Well, well, well, it's been a very long time since I updated....at least several weeks.  I really don't think that anyone reads this stuff, but since it's been awhile and new things are about to happen I felt compelled to update.

Let's see, I have about a month till graduation!!!!!  I came home this weekend and brought a bunch of stuff from my aprartment with me.  My room is beginning to look somewhat bare because I packed up all of my picture frames and took down some stuff from the walls.  It was actually kind of exciting to pack stuff up because I am so ready to get out of that apartment.  I love my roommates to death, but I'm so tired of living on campus.

I finally heard back from UT yesterday, thanks to Angie for checking my mail.  I got accepted into their advanced standing MSW program, but I am definitely NOT going there....for multiple reasons.  A: They took WAY too long to get back to me, and I do plan on saying that when I respond to them in a very crass way, B: I don't know much about their program, C: I don't know what kind of field placements they have, and D: I am totally set on going to the University of Houston.

Yesterday I went to the University of Houston to attend their field agency marketplace.  This gives students an opportunity to walk around and see what agencies are available for field placements.  There were over 100 agencies there so it was quite overwhelming.  We were instructed to visit as many agencies as we wanted, but to only set up interviews with our top three choices.  Before we went to the marketplace all the advanced standing students met in the social work building for about two hours and the director of field education went over our curriculum for the next year and told us about the marketplace.  I also had lunch with three girls that I met before going into the marketplace because we were all hungry!

Anyway, as I was looking at the list of agencies that were in attendance before going to speak with anyone I noticed that a retirement community called Parkway Place was there.  You have no idea how glad I was to see that they were there.  This place is about 15 minutes from my house in Houston, and it's a very ritzy retirement community that has independent living, assisted living, a skilled nursing unit, and an alzhiemer's unit.  My grandparent's almost moved there, and I always thought it would be cool to work there.  So anyway, it pretty much made my day to see that they were at the marketplace.  Of course I went to talk to them first and told them how excited I was that they were there.  I talked to them for awhile and scheduled an interview for this Friday the 14th at 3pm. 

I also scheduled two other interviews.  One is this Monday morning at 10am with the VA Medical Center.  This would also be a really cool internship.  I would get to work in three different healthcare settings working with older adults and also in a mental health setting working with people who have psychological disorders.  This placement also has a stipend of $5500, which would be way awesome to get.  But, I am torn between the VA and Parkway Place because I really want to go to Parkway Place.  My third interview is at another retirement community called Eagle's Trace.  This is a brand new community that just has independent living right now, but will eventually have assited living and a skilled nursing unit.  My interview with them is on May 3rd.

I also met some really nice people, which is always reassuring.  One of the girls I met is also concentrating in gerontology and we have already talked to each other on the phone to make sure we are going to sign up for the right classes.  We are supposed to start registering for summer and fall classes starting on Monday.

I realized this yesterday afternoon.  Right now I am both an undergraduate and a graduate student at the same time.  I am a registered grad. student at U of H, and I already have my  student ID.  They just gave us a temporary one yesterday, but we are supposed to get a way cooler one in the mail later. 

My parents also gave me a very pretty ring yesterday for graduation.  It has a pear shaped amythest in the center, and two small diamonds, one on each side of the amythest, and the stones are set in 24K Gold.

So, all in all the past couple of days have been very good and reassuring.  I feel that going to the University of Houston is definitely the right choice, and I am very excited about it.  I am sad about leaving TCU and Fort Worth, but I know it's time for me to move on and get my Master's degree.  Plus, I'll be done with my Master's degree in August at the latest so I can always move back to Fort Worth after that if I still want to.

Well I think this update has been long enough.  Hope yall enjoyed it!

I just realized this today:

We are in the SIXTH week of the spring semester, and I am just now starting to work on research, papers, and study for tests.  Clearly, this semester is a lot different from the rest!!!!

I also got complimented today.....one of my social work friends asked me if I had started working on our policy paper or any field journals yet because everyone else in our seminar is basing when they start working on their stuff on when I start working on my stuff because apparantly I am always really good about getting my sh_ _ done (she actually said that) and doing it really well, really fast!  That kind of made my day. 

83 days till gradutation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, a lot has been going on since I last updated. 

Things are going really well at the nursing home, and I love it even more every day that I am there.  I have been getting to spend a lot of time with residents one on one talking with them and getting to know them and their life stories better.  The one thing that amazes me the most is how much they talk about their significant other ( most of which have passed away) and how much that person meant to them.  Naturally, one would expect to hear positive memories about the person they were married to, but I guess it just amazes me that even though their spouse may have passed away 6 or more years ago these residents still speak of the love they had like it is still very much alive.  They always tell me how much they miss their spouse, and one lady told me this week that her late husband was the closest thing to having an angel on earth.  I also heard about a couple today who have been married for over 70 years, and I just thought that was so awesome.  I really hope that everyone can experience the true love and friendship with someone in their life just as these sweet residents have throughout their lives.

Today was the first day of the group that I am runing at Westside.  I am running a reminiscence group with another social work major from TCU.  We have to do this as a component of our internship.  We thought this type of group would be helpful to the residents as it allows them to reflect on the positive moments in their life and draw on those strengths to help them deal with their current situations in a more positive light.  It also helps them get to know other residents and make new friends.  I was really stressed out all week about this because naturally I really wasn't sure how well it would go.  I was worried that people wouldn't show up, or wouldn't want to talk, or wouldn't relate well to each other. Well, luckily my fears were insignificant because the group went sooooooooooo well today.  The residents seemed to click very well, and were able to sort of take control of the group and begin their own conversation.  They were very receptive to the topics, and I was so glad that it went so smooth.  I hope the next six sessions go just as well!

I'm having such a great time working at Westside, I am already starting to think about how much I am going to miss that place when my internship is over.  It has been such a great, empowering experience. 

In other news, I found out last week that I got accepted to the advanced standing MSW program at University of Houston.  The director of admissions called me to let me know because they didn't have the packets ready yet and she didn't want to keep me waiting!  It was really good news to hear, and now I am just waiting to hear something back from UT before I figure out for sure where I am going. 

Only 87 more days till graduation, I can't wait!  My mom made hotel reservations today and I got so excited just thinking about it!  That's all for now.  Have a great weekend!

So this semester started off with me being sick and not doing anything school related until a week later.  I thought, alright that's not the best start to my last semester, but now that I'm better I can get going and things will be great.  Psh, yeah right.  Actually, things were going okay until my field instructor forgot/didn't fill out my UT-Austin reccomendation form that I needed by this past Friday so the application would get there by this Wednesday, which is the deadline.  Considering that I faxed the form to her THREE weeks ago, reminded her ALL week that I needed it by Friday, and spent ALL day on Friday finalizing my application I was livid when I went to the nursing home that afternoon only to find out that she has not completed the reccomendation yet, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!  I seriously wanted to punch someone/something at that moment.  And, that is the most important reccomendation that I need for my application because I need it for my advanced standing application, so it's not like I could just go without it.  How irresponsible is that, seriously????  It totally ruined my day and put me in a very bad mood.  The worst part is I couldn't get horribly mad at her because she is my superivsor and I have to work with her for the rest of the semester.  Sooooooooooo, now I have to go on my only hour break tomorrow between classes to pick up the reccomendation (which better be done) and then freaking overnight my application to UT so it gets there on time.  Ridiculous.

As if things could not get any worse, yeah right.  Later that day my mom calls me to tell me that my dog, Chelsea, went horribly down hill this past week and was not doing well.  So, unfortunately my parents had to put her to sleep on Saturday.  Even though I was expecting this for awhile now because she was 15 years old, it really doesn't make it much easier for me.  I am okay with the fact that it was time for her to go, but I am having a hard time accepting the fact that she is no longer alive.  I try to tell myself, it's not a big deal, it's just a dog, but not really.  I had that dog for 15 years out of my 22 years of existence so far.....she was my childhood dog, my friend, and a critical part of our family.  So many of my memories involve her, and while thinking about those memories should make me happy, right now they just make me cry because I know she's gone.  I know she's much better off now, but I will miss her when I go home next time and she's not there.

As a result of this and bunch of other stuff going on/chaning in my life I feel like my emotions are really unstable for the first time in a long time.  I feel like the slightest push in the wrong direction will cause a waterworks from my eyes, and I hate that.  Maybe I have been holding too much inside myself for too long or maybe I am just overwhelmed with thoughts of the future.  I don't know what it is, but I wish it would go away.  And, at the same time I am very happy with my life.  I'm grateful for God, my family and friends, the opportunities I have been given, and the exciting future that lies ahead of me, but recent events are making it hard for me to focus on that. 

At the beginning of my senior year I was praying that it would go by slowly so I could enjoy every minute of, and because I was nowhere near ready to leave this place.  Now I feel very ready to move one, and not only ready but anxious to get out of here.  God definitely has His own way of preparing you for change and the next stage of your life, and I am pretty sure He has done that with me.  I am going to enjoy that last few months that I have here at TCU, but come May 13th I will be more than ready to move on with my life. 

I think it's safe to say that I've had a very unusal start to my last semester at TCU.  So, my throat started hurting last Thursday when I was still in Houston, and it became increasingly worse as the days passed.  Finally, on Tuesday I decided to go to the health center for the first time ever since I have been at TCU.  I was desperate, my throat hurt worse than it ever has before, and I could barely talk.  After seeing a doctor there he said I probably either had strep throat or mono.....great.  So, he took a throat culture, but of course it wasn't going to be back until Thursday.  The doctor put me on penicillin anyway because he was pretty sure it wasn't mono.  Luckily, that seemed to work because the next day I felt a lot better.

So basically the first week of classes has passed and I have not done anything related to school, other than work on my UT-Austin grad. application.  I guess I'm lucky that I only have classes on Monday, but I did miss out on a whole week of my internship at the nursing home.  I really wanted to go back this week, but I was too sick.  I am definitely looking forward to next Tuesday when I get to go back!  Luckily I have an awesome field instructor and she was completely understanding of the situation! 

I'm not sure how stressful this semester is going to be yet.  Since my classes don't start till Monday I don't have any assignments yet, but I am sure I will have plenty of papers to write.  I am looking forward to this last semester at TCU, a little afraid of some of the decisions I have to make, but definitely looking forward to moving on and up with the rest of my life.  I hope everyone had a great first week of classes!!!