bailey | 
07 9th, 2009| 
The pace of things has dramatically slowed since my internship has ended. I’m taking 4 classes this summer. To some people that might seem like a bummer but I am really enjoying myself. Simmons offers 2 summer sessions, both 6 weeks long. I finished the first session a couple weeks ago. I now have Group therapy and Narrative therapy as part of my “therapeutic toolbox”. Without the chaos which was my internship overwhelming my thoughts I have been able to enjoy the learning process. I was able to keep up with all the reading for the first summer session. I was able to write my papers with ease. In fact, I have avoided procrastination and planned my work out more successfully than ever. For my last two papers I wrote outlines to organize my thoughts. I’m a pretty smart girl and have always been an above average student. This year I feel as if I have figured out how to make my old B+/A-s into As and it feels really good.
The MSW program I’m in includes a 3 day a week internship as well as classes. This year I interned in a Boston Public Middle School. This placement has been demanding. I work in the Learning Adaptive Behavior program. This is a program for kids who have learning and emotional difficulties. The kids I have work with are amazing. The have lead me through a number of valuable learning experiences. My time with them will stay with me for the rest of my life. It’s been a wild ride. I have been mostly shocked by the schools lack of resources. The kids in the program do not have art, music, or even computers. Classes are more about control than learning. It seems impossible to create any structure for these kids. I have been so impressed at the tolerance demonstrated by the teachers who work in the program. Being with these kids is frustrating and exhausting. It takes me a good two hours unwind after a day at school. These teachers do amazing things without the cooperation of the kids or the larger school system.
In the second semester I became fascinated with the severally mentally ill. I was required to read Crazy by Pete Early. Early weaves the story of his son, Mike’s, struggle with mental illness with an expose of the treatment of the mentally ill in prisons. This story resonated with me because of my own family’s struggle with mental illness. The book inspired me to do a semester long project of the criminalization of the mentally ill. I learned about the history of shutting down the state run mental institutions without offering proper services in the community. America’s jails and prisons have become surrogate psychiatric hospitals for thousands of individuals with the severest brain diseases. 55% of the prisoner population in the US has been diagnosed with a mental illness. 70% of the female prisoners have been diagnosed. Prison is not adequate treatment environment and can exacerbate a mental illness. What is happening to these people is cruel and usual and therefore unconstitutional.
I recently completed my first year at Simmons College in the Social Work Graduate program. I have loved going back to school. Social work suits me. I really enjoy learning about the different theories of human behavior and how they apply to clinical social work. This year I took course in social work practice, social work policy, and human behavior theory. I have found the return to academic writing challenging. I feel that I have improved my writing skills this year. I am very proud of the grades I earned.
The content of the courses I have taken has been enlightening. One of the first books we read for my Practice class was Class Matters by Bell Hooks. This book captured my growing feelings about the treatment of the poor in the US. Over last summer I had a job working with homeless families in Cambridge, MA. My experience with the systems we have in place to help those who are down were discouraging at the very best. The aid offered by the state is only enough to keep a family on the edge of poverty. Families struggle with financing their survival and the pull of consumerism. Hooks’ discussed how people are convinced of false needs by the consumer culture. After reading this book I started to think about my own view of money. I love to have nice things but I don’t need them. I started realizing the startling discrepancies. I think nothing of spending $100 on a nice dinner for two. For some of the people I was working with that is all they had left over after paying all their bills for the month. For the first semester of school I was consumed with figuring out how I fit into this world with so much inequality and still feel good about myself. I know my life has been and continues to be blessed. I am very conscious of not taking this for granted.
It’s half way through the summer and I have finally posted pictures of all the things I’m growing. This year I am going to keep a sideshow with photos of all the exciting changes in my garden. I’ve become obsessed with veggies so I am calling it “The Farm“.
I hadn’t ever been to the circus before this weekend. I might have gone when I was to little to remember and I’ve see the Cirque Du Soleil but yesterday was my first time seeing 6 motorcycles ride together in a small globe! I was afraid my expectations for “The Greatest Show on Earth” were over inflated but I was dazzled. I was mostly into the animals. There were dogs, ponies, a little pig who rolled out a carpet, elephants, and tigers all doing fun tricks. I also enjoyed the acrobats and trapeze. There was just a happy silly vibe in the air.
I loved watching the elephants dance and do tricks but at the same time I had thoughts of those same elephants in a small train stall traveling the country. The Ringling Brothers Circus has information on it’s website about caring for their animals.
I can’t forget to mention that the circus is a junk food event. We had a bucket of popcorn, a hot dog, a sprite, and a fried dough. I would have also had a snow cone but I got to full.
We passed the circus trains on the way in and out of town. The train filled with all those people, animals and stuff gives me visions of “The Little Engine Who Could” making it’s way over the big hill. There must me over a hundred people of people, seven elephants, and the entire set, plus all the merchandise.
If you want to see more pictures of our trip to the circus check out my photo gallery.
When I was 15 years old my family moved from Columbus, OH to Easton, PA. This was our 5th move in 5 years. My sister and I were unhappy to leave our friends yet again, so our mother bribed us with the promise of pets. Unfortunately we rented a house that did not allow animals. That was what we believed until one day mother father accidentally spilled the beans that the least allowed for one cat. We went that very day and brought home Bossy. The cat people, my father and I, were happy but the dog people, my sister and mother still didn’t have their puppy.
Something that should be know about my mother is that she is a person that believes in rules. The lease said no dogs and she planned to stick to it, regardless of her long time craving for a canine companion. I knew it was love at first sight when she saw Sweet Pea because in those moments the rules meant nothing. With just a glance through the glass my mother turned to me and annouced, “That is our dog!”. After playing with the our puppy for a few minutes my mother already knew her name was Sweet Pea.
Sweet Pea was a scrawny little miniature schnauzer with big floppy ears. Dumbo was one of her many nicknames. The cat has always tormented her by getting her all worked up so she would chase her and then faking towards the sliding glass door. The poor puppy wouldn’t be able to stop herself from sliding right into the glass door. There was a time Sweet Pea would climb up the stairs but was afraid to climb down. The cat loved to get the dog to chase her up the stairs and then come running back down leaving the puppy stuck.
Over the next few years my parents got two other miniature schnauzers, Daisy and Clover. Sweet Pea was always the mouthy one in their pack. She was the most likely to misbehave, always the first to bark at bigger dogs. We like to think of her as the ring leader and the other two as her muscle. She was also always be the first one to jump in your lap. My mother loved to call her a slut because she was willing to get into anyones lap for a little attention. She was a wonderful little barky dog and we all loved her very much.
Even as our dogs have gotten older we have always called them puppies. Sweet Pea was our 13 year old puppy. I think it might have started with my dad but we all adopted a since that if we pretended like they were still puppies somehow they would stay that way. Even in my home my cat, Adelyne, is more commonly called “The Kitten”. This week the fantasy of our forever puppy was broken with the passing of our Sweet Pea. My sister and I accuse my mother of replacing us with her puppies. To tease us she would call them our brother and sisters. Once I left home I missed them like they were part of my family.
Sweet Pea was really so loved by my family and will be so missed. I’m sad that I won’t be petting her again but a comforted by the fact that I know a puppy could not have had it better. There was always a lap for her to sit in, it was easy to scraps from our table, and once we brought on the bodyguards that damn cat couldn’t even get to her.
For more pics of all the puppies check out my photo gallery.
Myah and I had planned to go see a movie Horton hears a Who but just couldn’t spend a beautiful afternoon in a movie theater. Instead we did a little shopping and then got our nails done. Each time we are together is so wonderful. She is amazing. I find myself being a little protective of her. I worry when I can’t see her. Once we got lunch at the food court and I felt nervous leaving her at the table to get my food. I’m not really sure what kind of supervision is appropriate for a seven year old. It defiantly has something to do with the child. Myah seems pretty responsible. My instinct to be so protective surprises me. I’ve always believed I would be a laid back mother. It’s important to me that my children experience the world. This “big sister” thing is new to me. Myah and I are not peers which is different from my relationship with my biological sister, Dori. We get to be friends but I am the one in charge. In general I have no problems being the leader but it feels different when someone is dependent on you. I’m all for treating kids like people and with Myah this is easy. She has never been anything but completely pleasant when she has been with me. Her entire family are friendly. I’ve enjoyed spending time with her mother and brother. My BBBS experience has so far been a perfect choice for me. I feel lucky to be able to share time with Myah.
Last December I left my job. I didn’t exactly resign as much as I created a situation where I could no longer work at the company. It wasn’t the smartest path but it was the one I choose to take. During the past few months I’ve been trying to figure out what to do next. I like to think I am a certain kind of person. I wasn’t being that person in the beginning of the winter. I needed to make the changes point things in the direction I want to go. The first step was figuring out where to go. I did have ideas for filling my time off.
One of my ideas was that I would make excerise a regular part of my life. I joined the gym and I do go pretty regularly. I take a tennis clinic on Sundays and I try to workout at least two other times a week. There have been phases in what I choose for my non-tennis workouts. I started by just working out in the gym. The club offers two free sessions with a trainer when you join. Joe is beautiful in personality and looks. During our sessions he showed me a workout to help me to work toward my goals. I started with a little running and then lifted some weights. I enjoyed these workouts for awhile partly because Joe is always chatty when he sees me. I started getting bored when I kept forgetting to charge my ipod or to bring the ear phones. One day I didn’t want to run to silent tv so I took a palates class. Then I learned about the tennis social on Wednesday morning. These socials gave me a chance to play with some of the big kids, more senior club members. Lately I’ve been inspired by my sister to swim laps. I feel great about getting to the gym and enjoying my time there.
I would say the biggest challenge I wanted to met during my time off is figuring out what to do about this work thing. As I was sitting here trying to figure out how to explain how I felt about my previous jobs and how this new work thing has to be different when a tweet from JimMoon.com wrapped it all up in a 140 characters.
I’ve decided I want to be a clinical social worker. I’m into families. The relationships in a persons family sets the tone for all their other interactions. It’s where a person learns basis concepts such as love, happiness, and respect. I had thought about going for my MSW but wasn’t really ready to act on it until about two weeks before the deadline. I have an unbreakable habit of leaving just enough time to finish a task. Somehow I gathered all the recommendations and wrote an essay I felt pride in summiting. Last week I got my acceptance letter from Simmons. I couldn’t be more excited to start the program next September.
I’ve thought about volunteering since I moved to Boston. These thoughts were of working with the homeless population or the democratic party. I never felt inspired until I found out someone in my tennis clinic worked for Big Brother Big Sister (BBBS). I was drawn to the idea of spending time with a child. We have been matched for a month and half. At seven years old her favorite restaurant is Mr. Sushi. This girl doesn’t know how to do anything but smile. We were shopping a couple weeks ago and picked up a beautiful tiara which she wore to an event this past Sunday. I suspect she may have it on when I pick her up for next play date.
I have many other projects on the go. I’ve been scanning all my family photos, selling my jewelry on Etsy, and put some time into our web hosting company, Alienwebshop. We finally have a routine for keeping the house clean I’ve also been having a good time with all my plants. A new plant page should be coming soon. Each day becomes more and more full of things I want to be doing.
I’ve been on a few interviews lately. I got a call from the people I spoke with first about a job in human services. It’s only part-time but they will work with my schedule for school. I’ll be helping families transition into permanent housing and providing ongoing support. I’ll be doing a part-time finance admin job I’ve been on for the past couple weeks. I’m even having a blast hanging out at the office. They have me making filing systems. I love taking a mess and turning into color coded beauty. I use the laser printer to make the perfect labels for both the file and hanging folders. Everyone in the office was impressed when I tossed the old magazines from the coffee table and then straitened the rest. A phone call today changes everything so work is no longer a problem but a pleasure.
These are just a few reasons why life rocks for me. I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere these days and the ride is a blast. Next priority is to adapt blogging and twitter into all the things I do.
Lukas has asked me to start collecting card board tubes to use as bowling pen for his new favorite sport. He picks up the kitten like she is a bowling ball and throwing her across the dining table. She does a kind off roll slide across the table. When she gets to the other side she sits there and stares at Lukas for a second. Any normal cat would run away at this point. The kitten just prances right back into Lukas hands for another tumble. This is how they bond.
