- Writer's Block: Work It
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
misfitmonkey- January 22nd, 2008
blah
I work as a social worker for a clinic in Akron, doing quality service reviews for MR/DD group homes. I also intern at a local hospital, in the in-patient gero- and general-psych units. I also supplement my income with my excess financial aid, because I am poor as all hell and planning a wedding.
- Epic Accomplishments Today
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- misfitmonkey
- October 16th, 2007
I successfully implemented Google Mail with my domain, which, for a non-l33t like myself, was incredibly complicated and I didn't ask anyone for help AT ALL. I did it myself and tweaked my domain setup and now I can check monkey at brandice dot net through Gmail!!
https://google.com/a
Also, I put in a shift at internship AND I got a QSR done for work, all while still incredibly tired from staying until 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning.
ALSO, I did the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance live on my lifestream and am rocking my Indians hat because we are GOING to the World Series, beetches!
http://www.justin.tv/brandice/41143/Peanut_Butter_Jelly_Time_Dance (Please vote!) 
ALSO ALSO, from the other night, we made some pixelated pie:
- Goodbye Dakota, Hello Lincoln LS + Grant Position
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- misfitmonkey
- June 5th, 2007
good
I've mentioned before that Jim's grandparents were giving us a car, because his grandmother can't drive anymore, and they've stepped things up in terms of getting it repaired in light of my lack of transportation. I guess Grandpa is taking the car in today to have a tune up and the necessary repairs done. What's wrong with the car is minor, but expensive, because they apparently have to take out a large portion of the engine to GET to it. Jim's grandpa will get it fixed and then we'll be putting the car in one of our names and gradually paying off the cost of the repair (nothing for the car itself).
So, I've lost my trusty but old little 1993 Dodge Dakota, but I'm gaining one of these - a 2000 Lincoln LS sedan :
Hopefully in the next week, I'll become independently mobile again! It's been kind of lonely to have no job and no way to get around for the past couple weeks.
Speaking of having no job, I'm 90% sure that in the next 24 hours, I'm going to accept the one year grant position I was offered at the clinic I was at for internship this past year, working with at-risk 3-5 year olds 16 hours a week. It's going to pay about $610 a month take home, which is a HUGE pay cut, but I did some serious looking at bills, and my half of our total bill pay out is roughly $575, so I'll be able to pay all the bills with my income, and then if I get the same financial aid award that I did last year, I'll have $3,000 per semester for gas and food, which will be TOTALLY do-able with no more 40 minute drives to work and 60 hour weeks during school.
I would have two days (Mon/Wed) which would involve internship and then school (both in Akron), and then two days with the grant position, leaving me with three days off, less driving, shorter days (except my typical two-day-a-week all day school fest), and less stress. PLUS, the grant position ends a month after I graduate, leaving me open for new employment without any awkwardness, and it will look fantastic on a resume.
I think I'm ready to accept the position. I'm nervous, but I can always get some extra work on those three free days if I need to, and Jim is being really supportive about taking the financial risk, because he wants me to be less stressed during my last year of school. I think it's the best step for me right now. :)
- Picture Update - VStar and Class Picnic
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- misfitmonkey
- May 13th, 2007
relaxed
Jim got a new Harley, a special edition Sportster and he traded in his Yamaha VStar, so we took pictures of the VStar before he gave it away:
Also, last week we had a class picnic for the end of the semester:
Yay. :)
- Internet Abstinence, Hopefully Over Soon
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- misfitmonkey
- May 10th, 2007
busy
Just so it's clear that I'm not ignoring the whole intarwebz, I am on internet hiatus for the most part, due to a self-imposed three day paper-writing crunch. Yesterday I checked my email before I went to bed and that was it, and this morning I caught up on LiveJournal quickly and now I'm gone again until a substantial amount of this paper is written.
I will not be blogging again until the paper is DONE, at which point I will be so excited I may pee a little. *disappears back into a paper-writing frenzy*
- List of random updates
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- misfitmonkey
- May 7th, 2007
chipper
1. I am doing Script Frenzy. Join in on the fun. Also, if anyone plans on whining about my talking about Script Frenzy throughout June like I do about Nanowrimo in November, here's a big fat "bite me" in advance: *chomp*
2. I'm going to shadow a classmate in drug court in Cleveland on Wednesday for my paper. w00t + brownie points, maybe.
3. I cleaned last night.
4. The second bedroom, which failed as a craft room for crafts I never made anymore (time, motivation, failure as an artist), is going to be converted into a vibrational therapy practice room, so that I can have appointments at home if I need to and I can store my growing collection of gemstones and essences and books and tools/materials. Yay. :)
5. Jim and I are starting a multi-vitamin together today.
6. Plans for improving health and weight currently : diet is okay, 20 minutes of Wii Sports 3x a week, get elliptical back up and running for 2x a week, joining the company wellness program (nurse is heading to my office now!).
7. Just because I don't like 6's, here is a number 7. The end.
- Full moon = suckage?
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- misfitmonkey
- May 3rd, 2007
grumpy
Apparently it does.
Anyway, I finished my HBSE paper on "Spirituality and Social Work" and I worked my fucking ass off on it, so I'd better get a decent grade. Now I have a 15 page paper to do on substance abuse by the 15th and I will be DONE with this stupid semester. If anyone can hook me up with a state or federal advocate for substance abuse policy, please let me know. I have to do an interview with one for the paper.
Today is the full moon (last night through today actually) and I charged all my spring water and bottled it up for essence dosage bottles. I am now totally ready to go with Timshel Essences, since my business cards came in the mail yesterday. I'm doing an assessment on Jim's mom after my last paper is done, and I may be assessing someone at the Nano meeting Saturday too.
Class picnic today in Brecksville, woo hoo. Jim made this raspberry pretzel jello dessert that his mom always makes, since fudge wasn't really a good option.
I'm so disgruntled. *grumbles* I'm learning nothing and paying thousands for grad school, and I've learned more about vibrational therapy on my own in the past few months than I have about social work in the past year. I just hope that next year will be better and that I'll actually learn something real. I feel like I'm going to be graduating from this program with very little additional knowledge and a lot of debt to go with my piece of paper that will get me a job (hopefully).
At least I really love this song. *dances to the shower*
- Someone want to buy my ticket?
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- misfitmonkey
- April 26th, 2007
pensive
On Sale Fri, 04/27/07 10:00am
Bob Dylan
The Plain Dealer Pavilion (formerly Scene Pavilion), Cleveland
Sat, 07/14/07 7:30pm
Bullocks, I'd really like to go to that, but tickets to see Dylan are a bit pricey.
It's so weird to be just hanging around the apartment on a Thursday early afternoon... with internship over I have half of Tues and Thurs free (soon to be totally free after classes are over), and I just played Elebits for a half an hour instead of getting ready for a client session. How strange...
- (no subject)
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- misfitmonkey
- April 25th, 2007
restless
So, I'm way ahead on my work already today, so I'm running out of things to distract me from my possibly failing a class this semester.
I found this show on IMDB and Wikipedia and had fun reliving the "Out of This World" memories from my 80's childhood.marzipan9 is the only person I've met so far in life that remembers that show (girl whose dad is an alien she talks to in a crystal and she can stop time with her fingers and stuff). I wish they would air re-runs!
We got a different printer up on my office that I share with two other people that will scan a document and then email you a pdf file of the scan. Friggin' SWEET, omg. Why didn't we have one before? Who wants a pdf of my face???
Also, since I was having a really stressful evening last night, Jim came home with a big grin and said he'd brought me a present. I figured it was something teeny to cheer me, like a food I like or something, but it was Elebits! We only played for a while because he came home really late with it (took him a while to find), but I think there's some Elebit zapping in my immediate future. :) Yay.
I'm pretty stressed out about the Policy II thing, but I'm trying really hard to remain calm and collected. I'm going to do what I can to get at least a passing grade in the class and try to remember that after my meeting with the department director, it's out of my hands. It's not the end of the world, and it won't postpone my graduation if I can take the class again next spring with my other classes. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't life ending and no matter what happens, I'm still going to finish grad school and be fine. *deep breaths*
Seriously, now who wants a pdf of my face??
- Day 100 = Today
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- misfitmonkey
- April 10th, 2007
calm
Today is the 100th day of 2007. Feels like I should've done more important things, but really I went in to internship and ran our last dating group in partial hospitalization (which was somewhat nuts), collected more data for my research project, got gas, and ran to class, where I've been bored for 81 minutes and 57 seconds. I also brought in a dosage bottle of Bach's 5-Flower Remedy for a fellow intern to try since she'd sounded pretty interested, so that was cool at least. :)
I feel naked without my engagement ring. A couple people asked about it being missing and almost had heart attacks when I pretended that Jim and I had changed our minds. HAHA. I have tiny ass fingers, because it turned out that I need size 4.5... holy bony skeletal fingers, Batman!
- QotD: Apple For The Teacher
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- misfitmonkey
- February 16th, 2007
bored
Who was your best (or worst) elementary school teacher?
Submitted by Minnow.
Best: My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bricker. I ran into her when I was in college and she still remembered my name... really great woman. :) I actually started reading in kindergarten and Mrs. Bricker introduced me to Amelia Bedelia.
Worst: All gym teachers. Evil people, gym teachers.
Originally posted on monkey.vox.com
- yay: Yesterday + Internship
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- misfitmonkey
- February 9th, 2007
cheerful
Yesterday could've really sucked. I went to do a school assignment and discovered that while I ordered the book for the class, it was the wrong version and instead of settling into my chair to read "The Biological Person" from my HBSE book, I was looking at a chapter on "Infancy and Toddlerhood." Bullocks.
Soooo... that sucked. Also, I was incredibly anxious about beginning the data collection process for my research project because I'm anticipating some major roadblocks, but it turns out that there will be less than I thought. Positive moment #1.
Then, I was blessed with two unexpected gifts: my morning counseling session and my afternoon counseling session. As an intern, I've only been given two clients so far (Medicaid billing is still being set up for the new Social Work Trainee/ SWT license, and then I'll get more of my own clients), only one of which I've been able to see alone, and their sessions are usually frustrating because they don't have anything that needs addressed.
Yesterday I saw them both alone and they both were in need of direction / help / actual guidance, and suddenly I realized *why* I want to be a clinical social worker... I was suddenly sitting there hearing myself say a lot of the right things, listening as the questions I almost instinctively knew to ask brought out these floods of discussion from normally quiet people, and watching these two clients go from angry / stressed to calm and rational, and when I left at the end of the day I realized that fixing their bad days had actually fixed my own.
I was told in a philosophy class in undergrad that there are no truly selfless acts, and I think yesterday was proof that this is true, and also that it's okay. Maybe part of the reason I want to be a counselor is because it's a really great feeling to spend your day getting paid to make someone else's life a little more bearable, a little better, a little easier. I don't think it really matters though, because if you are improving someone's well being, can it be anything less than a win-win situation?
Anyway, it was a great day, and it was one of the rare days at my internship that I felt that I was getting a real taste of what my career will be like in less than two years, which is really exciting for me. :)
- yay: The Week + financial aid check
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- misfitmonkey
- January 13th, 2007
ecstatic
Oh boy oh boy! Today the subscription of The Week that Gina got me for Christmas came (the first issue anyway), and so did my financial aid check (the excess loan money I use to buy books and pay off bills, etc.).
Ohhhhh, I am totally getting the Burning Crusade expansion on time now instead of next Friday!!!! Yay! My druid will be so happy.
- Quickie Update
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- misfitmonkey
- January 13th, 2007
uneasy
1. I am the laziest person in the world today, accidentally sleeping until 2:00, and then gaming all day.
2. I finally reached level 60 on my main in WoW, and no one was around, so Bub watched while I "dinged" and did the obligatory ooooh'ing and aaaahhhh'ing. I finally did the artisan fishing quest as well, major pain in my ass.
3. The closer I get to starting my second semester of grad school, the less mentally stable I feel. I started having mini-panic attacks of the variety that I was having regularly during fall semester, and I am increasingly depressed. It's going to be REALLY hard to go to class on Tuesday. My chest got tight just typing about it.
4. My mother's birthday is on Monday, same as MLK Jr.'s. I got her something very pretty.
- today:
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- misfitmonkey
- January 11th, 2007
amused
Today I have eaten mostly cheese for all meals, except an orange for breakfast. I am literally a cheeseball. Also, go me for losing 3.2 pounds in the past week. ;) I have faithful and diligent in my eating habits as of late.
I just got back to my office from an Integral training, and right after the guy told us not to save any changes we make to the default file, he changed a bunch of stuff and then saved the default file. D'oh! Our IT Dept is really funny here... I think I learned more when I fiddled with it by myself last week (Integral, I mean... not the entire IT Dept).
I am a little over half a level to 60 on WoW with my main toon, and tonight is THE NIGHT. Or tomorrow is the morrow... or something. I *will* be level 60 beforecopperbeech goes on vacation, because she and Rob will have to be online when I level and congratulate me on my very first level 60. w00t!
I HAVE to upload the new screenshots I have of the Dark Portal and the crazy area in Tanaris that I've been to in the game recently. They're really beautiful... I'm constantly amazed at the graphics in World of Warcraft, and even if you aren't a fan of the game itself, you have to respect the beautiful artwork that was done in order to provide all the scenery and characters. It's really pretty amazing.
Sites I have recently been enlightened to or have rediscovered:
+ last.fm (join and add me!)
+ LinkedIn (join and add me!)
+ Twitter (join and add me!)
+ Google Reader (much better than Bloglines, sorry!)
+ Friends4Days (this is really different, I like it :) )
In sad news, I start school and internship again on Tuesday. It is likely that I will cry excessively on Monday evening...
- The lights are broken...
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- misfitmonkey
- December 20th, 2006
lethargic and generally sleepy
So, last night, due to events that could not have been foreseen by anyone, Jim and I couldn't decorate the tree, which was a bummer because everything about last night was generally a bummer. I have a virus on my laptop (sucko), I thought I'd found a taker for my old pocket pc (iPaq 1945 with desktop cradle, feel free to buy for $100 - comes with infrared Targus keyboard and a used case, SD slot and bluetooth capable) but I couldn't find the installation cd anywhere to go with it so Bub and I tore up the apartment looking for it, only to discover after giving up that my potential buyer doesn't have extra finances to buy it as planned (which is okay, but I should've checked my email before tearing apart the apartment), and then I got sick from eating delicious pizza, which is just not something that should happen in the world.
To the right, you can deduce from Zim's misfortune that we couldn't decorate the tree because ALL THREE strands of Christmas lights wouldn't work. It was utterly and completely weird that they were all broken, and now we have to get new ones. Since the lights go on first, we couldn't put anything else on the tree, booooo.
In happier news, since I just got some, I received my last grade for this past semester and it was an A- in HBSE, leaving me with a very respectable 3.85 GPA and nothing below an A- in any of my four classes. WOOT!!
There will be more Zim today. I tend to doodle a lot while I'm at work, and Zim had lots of adventures yesterday while I was supposed to be doing other things.
My final bit of news is that one of my co-workers sent me an apple in a big inter-office envelope through inter-office mail last week, and I sent it back with a packet of instant cocoa. It is quite possibly the most awesome thing anyone has ever sent me in the inter-office mail EVER, and I hope to receive someone's car keys or a paperclip later today.
- Ho! Ho! Ho! (and other things)
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- misfitmonkey
- December 19th, 2006
- happy
So, Jim and I have had the Christmas tree put together for several days now and it's got ONE ornament on it. Hopefully tonight will be the night that we'll actually decorate it and get the apartment ready for the holiday. I'm so incredibly excited for the holidays this year... I'm totally done with shopping and have been for quite some time, I sent out great holiday cards, and Jim and I are celebrating our first Christmas living together in our own place. I don't even have any huge awesome gift that I really really want, because I've been more excited about shopping for everyone else for the past month.
Last week was our MSW class' holiday get together in Fairlawn, and it was amazing, just absolutely awesome. We're distance learning class, so half are in Akron and half in Cleveland and it was so cool to meet the Cleveland people that we've been talking to via camera and microphones for the past few months. We had Secret Santa that was a huge success and two professors came (one of them brought our final papers and our semester grades too!). Here's some pics:
Great great times. :) We're hoping to do it again over spring break and then at the end of next semester.
Awesome and somewhat related news: 3 of my 4 grades are in and they are as follows --- Research (A), Social Practice w/ Sm. Systems (A), and Social Welfare Policy (A-). Current gpa with just one grade left is 3.90, BABY!! :)
- End of the semester
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- misfitmonkey
- December 6th, 2006
disappointed
So. I have all of my assignments completed, I'm killing time at internship to get my last hours in today and tomorrow, and tomorrow evening is the last night of classes until mid-January. I thought that, considering all of this, last night would be a great night in class, enjoying my last two classes of Practice with Sm. Systems and Social Welfare, but I actually spent the last portion of the night just completely fed up with my class.
I've been in high school classes on the last day of class that were more mature and respectful of the professor than some of my fellow students were last night on the Akron side, and it just really started to make me sad. :( Both of our professors were on the Cleveland side, so they were on camera and people took advantage of that to the point where I couldn't hear the first professor talking AT ALL over all the bitching that he was "seriously giving a lecture today? omg, wtf!" and just chitchatting over everything that was going on.
Then the first class ended WAY early and we started our second class immediately, which generated MORE bitching (which I don't understand because we got out of the last class at 7:20 when it was supposed to start at 7:00, for christ's sake!), and people talking over group presentations to the point where you couldn't HEAR the presentation. Then when I did my portion of the presentation, I didn't get to finish because everyone was in such a hurry to get done and get out, and I just left feeling disgusted with the people in my class.
I understand not wanting to pay attention... I rarely pay attention even a majority of the time in some classes, but I don't disrupt things by doing it and I don't infringe on other people's right to respectfully listen to a professor. I sit and play on the computer or whatever, but this went to far beyond that that when a professor on the Cleveland side said something to me, I had to ask him to repeat it because I couldn't hear him at all, and that's infantile.
I like almost everyone in my class, but last night I left with very little respect for their behavior and feeling like I'd just watched a bunch of grown adults act like small, pouty children, and it made me wanna hurl something. I've never seen such blatant disrespect for a class or a professor, and it made me especially sad since I might not have any more classes with the second professor, who was by far my favorite so far, and our class had to end on such an immature note.
I just don't get people sometimes... I mean, we should've been in class for six hours and we left after less than three and a half. What the FUCK do we have to bitch about? They could've rightfully kept us for the entire class time, and we as a class showed them zero respect. If that's how tomorrow night goes, I'm gonna have to leave rather than tell someone off.
I wanted this last week to be fun, and I left last night feeling guilty on behalf of my fellow classmates.
- Internship? What internship?
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- misfitmonkey
- November 28th, 2006
refreshed
I left early today to come hang out with Gina at Panera while she's working on her Nano novel. My supervisor left for the day and there was nothing for me to do, and I needed to email a professor, so vavoom, I am here instead!
In class, at 4:00 today, I'm doing a group presentation with two other classmates and we're presenting a video we filmed two weeks ago. Tiffany is Rudy Huxtable, a pregnant 13 year old, Monique is Monica Lewinski, Rudy's incompetent school social worker, and I am Roseanne, the incompetent drunk mother who rips her curler out of her hair and throws it at her daughter. It's a class on ethics and we figured that filming what NOT to do would be muchos more fun. It's gonna be REALLY embarassing though...
This week, I'm working on the following research methodology for next semester's research project:
"Disability and Level of Success in a Partial Hospitalization Day Treatment Programs"Using closed client records which will be de-identified by a fellow intern at my field placement agency, XXXXX XXXXXX, I will attempt to determine correlation between clients' mental and/or physical disabilities and whether they are placed in community work settings or long term day treatment after their stay in partial hospitalization, and their success in day treatment.
Uber exciting? Why yes, it is. Someone geeky on my friends list will appreciate.
And now, I must go to class and show my embarassing video. Adieu.
- My first counseling session
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- misfitmonkey
- November 17th, 2006
...I had to post about my first counseling session yesterday. :) My internship supervisor hasn't been able to give me experience or shadowing opportunites in clinical / behavior therapy up until recently, but last week she decided to give me one of her clients and I'm getting three clients from a woman who's going on maternity leave as well, that I'll be following up with when I return in January. Two client will be phone counseling / checking up, but the other two are in-house counseling, which I've NEVER done.
It was difficult for me, because the client isn't very talkative, but I got through it, and when I was walking the client out to the lobby, he looked at me and said, "So, I'll see *you* next time, right?" Which of course made me unbelievably happy, and then I had my semester student review with my supervisor, which went INCREDIBLY well. She said that she'd heard really good things about my ability to interact naturally with the variety of disabled clients that the agency deals with, and she was impressed with how much I'd gotten out of the client who'd just left, when he barely talks during a typical session and usually takes longer to warm up to new people.
I left internship yesterday feeling really great about my decision to get my masters degree, because with an LiSW, I will be doing *exactly* what I want to be doing professionally, and now I know that I at least have good base skills to build on and a good feel for how to work with MRDD clients. :) Yay me!