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:

I know, right?  Two posts in two days.  Who do I think I am….Mark?  But I got super lots of sleep last night and I think I’ve really kicked this cold in the booty, so before I jump into all the work I need to do today, I’m taking a moment to explain social work.  Because it has a stigma – that of a frazzled, burnt-out case manager taking people’s kids away or not taking kids away when they really should, and ultimately being ineffective and constantly stressed and not paid well and always under attack.

Social Workers, in reality, are alllllllll over the place – in hospitals and hospices, governments and NGOs, running nonprofit agencies, orchestrating humanitarian aid in the face of natural disasters, advocating for social justice and more effective policies, restructuring the justice system, the school system, fighting global poverty, improving public health, filling in the gaps where private agencies and public services are too overburdened or underfinanced to serve people.

Social Work is not about “helping” people, per se.  It’s more about facilitating a person’s ability to make positive changes in his or her life.  And maybe that sounds like a fancy way to say “helping people,” but the notion of helping is that I have something you don’t have, and in sharing that with you or giving you resources, I have made your life better.  And even with the best of intentions, “helping” still comes across as arrogant.  Everyone has the capacity and power to change their lives.  I can’t give you something you already have.

Social Workers go through training, internships, etc. to learn how to bring that capacity to the surface.  We learn how to listen, how to separate an individual’s truth from the untruths they have learned or come to believe.  And we work with the person, or the organization, or a roomful of politicians, so that they, too, can hear the truths in their own lives and the lives of those around them.

At the community level, Social Workers work with many different groups to forge relationships, working towards a common goal of meeting the needs of those in the community.

And in the process of all of this, we, the Social Workers, are changed.

“…the real question is not how can I help, but how can I serve?  Serving is different from helping…helping is based on inequality.  Serving is different from fixing. Fixing is a form of judgment.  When I fix a person I perceive them as broken.  Fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.  We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch.  We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.  When you serve, you see life as whole….in service we are all connected…all suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.”   – Rachel Naomi Remen

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.