Logs:The Hall Was Fine
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| RL Date: 12 December, 2009 |
| Who: Madilla |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Madilla spends a summer at Healer Hall doing an advanced training course. |
| Where: Healer Hall |
| When: Month 6 - Month 8, Turn 21 |
| Mentions: Milani/Mentions |
| The Hall was fine. It was weird sleeping in a dorm as large as the one she was housed in, and weird sitting with only Apprentices at mealtimes. Exams were pretty standard - the format never really changed, just the contents - and didn't cause her too much worry, though she studied her way through the evenings nonetheless. Most of the Apprentices at the Hall had already finished their exams, which meant the atmosphere was more relaxed than it might have been; Madilla rather enjoyed sitting outside of an afternoon studying, while some of the younger apprentices with their lighter summer schedule played and ran and generally enjoyed themselves. Most of the posted Apprentices departed at the end of the sevenday, leaving the core group of six who would make up the training group, this turn. Most of the others anticipated making Journeyman before the end of the turn, but as far as their skill levels were concerned, Madilla couldn't see that they were so far ahead of her. Three had never been posted out, two, like Madilla, were currently stationed elsewhere. The program was intensive. They started classes first thing in the morning and kept going through the day. They spent large swathes of time in the infirmary examining patients with unusual symptoms, and took the occasional visit to other places, too, learning less standard skills: new forms of surgery, how to train someone up to be able to take care of most common complaints, experimental techniques. It was strange, being so much a student again, rather than a practicing healer. Not so strange for the apprentices who'd not been posted, who spent part of their day in the infirmary, of course, but plenty of time in a classroom, too. It was fascinating, and she found herself eagerly anticipating each day's lessons, but the pace was exhausting. Sometimes, she barely had time to pen a few words on a letter to someone before she fell asleep. They became a close group, though, the six of them. Madilla suspected this was what was supposed to happen: a group of six, supposedly some of the best and the brightest, who'd follow each other up the ranks. She wasn't really sure if she fit in with this whole 'best and brightest' thing, but she grew to like them, nonetheless. They had a class on managing an Infirmary: on being the senior healer, the one in charge of everything. Madilla couldn't imagine herself being in such a position; the others seemed entirely at ease with it. "Not just yet," they explained, when she remarked on this. "But in a few turns? That's part of why we've been chosen for this. So we're ready. One of us could even be Masterhealer, one day." Masterhealer? No. Not Madilla. She knew, though didn't say as much, that that would never be her role in life: she was a practicing healer, probably never to rise above Journeyman. Competent, absolutely, but not really suited to that kind of career. It didn't bother her; if anything, it made her feel better. I'll watch them scale the heights, she thought to herself, amused, And they can watch me keep on caring for my patients. She liked being in the Fort area, though. She enjoyed taking long walks through the fields, full of trees and grass and little ponds. It was such a change to the weyr, which, despite her affection for the place, seemed far too closed in sometimes. She met people on some of those walks, and found herself enjoying that, too. And there were visitors from home, too, of course, and she found herself feeling enormously proud of that; she had enough that some of her companions actually commented on it. She only smiled: it was comforting, to know that they were impressed. In the end, nine weeks flew by faster than she could have ever imagined it would, and in some ways, she was almost sad to leave that little group behind, and all that training. But it would be nice to go home: nice to be back in the infirmary she knew, with the people she knew, and her friends, and... everything. And back, she hoped, in time to be there for Milani. So, it was quite a contented Madilla who returned at the very end of Month 8. |
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