Another school year starts...

I start school again tomorrow. It's kind of weird to be going into my third year of grad school. Even though I have two years left, I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel (which is a really good feeling). I only have class one day a week this year. I am taking Advanced Biopsychosocial, which means that once I am finished I can a) be licensed - which I intend to do when I graduate - and b) can diagnose people once I am licensed, and said diagnosis can be accepted. Ah the power. However, I think that people are often misdiagnosed and are even given diagnoses as a "label", or as a way to be able to receive services. I am not totally throwing out the idea that diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, or bipolar disorder exist - I have certainly seen them in my line of work (given the fact that I have been working with physically, mentally and developmentally disabled people for almost 10 years...scary!). However, I think that parents often use it as a convenience or use it as a way to "explain" their kids behavior when it may just come down to what is going on in the child's life at that moment. I'm getting off my soap box now though. I am also taking Social Work Research and have to do a big project. I am thinking about comparing two methods of teaching kids with autism - an individualistic method and a group method - and coming to a conclusion about which may be more effective for the child. I will later expand that and do a thesis next semester (I may need to have my head examined).

Having school only one day a week will be helpful. It will give me more time to be able to see clients, even though I will have to work until 8 at night a couple of days a week. However, I like this job because it is giving me the flexibility to do what I need to do, and it pays me what I am worth so to say - they see that I have my bachelor's degree, that I have a lot of experience, and that I am getting my Masters. I don't think I would have been able to find anything else that could have given me that flexibility that I need and recognized me for my skills. I may have to work one weekend day, but I am leaving that for Saturdays. Hopefully I will be able to be done early enough so that if something is going on up in Bangor, I can go up with Chris. I will just have to make sure that I get my work done before I go up.

In Memory

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/democratandchronicle/obituary.aspx?n=kenneth-jackman-van&pid=144906589

The above link is for my orthopaedic surgeon in Rochester when I was younger. He basically oversaw all of my care when I was younger. Dr. Jackman was a really great man and basically was a huge part of my family's life (considering I was there almost every week for a check up or follow up from an operation). When I was four-years-old, Dr. Jackman could tell that the operations that he was performing were not making me better, but had done some research into a revolutionary surgery that had been used, and continues to be used, for lengthening the limbs of dwarfs. It could also be used to treat my condition because the pins that were inserted in my leg would, when turned, put new layers of bone on the existing, weak bone. He actually went down for my first surgery in Baltimore with me and my family and was present in the operating room during the surgery. After my medical care was turned over to my ortho in Baltimore, I didn't see Dr. Jackman on a regular basis anymore (except for when I injured my right knee and I needed to get a follow up from that). I had not seen him in years.

I did write an essay about him my senior year of high school for a contest for HSBC where I had to write about someone who had changed New York State in the past 150 years (for their 150th anniversary). I wrote about how he changed New York because he made the best possible decision for me and my health and how hard it probably was for him because he realized what he was doing was not helping me get better. I ended up being one of the finalists and sent him a copy of the essay. I wish that I still had a copy of the essay for his wife but unfortunately, the computer that it was on is long since gone and I don't think my parents saved it.

So I know that I have been quiet for a while...things continue to go well with my new job. I lost a couple of cases due to the parents being noncompliant with the services, but am going to be taking on two more cases, in addition to one that I am still working with (who knows how long that may last for though...the clinician who was on the case with me had to leave because of a family emergency and the mom is worried about how the kiddo is going to react to the new clinician and if there are going to be any problems...not that I blame her, we basically are starting over from square one again). I'm finally going to be full time next week, which will help a lot with the finances - plus I will finally be able to get benefits.

School is done for the summer. I enjoyed my class and think that I did well in it. Hard to believe that in the fall, I will have 2 years left. Here is hoping that it speeds by quickly.

Chris and I are going away for the weekend to Baxter State Park to go camping. Although we won't be able to see any fireworks, we do plan to do a lot of outdoorsy stuff - hiking, boating, just walking around the trails. He took me up there a couple of weekends ago to go hiking and it was absolutely beautiful. We need a break from Portland, so this will be good.

The big excitement yesterday was that there was a moose wandering the streets of Portland. I didn't see it, but I guess that Chris's brother Brian did...literally walked right through his backyard and by his front window. There have been a couple of moose wandering around in civilization recently. I heard today that it may be because of the bugs and the recent heat.

It's official

I am 26 (as of 12:41).

Damn.

I also forgot to mention that I found a gray hair on Friday. I promptly pulled it out of my head.

In less than one week....

I will turn 26. I will be out of high school for 8 years (that part scares me...), and out of college for 4. I am not freaking out as much as I did last year when I turned 25 (the whole turning a quarter century thing really scared me) and I've basically gotten to the point where I really don't care. Ask me again in 4 years when I turn 30.

Cell phone woes

So I have been a Verizon customer since my senior year of high school. I have always had incredibly good luck with them, and say what you will, I do find that their cell phone service is the best (this is based upon hearing other people complain about their cell phone service from other carries while I had really good service). I even convinced my ex boyfriend to switch over to Verizon because a) he always was complaining about how he had no service at his home and I did and b) I could talk to him for free if he had Verizon (he switched...).

However, this all went downhill starting in October. Let's go back to January of '09. I had lost my cell phone in either my ex-boyfriend's car or in the snow (it was a bad snow storm...we went out to run a quick errand and I had put my cell phone in my sweatpants pocket. It fell out somewhere in the parking lot or in his car and of course was on vibrate. We never found it, but luckily for me, I had my previous cell phone. Well, for whatever reason, the battery expanded (don't ask me how...Chris figured that out when he was having his own brand of cell phone issues and I let him take my Razor as I had gotten a new phone - the EnV2 - in July as I was sick of the battery cover falling off while I was on the phone). So I replaced said phone.

Well this is where the real fun began. In October, my phone had rung. I couldn't get to it in time, so when I pressed a button on the front to see who had called me, the front screen went blank. I had to open up my phone to see who was calling me or to actually make a phone call. Not fun. I lived with that for a couple of months. When I couldn't stand that anymore, I got another phone. I by accident dropped this one and the charge wouldn't hold. Got that one replaced. After a couple of months, the ringer on the replacement phone started crackling instead of ringing (or farting according to Cam and Chris). I went in last week and Verizon sent me a new phone, but said that if I had any problems with it, they would give me another model. Well, I got it activated yesterday and immediately had problems with it. When I talked on the phone, no one could hear me. Needless to say, I walked into Verizon this morning and demanded that they give me a new phone. The person I spoke with (the one who told me last week that they would give me a new model if I had more problems) wanted to mail me a replacement battery for a phone that they had in the store but didn't have the battery for. That of course would not work as my cell phone is my only phone. Luckily the manager was there so he was able to get me a EnV3 which they did have in the store and did have a battery. And it's brand new. I suspect that the problems with the other phone was because it may have been previously used. Hm...

Well, I accepted a job. I am now going to be working for Providence Corporation as a Behavioral Health Professional and working in a home with a family whose kid is affected by autism. Basically, my role will be to support the family and help them, and a clinician, come up with an effective behavior plan. I don't know what my hours exactly are yet but we will see. I ended up not getting the job as the case manager, mainly because their program cannot support a flex-type position at this moment, and well...I need the flexibility to be able to go to school and finish my degree. I did ask the program director who I interviewed with if I could keep in touch with her and look into being an intern for the company during my final year of school and she said that will be fine. We will see. I start my new job on April 12th. Very excited.

Tomorrow is Easter. This is actually the first Easter I have not spent with my parents in the 25 years I have been alive. Very strange. I was planning on having to work on Easter Sunday, then all the drama happened and I am basically now a relief staff for my company (which is fine with me). Some things are totally out of our control, and unfortunately, the drama that happened was out of my control. Necessitated a job transition much sooner than I was expecting to say the least. Anywho...back to Easter. I am going to the Easter Vigil with Chris tonight (first time ever) and I have to say that I am excited for it. Tomorrow, we are going to be celebrating Easter with the rest of his family at his aunt's house in Buxton. I talked to my father the other night about the fact that we are not celebrating Easter together this year and bascially told him that the longer I stay in Maine and get more settled here, unless they move up here very soon, I may not be able to spend every holiday with them anymore. He was pretty understanding. We will see how this transgresses...

Rain and other random life updates....

So it turns out that we may actually go above the average for the month in terms of rain here in Maine (specifically southern Maine). At least it isn't snow. The good news is, it is supposed to be absolutely beautiful this weekend for Easter. I'm excited because I don't have to wear a winter jacket for the first time in a long time and I may be able to wear a skirt (it is supposed to be close to 70). Chris and I are probably going to go to Lewiston on Saturday night for the Easter Vigil because our friend Vanessa is going to become a member of the Church that evening. I mentioned it to him the other day because I thought that it would be nice if a group of us from Portland who were friends with her went up to support her. We don't know anyone who is being received into the Church here in Portland, although our friend Craig does run the RCIA group at the Cathedral where we go. Strange...when I moved up here almost 4 years ago, I did not like the atmosphere at the Cathedral at all and thought that it was incredibly stuffy. Times change I guess. Not like it matters anymore though here...five of the seven parishes on the peninsula have consolidated into a "cluster" because of the shortage of priests (the other two parishes are their own cluster as they are not run by diocesan priests - they're run by the Jesuits and the Franciscans, but the Jesuits are going to be taking over and running the Franciscan parish within the next year).

Work has kinda taken a turn for the worse. I really cannot get into it on here for privacy reasons, but I guess it is a good thing that I am getting out. I had a job offer from one of the places I interviewed with last week, which I will probably take because I will be able to work it around school. I do have a second interview with the case management agency, but I will probably hold off to do something like that until after I graduate and get my license. I have worked incredibly hard the past couple of years with my current job and I just want a break, especially since I am considering writing a thesis. Not 100% sure what I'm going to do yet, but I am doing my research project on the evolution of dealing with children with autism. I found a couple of books from the 1980s and several from within the past couple of years, so it should be interesting to see the changes in opinion and treatment. Hopefully, this will be enough to turn into a thesis. If I take the job, I would be working with children with autism and helping to come up with and implement behavior plans, so I could always integrate that as well. Stay tuned...............

*sigh*

The drama continues. I really cannot get into it on here for privacy reasons, but basically, for the unforeseen future, I will basically be a filler at different houses in my company. I had two more interviews yesterday (one to be a Behavioral Health Professional where I would be working with a clinician to help a family come up with and implement a behavior plan in their home; the second was to be a case manager at a neurorehabilitation center in Portland).

I am trying my best to remain positive through all of this and keep reminding myself that in the week and half since I learned that I was being demoted, I have had three interviews. There are other jobs out there that I haven't heard from yet but my resume is probably in the stack and they'll get to it eventually (maybe...gotta love the black hole of resumes). Even yesterday though, one of the women I interviewed with said that she really was interested in me and the second woman talked with me for an hour, gave me a tour of the office and even went as far as to say what the dress code was. Both are positive signs, but I need to remain realistic.

More on the job front

I'm at work right now waiting for the next shift to arrive at 9:30a. Hurray for overnights. I was going to do a project for school but I just could not concentrate on it. I think it is the fact that my mind does not work 100% at night. I never did an all nighter in college (much to Chris's surprise) and I value my sleep way too much. I understand that because my client needs to have 24 hour staffing and my supervisor wants us all to have 40 hour schedules that I need to do this, but I really don't like how basically my day becomes wasted because I go home and sleep all day to catch up on the sleep I didn't get. Last week, I did the overnight on Wednesday and then on Thursday, right before I was planning on going to sleep, one of my staff called out because she had to go to the ER (she works at a movie theater on the side and a sign dropped on her face and poked her in the eye....ouch). Well, I couldn't find anyone to take the shift so I had to go in and do it...on 2.5 hours of sleep. Yay. I came home and slept for a couple of hours, had a meeting for my internship and then went back home and slept some more. Today, I get to go home in an hour, sleep until 2:30 or 3 and then go to class.

The interview yesterday went really well (that's the thing I don't like about overnights either...my days get all mixed up). I think that the guy who interviewed me seemed impressed by what I have done. He said that he would call me by next week. I hope that he does. The job seems interesting and challenging. It would also give me weekends off, which I have not had in almost 2 years. That would be a very welcome change. I would also be able to work in an office, which I have not had in almost 2 years as well. I miss interaction with people. Sure I have my residents, but they're asleep half the time. When I got home, I actually got an email from another company asking me if I could meet with them next Tuesday. I'm pretty excited about that interview as well. I keep looking to see if there are any more jobs in Cumberland or York County, but there haven't been the past couple of days. It's also the middle of the month so there may be more by the end of the month (I hope).

I need sleep. That's what is most important right now.

oh the joys of working in social services!

So I need to look for a new job. I had a meeting yesterday with my supervisor and his supervisor and I was basically demoted for financial reasons. One of my residents is in a rehab facility right now because she fell and broke her arm and fractured her hip and we don't know when she is coming back. We get paid based upon how many hours are billed for and since we are billing for half the time...they cannot afford to keep me on. I suspected this was going to happen sine my supervisor sent me an email requesting a meeting last Monday so I spent time last week looking for other jobs. Luckily for me, I was able to find quite a few of them and I actually have an interview tomorrow morning. I however need to purchase a suit tonight because the last time I wore one, I was a good 15lbs heavier than I am now. My other choice is just to go back to school and get it all done. That right now is looking like the better option since I haven't had the interview yet and don't know who else is being interviewed.

I was totally expecting this to happen, but it still was a bitter pill to swallow that it did and didn't happen necessarily on my own terms.