Week 28: July 8th-14th: Puppy takes over

My 5 things:

1. Got a puppy. Now, this was not actually my idea and I had (have!) a lot of reservations about it, but at the same time this guy is just adorable and really hard not to fall in love with.

I do have dog allergies, which are proving to be difficult to adjust to. We've had him almost a week now and my body isn't exactly alright with the whole situation but hopefully it will get easier with time. Not to mention he is a handful and a half!
 Puppies are no joke and I don't understand how so many people get puppies because they are such a HUGE responsibility. Cute yes, a major hassle, double yes!


2. I spent time at home by myself catching up on The L-Word. It isn't a show that I make J watch with me, because lets face it, there is estrogen overload going on all the time in the show and he's not a fan of that sort of thing (although, he has a secret love for the movie Sweet Home Alabama that I do not understand. I mean, I like the movie, but I do not get what he loves about it so much). Regardless, I use The L-Word as my own little guilty pleasure to enjoy by myself.

3. I baked cookies this weekend.

4. Two of my friends from school made the trek up from the south bay to meet the new pup and after we went to lunch and got ice cream. It was a belated birthday celebration for me since we never did get together for mine. I rarely get to see them or any of my friends from school for that matter since I moved to Oakland, so it is always nice to be able to reconnect in person.

5. Yard work. What? Yard work is on my list of 5 things that is beneficial for me? So, it's not exactly a party in my honor, but it is great to be able to be outside and being active while also making progress and accomplishing something. I did it twice this last week. Although, my allergies hated me after the 2nd day and took a toll on my body because of it. It kicked my butt and left me with blisters but it felt good to sweat though, especially since I've been slacking on my running, a lot.

Where we've been and where we're going

As I'm quickly coming upon the birthday that will bring me into the last year of my 20's, I have a number of things going through my mind. It's so easy to focus on what all we haven't done, how much time has gone by and all the opportunities that we've missed out on or have passed by and can no longer have or do.
Living in the world we do with such a focus on youth and beauty I already feel washed up and like a has-been before I've even turned 30.

Yesterday my best friend tells me that the doctors said she may have something I've only ever heard of in those commercials with wrinkly people with white hair who move slow. Some form of arthritis which I had to google in order to know what it was.

The grey hair started years ago, along with the traces of the years on my face. This is only going to continue. There is no turning back, youth leaves us a little bit more each day. I'll never be that 16 year old that could eat an entire marionberry pie in a day (that's 3,000 calories for the whole pie, by the way) followed by gallons of Mountain Dew and king sized Reese's the next day and still weigh 125lbs. Although, just the thought of all that sugar is actually making me a little nauseous. I've already noticed the impact of a life of 9 hours parked in a chair in an office and 2 hours a day sedentary as I commute. The disheartening thing, is that it only gets more difficult from here. I'm not 16 anymore and when I'm 40, I'll wish it were as simple as it was at 28 (despite how much I'm complaining now).

Today I was reading something my old English teacher wrote. She mentioned something about how she taught high school for the 1st 10 years of her career. I started thinking. When I sat in her class at the age of 15, I had no idea that this woman hadn't been teaching her entire life (when you're 15, everyone over 18 seems like they're 40...turns out she was only in her late 20's!) or that she wouldn't be doing that for the rest of her career. To me, she was a teacher. That's it. That is what she did. Looking back, I see that although she spent 10 years doing that, 10 years is not your entire career. She's expanding her career and doing more than what she was doing at 28. Granted, I'm much further behind than that. I'm not into my career yet, but I am working in my field. Right now it feels like grad school is taking forever and a life time. I'm putting so much on hold in order to be doing this right now. But when I'm in my 40's, will this 5 years really seem like a lifetime or will it feel, as with most things, that it was merely a blink of an eye. I keep getting so bogged down about decisions I've had to make recently and what doors they've closed for me...and maybe for the first 10 years of my career, those doors will have to remain shut. But what is to stop me from figuring out a way to spend the following 10 doing what I set out to do? Or expanding to include some of the things I am hoping I'll get to do someday. There are a lot of politics in my field, that will make it impossible for me to do what I really want right out of graduate school, and maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. I took that as "you'll never work in the area you want because you didn't get your foot in the door in graduate school". All it really means, is I won't get to work in my area of interest for awhile. Maybe for 5 or 10 years. Maybe 15. But who is to say it will never happen? As my former teacher modeled: even if you spend 10 years working in one area of your field, it does not define your career. You can shift, you can expand, you can go in another direction if you so choose and are willing to take the steps necessary. Maybe I need those 10 or 15 years working in different areas in order to be ready for the work I want to do.

Today marks my mother's 1st day of retirement. Talk about a woman who has lived a million life times and isn't even 65. I think that is, in part, what sparked me thinking about all of this. I didn't know my mom when she was 28 (I wasn't born for another 5 years) but I'm sure the plans she had for herself, with 4 children and on her 3rd marriage, were not the same plans she had when she was 40 with 6 children and working full time. Regardless of where her 28 year old self thought she'd be when she reached her 40's, life had its own plan. Now in her 60's, she embarking on a new chapter. All her children are grown, she's no longer tied to a job where she has to be somewhere and on someone's time-clock. She's starting something completely new that she's never done before. Even with all that life behind her, she's got (hopefully) many, many years ahead of herself.

We can spend all our time mourning what we don't have and what we've missed out on, or we can open our eyes and realize all that we have in front of us...right now.

Office Dress Code: and other lies they tell you

Two weeks of training completed.
Tuesday I'll see my first clients at a practicum  site completely unrelated to my school.
It's not as though the client's I saw through my school's clinic were not real.
They were people, with real, chronic, serious issues.
The practicum itself, however, was not so real.
It had ridiculous expectations, limitations, rules and requirements that I am quickly finding out...have nothing to do with how things work in actual organizations.
What I will say, is that my school clinic over-prepared me...which I suppose is much better than the reverse of that.
It over-prepared my ideas about therapy sessions, dress code requirements, procedures, paperwork, etc.
The dress code alone is one of the things I find the most comical. at my school clinic there were so many restrictions, fabric and length requirements and overall appearance rules...and then I get to my new site, where people are wearing denim and sneakers and I'm damn near in a pants suit.  
I am quite surprised how at ease I actually feel about this new practicum of mine.
There are quite a number of reasons it should scare me and I should be incredibly worried:

• It is working with substance abuse issues
• It is at a methadone clinic
• There is an element of mandated treatment (which gives you quite a bit of resistance from clients)
• I'm going from my prior caseload of 2 clients to (currently) 6 but that number will be 10-15 within the next month.

Despite all of that, I am surprisingly calm about it all. I mean, don't get me wrong. I am not completely calm, there definitely exists a level of anxiety and worry, but it is what I would call a "healthy" or "appropriate" amount given the circumstances.
Mostly I am just excited to be getting more experience and to get into the swing of things. I know there are elements such as paper work and assessments that will need to be done that will be tedious and overwhelming, but for now I'm more or less looking forward to it.
My school's clinic felt like there was so many limitations it was hard to actually accomplish much.
This new site, from what I can tell so far, is much more open and flexible in terms of giving me the reins and allowing me to make treatment decisions.
I suppose had I not gone through everything I did with my school clinic, I would not be so ready and willing to make all those decisions that have now been placed on my lap though.
It just feels good to be taking the next step.
It feels like I'm actually out in the real world, working toward something bigger than myself and my school.

I'm actually curious to see how I react to this experience of working at a methadone clinic.
I'm sure there are going to be many stressful times ahead, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it impacts me, in what ways I end up growing as a clinician and as a person in general.

Although, I haven't seen a client there yet, so this could all go out the window once that occurs and I realize what I'm actually in for!
For now, I will just remain optimistic about this experience and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow in any way that it may allow me to.

Perpetually 10 minutes late

Just like that... I'm back into the thick of it.
As the end of my first week back at school comes to a close...I'm absolutely, incredibly, without a doubt...EXHAUSTED.
It's unbelievable how much a person can actually cram into one day.
Gone are the days where the only thing on the agenda was school, or just a shift at work.
My days are jam packed from the time I open my eyes until I am finally able to sit down and take a breath 12 hours later...only to wake up and do a laundry list of other things the next day, even though I still haven't finished everything I was supposed to the day before.
I go from class, to seeing a client, to working on research,  reading articles, then going to a night class, or its hours of research responsibilities, to seeing a client, to seeing another client, to more research, to an appointment, then back for research meeting  and remembering at 7:15pm that you have paperwork that must be completed before 8pm or a practicum fair in San Fransisco in the morning then back down to the south bay to work a closing shift.
I don't know how it's possible, but I seem to forget at the beginning of each quarter how much school takes over your life, your time, your sleep, your mind, your sanity.
Each quarter I spend the first 2 weeks drowning in my responsibilities until I eventually, manage to construct a temporary floatation device that seems to hold up just long enough for me to survive finals but seems to deteriorate and is no where to be found come the next quarter.
I am a planner, I prefer to come prepared, on time and ready for what life has for me.
Graduate school makes this damn near impossible...and the first few weeks of the quarter, this yearning to be prepared and to be able to plan is an absolutely unattainable desire.
I just need to settle into this new schedule. I've some how managed to set myself up for an excruciatingly difficult quarter. My responsibilities are swallowing me whole.
Every moment of every day feels like I'm the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

Where I got this photo

"I'm late, I'm late...for absolutely every possible thing I'm supposed to be doing today!"
I got back from the PNW on Tuesday afternoon, it's Friday evening. I've yet to unpack, I bought only a few survival items from the grocery store in order to avoid starving, my papers from last quarter and this quarter are on every shelf, stuffed in every space near my desk in complete disarray. 
Thank my lucky stars I have tomorrow off from EVERYTHING!
I will be spending probably 8 of the hours reading for classes/preparing for practicum/research duties...
but for the other hours I am awake and not glued to my computer.. I plan to do laundry, maybe unpack, and certainly try and get my life a little more organized.
And for sanity purposes... I should see which of my favorite shows started up again with new episodes and give my brain a rest and catch up on some of those online ;)
Hmm.. that sure sounds like a lot to cram into one "free" Saturday. Some of those things will have to wait. Most likely the unpacking.

The Dentist...dun dun dunnn....

I'm a graduate student, in my late 20's. I haven't had health insurance for years and years. My parents kicked me off at the age cut off, even though I was still a struggling student because I was too old and apparently supposed to already be out in the real world, makin' that dough.
So I've just been without. My grad program, however, requires that you have insurance. If you don't, they automatically sign you up for their program and they snatch the money each quarter before allowing you access to your loan money.
The responsible part of me knows this is a good thing. Insurance is a good thing, especially if there are medical emergencies. I just wish I somehow didn't have to pay for it. (Don't we all?)
What I really want is Dental insurance. I've been cursed with some weak teeth, despite my twice a day brushing habit. I haven't been to the dentist in years.I've recently been having tooth pain.

I've been down this road before, I know what's coming. Root canal and crown. I'm 80% sure that is what is going to happen. I also know this is ridiculously expensive.
My insurance through my grad school doesn't cover dental but they give you a %Discount option for select providers.
Needless to say, I've finally found a dentist right down the street from my apartment, it will give me the 20% discount because of my insurance and they've got a credit payment plan that I believe I've got "24 months" to pay off.
Being grown up sucks. Thousands of dollars should be spent on vacations or shopping sprees or a car.. but instead it's spent on teeth.
Dental work on layaway.