"Engineering Eileen"

My name is Eileen, and I’m an engineer; that much is pretty obvious thanks to the title of this blog. *But* I am so much more than just an engineer! First, my field of engineering is not the typical one most people think of when they hear “engineer”. I’m a biomedical engineer, which can mean a lot of things. For me it means I started my career off working in a rehabilitation hospital where I helped to conduct research on a variety of topics related to the nervous system/human movement and nervous system/movement disorders such as stroke and spinal cord injury. I recently started a new job at a small company that makes innovative medical devices to diagnose and treat a range of health issues. I really really like what I do, and I realize that makes me a nerd, but that’s ok :) I could go on for quite awhile about the sciencey stuff that I do, but I want this to be a personal blog and not a work one, so I’ll refrain for now. Can’t promise it won’t pop up from time to time though :) And if you are interested in knowing more, you can check out this post I wrote with some more details about my first job or this one about a day in the life of a research engineer.

So what else am I? I grew up in the country, then during college/grad school/first job I lived in cities ~ spent 6.5 years in Chicago. I loved the city but for my new job, my husband and I moved to a much smaller town in Virginia. Didn't realize how much of a city girl I'd become until I found myself back in the country! I’m a nerd but also a former sorority girl with a particular weakness for pink; I’m an introvert (though sometimes I think I actually am a "shy extrovert"); I’ve been married for 4 years now and am just starting to feel like maybe I have a handle on this marriage thing (which means that there are probably more bumps coming up soon - but being married to my husband is the best thing that I've done). I like writing a lot. And reading. I miss a lot of my old friends who are scattered all over the country. The writing thing, the nerd thing, and the missing old friends thing all tie into me wanting to start this blog. Mostly, I just want to be able to write and explore my creative side a bit. A blog seemed like a good hobby for me to attempt this new writing experiment – we’ll see how it goes ;)