The Shape of Things

Wow, how time flies when you're working your ass off. LOL! So it's been a month or so and I've moved along in my program. Completed Practicum II and have less than 80 hours to go to my MA. Whoopee! Starting to get seriously nervous about embarking on the doctorate. What will it be like? How much more work will it be? Will I have to spend all my time in another city to get the sorts of practica I want? On school days (I must be out of town two days a week) who will watch my cockatiels so my husband doesn't flatten them when they screech? And most importantly, is it still legal to carry liquids in my car? ;)

Pondering whether airlines have yet banned full bladders on their flights... but thankfully I don't have to fly to school.


Gus is doing spectacularly in his work at the group home. The girls have gone from being skeptical and some of them even openly hostile toward him, to grudgingly accepting and now some are outright smitten. One particular girl, who has had problems with impulse control, hyperactivity and concentration, spent over an hour working to gain Gus' trust. Initially his poops were a matter of outrageous histrionics, but now she shrugs, gently admonishes him, and changes her shirt. She sits quietly with him on her shoulder while she does her homework and instructs the other girls in how to handle the bird. This last is remarkable in that these girls often do not get along and yet when Gus is front and center they manage to communicate and work as a team. Great stuff!

The whole low/no income spectrum work issues are rough though. I will never be able to do this full time, it's just too heart wrenching and frustrating. The level of abuse, verbal, physical and sexual, done to these children is vast. To say our system fails them is a pretty dramatic understatement. Sending abused kids back home is apalling to me, but it happens every day. Adults come to me with such dismal backgrounds that I lament being able to help them at all, especially in the short time that our system alots them for counseling. Welcome to the real world, Chiquita!! But what I do makes a difference to all of these people, so I will try to keep a component of this sort of work in my schedule.

Next comes couples. Ah couples... the most traumatic work of all. I can deal with teens blistering my ears with creative curses and turning their backs on me like so many cats. I love cats... but couples kill me. Watching people who know each others' most vulnerable spots, thanks to that glorious thing called love, eviscerate each other in front of me is a little unnerving. No aLOT unnerving! I have to say it's easier to work with kids; kids being exactly the same, but less devious and less invested in inflicting pain on each other. Wow... and we wonder why so many marriages end in divorce? Can you say The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse??? That's what the Gottmans call them, and I think they have now added a 5th, but I see them all in action regularly. Contempt, Criticism, Defensiveness, Stonewalling and Belligerence. Sadly I see all my young teens learning that these are the cornerstones of interacting with others, which suggests that unless they are taught otherwise very soon, they will likely fall victim to one doomed marriage after another.

Be KIND to one another people! Why is that such a tough concept for us hairless apes to grasp?

My own love monkey is very good to me, I must say. He's set up a wonderful workout room for us including a flat screen monitor attached to the elliptical so that we can play games, work or surf the net while pupming those muscles. As someone who does not care for exercise at all I am delighted and amazed to find that an hour goes by lickety split this way! I fear it could be dangerous, actually, as it's so much FUN! Sad though, that our area has become unsafe for walking for a plethora of reasons. What is the worl d coming to when we have to use machines for exercise even when we live in the country? Sad state of affairs to be sure...

As long as I'm ranting about the state of the world around me, I musn't forget my new neighbor. Having bought the 101 acres above us, most of which has been used for cattle ranching these past 100 years, he promptly evicted the tenants in the little mobile home and brought in the heavy equipment. It's been a construction zone around here for going on a month and there is no end in sight. It appears that he plans to put in several residences up there, after he finishes creating a small highway on the hillside. While he has not managed to introduce himself to any of the neighbors formally, he has given us some idea what he's like via thoughtlessly destroying our property whenever it gets in the way of his machinery. Trees, posts, fences and so forth have all been removed without so much as a by your leave. You can imagine how impressed we all are. Is it small of me to be amused that a goodly portion of his road and one of his new construction projects seems to be located on a sink? Yes, come wet season the whole thing is going to slide down the hill. Awww.... what a shame. Now if only it wasn't likely to land in my driveway!!! And speaking of sinks, why do I have a sinking feeling that by the time I'm done with my doctoral we won't want to live here anymore? Well one can only hope for a really good slam in the housing market to bring this yokel up short.

There is a big bright spot in all of this whining though, my neice and mother are coming to visit in a couple of weeks. Besides the delight of spending time with them, it means a forced vacation for me, so I'm looking forward to it doubly. Hope they won't mind us working out on that there elliptical in the guest room for a few hours every day...