That’s my happy face… cuz I’m DONE with all my schoolwork for the semester!  YES!!  I get a nice long break til January 5 when we’re back in full swing.  And I’m now 1/4 of the way to being an official social worker.

Whew!  This semester was waaaaaaaay busier than I anticipated… but I loved my classmates, I learned a lot, and I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated a break quite so much before.  Although I do remember missing NOT having a break those past 4 years when I was working full time.  Heh heh.

Time to celebrate… ciao!

I spend a lot of time at my desk these days.  Although probably not as much as I should.  But there is life to be lived and breaks to be taken.  Ultimately, I know that all the work will get done.  It just tends to get done realllllly close to the due date, rather than far in advance.  And I’m learning to be okay with that, because it means I don’t feel insanely overwhelmed and burnt-out.

I’m soooooo happy that Mark has a job!  And one he likes, to boot, without a ridiculously long commute.  I love our apartment and the warmth and insulation it provides in this chilly weather.  (Not something I appreciated until I grumbled through two winters shivering in a drafty house with an ancient heater-box-thing).  I was feeling stressed out and tired last night, but I got a great night’s sleep and gave myself a good pep-talk and I’m in a much better frame of mind this morning.  I just have to remember to see the bigger picture.  So I have a lot to do right now.  So what?  It’ll get done.  And I’ll learn a whole lot in the process.  A little hard work won’t kill me.

(But I’m still very much looking forward to Dec. 11 when the semester ends and I have a break to rest my brain and process everything I’ve taken in since August.)

I hope y’all have a super awesome day!

I’m really enjoying my Social Work program, in spite of the supreme busy-ness of life these days.  My classmates are a great bunch of people and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them over the past month.  One of our professors lost his house and everything in it in a fire last weekend.  This particular professor videotaped each of us on our first day of class so that he could watch the video at home and learn all of our names.  He bakes cookies for us EVERY week.  And he always shows us YouTube videos in class (ones that relate to what we’re studying, of course).  Our class feels awful that his house burned down, so Mark came to school on Thursday and filmed us so that we could make our own YouTube video for our teacher to hopefully cheer him up a bit.

So, meet my classmates:

Mmm.  The Yokohama Mama veggie burger at The Vortex.  I love its cheesy, teriyaki, pineapple goodness on a Hawaiian bun.

I also love the dried fruit stalls in China.  Pick a fruit, any fruit…I bet you can find it in a colorful heap down a winding hutong in Beijing.

Mellow Mushroom veggie pizza… that’s pretty awesome, too.  We just had some last night.

Okay, enough with the food.  What is going on?  Have I dropped off the face of the earth?  Maybe just a little.  You see, this grad school business is VERY BUSY.  Plus, it is also VERY INTERESTING.  So, while I might not absolutely have to do all the readings and give it all 110%, well…this is what I want to be doing…probably for a good long chunk of my life.  So I’m going all out here.  And that leaves very little time for other stuff.  Like a social life.

I’ll figure out the right balance in another week or so.  But yeah- grad school consumes around 70% of my time these days.  I love it.  But I also have a GRA (research assistantship) and I have a part-time job, and that’s around 28% of my time.  Which only leaves 2% for everything else, if I’m doing the math correctly.

To top it all off, I caught a bit of a cold this weekend, so I needed to devote some time to recuperating, too.  I’ve gotten a lot better about listening to my body and putting my own needs first lately.  It involves a lot of saying no for the time being, but hopefully that, too, will change.  Setting boundaries…that’s what I’m about these days.  I had to step down as the Director of Program Support for StandUp, but fortunately we have another awesome volunteer ready to take over for me.  Whew!

Also, Anna and her doggie Roo stayed with us last week and that was super awesome.  She spoiled us with tons of goodies and I got to talk to baby Ziya and read her a story…I read in my Human Development book that newborns can recognize the voices they heard in utero, so I hope lil Ziya will recognize me once she’s out of Anna’s womb.  This whole child-growing/birthing thing fascinates me.  Really and truly.

I have yammered on enough for the night and I have more reading to do, as always, so off I go…  just wanted to reassure everyone that I am alive and almost-entirely-well!

Oh!  Also, these are muscadines and I had them for the first time ever on Saturday at Lauren and Doug’s dinner party (along with lots’n'lots of other totally delicious food).  They are gooooooood.  You should try some.

Now…I’m really going.  Bye!

So, I turned 27 on Monday…  I like my birthday, and I like the month the August.  It’s a time of new beginnings and reflection for me, so I’ve been doing a lot of that.  And this year – well this year is a really new beginning!  I am so excited to be embarking upon the GSU Master of Social Work program.  I’m working part-time, I have a Research Assistantship and a field placement, so I’m going to be pretty busy these next two years.  But it’s a good busy, and it’s exactly what I want to be doing.

Still, I had some challenges this week in the terms of unexpected fees that had to be paid by Friday.  I got used to having a paycheck that would cover all the bills and still leave room for savings and fun money.  That’s definitely not the case anymore.  But, I’ve got this new part-time job, and I’ve also got some babysitting jobs lined up, so we should be okay.  Just no more going out every week for drinks, dinners, etc.

But that’s okay…it’s only two years, and we’ve got plans.  Other plans.  Awesome plans.  And we’ll be fine.

Woohoo- fun weekend in Baltimore with my loooooooong-time, super awesome friend (and Maid of Honor!), Lauren. She just graduated from UMB with her Master’s in Social Work and I’m so very proud of her. We had a great time celebrating with her family and her boyfriend, Silas. Check out the slideshow!

GCRJ = Georgia Council for Restorative Justice

This is my GRA project, and to be honest, I hadn’t ever heard of Restorative Justice before meeting GCRJ’s director.  But I quickly read up on it, and while I have a LOT more reading to do, I know for starters that I’m intrigued.  I really like the concept, at least from my limited understanding.  Everyone knows our legal system (and school system, and welfare, and health care, and and and…) needs some serious reform, and this seems to be like a very good step in the right direction.  At least, in my kind of direction, which is putting a person’s best interests for healing and growth first, and working in a supportive manner to facilitate dialogue that leads to action that leads to positive change for everyone involved.

So yesterday Mark brings home a big packet from Georgia State University. He thought it was junk mail. Good thing he decided to hand it over to me first instead of tossing it immediately, because it was my acceptance letter to the Master’s in Social Work (MSW) program! Woohoo!

I’ll be starting in August and going full time. Hopefully I can find some awesome part time jobs to make up some of the income loss, but the main focus for the next two years is going to be grad school. Because I want to save the world by vastly improving social service delivery and community sustainability. And that takes some serious focus and devotion. I’m excited, though! It took me a while to figure out what grad school program was the right fit for me. I looked into Tibetan Studies, International Relations, Sociology, Public Health…and finally I realized that Social Work, despite the stigma and stereotypes, was the most versatile, flexible, and ultimately, the best program for what I want to do in the world.

I can’t wait to go back to school! And knowing that this is directly benefiting my career makes it even more worthwhile. No more sitting through long, boring geometry classes wondering why I had to be there since I wasn’t going to ever use geometry. This is a hands-on program that will give me actual skills I need to make the world a better place.

– Leah