I Used to Kinda Suck (but then I got better)

I am in the process of applying to jobs and post-doctoral fellowships. For those of you who do not know, a post-doctoral fellowship is a one-year advanced training experience that pays you like a migrant farm worker. A job is something you do for 45 years instead of sitting around all day watching television and going to places you like, so that someday when you are in your 60s you can afford to stop working and can sit around all day watching television and going to places you like.

Anyhow, in the course of this application process, I have had the opportunity to reflect upon where I've come from professionally and where I am now (as well as where I am heading with regard to my skills). In reflecting, I am glad to say that I have improved much since even just this time last year! How, you might ask? (or you might not give a shit....whatever)

Well, I am noticing changes in both myself and my clients, compared to last year. Whereas last year I felt like I was (and needed to be) a really great therapist, I now view myself as more intermediate and have lower standards. This is a good thing because my standards were waaaayyyy too high before! I have now accepted what I don't know, and this has opened me up to a lot of professional growth. I am now able to be with, rather than "do" with, my clients, and I seek knowledge and guidance in supervision in a way that allows me to collaborate and use the feedback I get. This is not to say that I am a bad therapist; rather, I simply don't need to be an expert yet (it is too early in my professional work and growth for that anyhow), which has freed me up to improve so much more.

Also, clients this year are having different experiences with me than the ones I saw last year. While I believe I helped people last year, this year it is deeper, more profound, more connected, just plain more of what therapy should be. I have only had three people drop out of treatment with me this year (it was higher last year...way higher); one I think was done anyhow, one didn't want to come in the first place, and the other might have felt too exposed (not my fault, though...he's the one who brought me a note with his deep, dark feelings and vulnerabilities in the seventh session).

In short, I am very glad to say that I have gotten way better as a therapist, and am on the road to continuing to grow professionally because I have been mobilized by accepting a freedom from excelling before my time. I am ready for a job if one comes along!

...or else I'll be the best damn supermarket employee ever!

And I'll Try to Remember the Sun.....

In one marvelous, wondrous, mind-warpingly sad word: TiVo.

(okay, so it's actually not the brand TiVo, but it is Digital Video Recording)

I got this new service installed yesterday. It allows me to pause live TV, skip commercials, and record things I am not watching (up to 80 hours....who the Hell has 80 hours of TV to watch?!). This will be the end of me. My fantasy is that having this service will allow me to watch less TV because I am skipping commercials and watching things I have recorded rather than just filling time until something good comes on. I also fantasize that it will allow me to go to bed earlier, as I will not be tempted to stay up late to watch some of my favorite shows.

In reality, I know, it will just allow me to watch more television and more often. Damn.

I suppose I will have to leave my apartment for food and money eventually, tho....

I Think the People Are Broken.....

So, I was on the phone with my friend John this evening. Around 9:15pm the fire alarm in the building hallways went off....Loud! "Oh shit!" I thought. "Something is wrong!" After all, they don't do fire drills in apartment complexes. So when the alarm goes off, there must be a fire somewhere in a common area! Hearing the alarm, I hustled to put on my shoes and jacket (hey, it was cold outside!), threw the leash on my dog, and quickly left my apartment to go outside and not burn to death.

When I stepped out of my apartment into the hall, I found all of my neighbors wandering around asking one another what was going on. It's the fire alarm, morons! Go outside!

So, as I stood outside all by myself, still talking on my phone, I realized that maybe these people I live with in Michigan are not the brightest people in the world. One person on the first floor walked out onto her patio for about a minute, but then wandered back inside. A group of people walking from the building to their car told me that the alarm went off because someone burned their dinner (later I would wonder why I trusted people leaving the building).

The alarm kept going for a half hour until the fire department arrived. Boy, they really raced right over!

Relaxation

I have been feeling down and somewhat anxious for the past couple of days, so I decided to go out with some friends last night. We spent some time at a bar for St. Patrick's Day, which was okay but nothing great.

Then we decided to go buy a 40 of Malt Liquor and watch R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" on DVD. That was nice.

Onward....

I Hate Math

I have been feeling a bit down and anxious for the past couple of days. I am worried about finding a job after I finish my degree in August. I had decided that I want to work and live somewhere in the Northeast (minus Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine) because, although Kalamazoo is nice, there is definitely a different culture in the NE than here. I miss being close to the people and places back east. As such, I have only put in applications to counseling center job openings in that area (I would apply to outpatient clinics as well, but they almost always require licensure, which I will not have until after I work for a year).

In addition, I had decided that I did not want to apply for post-doctoral fellowships. These are one-year positions which do not pay very well. The salary is less important to me than the one-year placement aspect, but I do need to make enough money to support myself and begin paying off my student loans. However, my main reason for choosing to not apply for post-doc positions is that it has been difficult for me to feel connected to the community and to create relationships when I am just here for a year, and even though it has been nice to live out here for a little while, I do not want to do this again somewhere else.

So, I have only applied to jobs so far. Provided I GET one, that works out great for me. However, I am also competing with people who may have done post-docs and have licensure, and therefore who are better candidates than I am. I inquired about one application which I sent in last month, and was told that they are currently interviewing their top candidates and will inform me of any developments. It is only one out of seven applications (so far - I will send out more as positions are announced), but still....

My internship training director has told me that it is too early to be worried that I have not gotten any interviews, as most interviews occur in May or June (when college counseling centers are either on break or have a less hectic summer semester). Nonetheless, I feel down and out about it right now.

I am worried that if I don't have a counseling job, I will need to get a different job for a little while. Not that this would be the end of the world, but I will have my doctorate in psychology and therefore either be overqualified for most other jobs or else obviously disinterested in long-term employment with the organization. And I need a job for food and shelter and such (those things are fairly important to me! :) ).

So, as a result of my newly-heightened anxiety about all this, I am thinking about applying for post-docs (if they pay enough...I DO need to pay bills!) and/or jobs in other geographic areas. Might not be a bad idea. After all, if I were to get a job in a city I have applied in so far (Rochester, Philadelphia, Ithaca, Storrs, South Orange, Saratoga Springs) I would still not be close enough to family and friends that I could do a day trip to visit. Is there a big difference between living 5 hours and 10 hours away? Plus, applying to other areas would not cause me to miss out on interviews and jobs in the Northeast. I guess the question becomes: if it came down to it, would I rather live/work in City/region X, or not have a job in the Fall? I like that question!

I have also found myself thinking about math. I am pretty sure that there are more new doctorates awarded in psychology each year than there are job and post-doc position openings. Granted, not everyone would be applying for therapy positions (some people want to be college professors, researchers, and other types of things), and I do have more experience in college counseling than many people (two years; not everyone does a practicum and internship there).

At least last year, when I was dealing with applying to internships, there was a day designated for being anxious and finding out whether I was matched with a site or not. This time around, the anxiety can flow freely.

Dang.

My Dog's New Trick

I was sitting on the floor playing with my dog this evening, when she lifted her front paw and thrust it toward my head. She did it a few times, smiling her cute doggie smile the whole time.

Great. My dog has learned how to punch me in the face. Just wonderful.

So, Howzabout This Weather....

I have decided that the weather in Michigan is stupid. I do not necessarily mean that I don't like the weather, but rather that it is actually unintelligent.

Let's consider the past couple of days....Sunday night we had an incredibly loud thunderstorm, the kind where people were complaining the next day about being kept awake by it. Monday started out gloomy and slimy, but the sun came out. That night it snowed two inches, which were gone by noon the following day (the temperature hit a low of 31 degrees and a high of 72). Today was nice, but it is supposed to snow something fierce tomorrow.

Actually, I think I'll change what I said.....the weather is not stupid; the weather is bipolar!

"Michigan, where if you don't like the weather, just wait an hour."

When I moved here in August, everyone warned me about the snow, emphasizing something called "lake effect winters." I was told not to expect to see less than 3 feet of snow for any significant amount of time, and to say good-bye to the sun in November because it would not return until like April. NOW when I ask people about this, they actually apologize for the good weather and make great efforts to impress me with how it "usually" is!

But I'm not afraid of snow.....

Glad We Have Technology That Can Give Us This....

I am usually glad that we are living in an age in which can help us to learn, communicate, shop, and entertain ourselves in ways previously unimagined. Then, however, I find crap like this....

http://www.cryingwhileeating.com/

{sigh}

Student Unioning

Earlier this week, I walked from the counseling center to the student union on campus (which houses the post office, a few book and clothing stores, some restaurants, and a defunct bowling alley).

This gave me pause to reminisce about my days as an undergrad at the University of Hartford. THAT student union had this one beat hands-down! Sure, we never had a bowling alley, the book store was in a different building, and our selection of food choices was smaller, but we had a friggin' Taco Bell! I could get nachos any day I wanted. Sure, I also learned alot at that school, matured, had fun, made some good friends, blah blah blah.....but the important thing is I had all kinds of access to yummy low-grade meat in tortilla shells, with the exception of two periods during my time there. There was a week when they had a sign up announcing a national yellow corn shortage, which our country somehow managed to live through (and keep in mind that this was in a pre-9/11 world, when we were not as prepared to handle national crises).

The other time when we were forced to abstain from meats labeled "Grade-E, but edible" was during my freshman year, when there was a period of about two weeks when most food service places on campus closed because the school couldn't figure out why so many students were falling violently ill.....several people were freaking out and complaining that the school was in the midst of an Ebola virus outbreak or something. It was weird; students were being interviewed by the local news stations and were crying and saying how scared they were of dying. THEN the university had the nerve to act surprised when it was discovered that pork and chicken scooped out of huge unrefridgerated drums can make people ill when served in public areas during cold and flu season. Go figure.

When I returned last year to work in the school's counseling center on the third floor of the student union, I created some commotion within dining services. Twice. First I dared to use the milk dispensers to try to buy {gasp!} a cup of milk. The woman at the cash register was confused and told me that the milk, which I already had in my cup and really couldn't return to the dispenser, is only for coffee (even though this is how we bought milk there four years prior). So, she decided to charge me for two colas instead (if you have two sodas, do they turn into a glass of milk?!). Since the milk would be free if it was in coffee (and since this woman was ticking me off), I asked her how much coffee I would have to add to the cup before the milk was free again....for anyone wondering, lunch ladies don't have the best sense of humor.....

The other time last year when I accidentally caused a problem was when I unwittingly used my staff-get-free-hot-beverages privilege to try and get hot chocolate, which turned out to not be included in the deal. Whatever.... Anyhow, each of these incidents inspired them to put up laminated signs informing beverage patrons that milk is only for coffee and staff cannot drink hot chocolate....I believe the signs are still there, and I enjoy that I was able to leave a legacy for the campus community beyond a commemorative brick that no one will ever read.

I wonder if they ever changed the combination to my old mailbox.....

Teaching is Fun

I am teaching one class this semester. This week's topic was how to pursue and gain more information about and experience in prospective careers. Since the topic is rather bland and straightforward, I thought to make it more engaging and enjoyable. I know that different people have different ideas about how a college teacher should run class, and mine involve the notion that humor and fun can be utilized to promote learning. So, I don't mind being (or rolling with) absurdity so long as the points are there and students seem to be getting the information and perspectives that I am trying to convey. Plus, I really don't want to stand at the front of a classroom and just talk at people for an hour. Keep in mind that these are college students, and that I am pretty good at perceiving and regulating the line between how much silliness students can handle before the class material gets lost and we are starting to get off track. It's a balance.

Let the fun begin.

I began by asking if anyone in the class had a career in mind that we could use as an example of how to go about exploring careers and subfields of careers. We began with counselor, and we discussed how to gather information and consider different types of counseling professions (e.g., social work, psychology, marital therapy, school counselor, etc.). When I asked for another example, someone suggested we think about "clowns." To their credit (and this is why I didn't mind pursuing this absurd suggestion), we discussed how it would be important to look at the reputations of various clown colleges and training programs, and students suggested things such as the necessity of deciding whether one would want to be a circus clown and a birthday clown and brainstormed about how to learn more about these types of jobs and start to get experience in them. While the suggestion of being a clown was rather absurd, it did provide an enjoyable way of engaging students and having them demonstrate insight about how to pursue a career.

Then it got really interesting. Just to try to be funny, one student suggested the career of "porn star." I am not one to back down from a student trying to throw me off, so I rolled with it and asked him where one might go to learn more about this particular profession and how he might find out about avenues for gaining experience in it, at which point the student suggested going to a local strip club. He then proceeded to invite me to meet him there next week (which I would not do of course), offering to buy me lap dances. I stopped him when he began to suggest bringing the females in the class for amateur night, and he apologized for going to far with the joke.

Later in that class, as we talked about how an informational interview (an interview with someone working in the field, geared toward learning more about their job) could be useful, I asked for volunteers to role play the initial phone call requesting the interview. One student kept trying to volunteer his friend (much to his friend's annoyance), so I invited that student to do it himself "because that's what happens when you try to volunteer other people." He strongly declined. So, I had the student who did volunteer (the same one the friend was trying to volunteer) not only play the role of a rude and annoyed receptionist trying to screen the student-interviewer's call, but also to play this role as the student who had tried to volunteer him! At one point the student-receptionist pretended to interrupt the student-interviewer to eat a sandwich, at which point I stopped him to try to redirect him and inquire whether he thought his friend was an idiot. His friend did back him up, though, and let the class know that he does indeed love sandwiches very much, and would probably be eating one while on the phone.

Of course, the students also spoke seriously and for the most part did serious role plays and such (I am omitting those parts, as I really doubt anyone reading this is interested in the 15 minutes we spent doing case vingettes and problem-solving around typical obstacles faced by undergraduates trying to pursue a particular type of job). I really like that we were able to combine learning (and demonstration of that learning) with levity in a way that engaged them in what might have otherwise been a rather boring topic. Had they not been demonstrating knowledge and creativity about the topic (e.g. how to explore careers, get more experience, and initiate an interview with someone), I would have directed our time together back to a more serious, lecture-y tone. That they got the points we were discussing, while still having some fun, was wonderful!

Teaching is fun. :)

Multiculturalism (the color kind)

It is important for psychologists to be what we call "multiculturally competent," meaning that we need to be sensitive to, respectful of, and knowledgeable about differences between various groups. When I learned about multiculturalism and diversity in graduate school, I was told that this involved learning about and being aware of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, and ability/disability differences. Now on internship, I am receiving a different message. Apparently, all we should concern ourselves about is skin color. Everything else is secondary, or else superfluous.

What makes me say this? I am participating in a multicultural rotation this year, which involves a series of six group meetings, some readings, and various projects. Every single one of these meetings, readings, and projects focuses on race. A few of them also talk about sexual orientation, but only as seen through a racial lens (e.g. black homosexuals). I did a presentation on therapeutic considerations when working with Hispanic gay and lesbian clients, but was told afterwards that the topic was "too complicated."

I should probably remind people reading this that I live in Kalamazoo, a very much predominantly-white area. I have worked at WMU for six months, and the most "diverse" client I have seen is an international student from France.

I am almost done with the multicultural rotation. I have one project left (and we three interns have given up on reading the same "it's hard being black/Hispanic, and all white people are racist" assigned articles), but I am having trouble with it. The assignment is to interview a culturally-different (again, read: "person of color") whom I do not know. I have a few problems with this. Firstly, if I do not know the person, then I basically need to walk up to someone and say some version of "Wow, I couldn't help but notice that you're black! Would you like to talk to me for two hours while I audiotape it?" I don't feel comfortable predicating a contact with someone with an intent to use them for my own needs and gain. I think that this is really disrespectful to them, and I do not like the idea of having to do it.

Secondly, the main source of people of color are poor black people who live on the north side of Kalamazoo, which I have been warned against venturing into, as it is a very much non-drug-free area with people looking to do anything for $5. If I can at all avoid it, I would really prefer to NOT request an interview from a band of crack whores.

When I voice my concerns to the seminar leader, who has "academic freedom" as a faculty member (which basically means that she can do whatever she wants and no one has any means to influence her), she tells me that "experiencing difficulty locating interviewees of color is all part of the process." Great. I already knew that it is hard to find black or Hispanic people in Kalamazoo. Now, apparently, I need to harass them at the supermarket. Again, this is contrary to my comfort and values, yet I still have to do it.

And if I DON'T do this project, I do not pass the multicultural rotation, which means I fail my internship. I do appreciate the irony that I being told to suppress my values and personal beliefs about interacting with others in order to demonstrate that I can respect the beliefs and values of others.