Hello everyone!
I’m back in DC after a great week in Chapel Hill. I still can’t believe that after so long I’m actually done with grad school!
On Friday afternoon, the School of Public Health and our Nutrition department at UNC hosted a lovely graduation and pinning ceremony for us. The chair of our program gave a speech as well as the head of the MPH committee, we had a great graduation speaker, and then two of our favorite professors shared a wonderful slideshow of pictures of us all throughout the years, said some words about our class, and explained to the families in attendance how much hard work was involved in this program. It was very emotional both for them and all of us – everyone was really choked up! We’ve all been through a lot together and while we’re thrilled to be done, it’s also very bittersweet because we knew it meant saying goodbye.
The event closed with a pinning ceremony – it’s a tradition of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that RDs (and almost RDs like us!) get pins that can then be worn at special times throughout our professional careers as Registered Dietitians.
Here I am receiving mine from Amanda Holliday, the professor who taught our Medical Nutrition Therapy classes, set up our clinical internships, and who also served as my masters paper advisor. I’ll really miss her!
After the ceremony and an hour of mingling, my group of girlfriends and I all headed to Piazza Italia in Durham for dinner with our families. We had a room reserved since we were such a big group. Loved all the wine in the walls!
Dinner was wonderful – the food was great but of course the company was better. I know I’ll keep in touch with these lovely ladies but it was still all very bittersweet. (Kort, we missed you!)
We all ended up going out on the town on Friday after dinner to make a night of it. One last hurrah! 🙂
Matt and I stuck around for the rest of the weekend to enjoy Chapel Hill and check out some of our old favorite spots. The weather was GORGEOUS on Saturday so we enjoyed a run:
And of course the Carolina Blue skies:
The sky really is bluer in NC.
On Saturday night, we headed to my classmate Maria’s house for one last party with all our classmates. I didn’t take any pictures but we had a lovely time!
Sunday’s highlights included one last run with my girl Elle on our favorite (hilly) route:
And brunch with Matt and our friends Tim and Lindsey and their adorable baby, Hayes. He is getting cuter and more fun by the day. I stayed with Tim and Lindsey earlier in the week and had a blast playing with him. Love his newsboy cap! It was awesome seeing Tim and Lindsey again, too.
We went to Jessee’s, one of my favorites. I had the breakfast burrito with veggies and avocado!
Plus a latte. 🙂
It was a wonderful way to end a great weekend!
Now, to answer a couple questions that you all had for me on my Anne, MPH post!
1) So, what’s next?
- Enjoy December and a break! Matt and I leave for our belated honeymoon in Costa Rica on FRIDAY and won’t be back until December 21st. YAY! I’ll be spending this week writing and pre-publishing a whole bunch of posts for you to enjoy while we’re gone.
- In January, study for and take the RD exam – I should be able to take it in late January/early February depending on when paperwork goes through.
As for career stuff, here’s the plan:
- Continue with blogging
- Start an online-based private practice via the blog. Offer nutrition counseling via the phone or in person if clients are in the DC area. This will be launched as soon as I get my RD!
- Secure some sort of part time in-person job in the DC area. I think blogging and the private practice would probably be enough to keep me busy, but I like mixing it up and I don’t want to work at home by myself all day because I know I’d get lonely. I’d love to work for some sort of nutrition-related community organization. If you have any ideas/leads, please send them my way!
2) Tell us about your masters paper!
A bunch of you were curious about my masters paper topic. It was titled “Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and the FODMAPs Elimination Diet: A Case Study.” It was part research paper about SIBO and FODMAPs, and part case study about a woman who I saw with one of the RDs I interned with who had SIBO and was using the FODMAPs diet in an attempt to manage her GI symptoms. It was interesting and very complicated, and I’m happy to say the paper and presentation were well received at UNC! If you have no idea what SIBO or FODMAPs are, feel free to Google them. I don’t have plans to do a blog post on the topic because I kind of never want to look at my paper again. 🙂 Sorry!
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And now, to catch up on emails and mountains of blog work. It’s going to be a busy week!
Happy Monday, friends!
