Wow, talk about your bad days!

My niece drove to her new school yesterday to meet with her adviser so she could get registered. She's transferring and they won't let people who haven't been through orientation register, but orientation is the week before classes, so there would be nothing to register FOR by then... thus the trip in hopes of getting the rule waived. She also paid a visit today to her boyfriend, who may or may not have been the real reason she was transferring there; she says no, but it's a long story. Things weren't going so well and she decided to break it off. Wouldn't you know it, her truck got stolen! Breaks up with her BF and loses her most prized possession all in the same day. What a total DRAG!!!

Got this note from my sister an hour or so ago:

Well, we are heading out to go get A. It looks as though her truck has been stolen. Broke up with her boyfriend and lost her most precious possession. Que bummer. She is waiting for the police right now. It’s a 4 hour drive for us just to get there, so probably we’ll spend the night and come back in the morning.

Just put $1000 in repairs in it in the past month. Plus, of course, it has new tires, nice CD player and speakers, a stainless tool box full of tools and her good winter coat, etc. I’m sure insurance will be rock bottom blue book. BIG sigh.

I'm willing to bet there is more trauma surrounding the truck than the guy. She was absolutely FUSED to that vehicle!

Cheesed Off

Wow, I am SO grouchy this week it's just unreal! But now at least I have some good focal points for my cheesiness.

First off our internet connection has been irratic for two weeks now. We aren't able to connect unless we manually dial half the time and have to have something that is constantly pinging the server to stay online. It makes me INSANE, trying to order something and finding that between the time I enter my address and credit card info and hit send I've lost my connection. Did they get it? Will they double or triple charge my card if I try again? Akk! AR called Fixnet only to get a person who had no idea what ISDN was. Out here in this deep and narrow canyon we have no cable, no DSL and no broadand anything. Sattelite is a possibility but it's got lags that screw with AR's ability to remote control his client's computers, and since he works from home that's critical. So we have ISDN, which may be outmoded, but is far and away faster than dial up and allows us to do what we do. AR was not encouraged that this particular individual was even able to learn what he needed to, such was his aptitude, and anyway, he wasn't interested. So we limp along while paying over $100/month for our service. NOT acceptable!!! The thought of this going on indefinitely while I am trying to do my lit review is making my nerves jangle big time.

Then today I found that when I finally got on my default page had been hijacked to Mozilla's site. That means they did yet another stealth upgrade, without my permission, which is a really huge hot button for me, and usurped my Washinton Post default. Ok, I can live with that, but when I found that ALL MY BOOKMARKS were gone, I blew a gasket. Not only that, when I went to the site to see if there was somewhere to complain, I found I don't even have the newest version of Mozilla Firefox. What the hell? They blew out my bookmarks of three years for a dinosaur? FUCK THAT!!! I have to say that while I adored Mozilla when I first switched, their more recent versions of Thunderbird, the e-mail program, have royally sucked and when THAT program updates iteself (usually without my permission) it sometimes wipes my inbox. Every goddamned time that has happened there has been something critical in my box, so I finally had to make Hotmail my business e-mail, and don't even get me started on how much I dislike them. Looks like I'll be rethinking Opera, but perhaps I'll give the newest Mozilla a try first. I guess I need to chill my shit seeing as it IS free after all. ;p

I've got more... a dying fan on my laptop that whines incessantly (which is probably a major source of my edginess), a big old battle with DMV that I finally took to the mat today, there was a major heat wave while we were away and almost all my plants died (they had to be outside and off the porch thanks to the fumigation) and the fact that we STILL have people crawling all over our house banging and fuming (with paint, caulking, drywall paste, roofing goop etc) and making me feel like a bug under a microscope, not to mention worrying they're going to fume my birds to death while patting me on the head saying, "Don't worry dear, you're birds will be fine." Today I was told they needed access to do repairs inside but nobody would tell me WHAT repairs or in what room, just that my birds would be fine. Turned out it was caulking in the bathroom and drywall stuff and paint in the living room, both of which could potentially have killed my fids. Nice. I cancelled a lunch date with a friend whom I really want to see because she is so depressed, but as it turns out it was a good thing for my birds I did.

Sigh... ok, so that's enough bile for one post. Sorry to have inflicted it on whomever might come here. The weather is lovely, my fish are home and doing well and bit by bit my house is shaping up inside. We're deep cleaning every room; and that means every cupboard, drawer and the furthest corner of every closet, before we bring anything back in. We know there is a move in our future, though we're not sure how soon; depends on whether the landlord forces it (I know they need to sell this house but they really don't want to - I suspect all this work is about that) or if my education forces it, but either way we need to lose about 3/4 of our stuff, so this evacuation has been a good thing since it prompted us to face reality. Reality being WE ARE PIGS!!! Happy pigs wallowing in our own filth, mind you, but pigs nonetheless. ~Oink~

Forced Vacations

So the hotel is decent and even comes with a free breakfast buffet and two free drinks each night, which is something novel to me. There's a big fenced area on the grass between our building and the next for people who want to let their dogs play. How cool! Of course since we don't have a dog we're not so big on listening to them yap at each other under our window, but I love that they are so animal friendly. Really nice rooms that have a door between the kitchen/living room area and bedroom, which helps insulate from the sounds of people in the pool. There's an exercise room and a really nice 'library' where you can read or work on your computer, plus two puters, a fax and wireless hotel wide. All for $89/night! Since our landlords are paying $70 I'd say that's an outrageously good deal. Or it would be if we had any desire to be here in the first place. LOL!

AR managed to forget to load his suitcase when we left, so besides being without his clothes, we were also without all our toiletries. Thankfully I packed my medications and so on separately, so that's ok. Had to go get him some cheapo shorts, shirts, undies and socks at WalMart (HATE to patronize them, but we're poor...) and then there was shampoo, cream rinse, toothbrushes, toothpaste and all that jazz. A bother but not a disaster really.

Cats are well. I got off early yesterday and visited them on my way home. They managed to absolutely plaster me with hair and made my allergies even worse than they were. I think digging through all the cupboards while prepping the house stirred stuff up badly. Gus is positively transported because my friends who are keeping him have guests who are there to rub his silly head all day. The damned bird is BALD from head rubs already!!! Fish are all still living, so that's a relief. I know the cockatiels are fine b/c they stay where they are often and love it.

Settling in for the summer

Well school is well and truly over and I've got a regular shedule with the County now. Mon and Tue I do testing and Friday I counsel. I've had so may amazing experiences already they're all beginning to run together for me. Some hard core psychosis cases with one where the person's meds have stopped working and the hallucinations/dreams are endangering people. WAYYY over my head I fear, but then this is what I need to learn about. And what is real and what is malingering? The validity scales on the tests aren't as fail safe as lecturers might lead one to believe. My supervisor is getting away from the MCMI/MACI now and prefering to use the PAI (Personality Assessment Inventory) and the APS (Adolescent Psychopathology Scales) and the RSTI (Risk Sophistication Treatment Inventory) instead. I'm stoked because it means I will be exposed to a really broad spectrum of tests and learning how to integrate them into a coherent whole with a clinical interview for a useful purpose. Being able to do therapy followup means we can get a much better picture how well our assessment methods are working. Kewl!

On the flip side I am learning so much I wish wasn't true. The gang education is harsh... so many gangs and so much violence. I'm learning the tats, the hand signals and all the other subtle and not so subtle language and politics that goes with this culture. This morning I have been reading about MS13 or Mara Salvatrucha; the Salvadorian Army Ants. Delightful. They are reputedly making intrusions into our neck of the woods. One client solved a puzzle on the Matrix Reasoning subtest of the WISC-IV based on a logical progression of prison gang tattoos. It actually worked, though I am pretty sure that this is NOT what the psychometricians who made the tests were thinking when they designed it. Sheesh!

I learned that I can indeed double up on MFT and doctoral practicum hours in many cases, so will download all the appropriate forms this weekend so I can get it set up officially. One of the students in the class ahead of me already has 1000 MFT hours accrued and he hopped straight into his doctoral, so I'm encouraged!

Yesterday I got an enormous shock when I learned that the main campus for our school is shutting down. Rumors were flying around the county e-mail system because there are so many alumni working there, and the article that was being shared made it seem that ALL the campuses were closing! Read the article, ran to bathroom to puke, reread article and didn't feel any better. It took about 6 readings before I began to suspect that maybe they were trying to say that those in degree programs at the main campus would be accomodated at the sattelite campuses. Hmm... it wasn't until I drove 45 minutes home and Googled the situation that I found out for sure my program was not endangered. OMG, I NEVER want to go through a shock like that again!

Now it's packing and moving time in preparation for the fumigation. I am utterly unmotivated and wanting to play WoW all day. My internet connection has been dodgy for a few days and I haven't played in a week. GASP!!! On the upside of that we will be staying in a hotel with a fast internet connection and wireless in the room so maybe I can finally download the list of music I've been amassing.

FREEDOM!!!

Somehow or other I got through the week and it's OVER! No more school until early October. Yeah, I have a lit review to do for my dissertation and the research project I'm working on, but those have no imminent deadlines so I can work on those things as the spirit moves me and they aren't 'due' specifially anytime.

Those last two days were doozies though. My parther on the collaberative paper started writing her portion on Wed night after our 6-9 pm class. Ouch! The presentation went really well and the paper got in, albeit we had to drop it in the prof's box and e-mail a copy in case he won't go back to campus all summer because we forgot to merge our references. Sigh. Anyway, that's all in the past and I'm DONE, FREE, SUMMERTIME!!!!

Gus is trying to sing!

It's hysterical! He sounds a litlle like one of those door stops that's just a spring with a rubber tip; you know the kind we all spungggged when we were kids? "Bwang spwang twang" he says in his best kazoo tones. He used to do it just when we were dancing around and he was really cranked up, but AR is practicing his singing (among his many talents my other half is an excellent and creative musician) and often has Gus with him when he does. He's now started bwaninging whenever AR sings. The people doing the prep for the fumigation are here again today (just checking in, this is SATURDAY isn't it?) which involves much pounding and power tools so I have my music cranked up. We are currently listening to Queen's Bohemian Rhasody with Gus softly going twang bwang dwang in the background, completely out of tune and rythem with everything. He's such a goof!

And then there's George.

As if he didn't give us all enough of a scare when something (a stray cat we think) attacked the cockatiels in their aviary while I was at school and he ended up with puncture wounds in one wing. He had a really rough couple of weeks and I thought we might lose him at one point. Well his poor battered wings are all healed now and he had a set of half grown flight feathers (he lost all his flights in the attack) as of this morning. New feathers have a blood supply in the base so I had been avoiding clipping him until they were a little longer, but th e little bugger preempted me this morning. I took them out in a carrier but when I was transferring them into their aviary he scuttled over my shoulder and took OFF! Holy shit, he was going like he was fully flighted! Tiels are so light bodied they can fly on adrenaline alone, I swear. He did three laps around the house before coming down at my feet. Thankfully Chewie was safely in the aviary and worked as a tether to keep George close.

The hawks out here are thick though, so it was a terrifying few moments. Needless to say George is now thoroughly clipped though I'll have to do it again once or twice before his flights are all the way grown in. Sheesh.

You know you've hit the knot when...

You find yourself Googling Tentacle Porn while eight windows full of journal articles and critiques of various therapy techniques sit unattended next to three open Word documents containing the bits and pieces of your paper. Sigh. I am on my LAST paper approaching my LAST set of classes before the Big Break and my brain is slithering around like... well like one of those damned squid in The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife woodcut I just read about. That woman and her squid seem to be having alot more fun than I am. Double sigh. My dearest other half has now wandered off, having satisfied his altruistic needs by making me coffee and implanting this strange set of words in my head (we watched an Anime movie last night and somehow or other the ensuing discussion this afternoon led to the aforementioned debacle). It's ok... the coffee will eventually kick in and somehow I will make all these little puzzle pieces into something coherent.

Tomorrow is Juvie and testing, so it's gotta happen tonight if it's gonna happen at all.

Now if only my team mate, the classmate with whom I share this assignment, clocks in soon. She's so utterly overwhelmed I don't know how she can manage to wipe her nose right now, but seeing as half my grade for this assignment depends upon her, I'm not being as magnanomous as I might. Not only that, but it has been decided by the Powers That Be that the final paper or project in every class is to be included in an "APA file" which may be randomly selected for perusal by the accredidation teams in upcoming years as part of their decision to grant our new baby PsyD program accredidation. Why that last paper when we are all freyed and frazzled? Why not the midterm papers when we're still relatively coherent? As a matter of fact, how about limiting the file to materials produced in the first or second term of each year and BANNING anything in the third terms?

Hokay, the blanket is lifting so I suspect it's safe to go back to perusing the metaperspectives on narrative versus structural family therapy. See y'all on the other side...

The Move

This upcoming ordeal AR and I are facing is the PITS! We have to have our house fumigated for termites - no options, we rent. The bitch is that I have two cats, three birds and 11 fish, not to mention squillions of plants. Everything living has to be at least 50 feet away from the house, and the fishtank can't stay even fishless.

Then there's the fact that all the food except what is unopened in jars and cans must either be double bagged in a special plastic that the pest company provides or removed from the premesis. That means all my spices, everything in plastic or cardboard and so forth. Now add in toothpaste, shampoo, cosmetics and so on if they have been opened, all medications and on and on. GAH!!!

I have a background in ag chemicals, so it wasn't too hard for me to do some research on the chemistry they're using. Vikane can be absorbed into wool, rayon, feathers and some types of rubber and may be outgassed by the materials for up to 45 days, yet the pest company said there is no need to remove or bag my feather pillow (which I will have my FACE on!) or my down comforters. Fuck that, I'm taking them all out. Birds and fish will stay out for a week, no the three days they are telling us.

So my cats are going to live in a coyote proof duck pen at a friend's house, the cockatiels will be boarded, the Senegal will stay with friends and the fish... I dunno about the fish. Not one pet store will board them for me and they are telling me they're best off in the tank they're in. That means I must drain my 55 gallon tank down to about an inch of water over the gravel, put the fish and half the water in 5 gallon jugs and buckets, move the whole shebang to someone's house or garage, refill the tank with the saved water and pour the fish in, then do it all over again a week later. Egads!

This was originally scheduled for this coming week, my last week of school, but they graciously moved it out a week for me so I have next weekend to, essentially, move out of my house.

Way to start the summer, eh?

Pooh.

Jumping in the Deep End

Yet another edge-of-the-seat sort of week gone by and I'm just winding down enough to write about it now.

Lessee... when we last left off our heroine was asked by her erstwhile supervisor to cultivate a bit more proficiency witih the WISC-IV before he was going to let her give the test in a forensic setting. Ok, so she (I) met with the professor who teaches all the testing/assessment classes in the PsyD program and had an 'enrichment' session to hone those skills. This in itself was interesting because we did it at the State [mental] Hospital which I have managed to penetrate all of twice before this (NOT as a patron, mind you), and it is high on my list of predoc intership sites. So anyway, she role played an oppositional/CD minded 15 year old for me. It was great, and she had a ton of good tips for me to make it flow more smoothly; index cards, page numbers, color coded tabs and so forth. I DESPISE the manual for the current WISC. The one for the WAIS-III has nice blue scripting to bridge from test to test, "Now we're going to move on to something a little different. I am going to say some words to you and you tell me how they are alike." etc. In the WISC-IV there is standardized scripting for the examples, but no general introduction for each section, so I fumble.

Whilst in the midst of all that I was getting frantic phone calls from my supervisor at the County, but I didn't know it because we were in a maximum security area (my professor's office) and no cell phones are allowed in there. When I got out to my car around 9pm I got all the messages saying that he had to be in court all day Wed, and could I administer the WRAT, WAIS and MCMI to a 19 year old girl, and the WRAT, WISC and MACI to a 16 year old boy in the Hall. So I'd never given the WRAT? Oh no biggie, it will only take 2 minutes to explain how to administer it, and the MACI is just like the MCMI. Hoo boy... Okay, I'll do it!

So at 8am the next morning I got my two minutes of instruction, and that is not an exaggeration as he had to be in court by 8:30, and sat down to read the client's file. She showed up, miraculously (she's no-showed for everything so far), and I did my best to get a history, but she was about as warm as a snowdrift and belligerent as all hell, so we just moved along to the testing phase. Surprisingly she was very cooperative in that area and in a few minutes I had her laughing and joking with me. Whew! Got to write up a mental status exam on her (which my supervisor gushed over, so I guess I can stop fretting over whether my report writing will be adequate), grab a taco and bolt over to Juvie to do the boy.

One of the MFTs warned me he was 'kinda scary' but I found him to be just your basic frightened and defensive kid who was embarassed and thus a little defended about his shaky academic skills. I didn't have time to get though all his tests, so we'll take up where we left off; about halfway through the WISC, next week, but again he was laughing and talking candidly to me after a few minutes, so I'm encouraged about my clinical skills.

The rest of the week involved prepping for 2 presentations, doing a MCMI report and writing a paper. You know, business as usual... I lived through it, though our whole cohort and all the teachers are SOOOOO done, it's unreal. Everyone is grouchy and getting irritated with each other, including the faculty. Just one more week of this insanity and we get four months off. JOY!!!

Next week I'll make sure to meet with our librarian; an absolute DIAMOND in my estimation, to help me get more comfy with the online library so I can pull up specific articles better. It makes me nuts that I can find abstracts on Google Scholar, but even with all the citation info, I can't pull the damned articles up on our system afterwards. It's just such a pain in the ass to search all the various databases in the school system that I find half the work is done for me on Google. Not that I don't get stuff on their system just fine, but it seems like there's MORE on Google and somehow it's always the ones that don't come up on the library system that I find the most interesting. This summer I will do my dissertation lit review, so I need to get proficient if I'm going to get the work done without losing my sanity. Good Lord... 'this summer' is a week away!

Whobody is going to the APA convention in SF this August? I'll be there! It looks to be really exciting and some of my classmates are presenting a research project, too, so that makes it even more special.

Off to play WoW for the rest of the evening. I try to take Friday afternoons/eves off. Oh, but a little business... I play with two of my classmates (we're pretending we're going to do a research project on WoW to presentat the 2008 APA convnetion) and one of them is getting MFT and doctoral practicum credits for the same hours, so I will text him mid-quest to see how he's doing it. Way to win friends and influence people, eh? LOL!