Week 20: May 14th-19th 2013. The waiting is over.

My 5 things:

1. Went running. Only once, it was a post-Vegas run over the weekend and it was necessary. My running was on a role there. I do believe that was positively correlated with my stress level leading up to Orals. Then Vegas happened. So, it is just a matter of getting back to 3 times a week. I'm happy with 3 times a week.
   
   
2. I actually let myself take a nap. That is rare in recent years, and I usually try to fight the urge but I was just exhausted and I allowed myself to sleep, despite not having been as productive as I'd wanted to. Turns out I was able to wake up from the nap and give my kitchen a much needed cleaning, as well as the floors in the house. So it was definitely worth it. 
   
   
3. I made the decision to stay here. J had a business trip up north Thursday-Sunday. I wanted to go, to be able to see family, to accompany him on the road but I knew I had so much work piling up and that I really couldn't afford to take more time off with all these deadlines looming. Instead, I stayed here and holed myself up at home. Aside from going to work on Friday, I didn't leave the house. I was able to get wquite a bit of school work/dissertation and research stuff done.
   
   
4. Watched tons of silly movies/TV that I would never subject J to out of respect for his manhood. I'm talking dramas, romantic comedy, and amultiple episodes of an ABC family TV show. Bad stuff (but oh-so-good in that horrible way)
   
   
5. In my Women's Group that I co-lead I utilized a new technique I've never done before, that is out of my usual realm of practices. I did a spin off of Gestalt's "empty chair" technique. It actually ended up being pretty effective, although not all patients participated to the fullest..which is expected in a group. Either way, I was proud of myself for reaching outside of my usual bag of tricks for last week's group.

After a weekend of consistently checking and rechecking my email for a message from my latest interview and watching as my phone didn't ring, Monday arrived and I was beginning to lose hope. "By the end of the week" she said. The interview took place on Thursday, so I assumed that meant Friday. When Friday came and went with nothing I assumed that perhaps meant some time over the weekend, surely by Sunday (that is, in fact, the end of the week). Sunday then came and went and Monday had arrived with not even a peep. Thankfully J came come after a weekend up north late Sunday evening so my attention was focused mostly on him. Monday morning I got up much earlier than him, had my coffee and read some research articles for my Forensics class. After a hearty breakfast of banana-oatmeal pancakes and strawberries and a silent phone, I spent the rest the morning catching up with J and hearing about his trip before he had to head to work. I checked my phone and out of no where, I had somehow missed a call and had a voicemail waiting. It was her, calling to offer me a practicum placement. FINALLY! After over a month of my hopes being hurled around on an emotional roller coaster of rejection I have a place that actually thinks I'm good enough. What a relief.

It's not what I want to be doing, it still working in substance abuse...so it's actually really a killer to my future career hopes of being in Forensics field...or really any field outside of substance use. It's a residential setting for women and children (the women are in recovery). So, it's going to be an estrogen party for me on a daily basis. Oy! That's going to take some getting used to, especially since currently most my clients are male, my supervisor is male, and my clinic director is male. Soon I'll be surrounded by vaginas galore with little testosterone in sight. Should be... interesting.
 Choosing this site has closed a LOT of doors I am really not ready to close. It's actually going beyond closing them, it is flat out nailing the door shut with an extra large padlock and chains. That is going to take some mourning. I mean I can fight and fight until I'm blue in the face, but in the end I needed to make a decision: to hold onto an idea that had me drowning by myself in this ocean that was my dream , or to latch onto a lifeboat that would sail me away from that ocean and onto land where, although the safety is comforting, it won't ever make me feel the way that ocean did.

I suppose that's a common theme in life. Keep drowning for the possibility of something likely unattainable or get to safety and miss out on whatever it was I was risking my life for. The trouble is...knowing when to grab on or when to keep struggling.

Week 13: March 25th-31st. Easter and I'm running again!

Spring break is over, although I can't actually remember any sort of break. I still had a  class (we were making up from a missed one) and I still went into Practicum, woke up at 4am, saw clients, and had supervision. I still had to work on my dissertation. Where was the break exactly? New quarter starts tomorrow.

Oh also, no practicum interviews, still. No rejections either, but I think lack of interviews at this point pretty much insinuates rejections. Waiting, waiting, still waiting. At this point I'm just waiting for rejection confirmation, which is a little ridiculous.


My 5 things:

1. I went running. Not once, not twice, but THREE times this past week. Yes, 3 times! While that used to be the norm for me (and is probably a slow week for most runners) it was definitely something I haven't done in a very, very long time. Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of this. Granted, the running wasn't anything spectacular, I did interval running (run 1 min, walk 1 min) and did about 20 total minutes (so 10 of each) but, it was running!

2. I got to talk with one of my closest friends, Lis on the phone. She and I try to keep in touch but it is usually ends up as sporadic texts on various days and then an email every couple of months. It doesn't help that there is a time difference, she's in Hawai'i so for half the year she's 3 hours behind and the other half she's 2 hours behind. This week we actually got to have a phone conversation, with some very important news. She was accepted (with funding!) to ASU for grad school! I am so very proud of her. Also, I like the idea of having her a 10 hour drive or a less than 2 hour plane ride away from me.

3. I did yoga twice this week. That totals out to 5 workouts this last week. Damn that feels good.

4. I skyped with my family when they had their Easter on Saturday at my dad's house. I got to watch the kids barrel out of the house on their hunt for eggs and watch them run around with their baskets. I got to see the faces of those I love so much and to see the beautiful weather they were having.

My dad and sister showing off their great weather

This was actually pretty bittersweet. This is now the 7th year I've been apart from my family for Easter. This holiday just always happens to fall at a time of year I'm not able to go home. It was also the first major holiday I was away from my family when I first moved away, right after everything went to shit with my family. Which is likely why it seems especially hard, even for the 7th year in a row. So although I wasn't able to be there in person, I'm thankful I got to be a small part of it.

5. I led, well I co-lead my first ever therapy group this week. It is a women's group that myself and another counselor have formed at the methadone clinic. It was actually originally her thing, she sent out an email stating she'd be starting one and I contacted her about co-leading (since I didn't have any group therapy hours under my belt). I was nervous, and there were definitely parts about it that could have gone better, but either way, I've now completed my first group. We're going to be doing it weekly through the month of April and we may continue, depending on how the month goes. Should be interesting!