My life
I've realized in the last few weeks that no one really uses LiveJournal anymore to update their friends on their lives anymore. It seems like other social media outlets have replaced LJ as a means of sharing information. I don't have a problem with this; Facebook is a fantastic tool, and I actually created a Twitter account a few weeks ago to keep up on news in real-time.
I intend to keep updating my LJ periodically, though. It seems almost...peaceful here in comparison. Besides, I have a lot of history on this site: I've got posts dating back to my junior year in high school, over 8 years ago. I love going back and reading all of my thoughts about what I was going through, and seeing how it compares to me today. I also know that some people in my family only keep updated on my life through my LJ, and I don't want to let them down, either.
The new semester of my third year as a grad student at NIU began a few weeks ago. It has been a mixed experience for me so far. I'm only taking 2 classes instead of 3, in exchange for more hours in the Psychological Services Center (PSC) each week. As a third-year student, I have to help with intake interviews, when new clients come in for the first time and we meet with them to get a feel for how to best plug them in to therapy/assessment services.
One thing I'm very excited about is a new clinical training opportunity I've just picked up. I'm going to be assisting with group therapy sessions on Saturday mornings to teach social skills to elementary school-aged children with autism. The sessions are at a group private practice in Naperville, owned by a woman who graduated from our program. I think this will be a phenomenal training experience, so I'm really looking forward to getting plugged into this!
I am still teaching Intro to Psychology. This will be my last year teaching. I enjoy it, but as I've said before, education isn't my passion, so I will be glad to trade it in for a clinical externship next year (at least I hope so - crossing my fingers for that).
My thesis has been moving slowly and not-so-surely. This is mostly my fault, because it inevitably finds itself at the bottom of my to-do list every week. I really just need to plow through the last step of my data collection, and get it done so I can get my Master's and start focusing on other things like candidacy exams for the PhD program, clinical work, and my dissertation.
Despite loving so many aspects of the graduate school experience, part of me has been kind of cynical lately about school. I am really reaching the point where I want to be done with formal education so I can just start working a real job already. I basically work a full-time job of being a student with classes, clinical work, and research; and then I work the equivalent of a part-time job doing my homework. It's just tedious sometimes.
I will probably have more updates soon, because I've had a lot of stuff going on recently, but I had this on my mind and I wanted to share before I lost the motivation to update again.
I intend to keep updating my LJ periodically, though. It seems almost...peaceful here in comparison. Besides, I have a lot of history on this site: I've got posts dating back to my junior year in high school, over 8 years ago. I love going back and reading all of my thoughts about what I was going through, and seeing how it compares to me today. I also know that some people in my family only keep updated on my life through my LJ, and I don't want to let them down, either.
The new semester of my third year as a grad student at NIU began a few weeks ago. It has been a mixed experience for me so far. I'm only taking 2 classes instead of 3, in exchange for more hours in the Psychological Services Center (PSC) each week. As a third-year student, I have to help with intake interviews, when new clients come in for the first time and we meet with them to get a feel for how to best plug them in to therapy/assessment services.
One thing I'm very excited about is a new clinical training opportunity I've just picked up. I'm going to be assisting with group therapy sessions on Saturday mornings to teach social skills to elementary school-aged children with autism. The sessions are at a group private practice in Naperville, owned by a woman who graduated from our program. I think this will be a phenomenal training experience, so I'm really looking forward to getting plugged into this!
I am still teaching Intro to Psychology. This will be my last year teaching. I enjoy it, but as I've said before, education isn't my passion, so I will be glad to trade it in for a clinical externship next year (at least I hope so - crossing my fingers for that).
My thesis has been moving slowly and not-so-surely. This is mostly my fault, because it inevitably finds itself at the bottom of my to-do list every week. I really just need to plow through the last step of my data collection, and get it done so I can get my Master's and start focusing on other things like candidacy exams for the PhD program, clinical work, and my dissertation.
Despite loving so many aspects of the graduate school experience, part of me has been kind of cynical lately about school. I am really reaching the point where I want to be done with formal education so I can just start working a real job already. I basically work a full-time job of being a student with classes, clinical work, and research; and then I work the equivalent of a part-time job doing my homework. It's just tedious sometimes.
I will probably have more updates soon, because I've had a lot of stuff going on recently, but I had this on my mind and I wanted to share before I lost the motivation to update again.