Well school starts this week so today is my last day of relative freedom. Well actually Wednesday is, but this is a weekend ya know, so I feel I have the choice to work on academics or not. Not really the case, but I like to pretend. Today I'll finalize my application for a local internship with an early deadline and write a few more to boot. Need to tally this month's hours so that on Tuesday I need only add in the week and get them signed off. I hate loose ends!
In other news Juvenile Hall wants me to do some intensive therapy with a small group of kids for pay, so I'm thinking I may pick that up on Friday afternoons since I pass through that town on my way home from school. If I stay two hours after class every day and work on my dissertation, then spend 3 hours at the Hall I think I can do the one without cutting into the other. I never do anything constructive when I get home from school anyway. It's overloading, but I'll probably drop the male batterers group soon because I'm getting more and more sideways with the group leader. (yesterday he not only biased his presentation, but outright misinformed the group about ADHD, and I DID intervene this time)I'm learning lots but I think a few more weeks should suffice to say I've had a good grounding and I can join up again later if a different group becomes available. I'd love to do a whole year of this, but 8:30 Saturday morning for two hours SUCKS and 3 or 4 paid hours trumps 2 unpaid ones any day. I seriously think I'm doing more good for the kids in the hall since they won't get any therapy if I opt out, whereas these men will be there no matter who teaches the class.
Hot flashes are getting more frequent and I have added a joint problem and a chronic cough to my list of medical woes, so I have doctors' appointments week after next to address all that. I know my life has peaked out in the stress arena when I find myself thinking a medical leave for the year wouldn't be such a bad thing...
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Meltdown
Recovering from a minor meltdown yesterday. I could feel the tension and the stress building and building until by yesterday morning I was feeling stuck, frustrated and paralyzed. It's funny what small things can push a person over the edge. My bird bit me on the ear. Yep, that was it. Sent me wailing to the bedroom like a three year old child. I must have sobbed for an hour or more and told my mystified little cat all the ways that life was unfair and there was no way I could accomplish all these things and how I just couldn't DO this anymore!! She's a good listener and AR is good at hugging and petting and snuggling until all the pain ebbs away.
Feeling rejuvenated and re-energized today, if a bit shaky. Yes I'm tired and yes it's an enormous mountain I'm climbing but I CAN do it. I WILL do it! I think I'll keep the cat and AR around just in case though. I guess maybe the bird can come too...
Feeling rejuvenated and re-energized today, if a bit shaky. Yes I'm tired and yes it's an enormous mountain I'm climbing but I CAN do it. I WILL do it! I think I'll keep the cat and AR around just in case though. I guess maybe the bird can come too...
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Lists and Lists
Ugh, I am SOOOO tired! For some reason I find sifting through potential internship sites to be horribly stress inducing. I've finally got my APPIC list made though, and have passed it on to AR for inspection. He'll weed out the "HELL no, I won't live there!" spots and lob it back to me.
Tomorrow I'll do the CAPIC list, as there are some decent, paid spots in that group, and they may outrank the lower rung APPIC ones. Realistically I am more likely to get one of the latter than the former, but I still cling to hope! Two people in last year's cohort got well paid APPIC spots even when other, accredited schools got none at all. Thus I forge on with that whisp of encouragement.
For tonight though, I can't take anymore. Just waiting for the last vestige of light to fade so we can watch our Netflix. (Digital projector requires darkness)
Tomorrow I'll do the CAPIC list, as there are some decent, paid spots in that group, and they may outrank the lower rung APPIC ones. Realistically I am more likely to get one of the latter than the former, but I still cling to hope! Two people in last year's cohort got well paid APPIC spots even when other, accredited schools got none at all. Thus I forge on with that whisp of encouragement.
For tonight though, I can't take anymore. Just waiting for the last vestige of light to fade so we can watch our Netflix. (Digital projector requires darkness)
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Milestones
I passed my comps!!! One more check on the list of peaks ascended. So I may now officially advance to candidacy. Somehow it's not as exciting a milestone as I might like. Maybe because it was a hurdle thrown up unexpectedly and not something I'd been planning for? Dunno, but it still pretty much leaves me flat.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Savage Summer
I don't know what it is with this summer, but it's pounding me and everyone I know; and will continue right up to the bitter end, apparently.
Just got a note from the lady who traded birds with me. Her husband may have cancer in his pelvic bone; he's going for a consult with an oncologist down south this week to find out. Just another little blip on the shockingly long sick, dying, comatose and dead list for me and my friends this summer. =(
Besides the obvious horrific implications for both of them, it means they will likely have to rehome all their birds, including my cockatiels. I'll help or I'll take them back and try to regroup. That sucks in all kinds of ways for all of us. Just makes me feel that much shittier for having given them up to begin with... and this man just loves them so much! I guess I will focus on the fact that he feels good about where his little Senegal went and he's enjoying my tiels, so if he has to suffer then at least this exchange made it a little better for him for awhile.
Then this teaching thing is making me crazy. I've decided to do it, but I really don't know if that's the best decision. Without a crystal ball it's just impossible to know what's best to do. I decided that if fate was going to frigging pound me over the head with this then I'd better take notice. People in the field are telling me that it's really hard to break into teaching right now, especially without experience (I see you Donna!) and I do want to teach eventually. AR is promising to do everything he can to support me and I am working out how I can get most of the prep done before the winter term begins so maybe it will only be the stage fright and grading that will be left. I'm still really freaked about it though, because I am just NOWHERE on my dissertation and somehow I have to turn that around and get it finished in a year's time.
Damn the stinking comprehensive exam that ate up a whole month this summer! I can't say the same for my parents, they needed my help, and my friend's daughter certainly didn't choose to have a heart attack, so I can't complain about that either. Oh hell... life just goes like that sometimes. I hope it means there'll be some smooth water coming soon. I can't envision what that might look like, But I'm hopeful.
I have three and a half weeks left before school starts and I've done all four essays, tallied all my hours and am almost done filling out the APPI. I've updated my CV, though it needs more revisions. I'm pretty sure I passed my comps and I'll have all the practicum hours required for graduation by the time school starts or shortly thereafter. So I guess I've made decent progress in quite a few areas even if my dissertation is a void. I put on APPI that the proposal will be done at the end of the fall term. Now I just have to find some way to make that come true, despite the fact that I will have an empirically validated therapy methods class with an absolutely enormous research paper and another forensic/law one that I suspect will be seriously demanding as well.
I really just want to curl up in a ball and suck my thumb.
Just got a note from the lady who traded birds with me. Her husband may have cancer in his pelvic bone; he's going for a consult with an oncologist down south this week to find out. Just another little blip on the shockingly long sick, dying, comatose and dead list for me and my friends this summer. =(
Besides the obvious horrific implications for both of them, it means they will likely have to rehome all their birds, including my cockatiels. I'll help or I'll take them back and try to regroup. That sucks in all kinds of ways for all of us. Just makes me feel that much shittier for having given them up to begin with... and this man just loves them so much! I guess I will focus on the fact that he feels good about where his little Senegal went and he's enjoying my tiels, so if he has to suffer then at least this exchange made it a little better for him for awhile.
Then this teaching thing is making me crazy. I've decided to do it, but I really don't know if that's the best decision. Without a crystal ball it's just impossible to know what's best to do. I decided that if fate was going to frigging pound me over the head with this then I'd better take notice. People in the field are telling me that it's really hard to break into teaching right now, especially without experience (I see you Donna!) and I do want to teach eventually. AR is promising to do everything he can to support me and I am working out how I can get most of the prep done before the winter term begins so maybe it will only be the stage fright and grading that will be left. I'm still really freaked about it though, because I am just NOWHERE on my dissertation and somehow I have to turn that around and get it finished in a year's time.
Damn the stinking comprehensive exam that ate up a whole month this summer! I can't say the same for my parents, they needed my help, and my friend's daughter certainly didn't choose to have a heart attack, so I can't complain about that either. Oh hell... life just goes like that sometimes. I hope it means there'll be some smooth water coming soon. I can't envision what that might look like, But I'm hopeful.
I have three and a half weeks left before school starts and I've done all four essays, tallied all my hours and am almost done filling out the APPI. I've updated my CV, though it needs more revisions. I'm pretty sure I passed my comps and I'll have all the practicum hours required for graduation by the time school starts or shortly thereafter. So I guess I've made decent progress in quite a few areas even if my dissertation is a void. I put on APPI that the proposal will be done at the end of the fall term. Now I just have to find some way to make that come true, despite the fact that I will have an empirically validated therapy methods class with an absolutely enormous research paper and another forensic/law one that I suspect will be seriously demanding as well.
I really just want to curl up in a ball and suck my thumb.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
