So, here we are with six weeks to go in the semester. Just three more weeks of field. Down to the nitty gritty. It really is hard to believe.

The dust is beginning to settle a bit. I have been fortunate to get my advanced placement lined up. It feels good to have this large piece of next year's schedule in place. I'm going to be working at an outpatient mental health clinic for adults Tu, Wed, Thurs. The population served is diverse and low income. I think it will be quite challenging but should expand upon some of the issues I have encountered at the correctional facility in my foundation placement. Most notably, I suspect I will have some female clients! I have to work one evening, something I had definitely hoped to avoid. But one night is better than two. My family managed when I was gone two evenings a week this year, so I'm thinking we will find a way to make one night work next year. At least, that's what I certainly hope.

My class schedule seems to be in order as well, which is weird to say. This is the first time in the program that I have been in a place where I knew what I was doing this early on. In the past I have had some difficulty obtaining the classes I needed and was eligible to take, at times that worked for my family. I'm sure many of you got up early last Wednesday to register just like I did. Gotta love those last few minutes watching the computer clock, waiting for the 6:00 whistle. It certainly was a little unnerving to find no way to register initially for Summer classes, particularly since the Dean had indicated that the system is designed so that you cannot register for any Summer classes if you have already registered for Fall classes. I hesitated, but then decided I could not potentially mess up all of next Fall by waiting. I resigned myself to the concept of two classes next Fall in Baltimore. Frankly, it made me feel vaguely ill, even though the classes themselves were appealing. It seemed like a lot given the distance, my family responsibilities, and the 3-day placement. My head swirled with options and schedules as I got one kid ready and off to school and checked on the other who was home sick with the stomach bug, again (day 2). This is not the first time I have felt this way, I told myself. Somehow it will be ok. One thing I have definitely learned, through past registration experiences in this program, is that, with persistence, things can change and sometimes those changes can make a significant difference in your sanity.

How amazing it was to discover a couple of hours later that Summer was available, that classes still had openings, AND, even though I had already registered for Fall, the system would allow me to register for Summer after all! I don't think I touched the ground again until sometime in the early afternoon. I have one intensive Summer course and then one methods course in the Fall on Friday mornings. I feel like a millionaire.

But I digress. Back to the reality of THIS semester.

My Friday classes - Paradigms and Psychopathology - are quite a pair. Paradigms is really deep. Yes, deep. Maybe I'm just a bit tired by week's end, particularly after working until 8 or 9 the night before, running home to do family stuff, getting to bed late, and then up again early to get the kids off to school. I feel a little bit slow (as it stupid) in this class. More than once I have left class slightly on the verge of tears, very much needing the lunch hour to get it together. But when I think about the material I realize I am learning alot. There's a significant paper due in this class on Friday. I'm feeling a bit intimidated by it and have been chipping away at the research and writing. I hope to feel good about what I hand in.

Psychopathology is wonderfully connecting. Yes, connecting. It just seems to be putting things from my placement, Paradigms, maybe Practice a bit, prior classes, things I have read on my own, and things from my own life experience together. It's shifting the pieces around a bit in my head, so I see some of those pieces a little differently now. And I think that's a good thing. It's giving me different perspectives.

Practice is sort of killing me, to be honest. We are in the last ten weeks and my section has Communities and Organizations. We did the Agency Analysis first, in two paper chunks. We are now doing the Communities portion. I first heard about this part of the course back in the Fall a year ago and have been steeling myself for a group project that needed to be done on a dime. It was quite a relief to learn, last Wednesday, that the four, 4-5 page Communities papers, due one-by-one each of the remaining weeks in April, are to be done individually. I'm SOOO very thankful for this. And while I don't think I would go out of my way to read many of the assigned articles on my own (And how about that "system" for obtaining the articles - one word - "absurd"), I have to say some of them have been surprisingly interesting. Still what is really pushing me over the edge in this class is the living week-to-week part. Working ahead has been my mainstay of survival in this program. But there is no way to do this in these 10 weeks of the course. This instructor is really teaching me a lesson in "taking it as it comes." She lectures in class, and then we have to use the assigned readings and lecture to write the paper due the next week. I have two kids and things change with them minute to minute - my day is not always what I plan or would like it to be. It is hard, for me, to stay on the instructor's week-to-week program.

So I think that may be enough for now. Time to get back to those papers. I hope everyone else is doing well as we slide towards the last month.

Kathi