New new new

For those of you who I haven't caught up with in a while - I have a new job now!  I am a Health Educator (or health coach), and I work from home. It's an actual job, with actual benefits, with a crazy schedule I have to stick to and everything. I'm just about to start my third week working after the two weeks of training in January, and it is wonderful.  I work from home and talk to people on the phone, who's employers have added health coaching to part of their wellness packages, or benefits plans.  

The purpose is to help folks identify their risks for negative, chronic health conditions, and begin to modify their lifestyle in order to reduce their risk for those conditions or diseases.  It's not my job to change people, it's my job to help people identify what it is they want to change, how it is they can do it, and help them transition through that process, and understand how it affects their health.  Some folks have a lot of health information (I talk to people who are nurses, or have a PhD, every day), and some folks have a low level of health education and need help understanding what their cholesterol numbers mean, and why exercising a little bit can help lower it.  

It's great working from home, and kitty gets even MORE spoiled now because she knows I'll scratch under her chin whenever I simultaneously shoo her off of my workspace. Working from home also means I have to go extra lengths to make sure I get outside and do stuff. When it was a bit sunnier a few weeks ago, riding my bike ten miles to run errands or just get out in the morning was pretty easy, but I know the spring rain is going to come any minute.  

As a partial solution, I've signed up to volunteer at Free Geek as a regular intern.  Free Geek is AWESOME. They recycle electronics by refurbing them if possible and getting the stuff back into the community, into the hands of people that really need it - or by sending to a local, recycling company, which can take care of the nastier, toxic stuff. I'm training to be teaching the computer adoption class, which just means a class people take to set up their new computers once they have earned a computer through volunteering for 24 hours.  I don't really need to lug another computer home (apartment is too small), but I am very interested in helping people get computers in their homes, learning more about linux, computer software/hardware in general, and helping out at a sweet place like Free Geek. It's a really cool space, and fun to walk around and see folks ripping stuff apart, and resassembling it into full blown computer systems. More on that as I get more time in. I was just signed up to teach, but tonight I signed up to start on the "building computers" part, so I can learn more about the insides. My first shift isn't for three weeks, so I'll keep you posted.