Welcome to Midterms

I have now spent the past 5 hours answering 1 of 6 questions for my midterm paper.....psychiatric exam and 5 axial diagnosis is a lot harder than I thought it would be.....the picture doesn't really do it justice, the only free spot on my bed is where I'm sitting. Oh the joys of grad school!! On the bright side, this time next year I will not have any of this to do!! :)

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2nd year internship

So I have finished my first week of internship and there isn't that much to report. Obviously because of insurance and privacy regulations/laws I can't share specific details with any of you. I am working at a agency that is a few minutes away from my apartment(which is great because I walk home and eat lunch at home everyday). I am working at a agency with a severely persistent mentally ill population. I will be working with everyone with major depression to schizophrenia or personality disorders. Many of the clients will have multiple diagnoses and many also have a history of substance abuse too. All I did this week is a lot of observing. I met all the staff members and many of the clients. There are many different interns from lots of different schools here in the city, their are psychology inters, drama/art therapists, music therapists, peer mentor interns and of course me the social work intern. I was able to sit in on many groups this week and see how different each person runs the groups. Next Monday I go to orientation, where I will learn all the details about their internal computer system and anything else I wasn't taught this week. Everyone is SO nice, and I partially worried that they are just being super nice since it's my first week. My supervisor seems very nice and eager to help me throughout the year. Everyone is willing to help me or answer any questions I have even if they aren't my supervisor, the good thing is many of the current staff members used to be interns at my agency and where hired on so they at one point were in the same situation as I am now. I was told starting next week I will start running my own groups. I'm a bit nervous to run my own group, but I know once I get through my first one it will be fine. I will be running 1-3 groups a day and then eventually will also get my own clients that I will see individually and have to check up on with other group leaders to see if they are participating in groups. I will be helping them find housing, get a job, get into a school program, whatever their goals are I will help them try and achieve. I will be getting 2 to start and eventually end with 4 or 5 clients at the end of the year.

I think that's enough information for now, I'm really excited to continue on this year and see what happens. I will update later this month/early next when I have actually had my first group and possibly even seen my first client. School is school, I'm looking forward to 2 of my 4 classes, and think I will learn a lot in those two, but I really could do without the other two. I've already started the countdown to Christmas break ;)

Bye for now <3

Last Year

The end of summer has come and now I am faced with another year of school. I am however very excited that I entered my last year of school. This is my second and last year of my grad program, and I can't wait to be done with it. I have been going to school for WAY too many years, and am ready for a break. This year I will be at a different internship than last year, but I do not start that until next week so I will update after my first week at my internship. So far I went to 3 of my 4 classes, I was going to have one Friday morning, but I found a open Tuesday night class. Now I will go to my internship Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and school Tuesday and Wednesday. I am taking Clinical Practice w/ Individuals and Families, Human Behavior in the Social Environment, Research 2, and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention. My first teacher didn't show up so I have no idea how my cognitive class will be, but my research class seems to be a little challenging and my Humab Behavior(HB) teacher overwhelmed me with just the first class. I'm very excited about HB however, because we start to learn how to diagnose and learn all the signs/symptoms to help you diagnose....I feel like I'm starting to finally get into the stuff that is new to me and that I need to learn to help me once I get out.

I am happy to be done w/ summer and back into a routine, but I'm sure soon as the stacks of reading pile up I will wish for it to be summer again. I'm loving the new apartment and the location is fantastic. The best part is my internship and school are both a 5 minute or less walk each from my place! Not much more to talk about, just the fact that I have officially started my last year of school, and am anxiously awaiting my internship to start and am crossing my fingers that I enjoy it and have as good of an experience this year as I did last.

Bye for now <3

My new apartment!!!

I tried uploading to this video directly to here but it wasn't working so I decided to post it on youtube instead. Here is the link to a video of my new apartment, my room is smaller, but the rest of the place is bigger than my last apartment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mGP_5XHCec

Bye for now <3

July

July was a very eventful month for me. For those of you on facebook you already know that the family I was babysitting for this summer had the roof of their building catch on fire and the building is now condemned. The crazy part, was I was there babysitting when I got a knock on the door from the cops saying the building was on fire and I needed to evacuate. I immediately grabbed the kid and ran out the door, forgetting his shoes along the way. Needless to say, because of the whole ordeal the mom stopped going to work to stay "home" w/ the kid and try and find them a new place to live. They lived in a few friends apartments for a few weeks and finally just got a sublet for the next 3 months. I however was all of a sudden jobless because of this fire. I have been frantically looking for work all month and applying to everything I could, I think about 250 jobs total. I FINALLY just got another babysitting job yesterday and start next week for a nice family in the Upper West Side. I will be helping the mother who just had her 3rd child last week. I will mainly be working w/ the 1 and 3 year old girls, taking them to different activities in the city while she stays with her newborn. I also have a few family that said they will use me for nights and weekend babysitting once school starts too, when needed.

Being jobless, I had to cancel the trip to DC I had planned this month to visit my friend and wasn't really able to do many fun things in the city. It's been SO hot here that I haven't really wanted to wander around the city as it is. I did however just move. My lease was up at the end of July and the whole month my roommate and I have been frantically looking for a new place. We had a low rent price we were willing to pay and many requirements, so it was very difficult to find what we wanted. But after seeing 15 apartments, all in a 2 day span, we found a really nice place in the West Village. The West Village is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite areas of the city. The best part is I can walk to school, it's only 3 blocks away, AND I can walk to my internship! The neighborhood is amazing and there is so much to do here, and it is just so pretty. I'm sure I will be posting pictures frequently of the neighborhood. The apartment is great and I will post a video of our place once we get all the furniture in and put together. I am now living w/ a girl that I went to high school with. I knew who she was, but I probably only talked to her a few times while in school. She just recently moved to NYC for law school and we decided to live together. We get along great and I'm looking forward to living w/ her for the next year or more.

That's about all that's going on in my life right now, I'm just trying to enjoy the last few weeks of my summer, I can't believe my last long 4 month summer is almost over!

bye for now <3

Canada

I just got back from my week trip up to Canada to visit friends. Max and Mel are two girls that I met last year when I was on my tour of Europe. They came down for NYE to NYC so I thought it was only fair for me to go to them for Canada Day (July 1st), AND I've never been to Canada. ;) I stayed at there place right outside Ottawa, Ontario. Ottawa is the capitol of Canada and is so pretty. Everything in Canada was so green and gorgeous. The first day I was there was Canada Day and it was spent just like most spend the 4th of July here, we hung out on a balcony of their friends all day and then went to see the fireworks that night. The queen was there in Ottawa so they had extra special fireworks this year, and we were able to watch them overlooking Parliament. The 2nd day I was there was Max's 25th birthday. We made her breakfast and then took her out to dinner, then had some of her friends over for cake back at her house. It was a lot of fun to meet all her friends. The next day we went for a quick overnight trip to Montreal, Quebec. We went shopping and explored part of the city, then had dinner and went out for drinks. Sunday (the 4th of July here), we went to their friends house for a BBQ, it was a joint birthday party for Max and one of her friends. It was so hot so it was nice to lounge around a pool and meet more of their friends. The next day we went around their town and then stopped by the mall, and the last day they took me back to downtown Ottawa to show me Parliament, the canal, and the Byward Market.

It was such a great trip, even if I feel like it past too quickly. We have so much in common and are so similar that we always have a good time, even if we are just sitting around watching tv. The hardest part of my trip is that Ottawa and Montreal are bilingual, and most of their friends speak french as their first language. So they would randomly while speaking break into french. I would listen and quickly turn to look at Mel to ask her to translate for me! She would summarize what they said for me, the part that was the funniest is that most didn't realize they did it, so a few times people would ask me questions in french and not realize that they hadn't just said whatever in english.

I'm hoping that they will come sometime in the next year to visit me again back here in the city, I really do wish we lived closer to each other. However, we are so similar and work so well together that we are planning to travel together. All 3 of us are planning a trip in 2012 to go to Australia. They are planning on going for a few more weeks than me, so I will meet up with them there, but I'm so excited to start planning that trip and go explore more of this world w/ them. I will upload my pictures later this afternoon online, so check my http://picasaweb.google.com/cmwright121 later today for pictures from Canada.

Bye for now <3

Florida

I had a great trip to Florida. It was too short, but I was glad I got to at least see Angie and where she now calls home. Friday Angie took me on a tour of her town, then we went to visit her sister. Angie's nephew, who is 6 - is my boyfriend, and he had a gift for me when I got there. He baked me cookies, gave me a picture of himself, made me a lego heart, and gave me a marriage license and wedding ring! She lives right outside Daytona Beach, so Saturday we spent the day at the beach. She showed me the nightlife in her town on Saturday night and then Sunday I left. It was really short, but it was great to catch up, and next time I go I'm hoping to be there for more than a few days and maybe go to some of the theme parks in Orlando. Here are a few pictures from my trip.

Summer

So it is officially summer now, and I have already blown through one of my four months of summer. The weather here has been incredible hot and humid lately, which I guess for NYC is unseasonable for this time of year. Not owning an A/C has made it so much worse too. I have gotten most of my grades in and ended the semester with 1 A, 1 A-, 1 B+, and a Pass. I have one class I'm still waiting on a grade from, but I think it will be an A-. I also finally started my nanny position a few weeks back. It is defiantly a struggle working with this 3 y/o little boy, but we both are adjusting to spending many hours a day together and it's slowly getting better and better. I also got my placement for next year. I'm not sure if I talked about it at all in my last post, but next years placement will be in Manhattan on the west side at a company called FEGS, I will be working for the PROS program helping adults who are mildly to severely/chronically mentally ill find employment, housing, and basically just help them achieve whatever goals they currently hold for themselves. I'm excited to see what this new placement has to offer, and a good part of the program is in April next year they bring HR down and hire some of the second year interns.

My summer has been very full of eventful things so far, and it's only going to get more exciting. This past weekend a group of friends and I went to the Belmont (the 3rd a final race of the triple crown). I had so much fun, we took a trolley there and back and watched races all day and hung out with friends, and made some new ones too. Thanks to Aunt Carolyn, this weekend I am going to visit Angie (my old roommate and friend) who lives in Florida. I am so excited to see her and see where she now calls home. Then in two and a half weeks I leave for Canada. I will be up there visiting my friends who I met last year in Europe for a week. They came down at New Years time to visit NYC, and now I'm going to see Canada. I will be there for Canada Day and one of the girls 25th birthdays. I am so excited to be going up there to visit them, and look forward to seeing Canada. The rest of the summer I have no real plans so far, except I would like to go visit my roommate who is interning in DC for the summer.

I updated my pictures from this summer, here is the link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cmwright121/Summer2010#

bye for now <3

Up to date...

Here is the link to my pictures. I have finally put up my pictures from my trip back home, and updated this past semesters album too. You can see new pictures in Spring and Summer 2010. I have gotten a few grades, but not all yet and start my job this weekend. I spent the week catching up with my new roommate. My other roommate moved to DC for an internship on Capitol Hill, so a girl that I went to high school with is subletting her room til the end of our lease here. We knew each other and hung out w/ similar people in high school but didn't really know each other, so it's nice to reminisce and catch up on old times.

Aunt Carolyn did the NICEST thing and gave me her air vouchers that were about to expire. So in a couple weeks I will be going to visit my friend and old roommate, who moved about the same time as me last year, in Florida. I'm so excited to see her and am super excited to see some of Florida. I unfortunately because of my new job will only be there 2 days, but that's better than nothing and I'm so glad I finally get to hang out with her again. I miss her terribly, and because she isn't back in Cali anymore I can't even see her when I go home to visit.

That's about it for now. Here is the link for pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/cmwright121

bye for now <3

D-O-N-E!!!!

I AM OFFICIALLY HALF WAY DONE WITH MY MASTERS!!!!! The past few weeks have been extremely brutal and for some reason spring finals are always more tedious to write and take than fall finals. BUT I now have a 4 month summer!!! That's right, 4 months! I have never had such a long summer. I will be getting my grades soon and will update once I figure that all out. The field office called me a few weeks ago and I should also be finding out my 2nd year placement in the next few weeks. Costa Rica, like I said before, fell through because it was REALLY expensive, and even with summer loans I couldn't afford it. I started looking and applying for jobs a few weeks back, I was applying for everything and anything because not many people or companies want to hire someone knowing that they have to quit at the end of the summer. I got a great job and start next week. I will be a caregiver/nanny/babysitter, whatever you want to call it, for a 3 y/o boy. The best part is that it is a block away from my house! A two min walk! I will work 3 days a week, and still have 3 day weekends this summer so I'm planning a few weekend trips to visit few friends that are moving out of the city for the summer. The great thing is I can crash on their couches so my trips will be very inexpensive, so I can save some of my babysitting earning.

I somehow pulled off a great surprise. I went home this past week to visit my family. It was the only time this summer I was free to go, because school is over and I don't start my job til the end of this month, so it was perfect timing to go home and visit....AND it just so happens that Mother's Day fell during the time I wanted to come visit. SO I surprised my mom, and did a great job, no one spilled the beans and told her, even though me and my sister many time almost slipped. She was very very surprised and wouldn't let go of me for a while, she kept saying she was dreaming. It was great to be home and visit with the family and see my friends. My dad helped out so that I could bring Willy w/ me because it would have cost more to board him here than to bring him back and forth with me. Thanks Dad! I was able to see most of my friends, and spend quality time with them and the family. It was only a week trip, which always flies by too quickly, but I'm excited to be back in the city and experience Summer here. There is so many things to do and experience during summers here, I'm looking forward to concerts, plays, and movies in the parks, and just spending time outside exploring the city more.

I just flew home from CA tonight, and am on Pacific time still so I can't sleep, but I will update later this week w/ some pics from my visit and a bit more about whats going on in my life. Sorry it's been so long since I updated this, but the day after I finished finals I flew home.

Bye for now <3