The #MASTERSTHESIS IS BACK! Here's an update...

An update on my master’s thesis: I am in a new phase of writing after a week-long break and a move to DC! Attempting to make sense of all the research data I collected a few months ago has been a struggle… BUT pieces are beginning to come together and I’m really excited about what’s to come.

Back in November I spent several days in Nevada studying the influence of stigma on occupational identification (that’s the official terminology). Throughout those few days of research, I traveled to 6 of Nevada’s 20 legal brothels interviewing legal sex workers, brothel owners, and touring their facilities. My time there was everything I could have hoped for and I collected some really fascinating and important insight (more to come on that).

Here are a few sex work facts:

1. Legal sex workers are not victims of sex trafficking. They are considered independent contractors and have the same work cards as Nevada’s casino and hotel employees.

2. Sex work is legal in 10 of the 17 Nevada counties and is only solicited through a brothel house with a business license (street sex work is illegal). The 20 operating brothels in Nevada are the only places in the U.S. where sex work is legalized.

3. Sex work is illegal in Las Vegas. They’re located in smaller communities/more rural areas scattered throughout the state.

4. The women (and their clients) are STD and drug tested. Surprising, right?

With all of that, I’ve spent the week settling into DC and making some writing progress. This next phase will definitely be the most challenging but it is exciting to think about all that has come from this and then anticipate what else could too. I definitely didn’t think I’d ever conduct research, nonetheless THIS.

DC Recommendations From Someone Who Has Lived Here for 4 Days...

Take it for what it is.

1. Solid State Books

2. Museum of the Bible (of course)

3. Compass Coffee's Chai Tea Latte

4. Slipstream (for coffee and drinks and atmosphere)

5. Capitol Hill Books (in Eastern Market)

6. District Doughnut

7. A Capitals Game

8. Shake Shack (I do know there are a lot of Shake Shack's all over the country)

Transition that's weird AF

And we're here! I am feeling all kinds of emotion as I settle into the city. My family headed back to OKC yesterday and I am spending my first full day at a local coffee shop drinking a very well-made chai tea latte and attempting to process just some of the many new things.

No one really prepares you for this time of life. It's just (straight up) a weird time. You can't really grasp it until you're in it. It is one full of loneliness and change and newness and unfamiliar stuff but also good and also necessary. The past few months were some of the most challenging of my life. I was in Waco finishing graduate school courses while my friends moved away and settled into their new jobs and new lives. In Waco I felt extremely unsettled and unsatisfied. I poured myself into school work so badly craving a transition into something new.

Although the past few months were some of the loneliest times (I gotta admit, it was a loneliness no one could have fixed for me), I've never felt more supported in my life than I have over the past 6 months. My move to DC has been no different. Through this season of moving and change and unfamiliar faces, I have been reminded, in little ways, of the things that make me who I am and that I am never alone. Through simple going away cards, unexpected country music in a coffee shop, a FaceTime with a friend, master's thesis writing, walks through the city, and a chai tea latte, I am reminded of the things I love and am so grateful for. I am currently clinging to these and celebrating each of them. Small victories.

Over the past semester I felt independent in a lonely kind of way but the last few days have been independent in a freeing kind of way. This kind of independence I so badly need and have so badly craved. I am thankful for time by myself today. Being in DC, I can already tell, will be an opportunity for me to learn about what I need. (I currently know nothing about my own needs so really looking forward to this. S/O to the Enneagram). It will be challenging but also refreshing. I have a week until I go to work so I'll spend the next several days letting delivery guys with my stuff into my apartment and, when something isn't being delivered, I'll probably walk around and try to find the grocery stores.

I am so grateful that I am never alone and that the Lord walks alongside me so patiently and so faithfully in this season where nothing else feels like that. I am thankful today for the little things and will hold on to them so tightly. This is going to be some kind of journey, I'm pretty sure.