So, everything for the job is fairly well in place, and I'm busy tracking down vaccination records, signing up for drug tests, getting fitted for face masks, etc. I received my two pairs of medical scrubs the other night, and the first of my orientation sessions is on August 22nd (as I've probably said before). The scrubs are black, which certainly isn't my ideal color, but I think they're pretty neat. The top has "emergency medicine scribe" stitched on the chest pocket in white, and makes me feel all sorts of official for once (especially as opposed to the almost embarrassing blue "volunteer" jackets they put on us when I was doing my volunteer work at georgetown). The pants are a bit too long, but fit well enough at the waist, so it looks like I'll have to go get them hemmed a bit in the next week or two.
I've finally found myself a new apartment as well. I looked at all sorts of apartments, and was starting to feel dismal over how dreary and unpleasant most seemed to me. That was doubly true because most of these bad to mediocre places were still renting out for over 1100 dollars a month, despite being an hour south of DC. That's a fairly high rent, but I can manage it. What I couldn't manage is paying it for something that felt it should have been hundreds of dollars cheaper. Then I ran into the Westchester at the Pavilions, which suited me much better.
The apartments are well designed, the bathrooms are fantastic (with extra wide tubes that have headrests of a sort), there's a set of tennis courts that have lighting at night, a pet salon, a two mile circuit walk/track around the place, lots of little fountains, and its generally pleasant in every way possible. I think I even like it more than my current apartment, apart from the fact that it's situated in the middle of nowhere rather than in a nice part of DC. The rent was a bit higher than the other spots I looked at (1400), but I think the quality of life difference more than makes up for it. Easily.
I'm fortunate (or spoiled, you can decide for yourself I suppose), so I'm getting my parents to help finance this. I'm paying for half of the first year and they're covering the other half of the rent. My job is a two year commitment (in theory), so I'll need to find a way to cover the second year on my own. At least largely. That's a ways off though, and since I have the option of changing to a full time position after the MCAT I'm not too concerned about paying for the second year (as long as my parents keep helping me pay for food, a bit). The apartment will be ready for me on September 7th, but I'm not actually going to move in until the 10th when my family can rent a small U-Haul and help me carry my things.
What's really nice though is that I was able to get the apartment without my parents being co-signers, so if I want to renue the lease after one year it will be easy whether my parents want to keep supporting it or not (even though I'm not making double the rent).
I don't know my schedule at the hospital yet. I've asked to work the minimal amount of hours sufficient for part-time status this first month, as I'm still recovering from surgery (and will have to make the long drive up to dc twice a week for my physical therapy). Hopefully the schedule works out reasonably well though. I don't anticipate it being otherwise at this point, and am pretty excited to move down there and start.
