Ah, it's so nice to be sitting at home on a lovely morning trying to decide what to do with the day. Mind you there is lots, and much of it urgent, but not urgent in the way coursework and applications can be, you know? I have to make reservations to meet a pair of very old friends in Wyoming in a couple of weeks. I have to finalize my grades for my class. I have to go get my nails done and go to the bank. And then there is the disaster of a house to put in order. Dissertation begins tomorrow because I want all these tempting distractions sewn up before I tuck in.
It's been two weeks since I finished my classes and this has been my first moment to breathe. FINALLY this coming week I won't be driving down to the old stomping grounds. This past week it was graduation for my classmates, which was HUGE since it's our first class to graduate from the program. Wonderful times, and I'm so proud of them all! Then the week before was my last class to teach and that went well too. Grades were supposed to be in last night but I am doing them today because I've been working 10 hour days at Juvenile Hall and no time to even breathe! I have one more week of that and then it slows to a day here and a day there for the rest of the summer, so it won't be so intense. I do love the work, I just hate the lost hours. Wish I could just get paid without having to actually DO anything! LOL!
I have one last practicum client to see two more times and then that is done. But despite all the mayhem these past two weeks I've managed to get together with old friends two or three times and catch up at a last. I wondered if I'd even have any friends left by now, so I've been pleased to find everyone is still welcoming and interested in hearing about my life. I have a luncheon at my new internship site in mid July and then an orientation the last day of the month. They screwed up and didn't get us the paperwork last week so I hope we'll get through the process in time to start August first as planned! There is no end of background checks, medical exams and so forth involved in this sort of work. I think this will be my fifth LiveScan. You just never know when someone might have gone and done something heinous in the 6 months since the last scan...
I hear the university where I did my masters is hiring for a prof or two in the masters program. It's very tempting to check it out, especially since the program director told me he'd love to see me come back and teach some day. Classes are from 5-10 at night, so I might be able to swing it, but I think I won't do that to myself. Instead I'll do alternating weekends at Juvenile Hall if my internship is unpaid. I'm just keeping everything crossed that we won't have to go there and this money I'm making now will just replace what we've been gradually drawing out of savings.
AR writes applications for Itouch now, exclusively. All his other work has gradually petered out; by design, but at the moment he has no contract apps and is slaving at what we hope will be a great money maker of our own. Thankfully these apps don't take long to create, so he'll have space for more contract work in a few weeks, but for now he has almost ZERO income, down from making double what we needed to pay our bills. Kind of an abrupt descent, so we're pretty nervous. I have some royalties from gas wells my grandmother left me, but they too have abruptly stopped paying. Shaky times for everyone, so I'm just very thankful I have the Hall to fall back on, even if it is hit and miss. I'm also really REALLY glad I opted to teach and still have a check coming for that. The second time around the class went swimmingly well and my evals are stellar. I'm SO pleased!
As alway, I see fascinating cases. Recently a case of Munchhausen's and a prodromal schizophrenia case have kept me intrigued. One of my forensics profs wants to publish in a psychology teaching journal about the projects we did in her class, so I will be a coauthor by narrating the background of why I chose that particular topic and what I want to do with it. Then I may actually present my project (we each had to create a workshop or presentation to educate some population about the importance of psychology to a forensic topic) to the group home where I used to work. Once I have a few of those low key sorts of presentations down then I may ramp it up and go for a group of judges and lawyers. Dunno, that sounds rather scary, so I'll start with baby steps. Group home, mental health staff at the Hall (which includes a psychiatrist and a couple of senior psychologists so that will be a challenge), Probation officers and Juvenile Institution Officers, then I'll see if I feel up to some serious social activism. The presentation is an educational piece about adolescent neuro-development as it bears on trying children as adults for their crimes. Or then again I might run away and hide behind my dissertation instead...
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
School's out for Summer!
School's out forEVER!!!
WOO HOO, it's over at last! Friday was my last day of classes, but it still hasn't really sunk in that I'm done. I have to drive down this coming week to teach my class one more time and then I'm driving down the following week to see a group of classmates ahead of me graduate. As of last Friday our program has it's first graduate! The others will follow suit this week and next as they defend their dissertations, but this is the first person in this brand new program to post her degree. HUGE deal for us all!
I wanted to focus entirely on my dissertation this summer and only work one day a week, but since my internship training director called a couple of weeks ago with the news that she can no longer guarantee that my internship will be paid, I'm going to fill in for people on vacation and try to bank some cash just in case. For now the funding is still solid, but she said the State is looking hard at it and these next two months before we begin are the most likely time it will be cut, if it is. In that case there is a grant that I may qualify for that is worth about half what the position was to pay, and I will take all the student aid I can get. I hope it doesn't come to that, but seeing what a mess California is in, I certainly have to do what I can to provide for myself.
Still and all I'm really upbeat. I look like death warmed over and feel like I've been beaten with bats, but I'm not tense and pressured anymore and that is a WONDERFUL feeling! Next on the to do list is to get healthy again. This program has damned near killed me off, so I'm going to focus on losing 20 pounds, getting back in shape and just generally taking care of myself the way I should have all along.
I have an appt with a neurologist on Wed to clear up what the mild 'intrusion' is into my spine between C5 and C6. My doc and the radiologist think it is too small to cause the numbness I've had in my hand, but it's certainly in the right spot for that. I'd rather like an explanation than not, and if I can just do physical therapy to correct it that would be delightful. Keep hearing horror stories about 'nerve tests' and am not in the least interested in verifying them.
The lump is unchanged and no idea if it will grow or s shrink or ever go away at all! But seeing as it's nothing dire it can do whatever it wants and shouldn't be a problem.
WOO HOO, it's over at last! Friday was my last day of classes, but it still hasn't really sunk in that I'm done. I have to drive down this coming week to teach my class one more time and then I'm driving down the following week to see a group of classmates ahead of me graduate. As of last Friday our program has it's first graduate! The others will follow suit this week and next as they defend their dissertations, but this is the first person in this brand new program to post her degree. HUGE deal for us all!
I wanted to focus entirely on my dissertation this summer and only work one day a week, but since my internship training director called a couple of weeks ago with the news that she can no longer guarantee that my internship will be paid, I'm going to fill in for people on vacation and try to bank some cash just in case. For now the funding is still solid, but she said the State is looking hard at it and these next two months before we begin are the most likely time it will be cut, if it is. In that case there is a grant that I may qualify for that is worth about half what the position was to pay, and I will take all the student aid I can get. I hope it doesn't come to that, but seeing what a mess California is in, I certainly have to do what I can to provide for myself.
Still and all I'm really upbeat. I look like death warmed over and feel like I've been beaten with bats, but I'm not tense and pressured anymore and that is a WONDERFUL feeling! Next on the to do list is to get healthy again. This program has damned near killed me off, so I'm going to focus on losing 20 pounds, getting back in shape and just generally taking care of myself the way I should have all along.
I have an appt with a neurologist on Wed to clear up what the mild 'intrusion' is into my spine between C5 and C6. My doc and the radiologist think it is too small to cause the numbness I've had in my hand, but it's certainly in the right spot for that. I'd rather like an explanation than not, and if I can just do physical therapy to correct it that would be delightful. Keep hearing horror stories about 'nerve tests' and am not in the least interested in verifying them.
The lump is unchanged and no idea if it will grow or s shrink or ever go away at all! But seeing as it's nothing dire it can do whatever it wants and shouldn't be a problem.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Trying to stay calm
So this last week isn't going well. I am beyond overloaded and still having problems concentrating. Yesterday I called a classmate for clarification on an assignment and she was so spun I almost hung up on her. I wasn't exactly in a happy place myself so when I realized I was shaking, my ears were ringing and I was about to either cry or get violent with my pets and husband for the crime of breathing in my vicinity I finally broke down and took an Atavan. I've had them since the panic attack last December but never taken one. Seemed to work well just knowing I could if I had to.
I suppose the fact that I didn't blow a gasket means it was a good thing to have taken the nearly microscopic pill, but within an hour I was utterly drugged and good for nothing. Anti anxiety my ass, for me it was pure sedative so I was groggy, slurring my speech and no way in hell could I string to words together into even a phrase, let alone a sentence!
I slept all the way through thenight, which was supposed to be an all-nighter to pull me out of this hole. I'm still feeling drugged this morning even at the tail end of the pill's potency. At least the next two days are light, practicum wise, but I still can't see getting all this done. Three of my four assignments involve presenting, so there's no way to be late on them. The one that doesn't involves a prof who is as flexible as cement and isn't going to take into account that his instructions and materials were woefully inadequate.
I can feel the panic swirling somewhere just behind my head and neck, but I can't take another Ativan, that's for damned sure. Just going to have to breathe and go for a triple latte when I get to town.
Why do all my pets get intensely demanding exactly when I can't spend even a nanosecond with them? The birds scream, the cats wail... even the fish start spitting rocks at the side of the tank. My husband feeds and plays with all of them, so why do they need ME so much?
Someone send me a time warp...
I suppose the fact that I didn't blow a gasket means it was a good thing to have taken the nearly microscopic pill, but within an hour I was utterly drugged and good for nothing. Anti anxiety my ass, for me it was pure sedative so I was groggy, slurring my speech and no way in hell could I string to words together into even a phrase, let alone a sentence!
I slept all the way through thenight, which was supposed to be an all-nighter to pull me out of this hole. I'm still feeling drugged this morning even at the tail end of the pill's potency. At least the next two days are light, practicum wise, but I still can't see getting all this done. Three of my four assignments involve presenting, so there's no way to be late on them. The one that doesn't involves a prof who is as flexible as cement and isn't going to take into account that his instructions and materials were woefully inadequate.
I can feel the panic swirling somewhere just behind my head and neck, but I can't take another Ativan, that's for damned sure. Just going to have to breathe and go for a triple latte when I get to town.
Why do all my pets get intensely demanding exactly when I can't spend even a nanosecond with them? The birds scream, the cats wail... even the fish start spitting rocks at the side of the tank. My husband feeds and plays with all of them, so why do they need ME so much?
Someone send me a time warp...
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
I can see the finish line
It's Wednesday, which means I head to school this afternoon. After this I have just ONE MORE WEEK and I'm done forever. Oh Lord it cannot come fast enough! Except I need time to slow down to get all my work done, of course. I did manage to make a really cool poster for a workshop I'm giving for a forensics class, and I think the accompanying paper is good. It took me three days to create a 20 minute presentation though.
Monday I got a call from the Training Director at my internship. She said that while everything is a go now, she was calling just to let us know that she cannot promise our internships (there are two of us) will be funded. Across the state sites are cowering in terror while the State sniffs around at internships with an eye toward cutting costs. Keeping everything crossed that we are too small a piece of the collective pie to be messed with. In the mean time I'm filling out my FAFSA after all and will apply for everything I can get. Also changing my tune about accepting more hours at Juvenile Hall.
Sucks.
My MRIs came back mostly normal. The lump didn't show at all, which suggests it is a fatty limpoma, since the images were 'fat supressed.' I'm not sure how they do that but I let them know that if they offer just general, day to day fat suppression I'll be the first in line! The cervical scan showed a slight 'intrusion' into the spinal foramen between C5 & C6. That would be the right place to be causing radial numbmess but my doc and the radiologist think it's too small to be interfering with anything. She referred me to a neurologist though, so we'll see what he says about it next Wednesday.
Blah. What a dry and boring post. Felt like I should say something, but really haven't much of interest to say. Sorry readers!
Oh, here I do have a fun tidbit to end with. A client told me he was late for his appointment because he'd worked all weekend doing hard physical labor and rigor mortis had set in over night. Thus he was too stiff to get dressed in time. LOL!
Monday I got a call from the Training Director at my internship. She said that while everything is a go now, she was calling just to let us know that she cannot promise our internships (there are two of us) will be funded. Across the state sites are cowering in terror while the State sniffs around at internships with an eye toward cutting costs. Keeping everything crossed that we are too small a piece of the collective pie to be messed with. In the mean time I'm filling out my FAFSA after all and will apply for everything I can get. Also changing my tune about accepting more hours at Juvenile Hall.
Sucks.
My MRIs came back mostly normal. The lump didn't show at all, which suggests it is a fatty limpoma, since the images were 'fat supressed.' I'm not sure how they do that but I let them know that if they offer just general, day to day fat suppression I'll be the first in line! The cervical scan showed a slight 'intrusion' into the spinal foramen between C5 & C6. That would be the right place to be causing radial numbmess but my doc and the radiologist think it's too small to be interfering with anything. She referred me to a neurologist though, so we'll see what he says about it next Wednesday.
Blah. What a dry and boring post. Felt like I should say something, but really haven't much of interest to say. Sorry readers!
Oh, here I do have a fun tidbit to end with. A client told me he was late for his appointment because he'd worked all weekend doing hard physical labor and rigor mortis had set in over night. Thus he was too stiff to get dressed in time. LOL!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
