Oh the life I live!

Du du du duh! Ladies and gentleman; I have FINALLY time to relax and blog! I am SO glad this week is over!!

I worked from 3pm Sunday night to 7am Monday morning. I went home and slept for a while then went back to work from 3-11pm. That's right, 24 hours.

Tuesday I had a Mental Health quiz and a test review for Stats.

Wednesday I had a meeting with my professor, a Child Welfare exam (an hour and a half for 5 multiple choice, 5 true/false, and two essays), then went DIRECTLY to a meeting & work till 11pm. I stayed up till 3am studying after I got home from work.

Thursday I got up at 7 (that’s right, 4 hours of sleep) and had a Statistics exam, a Social Work Practice 3 quiz, my visiting teachers visited for over an hour, then I went out with a friend that I'd been putting off all week.

Mom wanted carrot cake for her birthday (did you know that’s her favorite??) and the only person I knew had a recipe was one of my professors (she brings it whenever her phone rings in class) so I asked her for the recipe. She gave me her home phone number and asked me to call her at home for the recipe if she forgot... awkward. Anyway, we went to the store to get the ingredients and made the cake and didn’t get to bed until nearly 2am.

Friday I got a text from Erica at 8:22am that woke us up. Anthony had class at 8:30 and I had a meeting at 9:30... Can I just say how happy I am for random texts that wake us up on days when we didn’t set alarms? Heavenly Father sure was nice to give her a little prompt.

I met with my counselor, had a choir rehearsal, had my practicum interview (details below), frosted mom’s cakes, had mom’s birthday lunch, then performed in the choir concert, and now I’m home.

What a busy and stressful week it has been!!

On January 9th I posted a blog titled “Randomness” which, in part, explained the whole Practicum process. If you didn’t read that post, or don’t remember what it said now is a great time to catch up. You’re going to need to know what I’m talking about for the next little bit. I’ll wait....

We had our practicum buffet on Anthony’s birthday, which was kind of stinky. As a Social Word (SW) major we do a practicum our senior year, kind of like student teaching.

The practicum buffet was where representatives from ALL the different practicums in the area were in one room and we went around to different booths to learn more about what they were about.

Here's the thing, there were like 35 booths and we were allotted time slots which allowed us to go to 7 of them for 15 minutes each.

That night the practicum people could decide if they did want someone for their practicum, or didn't want them. The best part, we don't choose where we get to go. We're placed. Dr. Calloway-Grahm (Dr. Di) & Dr. Browne place us where they think we'll fit the best. We had to fill out this HUGE survey answering all kinds of questions about ourselves and where we'd like to do our practicum and why we think we'll be good social workers, and what SW type experience we've had in the past, etc. Seriously, it was like 5 pages long. We also turned in a GPA worksheet and our transcripts.

Then Dr. Di and Dr. Browne set up a 20 minute one-on-one interview with everyone so they can "get to know us better" and get a better idea of where to place us. My interview was today.

I was wearing heels, which is not a normal occurrence for me, and had to book it from the choir rehearsal ALL the way across campus is 15 minutes... in heels. I had a smart idea before I left home and put one of those giant knee Band-Aids on each heel before putting my shoes on so I wouldn’t get blisters, but I hadn’t thought about the front of my foot where the shoe rubs against the side (those of you who have work heels know exactly what I'm talking about). My feet were literally blistered and bleeding by the time I got to my interview.

The interview wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. Dr. Brown told Dr. Di I’m the youngest twin in a family of twelve, small talk, small talk, small talk, Dr. Di took a phone call and talked about how she was going to eventually take the Christmas music off her ring tone, Dr. Browne asked me how I thought I did on his Child Welfare exam, etc, etc, etc.

They asked why Bear River Mental Health was my #1 choice and I told them I’ve worked with individuals with Schizophrenia, Autism, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression, Anxiety, etc. and just felt like it was where I belonged... like I'd been led in this direction for a reason.

They asked why I put Sunshine Terrace & Hospice as my next choices and I said I had NO interest in gerontology until I went to those two booths at the practicum buffet and for some reason they both “spoke to me.”

I told them Bear River is by far my first choice, but they only accept two people at that practicum and 5 of us want it. I let them know I could adapt anywhere and if they felt someone else would do a better job, or wanted it more, then I was willing to step aside and give them what they wanted and I'd take something else... but I really wanted it.

We talked about what would happen if the practicum supervisor didn’t like me, or I didn’t like them, etc. That was pretty much it. Really, not a big deal at all.

After Spring Break we’ll find out where they’ve placed us, we have an interview with the practicum supervisors after we find out so they can decide whether they’re ok with the decision or not, then next year we get started.

It is SO weird to think that I’m already at this point. This semester has gone by really fast.

So, that was my week.