A fortune cookie I found on the ladies’ locker room floor one day this summer

So, today is my last day in Pediatrics, and I’ve definitely learned a lot. For starters, I learned that I was right about not wanting to work in Peds. It takes a certain kind of person to love working with kids, and I am not that certain kind. However, I also learned a whole bunch of interesting nutritional practices that really opened my eyes to what a fascinating and strange and precarious thing the still-developing human body is.

Pediatrics has also made me rethink whether I really want to do OB nutrition or become a lactation consultant after all. And by that, I mean that I kind of want to run the hell in the other direction. However, through working with gestational diabetes patients as well as diabetic kids, I’ve learned that I love doing diabetes education even in those populations, so becoming a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) is high on my list of things I want to do once I’m an RD. I was also shocked that, heavy as it can be, I actually really liked working in the ICU and with neurology patients on modified-texture diets. Who knew?

So far, this internship has been even more amazing than I could have possibly imagined. I can’t believe I only have a couple months left! When I went back to school in 2009, I had this vague idea that well, yeah, I’d be in a hospital seeing patients, but my experience has exceeded my expectations. Wow, that’s a lot of “ex” in one sentence. Just to throw one more in, I’m just going to add that I’m so happy I didn’t listen to the ex-boyfriend who tried to talk me out of going back to school all those years ago because I didn’t ask him first.

So, um, yeah. Cheers to doing what feels right—and also to learning what you don’t want!

Oh, and cheers to the weekend!

Have you ever been surprised to find out you were or were not interested in something? Any good weekend plans?