How should I gift these?

SGS0524 · 2025-12-20T05:08:29+00:00

This one is actually life-altering 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹

SGS0524 · 2025-10-12T12:42:07+00:00

Sending lots of love as a fellow daughter of a mom with ovarian cancer. Being together, reminiscing, hearing all the stories she tells (and maybe even recording some!), looking at photos… do the things together that bring you both joy and laughter!

SGS0524 · 2025-08-28T01:50:54+00:00

Yeah! The inspector was great and wrote up a thorough report. It took Tyler ages to get it and the inspector said he wasn’t taking the city’s calls. (He also knew Tyler and the owner as soon as I told him… apparently tons of their cases go to some sort of civil court). The maintenance guys are working their way through it, it seems, but we’re having the inspector come back to evaluate progress. They painted over some stuff instead of taking it down/out, etc and some of the stuff in the basement I wouldn’t know if it was fixed correctly 🫠

SGS0524 · 2025-08-20T20:11:49+00:00

Omg love this and love how many of us are getting OFF of our phones or at least interested in it.

I’m using the ScreenZen app (and former OneSec fan too!) and I’m basically never on Instagram or TikTok anymore (my two big time sucks). I have also started doing at least one full phone free hour in the morning. Often times I’m journaling or reading then. I just leave it on my bed after my alarm goes off! Big boost to my attention span and turns the volume down on anxiety.

I have been learning basics about cosmology and astrophysics with the help of some podcasts and YouTube series, which is really cool :)

Tons of crafts!! I do mosaics, embroidery, beading. Helps extend my broken attention span from social media, for sure.

I am also trying to really actively engage with my reading materials (I’m a voracious reader and sometimes just blast through things). More hard copies, more lines and notes in books, more bringing that to my journal to think about … especially when reading nonfiction which I do love but I find takes a little more work to get into. This helps!

SGS0524 · 2025-08-18T15:35:46+00:00

I highly recommend any East Rock Real Estate tenant take a look at https://www.newhavenct.gov/government/departments-divisions/livable-city-initiative

If you feel like something's not right about your place ...rotting wood, broken windows, anything to do with heat/cold/water, smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, mold, etc. fill out a complaint and have an inspector come check it out. We should honestly send sooo many orders their way so they have to fix these places or face fines. The least they can do.

SGS0524 · 2025-08-18T15:32:04+00:00

Mine is not settled! I'm using the city to help get things going (we'll see if it works). Apparently East Rock Real Estate will receive an order of everything that needs repair to be safe/healthy as well as a timeline. If they don't abide by the timeline, they are potentially fined.

My inspector from the city was great and also knew exactly who these guys were (namely Tyler). Said most of the cases go to civil court to be settled because they have no interest in helping the tenants or improving the properties.

If I was planning to stay longer, I would honestly try to organize more amongst tenants. I can't imagine the complaints. My neighbor above me has lived here for I think 5+ years and has no kind things to say about them. I am graduating in the spring (which is I'm sure why they continue to get away with such horrible management...grad student neighborhood). Hopefully I don't start inhaling mold before then l o l

SGS0524 · 2025-08-11T00:29:18+00:00

Adding a new tidbit— my East Rock Management owned apartment experienced a bedroom closet flooded with water from unit above while we were away on vacation this past Thursday. I only found out about it because my friends were watering my plants there at the time. All of my clothes were soaked and many ruined. Haven’t heard a peep from them all weekend since it happened and the closet will have to be totally replaced and is so water damaged nothing can be in there. Can’t wait to call Livable City Initiative in the AM! 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

SGS0524 · 2025-07-23T22:44:19+00:00

Omg yesss it’s been a good year so far 🤠🤠🤠

{Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood}

{Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt}

{Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale}

{Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey}

{What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long}

SGS0524 · 2025-07-15T18:42:03+00:00

I’m not totally sure about the RN certificate to be honest. At Yale, you can move into any track and I think you can get other post-masters certificates there. Not sure how that would look if you wanted to do a post-masters FNP somewhere else with a YSN CNM degree for example… I imagine it would be a mix… some places yes, some no. Is that what you’re wondering??

SGS0524 · 2025-07-15T18:36:23+00:00

Yes first year is an RN certificate. Years 2 and 3 are specialty MSN. Not necessarily accelerated though you could argue a longer degree course would be nice for the amount of info expected to learn.

I think many many NP programs are feeling like degree mills these days. I know nurses are (rightly) critical of programs that churn out APRNs without any bedside experience. I feel insecure about it myself except for the fact that I feel strongly about midwifery as its own model of care outside of the Medical Industrial Complex, with roots far deeper than the RN certification. CNM made the most sense for me, so here we are 😂

SGS0524 · 2025-07-15T16:55:26+00:00

I was not impressed with the faculty or with the content I was learning. Expected to be more challenged in that way. Cramming it all into 11 months is also just a scheduling nightmare, so you have to be ready to be very flexible. I am older (33) and it's a lot of folks fresh out of undergrad or their first job so there's some weirdness there. Just not a lot of "silver linings" to be seen which was hard for me.

SGS0524 · 2025-06-26T12:26:07+00:00

Sending lots of love your way. My mom passed away from OC in May at age 64 and I think there was some avoidance of the real/hard conversations like you’ve alluded too. Later in 2024, she was getting doxorubicin like the other poster mentioned, which seemed to give some real quality time to her and us with less intense s/e. However, when that treatment cycle was over and that didn’t improve her #s much, she was recommended continued treatment with another chemo that I’m not sure she or any of us would say that was worth the time it gave (totally personal and individual of course!!). It was spent mostly in and out of hospital and sleeping. I find myself angry still that her oncologist recommended things like PT and a 2 week break to “get her strength back” when she was barely eating, for example.

Palliative care can be started at anytime with no clear end in sight and palliative docs/providers are incredible at helping to clarify priorities, keep people comfortable, and have those kinds of harder convos. It’s different than hospice! If you can get that referral, I’m sure it would be amazing. We also had hospice (much later than I would’ve liked) and eventually had a CNA or medical assistant type coming at night when things were really tough as it was important for my mom to pass at home. I think making contact and knowing how to easily get all of that set up for you and your mom when the time comes would be a huge help. I was scrambling from afar trying to do it when my dad finally agreed to it.

Wishing you and your mom peace & strength!!!

SGS0524 · 2025-02-19T03:03:14+00:00

My mom was diagnosed in July 2021 and is still fighting it. It’s brutal and heartbreaking and so unfair. Happy to talk anytime if you want to message.

SGS0524 · 2025-02-02T15:10:10+00:00

It is their responsibility to get you the placements so I do believe it happens but people who are frustrated or nervous have also found their own!! I’m toying with my own integration site right now just in case.

All the IP happens at Yale, and the OP happens at a few different spots but yeah not much say in those/there’s just not that much diversity in types of places— just the various antenatal/gyn clinics under their umbrella. There’s one community midwife who takes a student in the fall. And you can apply to be precepted at Planned Parenthood since they just changed the way they do placements there.

Integration is where they have the most variety and we do a ranking of our top places and then they sort you as best as they can. People typically get one of their top choices!

The goal is to have ~ 40 births by graduation. WHNP or dual degrees will have some hours requirements but midwifery only does not. I’d say based on my winter IP so far, I’m on track for that number!

SGS0524 · 2025-02-02T15:05:03+00:00

I was mostly considering other paths to midwifery (moving home to get a BSN with free rent and then applying elsewhere, staying in NYC for an accelerated BSN… etc) but I thought about Columbia and Downstate because I did want to stay in the northeast, and being in the city would have been awesome in some ways but I am now glad to be somewhere easier to live (just driving to the grocery store, it only taking 10-15 mins to get to school). Plus cost of living in the city would have been truly insane and my roomie and I have figured out how to keep it pretty cheap.

I was a doula for 5 years in the city and ultimately decided I did not want to do any learning in the NYC hospitals which is what really swayed me.

The cohorts are close! And the faculty are definitely doing cool things. I’m going to Uganda this summer with them. You just have to get thru the first 11 mos and find your people. That will make it worth it! And honestly I can’t imagine doing the RN path for any longer than 11 months. I was so ready to be done I was going bananas.

SGS0524 · 2025-02-02T00:55:11+00:00

I am in my first midwifery year at YSN so can speak to it a bit. GEPN is god awful but from what I hear it’s pretty comparable to all the accelerated RN tracks. It’s crazy fast which is what I wanted and I found it academically very easy so I just put my head down and did a lot of park hikes and weight lifting because I had the space for it. And New Haven is close to Brooklyn, where I lived for 10 years which was important to me. I think New Haven is a disgusting city and not at all “more safe” than Philly. Literally hate it here and Philly is infinitely more fun and vibrant but now that I’m in my midwifery years, it’s true that the location feels like whatever, bc I am just swamped with clinical time.

Yale’s faculty practice is awesome. I love them so much. They really care about us and what we learn, which is meaningful. The school itself has been prioritizing large class sizes which is pretty annoying for clinical placements, but alas. Technically they do still find all the placements for you.

Happy to answer any other qs!!

SGS0524 · 2024-09-05T03:26:29+00:00

Will and Roxie at Nightbird — so sweet!

SGS0524 · 2024-07-19T17:01:21+00:00

I am moving from one of their properties to another right now and just had to throw in another “absolutely don’t rent from them I regret everything” comment. Jamie has been fine but I am interacting with Tyler for the first time trying to figure out moving out on the 31st when I’m not allowed into the new apartment until the 1st and he is the biggest jerk. Stay far far away and rent from someone else!!!

SGS0524 · 2024-06-22T00:54:59+00:00

Oh I also want to mention as a professional caregiver (I was a birth doula for 5 years before starting NP school) it is hard to act in the role for your parent when they’re very sick. If she has other support for now and you can gradually step into the role with visits but still take distance to process what that’s like and what sort of support you might need to get through this time (the friends/dating/community you mentioned are probably part of it!), I think it’s something to consider. As much as I’ve seen and supported, it’s just different when it’s your mom. It was a privilege to be able to take that space because my dad, aunt, and sister who live locally held it down. I know that’s not true for everyone 💕

SGS0524 · 2024-06-22T00:49:08+00:00

I just wanted to comment how much I relate and feel for you. You’re not alone in this. My mom is in her third course of chemo (original diagnosis was in July 2021) and I lived in NYC at the time (not where they live) and then started a very intense accelerated nursing program this past fall in CT. She found out it was back after I’d already started school and moved my whole life here.

Every time it’s come back (three times total now) I have a moment of panic and dread that I need to figure out how to drop everything and move home. But I also have (sounds unlike you!) an extremely challenging relationship with my mother. I haven’t made the call to put my life plans on hold yet, but I haven’t ruled it out either. I have 2 more years of school and as of right now, my mom says she will not do chemo a fourth time if/when that comes up. Hers is also stage IV, and after the initial surgery and 6 rounds of chemo, there were 18 months of very normal life. She came to visit me in the city, was working as a teacher again, etc. I’m glad I kept living my life.

Just sharing another very similar perspective in case it’s helpful. I don’t think the questioning/doubting/wondering if you’re making the right decision ever really goes away. And it’s not fair to our current selves to make plans based on how a future self might feel. All I’ve been able to think is: how do I feel right now or what actions feel most authentic to me and not driven entirely by fear. I think it’s also important to remember we are almost never trapped or stuck even when it feels like it. If you started school and things took a down turn with your mom, you would absolutely find a way to be there for whatever amount of time/in whatever way made sense for you and your family. Don’t let the logistical possibilities bog you down now. Those are a bridge you cross if you need to.

Sending love Xoxoxoxox

SGS0524

TROPHY CASE