Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Friday, October 14, 2011

My supervisor rocks!

She is sadly out with a mysterious disease. We know it is serious but not life threatoning...I don't think I have ever been so curious about what is going on with someones health. I suppose she is my bff in my head and I am really worried...

So I am sitting at her desk today. I am totally uncomfortable sitting here as the children file pass and do the double takes when they see the black girl sitting here instead of the blond women they adore. It can't be helpped, I need the space...And to quote the good rev. Rice..."They will get over it" (Does anyone else think he overuses that phrase?)

The Point:
As I was sitting here, I noticed that she has the quote compulsion like I do. Just quotes stuck everywhere, most of them deep but not striking to me personally, a fair amount of them are surprisingly Xstian centered...(a secret Xstian...the plot thickens....)  This hit one deep.

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury;
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard. think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, hurry never;
in a word, to let spiritual, unbidden and unconscious
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony
 William Ellery Channing.

I love how smooth and silkily this life is presented. It reminds of me rainy days on a window seats and tweed jackets and the expensive version of aerosole shoes.  Even in its simplicity it seems privileged, and comfortable, and right now? Completely unattainable. It's a picture that I will look at when my river is frothy with stress, when my self control is hidden from sight and when my bank account is empty of money and I "think quietly" of becoming a stripper. One day I could be that woman.  One day I will have the patience and time and money to listen to babes and sages...right now it is just a dream I'm treading towards.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

This is Not a teaching moment...

There was a point today that was glorious only in its ability to shatter my calm. It was definitely after talking to my dentist. He says very matter of factually, destroying my entire afternoon, "it sounds like you need a root canal".

Really?

I'm not going to bother to ask how much. The best part was all the useless advice I got...the priceless one was my dad asking me to go check my insurance from my old job. Would you just shut up and stop talking?

I'm so over it.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Self Advocacy and shit...

Finding our footing...that's the theme of this semester. I have been completely overwhelmed with the transition that I have gone through in the last 3 months. So I am in mid fall on a muddy hill.

To use a well trodden phrase, I am holding on with my fingernails and afraid to look down. I really feel that I am in the space where wiley has walked off the cliff and hasn't looked down yet. It's that moment when you anticipate the fall even though it hasn't started yet - making it all the more scary in its inflation by your imagination. I thought that I was just experiencing the regular transition on many levels; feeling overwhelmed with incredible life stressors and changes, feeling mishandled by the administration of the school, feeling out of wack with my field placement and the level of responsibility, and feeling over whelmed at the weight of fatigue on my ability to do what is an incredibly boring but manageable amount of reading.

Technically, I should feel ecstatic. Having fulfilled my main goal of receiving a Honors from my hardest professor - but smooth high of that incredible triumph was soon squashed by mounting concerns in every other part of my life.

That being said, I had my field advisory meeting today. Much to my surprise apparently I am in a crisis stage at my site. I am the only one with my case load level. I am the only one with readings to do at this level. I am the only one who has to do three process recordings, plus session notes on top of the regular work assigned for class. I could go on. Let's just say that there are many people who have yet to get their hands on a client, much do anything besides run recess and do paperwork. Oh.

Oh.

I am not used to people looking at me with pity eyes but that is what happened today. I found it to be extremely amusing, in a terrifying way that the professor goes, as I walk out the door, you need to email me for a meeting immediately. Apparently no one else has two ACS cases on her caseload. Oh 

I realized today the effect of stress for me is that I can't handle tiny stressors. Like the inability to adjust when the schools wifi is not working when I am trying to get my readings printed out. My brain turned to mush and oddly enough my thighs started to feel huge.  I was like, waitawhatthehell? Now I decide to feel fat? It's like all the insecurities that always float around, waiting for their moment, suddenly gain strength and infiltrate your mind. I feel fat and ugly. I feel sad and anxious. (Can you tell I have been working with folks around naming, recognizing, and expressing their emotions?)

I know one thing for certain. I love my job. I love it. Sometimes in between sessions I walk down the hall and actually feel the sun in my chest. The rays ,not the death dealing radiation. Even if I haven't accomplished anything in session, just the interaction and contact with these children light up my day - even if I am being called a caustic agent of the principal. :)

So I feel terrible. I feel triumphant. I feel anxious.

and I'm so over feeling. Really.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Human skin wallets?! Where can I get one? (at the mutters museum)

That is all I have from the Mutters Museum of Philadelphia. I have a deep sense that there is a clever parallel between my expectations of my trip to the Mutters museum and what actually happen and the turmoil and upheaval in my life right now -  but I haven't been able to put my finger on quite yet, it keeps slipping right out of my line of sight and, frankly, I'm not looking quite that hard...

Like most people, I LOVE museum gifts shops. LOVE. I go to museum for the information and the art yada yada but my hand sweats in anticipation as soon as I know that next corner is going to smoothly transition me from learning to BUYING. I am not sure why everyone loves a gift shop...but for me its the perfect combination of everything I love to do - learn random shit and buy random shit.

I have never in my life - walked into a museum shop and looked for the exit first, until today. Having just walked away from a glass case that, all the way on the bottom shelf, right under an old tome old illustrations of the inside of women muscular formation...was an abortion pick. And next to that were the forceps with a battering thingy to piece the babies skull.

Pause. Really?

I have always wanted to go to the Mutters museum since I had heard about it in high school. It is about ten blocks from my high school and it was fuel to my fire of medical school. Uh huh - talk about not updating your desires....Since then I'm a completely different person... a person who is uncomfortable with seeing skinned baby bodies and what untreated syphilis does to your skull (it eats it). I am uncomfortable looking at what a bullet does exactly to a brain or seeing the skeleton of a 18th century midget prostitute and the skull of her tiny aborted baby looks like. (They couldn't get the baby out because of the deformity of her pelvis. So they crushed the head and tried to pull it out, when that didn't work they cut it out of her stomach (I'm not sure we would call it a Caesarean section) and then she died three days later from the wound). Love life.

To be honest - I was partially fascinated. Even the arm that had small poxs on it was amazing. I always wondered if it looks like chicken pox (it.does.not. - you have that and you know you are going to die -soon.). But when we got to the basement (I can't fathom why they couldn't put it on the second floor) my stomach got a little queasy. My mind was still there but my body was oooover it. I knew I was uncomfortable but I pushed along because I didn't want to miss anything - and also didn't want to see everything. but I looked anyway...knowing it might have some negative effects on my tummy.

I turned to Adiva and said in a particular voice - eh, I think I'm nauseous. She confirmed her nausea too and with relief I didn't hide we swiftly headed nodded to the swollen colon and marched toward the light. The sunlight on my skin signaled freedom but I dragged along my wonders at what I had seen asI calculated the distance to the closes bar (my moms house, no comment).

For example, who were these people? Were any of them black? How did they get here? Did these folks know what was being done to their bodies? Or to their children's bodies? Were their spirits here, floating around them protectively? or just languishing?  Were they restful or angry? Were they noting my presence to come get me later????

Listen. It was a once in a life time experience. And while I understand that they aren't closing - I will never go back - you can bet your bottom dollar on that Annie.  So uhm, make sure you update your bucket list frequently - it can't be a good thing to go doing things you wanted to do 15 years ago without checking to make sure you still want to do it. Otherwise - you might end up face to face with a dead dried baby tied up on strings.

I mean really. What's wrong with you? ugh.

(Glad I went) chuckle.