Now that I'm back in Orlando, I've started volunteering at the shelter every day. I've never had a job as fulfilling, and I've hardly even done anything yet. But each time I go to work, I realize more and more that this is what I need to be doing with my life. I need to be helping people. Connecting with them and understanding them. There's nothing ( Read more... )

North Carolina is beautiful. Well. Some of it. The part that I stayed in, anyway. I had a really good time. Things I did: drove an ATV across the beach and through the woods where we saw wild horses (who weren't very wild at all), spent hours throwing a tennis ball into the surf for golden retrievers Jake and Julia to retrieve, spent one day ( Read more... )

Well, a taxi will arrive at my door at 5:30am tomorrow morning (actually, in about 5 hours) to take me to Orlando airport, where I'll board a plane to Norfork, North Carolina. I'll be spending the next week in the Outer Banks with my dad, step mother, Uncle Tom, Aunt Laurie, my brother, and his girlfriend. I'll be staying in a beautiful rental ( Read more... )

I just deleted a journal entry I wrote earlier because I realized it didn't convey at all what I was actually thinking or feeling. I wanted to write about my realization that I could never handle the work that social workers have to endure as a full-time profession. I doubt that I could deal with people who have suffered through devastating ( Read more... )

Tomorrow morning I leave for Savannah, Georgia with Crissy and my family. I'll be making the trip with my brother and his girlfriend in the backseat of my car, which is much better than having him in the driver's seat, because I get to pick what comes through the stereo. Not like when we drove to the Keys last summer and I had to listen to ( Read more... )

Couldn't sleep at all last night. My professor helped set me up with an interview this morning with the Harbor House, and I spent all last night thinking about that, and thinking about falling asleep, and trying to make myself fall asleep and that never works ever. I just couldn't make my brain shut up. I spent about an hour just thinking about my ( Read more... )

I had my job interview this afternoon. Everything was going well, until the director asked me if I knew that it was a state requirement to be at least 21 years old in order to work with adolescents in state custody. I told him I was 19. Then there was an awkward silence. He obviously didn't know what to say, so he proceeded to tell me all of the ( Read more... )

Last Wednesday, after class, my Basic Learning professor asked me about my plans were after college. I told her that I plan on going to graduate school for clinical psychology, and she asked if I had any clinical experience yet. I said no and explained that, although I'm interested in getting involved in whatever I can, I just haven't come across ( Read more... )

I just got back home from seeing Beulah at The Social. It was better than any show I've been to in a very long time. Maybe the best show I've ever been to. Maybe ( Read more... )

I just finished taking my last final exam, and then decided to go for a swim. I've been wanting to go swimming ever since I moved into this house in Andover Lakes and realized that the next neighborhood over, Andover Cay, has a pool with a waterfall.  So after I finished my last final exam, I drove over there, jumped over the gate and cut my leg, ( Read more... )