fish pond once I moved up to graduate school. I had no idea the new pond came with grander and more dangerous weeds and some really big barracuda.

I had a chance to connect with a small segment of my class working together on a collaborative paper. We were then asked to consider how our specialty could contribute to the healthcare system.

I had never really thought much about how my little business was going to change the world. I mean I know from all of the classes I have taken up to this point that the teachers I worked with thought they could change the world or they wouldn’t be teaching.

But I had yet to really see how I was in this for the greater good rather than my own pocketbook.

The answer came when I was yet again asked to accept a post-dated check for payment for services rendered that I realized that perhaps I needed to think about my nonexistent P&L statement. My business is ostensibly set up as a for-profit entity because I just don’t have the ability to fund a 501c3 right now.

I have always envisioned this path as a means to a small business. What I have discovered is that there is a whole other side to this industry I was completely unaware of. In parts of this country there are large organizations doing exactly what I want to establish in my little rural neck of the woods. I am so not a reinvent the wheel kind of gal, so it now behooves me to take a step back and reevaluate where I want to go by studying those that have gone before me.

As I have very little business right now, I could let it putter along doing a few events a month as I am and really take the next bit of school time here to explore all of the avenues out there. I can take the time now while I am still in graduate school, and while my business is still tiny, to go visit larger organizations, meet with other practitioners, and really expand my thinking about what I can do with this.

I’m a graduate student, this is my chance to take the time to delve deeply into topics I wouldn’t have presented to me otherwise. It is the time to check out every left turn on the journey. When you run out of lefts start going around to the right. What I mean is that it is the time to challenge myself and what I think it means to be an integrative health and wellness professional.

I’ll be the first to admit I fell into this master’s program half by accident and half by dint of manic panic and shear boredom. When I started the first week, I was already behind the eight ball because I thought it would be a cakewalk. I was sadly mistaken and quickly dissuaded of that opinion. Then I had to play catch up and save face if not grades.

So when this class in current perspectives and practices in the industry ended up as one of my first classes, I had quite the eye opening experience. I had no idea the depth and breadth of this field. I had no concept of what I could do and how much I could change the world as we know it. I thought I was going to be a better health coach, not decide that I need to change the whole healthcare system from the ground up.

I have said before that this program put new wind beneath my wings, but it is more than that. Not only am I carried along with the currents of new knowledge, but I am forced higher and wider in my thinking and my vision of my place within a whole system I was unaware existed.

I have found a community within which I have a place and standing. It’s now my job as a student to make sure I understand where I fit and what my strength is and how to share it with this greater community so that we can accomplish the changes we need to in order to shift the tide of disease in our country.

By Amy Nielsen

I spent the weekend away from all things reality in the land of Faeries among dear, far flung friends in a land we lived in a lifetime ago.

To do so, I had to complete all of last week’s assignments for my master’s program by Thursday morning. Pushing through the early mornings and late nights afforded me the peace of mind and freedom of spirit to truly enjoy myself. This weekend away happened to coincide with my midterm exams this week.

I needed the brain break.

I love to drive. If you have followed my blog for any time at all, you know this. It is my most creative time. This trip included a long drive along a well-worn route following ancient trails laid down by our First Nations Peoples from the northern edge of the Chesapeake watershed down the tributaries in valleys bordered by greystone cliffs to its very heart in the fertile fields above the Washington basin. It is one of my most favorite drives along the eastern bones of our land.

I left the house still reeling from the massive brain dump of information I had typed in the preceding 72 hours. I had most recently completed a short supported blog post for my Principles of Complementary and Integrative Health class (CIH) covering how my background contributes to creating sustainable change in our immediate community’s health outcomes.

Talk about right up my alley! The day before I had been to the neighboring counties Healthy County Summit discussing current and planned health initiatives. I was surprised at how few truly CIH options were offered. The vast majority of options were strictly biomedical and largely hospital based. Because they had to have evidence based measurable metrics to present to the insurance company paying for the free services they are adding to the wellness plans.

As the only truly Complementary and Integrative Health practitioner in the room, I was struck by the opportunities knocking at my door. The conference, then the following assignment got my brain working and turning as the wheels under my feet crunched down the miles.

How could I create a collation of both biomedical and CIH practitioners that could address the whole sphere of our community, body, mind, and spirit.

As I drove I started to compile a list of people I would have sit down in a room together. As I imagined the scene, those mid-nineteenth-century literary lunches came to mind. I have no idea how to get them all in a room and comfortable enough to discuss the possibility of bridging the barriers to create a culture of wellness that includes CIH approaches on par with the biomedical ones. Some of the largest hospitals in the world now have truly evidence based, licensed or credentialed, complementary and integrative teams working along-side biomedical teams seeing better outcomes in a much more measured setting than we have ever had access to before. It is possible to do successfully and cost effectively.

So maybe I should do that. I mean, get them all in a room. I think first I need to cast a large net and talk to a whole whack load more people. I’m new to the area. I’m new to this soapbox. I am still a student in so many ways. So I know I need to tread lightly, listen deeply, and see where the trails have been laid before. There are other newbies to the community like me who are equally gung ho and full of vim and vinegar to build up this place we have come to love, but we need not only the support but also the grace of the spirit of this place to build anew on the deep bones already here.

So now I have a redefined purpose, thanks to a tight schedule, too little sleep, much faerie magic, and a few thousand miles. I have part of a list of people to sit down with to start spreading the intention around. Once the seeds are sewn, I’ll be able to tend them for a bit as I develop my own skill set to match the eventual task I am creating.

By Jenna Moede

I talked about creating a support network recently and the benefits you will reap from it, but you have a couple of must do tasks to keep your end of the bargain when it comes to the support network.  

First, you can't just expect everyone you have chosen to know what you need from them, how to support you, or when you need help.  

Communicate with your support network. While I have really close relationships with everyone I have personally chosen, they can't read my mind.  

I have asked each person that I asked to help me in different ways, and I had to talk those ideas over with those people.  

For example, I asked my husband to help keep me focused. I usually motivate myself pretty well, but sometimes tempting activities and events do come up which make me wish I could do anything but study or exam prep.  

Since my husband lives in the same house as me, I talked to him about different strategies we can use together to make sure I finish all of my work ahead of time or on time at the latest.  

My parents have a little different purpose. I have asked them to help me when I have questions. My parents really guide me when it comes to decision making or career choices. I usually talk my ideas over with them simply because they have valuable life experience that I don't.  

Lastly, I talked with my best friend. She understands the military, and she also attended school online when she studied for her undergraduate degree so I asked her to help me overcome the struggles of attending class online.  

I find it easy to feel frustrated with online learning sometimes, but having someone that can remind me of the outcome and how every college struggle really will come to an end will encourage me to stay on track.  

Second, I made sure that I could rely on these people to help me. Everyone has those friends or family members that tell you they will help with anything, anytime, but then never pick up their phones, return messages or reply to emails.  

In this situation, those people will not help you make the most out of your support network. Talk to each one about how best to get ahold of them when you need them and choose people with a reliable record of communication. 

I also recommend talking with those people to let them know that sometimes you might change your mind on field of study or long term goals.  

Maybe you have discovered a passion in your life or have a new door swing open. Those opportunities can come at any time and hopefully, if anything does arise, you will feel prepared to take on new challenges and walk through new doors.  

I really support the idea that you can change your mind when something doesn't feel right or even better, when something new does feel right.  

Make sure that your support network understands that their purpose is not to ensure that you do your exact, step for step, original plan, but to ultimately gain the outcome you hope for no matter what the path and no matter how many times you change majors, universities or plans.  

Don't force yourself (like I did with business) and don't let your support persuade you to stick with something that no longer interests you or you no longer feel passionate about.  

While their advice, encouragement and intentions may mean well, only you can decide what you really want to do in life and where you want to go. However, I do encourage you to listen carefully to those supportive people about why you decided to start your studies in the first place before making any altering decisions.  

Finally, appreciate the people that go out of their way to support you. Recognize their willingness to go out of their way to help you and try to help someone else in a similar way.  

I really believe in paying forward support and kindness however possible so make sure to take advantage of any opportunity to be a part of someone else's support network.  

By Amy Nielsen

Coddiwomple (v.) - To travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.

The Urban Dictionary. I am beginning to believe a master’s program is designed to allow one the space to coddiwomple along in interesting topics with real world implications towards an eventual narrowing of focus upon reaching that vague destination of graduation.

Somewhere in the future on a day probably already determined, because this is higher education and they like to know where they are wandering to, is my eventual graduation date. I am now four weeks into my program and I can say for sure I am coddiwompling along.

Every day brings a new slice of knowledge, often hard fought for, especially in classes like organic chemistry. Every assignment has me focusing deeper and at the same time farther afield in my research than I have before. Each interaction with a fellow student opens a new networking opportunity.

It’s fall in upstate New York and I want to be outside hiking in these beautiful hills. As I work through my assignments, I am led in interesting new directions that have me not quite questioning my career choice, but more wondering what else I can do with it. Where else can I go? I started looking into some of the topics we were discussing in my classes with a more local focus. How do these topics effect my immediate community?

To that end and with that research, I set up several meetings in the last week, some planned and some happened by serendipity, which has given me a new wind beneath my wings.

Coddiwompling (v)

I wrote a piece for a school project that I was proud of. I posted it to my personal Facebook page. A friend read it and shared it. I was then contacted by another gal who wants to get together and talk specifics of that mini-paper and more about deep down nitty gritty sciency nutrition. She happens to be well connected with a network of fellow practitioners, has many of the same interests besides nutrition, and seems like a super neat gal. So I will make the time to go for a coffee date to talk bromides and cellular oxidation and maybe make a new friend.

“To travel in a purposeful manner”

Yesterday I took my girls to our monthly homeschool meet up. There was a new family with a girl my older daughter’s age. They got chatting as kids do and I got to know her mom a bit. It came up in conversation that I am looking for places to teach and her organization might be a good fit. Lo and behold, her supervisor sent me an email last night asking for more information about my classes and how she could incorporate them into her already planned and filled upcoming weekend-long wellness event. The organization happens to be one I am studying for my concepts in wellness class. Serendipity with a bit of a push from purpose.

“towards a vague destination”

I was beginning to feel very much like a fish out of water, rapidly losing the fight to flop back into the stream. In fact, I was drowning in the program. Until I met a fish in a gallery.

Do you believe in signs? I do. I’ve been seeing a theme of fish in my life lately. Fish are coming up in everything I do, trout specifically. I went to check out an organization about partnering with them and spent an hour taking aquaponics and which fish fit the system best. I was walking to my office and the gallery next door happened to be open – the first time I have ever seen it open. I went in and shouting at me from across the room, I saw a glorious print of the same fish we were talking about. The gallery happens to be owned by a person who could be a mutually beneficial partner for us both. Then the kicker, I saw a giant salmon in the clouds of a stunning sunset on the crest of my favorite ridge on the way home. Perhaps I’ll start fishing.

Coddiwomple (v) To wander purposefully towards a vague destination.

I spent the first few weeks of this program having flashbacks to both horrible and terrific undergraduate experiences. I had to remember how to learn in this style again. I had to screw up the courage to dig in and get serious about this. I had to have a few come to my senses moments when I received failing grades on assignments. But in every journey there are hills to climb, and if one is wandering purposefully, one does not go around the hills, one goes over them. Otherwise there is a very nice seat next to a window sill to sit at.

This past week I have found the purpose to this joyful little coddiwomple of a master’s program I am going to take. That destination will be not so vague much faster than I wish it will I fear, so I had better enjoy the journey while I am on it. Onward!