School House Rockin' it!

Somehow it is already March. If you know who the time thief is, please thank her for speeding up this last semester for me. 

On a related note, I am carrying so much tension in my back and shoulders that I have created knots in my muscles which make me feel like an arthritic old woman, so there's that. I'm not saying that all of my problems will be solved after Friday, I just know that I'm going to feel a whole lot better about life. This Friday is my Competency exam for Grad school which is basically a comprehensive exam that is taken instead of working on a dissertation. Do I honestly think I'm going to perform so poorly that I won't graduate from school? No. But it is the mere weight of the exam that makes it so terrible. There is a possibility that it could happen, no matter how small, it is still there. That's what I don't like. It seems so punitive. If you don't pass this ridiculous test then no diploma for you! I don't like it. In hindsight the dissertation would have been a better idea......No one picks to do the dissertation, it's an incredible amount of work. Eff that.

So aside from whining about this big test everyday I've actually been pretty productive. My classes leave a lot to be desired. My policy class would have ruined me had I not had any experience in it because the format and the way material is presented makes me want to swallow barbed wire. And I had such high hopes...

My internship could not have been a better decision. It is fantastic. This doesn't always mean stress-free but I have learned more than I could recount right now. I seriously struck practicum gold with both of my internships, I don't know how or why I got so lucky. 

This year has entailed a lot of learning about what my supervisor refers to as 'watching the sausage get made.' The political process is not a pretty thing, not at all. And sometimes I want to Upton Sinclair that whole thing and write a book about how intolerable it is, but then sometimes you get to add your own ingredients. Follow me with this metaphor, it totally makes sense if you think about it. Politics are messy and ugly and most of the time people don't know what is going into it or who is stirring the pot, but the policy comes out in these nicely packaged documents. Trust me, you'd rather not know. Just check the ingredients before consuming anything.
With all that to say I have been a part in creating a piece of legislation, that I think is pretty damn important, and can point to a phrase or an idea that I put into it. By no means did I write it, they have pale-skinned people in the basement of the Capitol that are really good at that. However, I can point to 2 items that I suggested to a person with more power than me, which then went down a short line to the bill's sponsor who said, 'ok, put that in there.' This is the first bill I have ever worked on so I am going to be overly optimistic and excited. I'm ok with that. The great part is, is that it appears that it will pass. We've got a few more days of concurrence and some veto days to get through but the word on the street is that, things are looking good. When and if i becomes a law, I am going to watch the School House Rock "I'm just a Bill" music video. And likely share. Just in case you never saw it, for your viewing pleasure:

 I will survive the rest of this semester, hopefully without an ulcer or mental breakdown.

I hope everyone else has survived this winter, it appears to be coming to a close. I don't want to speak too soon but the temperature today did remind me that there is good in this world...ha.

Have a lovely week. 

Political discourse and run-ins with cult members

Oh geez, I have been neglecting updating everyone on my life. Busy, busy.  To ease the minds of my three readers (I love each and every one of you) I'll give a brief rundown and anecdotes to keep your hearts from breaking any longer. (It will be ok). 
I'm taking a break from reading about political discourse techniques because I have seen enough of that over the past few weeks. My internship held a rally where the legislation I have been working on was announced to have bi-partisan sponsorship. However one of the parties had already submitted a version of it the day before and "didn't remember" but then later said "we just needed to get it in the statute." That was a crazy and frustrating day. The unfortunate thing is that this legislator has been a huge advocate for kids in the past, and the move reflected poorly on him. To me it felt like someone took my cake out of the oven before it was ready and starting cutting it up and serving it while it leaked batter everywhere. Hows that for discourse? Also at the rally I had some less than ideal interactions with pervy men and then another person tell us that he would 'pray for us' after discovering we were from Jefferson County (Louisville). I also had a nice conversation with a Tea Party-er about advocating for children. 
 We've since gotten the bill settled for the most part with the very necessary amendments and it passed in its Committee (forgive me for being vague, I feel like its necessary) and is now moving along at a good pace. Other than the legislative drama things at the internship are going well. Everyone is super busy since the legislators are back in session and I've got so much to do that I was asked to come in an extra 10 hours per week. This means much less time at the coffee shop, but it comes with pay so I'm definitely not complaining, and I'm hoping its one foot in further to a full-time position when I finish school. 
A few weeks ago one of the customers struck up a conversation and disclosed that he was a Masters of Social Work student at the nearby University. He then proceeded to tell me about how social work has helped him to really "find himself" (his words, not mine) and really empower him to become a better person. I told him that was great because it's important not to drag your baggage around with you when you're in a helping profession. He then asked me if I had ever heard about "Woman Within," which I thought was an odd jump but he then explained that a connected program called Mankind is what also really helped him to again, "find myself." He told me to check out the website but to ignore the other sites that talk about them (RED FLAG). So of course when I think about it again I searched for this organization. They use catchy words like "empowering" and "life's journey" and talk about a weekend retreat where apparently showing up late or learning early is very frowned upon. They used very general language and didn't specify exactly what happens during this weekend with strangers but building trust and finding yourself. It is not faith-based and in the FAQs they stated that they were not a cult. Well now, yes I am looking at other sources to see if they are the kool-aid drinking type or they are just Birkenstock wearing hippies that find their power animal. Several other sites talked about the exorbitant amount of money a weekend costs, their penchant for recruiting women that are questioning their sexual orientation and divorcees.  Many of the trainings focus on finding your femininity, celebrating femininity, sexuality, etc. Apparently the brief conversation we had led him to believe I need help finding my femininity. Thanks, bro. 
Last weekend we went to Red River Gorge for Jason's 30th birthday. I understood the need for a hot tub after the near 4 miles of hiking. I now also have a love/hate relationship with hiking. It was nice to get out of town for a bit and hang out. I still ended up working on things, but less than most weekends. J had a really great time with his friends and I think the birthday bash was a hit. I definitely want to go back to Red River Gorge to hike and see the Natural Bridge again when the trees are blossoming. 
I don't think I have been this busy since.....ever. Grad school is busting my ass with the extra studying for my Comps exam, work, internship, yada yada. I'm still figuring out that time management thing and would REALLY love to figure out a time to get regular physical activity thrown in there too. I suppose waking up earlier is an option I just need to mentally break my brain of the habit of pushing 'snooze' in my sleepy stupor every morning. 

Things that are awesome:
Mentors
Counting down days until the end grad school
Sea Salt popcorn
Date nights (infrequent but awesome)
Sunshine in the winter
Natural Bridges

Zero to stupidity in 2 seconds flat

Its insane to me how easy it is for anxiety to seep in.
Background: I noticed that I was no longer friends with a classmate on Facebook and I couldn't remember if I un-friended her or if she un-friended me. This is silly already, but there's a point in here somewhere. So I began to wonder why someone would de-friend me (BECAUSE its life-threatening, right?) and then came to the conclusion that I had offended this person in some way. My first thought was it was likely a religious comment, because as much as I try not to offend, I have never had anything very positive to say about the South or their infatuation with putting Jesus into everything. My distaste for the tendency to put Christianity on this pedestal and not acknowledge that other people have different beliefs makes me crazy(350 million Buddhists and 1.6 Billion Muslims must be mistaken)*. I'm generalizing the views of the entire South, which always makes for an effective argument (obviously) but there it is. I'm constantly worried that I am going to offend someone and I need to knock it off, because then I get thrown into this whirlwind of anxiety that then leads to more anxiety about bigger, more important things. Not only that but when it stems from my thoughts on religion there is the inevitable guilt that comes along with it (and I wasn't even raised Catholic). The beautiful parts of religion (any religion) always get stepped on or misinterpreted to hurt people. My hippie tendency to ask the question, "Can't we all just get along?" exposes its little, naive head. 
Unfortunately that was a very small piece of my thought process that led me here.
I then start worrying about classes, Comps, graduating, jobs, friends, relationships, you name it I thought about it and decided I needed to figure out a way to FIX EVERYTHING! After minutes of rushing thoughts about visiting old friends, studying instead of sleeping and applying to jobs RIGHT NOW I came back to reality. That's when I say, Shannon shut up, it's after 10 pm on a Sunday, what are you going to do about it tonight? Nothing. As much as I want to solve all of my potential problems, I need to consider that these are not even really problems. My life is great, the people I love know that I love them and miss them and I'm usually pretty intelligent so I will figure all of the school stuff out. I consider being more intentional about connecting with people but also need to remember that it is a two way street.
So all-in-all fifteen minutes or so worrying about everything then talking myself back to a normal level of worry/doubt/anxiety is much better than it ever was. So the next time I go from 0-60 in .002 seconds flat I need to remember the following:
-Where is this worry coming from?
-Am I being ridiculous?
-How is this remedied without creating more anxiety?
-Where does the importance of this rate on a scale of feeling chilly to being set on fire?
-Get the eff off of Facebook and focus on something more important-like anything else.

List making is fun and relatively effective. Give it a shot sometime. Maybe use a better scale for level of importance that is suited to your needs. You may hate feeling chilly. Most of the time I state out loud something about chilly willy, laugh and grab a hoodie, so its pretty minor for me.

*Those stats are from wikipedia so maybe don't run off and cite them as credible just yet. 

Hooray for being competent!

Lately I’ve been thinking about little changes. Changes that benefit me, my roommates, my way of functioning, etc. So far the only thing I’ve really concluded is that more sleep would do me some good and to get back on track as far as healthy eating. With everything that I have going on in my life that keeps me so busy there are little things that I can do to head in the right direction. And not in the direction toward crazy-town, which is where grad school wants to send me on a regular basis.

So far the semester has started off on the right foot. All of my classes look like they are going to be interesting and useful. My internship has been going quite well too. I really can't complain about any of it. (YET-ha) Work has been fine as well. I also keep getting things piled on me and have been asked to take the lead on some minor things because apparently I am a very competent individual. Hooray for being competent and extra work.
I did however find out that the trip I was hoping to go on won't be a possibility because of my schedule, my Comps and Jason's spring break. BIG bummer. We are hoping to plan something for the weeks between my classes ending and graduation, pending any job commitments I may have. (If I get a job). We'll figure it out. The plan is to get out of the country and Rome was the idea....I still need to get that passport I've been talking about getting for the last 3 years. Priorities, right?
Super Awesome things to be happy about:
My roommate boyfriend
My best friend roommate
My family
A running car
A great internship
Supportive mentor-types
Not worrying about things that I always worry about

Making positive changes
New clothes and rediscovered shoes
Friends (even if you just have to text)
game nights

<----GRUMPY CAT

Have a wonderful week!

wrapping it all up with a big shiny bow

I've sat down a few times over the past few weeks to write about what I've been up to, but it's much more fun to continue being up to things rather than writing about them. However as this vacation comes to a close I thought it might be time to reflect on these last few weeks of freedom before I get chained to the helm of yet another semester. The beginning of my FINAL semester of graduate school is fast approaching and lately I have been wondering if I'm really ready. I REALLY like 5 week breaks in between semesters and summers filled with jobs that are 8 week long commitments. And as stressful as those semesters are there is always an end date in sight.
Ok, I should stop thinking about school before it has even begun. 
These last few weeks have been awesome. They have been filled with late nights, lots of time with my best friends and a lot of irresponsibility (my version of it anyway, I'm still a worrier, lets be honest). My best friend and I watched a lot of bad tv, we went to the movies without the lingering guilt about reading and papers, I read Bossy Pants by Tina Fey (I now love her more if that's even possible) and The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman. I spent mornings on the couch with my giant mug of coffee and reading the news on my computer. I did all of the things I usually reserve for the weekends that I don't have to work. I made a piece of art for my roommate for Christmas that turned out well (which is a miracle considering how abysmally crafty I am). Jason and I traversed Michigan for 5 days only spending more than 24 hours in one location, it was fun but towards the end I was ready to come back home. We all spent New Years Eve together eating breakfast, cleaning the house and seeing Django Unchained before abusing our livers with alcohol while ringing in the new year. 

That pretty much brings it to today, the first day of the new year. 
I'm not really one for New Years' resolutions, mostly because I consistently fail at them. After 27 years you kind of have to know to just give up the ghost, its not going to happen. I do like the thought of having an opportunity to reflect on the last year and evaluating how things went, what you hoped would happen, what worked out in your favor, etc. I was a very lucky girl in 2012 and I hope that luck continues. l have a great house where I live with my amazing boyfriend, my best friend and the 2 best cats and 3 best chickens any girl could ask for. I live in a city that seems to mostly match my way of thinking and provides a lot of adventure and exploration in the future. I have an amazing family that I see less of than I prefer but whom I think about constantly. And I have plans, things to look forward to and several goals to obtain. Even on my worst days where I let my anxiety get the best of me I still have so many things to keep me going and for that I am thankful. I have achieved a lot of things in 2012 and have learned even more. I just know that want to be braver, smarter and even more driven in the year to come and obviously keep kicking ass. 
So 2013, let's kick some ass. 

all I want for Christmas

Sitting here with my giant mug of coffee watching the news makes me happy that I have some time off. Actually, I don't have to go back to work until Saturday. I may end up at my internship for some of those days, but let's be honest, I have a hard time staying idle. Watching netflix for several hours a day just doesn't seem like a great option. 
Since finishing this semester I've been working and making money so I can get to Michigan for the holidays. I was kind of a weird week with family health issues, that appear to be resolved and the discovery that a former client of mine in Michigan died. The client was not one that I became very close with, though some of my coworkers may have, however it is still sad news to hear. He was constantly in trouble after leaving the facility I worked at which goes to show you can't make a difference in all of them, even though you hope that you do. 
In the absence of school work we have decorated the house for Christmas, lights on the outside and a decorated tree and stockings. It's been nice to have a tree and turning the lights on when it gets dark, kind of puts you in better spirits. In the absence of work I have also lost the ability to think critically about much or feel intellectually stimulated. Though I have started reading Chuck Klosterman's second novel, The Visible Man. 
I've had trouble answering the question, 'what do you want for Christmas?' I have no freaking idea. I don't need anything. The only thing I want is to get a job once I graduate. That's it. Maybe it can be a very delayed present courtesy of a Louisville nonprofit. 
For the next few weeks I hope for a safe visit to Michigan (maybe with some snow). Seeing some family and friends. Relaxing, eating too much, having fun and smiling. I would love to be able to drink and dance at Jerry Green's club but that may not be in the cards before we head North. I need an excuse to dress up and get fancy for a night.
All I want for Christmas is the following:
Family and Friends
Safe travels for the people I love
Quality time
No stress
and everyone to be happy

Not too much to ask for, right? 

Little bitty update

I'm so very close to being done with this semester......BUT I'm not quite done yet so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. 
This week I spent much of my time doing the same things as normal. Work, school work and internship stuff. On Tuesday I went to Frankfort to attend the first External Review Panel meeting on Child Fatality and Near Fatality.  Needless to say, I had a LOT of opinions about that meeting and became discouraged because it was so poorly prepared. There were a lot of informed, intelligent people there but I really wish everyone had come ready and had spoken up.
One of the weeknights I spent on the couch watching the movie 'Brave' and eating ice cream. It was awesome.
At work we have trivia questions and on Saturday it was World AIDS Day so the trivia question was related to the number of people worldwide that have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. One man said it was ZERO because HIV is a hoax. I nearly vomited and I'm really glad I wasn't the one that he said it to. It blows my mind the beliefs that some people hold, especially about things that are drenched in evidence. Wowza.
The same day at work I was told I was going to be trained as a shift leader. That means a raise. A very minimal raise but it helps nonetheless.
Today I finished my blog post for my internship which will be posted on Thursday and I also finished up one class. The other two classes have final assignments due tomorrow. Oh happy day. It will be amazing. And I will sleep all day Wednesday and lay around like a sloth.
Also, The Walking Dead, holy crap I can't wait until February.
Things that are awesome or that I am looking forward to include:
End of the semester submissions
Leisure reading
Admission to Candidacy for Graduation
Decorating the House
Driving less
Cats with catnip
Encouraging words
Heading North
70 degree days in December (global warming, schmobal warming)
Heading South?
Free Coffee
Creating things and being crafty
A decrease in stress