Tag Archives: school

Transitions

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I rang in the New Year sitting on my friends couch with a tired dog sitting on my feet. It was great to spend time with good friends. New Years always seems fairly anticlimactic. Is this just a holiday invented for parties and drinking?

Anyway.

I nearly reached my goal of a book per week. The 5 weeks of two courses and the two months of leading a grief group/organizing a discussion series/school/work took a toll so I was three books shy… but it isn’t about numbers. I read some great books in 2010, and some less than fantastic (and a lot of parts of text books).

A bunch of things got crossed off of the list this year, and there are many works in progress.

The close of 2010 also saw me finishing off all of the coursework for my Masters. Only the practicum remains. I start 2011 with a certain amount of apprehension. My life is completely changing as of this week. I am dropping down to two days of work per week, meaning I am going to have to budget finances closely to break even with living expenses. I am hoping to be getting 20 hours per week of practicum spread between two sites. However, as of right now, I have no appointments booked. So now I have the concern of actually finding people with whom to work on top of the nerves of actually counselling real people.

On a positive note, Christmas in Edmonton was a lot of fun. I have had an unusual amount of time with my sister this year, between a week in San Francisco and a week in Edmonton with just the two of us. We lazed around, walked endlessly, and enjoyed doing nothing and still a lot of things. We managed to connect with nearly everyone in the family, including a Christmas morning skype with Dad and Colleen in Malawi. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Anything and Nothing

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I am reveling in the fact that I am all done my coursework until the New Year! It is an incredible feeling, after 14 months of more-or-less non-stop school, to have time to do anything or nothing. I am enjoying being able to come home from work and read a book or knit, guilt free. I can go to bed at 9pm without feeling that I’ve missed out on school work. Or I can stay up until midnight reading a book “for fun”. It really is a wonderful thing. Whole days have gone by without me turning on my computer. The computer may feel left out, but I love leaving it off! The downside is that I am getting out of practice writing and my journaling and blogging suffers.

I’m also beginning to prepare myself for a busy January. I’ll be doing my practicum (here and here) four days a week as well as hopefully working two days a week. That will give me approximately only Sunday, and the odd Thursday afternoon, to sleep, read, and catch up with people. As a result, I’ve started to let go of other commitments. The major weight lifted is that I’ve resigned from the committee at church that was sucking up my time (and my soul…).

Until then, I’ll be reading up a storm and working on some knitting projects. I sewed a skirt on Saturday and started a new knitting project on Sunday. I’m ambitiously reading a 700+ page non-fiction book “for fun” and have four more on the floor to get through between now and Christmas. I have a good supply of chocolate and tea, not to mention the leftover mulled wine and spiced apple cider left from my party on the weekend. I could get used to this.

November. School and San Fran.

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And then it was November. I’m not sure where October went. Nor September for that matter.

One week left in my coursework and I am frantically researching and writing my final paper for the course. It isn’t supposed to be long but there is a lot of research in the area and it is harder to write something when there is a lot already written on the topic. I feel like I have to read absolutely everything before writing the paper which has meant at least 3 days of reading and note-taking so far. All of that for a ten page paper seems excessive.

Because I am doing all of that, I haven’t spent nearly as much time planning the upcoming trip to San Francisco as I would like. I’m relying on my sister’s preparation and the guidebook given to me by my friend. A week from now, I’ll be basking in San Francisco-ness and enjoying the many shows there. I have no idea how/what to pack as it looks like it is 10 degrees warmer there than here but I need to be ready for rain and fog. Plus, I need to bring my computer as I’ll have to do some school work from there. At least I can travel and do school all at once.

Life and All That

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I went to a conference on Stress in the Family System last weekend. I’m pretty sure the stress part was describing me. One of the presenters was talking about the biological aspects of stress – that long-term stress results in hippocampal shrinkage (which is not good). However he also said that learning increases hippocampal size. My notes in the margin read “Hopefully my learning increases are countering my stress decreases.”

Its been a long few weeks. I’m trying to finish my last course on a strong note, however I’m kind of over paper writing at the moment. On top of that, I need to do some magic like I did this summer where I work myself ahead of the game so that I can go on holidays. I’m going on holidays the last week of my course… Not that school is providing all of my stress. There are plenty of other things contributing to that. I’ve begun to reduce me commitment level and hopefully things will be good from here on in. Getting back into a yoga routine has helped as well, though I’m still not going as much as I’d like to be.

Until next time… maybe check the side bar? 140 characters is about the peak of my mental contributions to the blogosphere lately.

Coming Soon, to a Church Near Me

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I feel like nothing noteworthy has happened over the last two weeks though I know that is completely untrue. In reality, I’ve been working my butt off organizing things for church this fall, keeping up with school work (and trying to learn things at the same time), going to concerts, and working 20+hours a week.

It is the first thing, fall programing at church, that seems to suck up all available time. I have a few theories about why that is. First of all, we’ve decided to undertake a fairly ambitious project this fall and I have ended up unofficially spear-heading it. We will be hosting an interdenominational moderated panel discussion of Brian McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity. I’ve been working with a bunch of others, with varying levels of motivation and productivity, to draw together a group of people from within Victoria to speak to one or more of the questions Brian raises in his book. Each evening will also have some small group discussion time and a space for questions and answers. It has the potential to generate a lot of good conversations, continuing on some of the ones began back in May with the conference we hosted.

The time consuming part has been the liaising with various people to get them to be involved and the endless number of committee meetings that seems to entail. As much as I try to empower people to take initiative and make decisions for themselves, there seems to be an ingrained culture at church (my current one anyway, I have not seen it at every church I have been a part of, thankfully) where we cannot breathe without having someone hold our hands. In the process of planning large events, that usually means fortnightly committee meetings so we can go around and around in circles discussing the same issue repeatedly because we are not sure we are allowed to act independently. It drives me mad.

But, the sessions are going to be really good. I am excited about some of the panelists we have lined up and the conversations that will ensue. There is more information on the Facebook page if you are in Victoria and want to check it out.

Back to School

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This week hit me like a sack of something heavy. A dead body perhaps. After an intense summer of school, I relished and throughly enjoyed my three weeks off; I didn’t even pick up my text book until the day before classes started (which was yesterday). That must be why it is so hard to get going on school right now. I only have two classes left before my practicum (huzzah!) but I’m having a tough time motivating myself to actually get going on them. I even watched television yesterday to procrastinate. That is how you know things are getting desperate around here.

At Once

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Ever noticed how everything always happens ALL AT ONCE? Just when you think you are doing well, something else happens to throw things for a loop and make you realize that perhaps you could fit just one more thing in.

Take right now, for example. I am working my usual 20+ hours per week and doing the school thing, the same schedule I have been on for nearly a year now. Except (as I am sure I have mentioned, because I like to mention it and make people feel sorry for me) right now I am doing double the school work. In other words, full time school times two. Yeah.

Add that to Victoria finally experiencing summer and I actually want to go outside and enjoy myself! What is that, you say, a life? No, I haven’t really got one, though I am trying. Plus, I started up hot yoga about five weeks ago and have been doing that 2-4 times per week. I don’t really know how I fit in hot yoga, as the classes are 90 minutes long, but apparently it has become important enough to me that I am willing to get up really early do take part. Like 5:30am early.

Then, if that wasn’t enough, something else came up out of the blue a couple of weeks ago. Right now, it does not require any time commitment, but it has been requiring a great deal of mental and emotional energy. I can’t really say any more than that right now, but rest assured if it comes to something, I will pass that along. Until then, I would appreciate your prayers for my discernment. Oh – and big hugs, free meals (I sometimes forget to eat), and sympathy for all the hard work I am doing…!

So…

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Yeah… sorry about that.

I am still here and I have been thinking about things, just not writing here. I started two courses this week – two. The usual for the program is one at a time but I’m doing two right now so that I don’t have to worry about one when I’m in Myanmar this fall. The downside is that one of the courses I am in right now is actually one of the most intense of the entire program. I usually spend the first week of a new course trying to find my footing in it. This time, I am doing it for two. Top that off with the first nice weather of the summer and me starting up at yoga, and life has been a little crazy lately.

On the plus side, I got my marks back from the last course I did, the one I did from Portland and France and various points of travel in between. It was the highest mark of the program to date. Apparently I should go to Portland or France more often.

Today, until I was chastised in the comments of my own blog, I have mostly been working on school work, interspersed with walks and naps. Mostly school work though. One course has an insane [my opinion] number of assignments, so I have started on one for the other course due in three weeks. Logical, no? It is actually going to be easier and is something I had already begun to work on for something else, so I though I would get it out of the way while I could.

Now that I have appeased the lone voice of dissent, I will resume my scheduled evening activities: break for food, finish paper, watch DVD counselling session for course, journal responses to DVD for paper, put away laundry, sleep. What a glamorous life I lead.

France France France France

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I’m sitting in the International Departures area of YVR. Would you believe that there are no televisions showing the World Cup here? What is up with that?! On the plus side, YVR has free wireless Internet so I am “doing homework”. Which means I am sitting here, looking at the giant aquarium of fishes and sea anemones, with my computer open, alternating between educational tasks and pure time wasters. All going well, I should be done next weeks discussion work before I land in Paris in 12 hours time. Before then, I’ll have touched down in Calgary (apparently Air Transat flies “direct” to Paris from Vancouver… via Calgary. I guess WestJet is not the only airline that offers direct flights that stop in Calgary. On the plus side, I’ll probably unlock a new travel badge on the recently joined foursquare (if you’re on foursquare, add me, I have no friends!). So, till France, A bientot.