There are exciting changes going on in the Bureau of Health Promotion – particularly around obesity-related disease programs – but I’ll save that for another entry. Today is about a topic that is a little less glamorous: the daily routine I occasionally find myself in, which is usually on Mondays.
Most people don’t look forward to Mondays, but I don’t mind them so much, thanks to $1 coffee at the local coffee shop. Every Monday, I stop by and pick up a dark roast for myself and two of my co-workers that I have become good friends with. All three of us look forward to that coffee, and quite frankly, it saves my Monday every time.
Monday also brings the weekly Arthritis Team meeting, which just gives us an opportunity to touchbase with each other on where we are with different projects, programs and partnerships. About once a month, I make sure we set aside time to talk about data and program evaluation – sometimes it takes up a good portion of the meeting, sometimes it takes less than 10 minutes.
The rest of the day is generally peaceful. I throw my earbuds in, turn on the Pandora app on my BlackBerry, and SAS the rest of the day away. My SASing is divided between 3 projects right now: the Arthritis Burden document, a Health Risk Behaviors document, and program evaluation (which doesn’t require a lot of statistical analysis and gives me a welcome break from SAS). Every now and then, I get interrupted with small data requests, both internal and external or last-minute meetings. When the weather is beautiful, I use my break time to walk around downtown Topeka. Sometimes I’m able to resist Hazel Hill (amazing chocolate place) or the Classic Bean (equally delicious cafe) and other times I have to stop in. Either way I an continually surprised at how much a quick walk in fresh air can help me refocus when the afternoon starts to feel long.
It may sound like a boring daily routine, but I really have grown to love it. To be a part of this field and to be doing what I do best, well, its the daily routine I’ve always dreamed of. That may sound cheesy, but its true.
