Why I Suck at Being a Social Worker

Full disclosure: not a social worker yet. I am currently starting my second year in my Masters of Social Work program and have about two more years and thousands of dollars of debt until I can actually call myself a certified social worker. But whatever, minor detail. 

Today we had our last classes for our mini Summer semester and we had our term paper due which was 12 to 15 pages long and was kind of a big deal but it wasn't awful. 

I went to a pretty strenuous school for my undergrad and I learned to knock out papers and to put up and shut up. My classes were usually very large and my professors were ambassadors, government officials and DC hot-shots. They did not care if you had a personal emergency or were in the hospital. Paper is due. 

In social work school, it is so different. 

Everything is about emotions. We start off each class arranging our chairs into circles and then spend another thirty minutes talking about how stressed everyone was about finishing the paper and whatnot and so forth. 

It's usually at this time that I pull out my laptop and do my mandatory Google search of puppies kissing. 

Today I almost lost it because we spent thirty minutes discussing why our professor doesn't use red ink to mark our papers and how that contributed to our self esteem. 

Sayyyy whaaaat?

I am already noticing how snarky this post is and I almost want to edit it so I don't sound like such a bitch... But sometimes I have bitchy thoughts. Usually when I am hungry. 

As a future social worker, spending 15 minutes arranging chairs in circles, discussing red versus green pens and practicing breathing exercises before taking group tests (yes- group tests) is pretty much the job description. 

Luckily I have enough experience working with various organizations and agencies to learn that not all social workers are like this. Yes, a lot are and a lot shop exclusively at Chico's and wear lots of bangles and have like 30 bumper stickers on their car but there are some that don't and I am hoping to somehow find myself fitting in that category. 

So what is the point of this rambling bitchy noise? 

There is none. 

Enjoy!

The Week That Passed in a Minute

Hello world. 

It's 1:20am on a Friday and I am finally sitting down to blog. 

Where do the days go? 

Since I last blogged on Sunday, I've been struggling a little bit. Between the everyday symptoms of my Lyme combined with this round of treatment, I have been getting my ass handed to me. 

I have been dealing with constant nausea, headaches that leave me really just useless, pretty bad brain fog and chronic fatigue. I have been able to make it around max 6 hours awake before I crash and need to sleep. And this is after having slept 12 hours the night before. I even ended up having to sleep between my classes at school yesterday just to make it through the day. 

Needless to say it has been very, very frustrating. Some tears may have been shed this week but luckily I have an amazing support team backing me up. 

But I happily informed my supervisor I would be taking time off and started that new marketing position and it's super interesting and I am already learning a lot. I'm delving into SEO strategies and graphic design and I get to do it all at home so I am in heaven.

Plus I can manage my fatigue so much more easily by throwing in a nap here and there and I can manage all my meds and schedule my day around them which makes it easier to control for some of the symptoms. Win win. 

Now I am off to Bloglovin land to catch up and to send my Cara Box partner an email to introduce myself! Not sure what I will be doing with this theme... It's definitely a challenging one!

Retail Therapy

I have a pretty big project to hand in tomorrow that will frame the rest of my semester. I had already chosen a topic and was not finding myself stimulated enough so naturally I spent 8 hours figuring out a new topic and settled on one I am interested in and all I need to do now is hope my professor approves it. 

So I basically feel like for the last 3 days I have done nothing but throw myself into this project. Which means that I have been spending a lot of time on my computer. Which means that sometimes I find myself purchasing random items in an effort to 'reward' myself for the 10 minutes I spent actually working on my project. 

It's awful. I need a spending freeze ASAP. I have a problem.

So here are some of the goodies I have managed to accumulate in the past week:

This dress is from Walmart and came in at $18.98. It looks really cute so hopefully it will look nice in person as well. 

This shirt is also Walmart and priced at $6. I like blue.

I then picked up some glasses because my mother thinks my glasses make me look like Ted Bundy.

And then I splurged a little at ELF. Luckily everything at ELF is pretty cheap and I had free shipping so it wasn't even so splurgy. But it felt so good and I am excited to get my goodies in the mail!

I picked up the Zit Zapper which I am currently using and love. I see such a difference and feel so refreshed after using it. And for only a $1? Ridiculous. I also picked up the Makeup Set and Seal. I heard good things about it and am excited to try it out. Lastly I snagged some oil sheets because I am usually away from home and can always use them and stash them in my car, purse.. everywhere.

I have no excuse for why I picked these up. They just seemed summery and I don't really understand the whole "baked" thing (it seems like it's everywhere and I still have NO idea what it is) so I wanted to try it out. 

I am not a huge lipstick girl but this looks like such a nice color and very sweet and simple. 

 I have been wanting to expand my brush collection. I got the stipple brush (on the right) for my new Bobbi Brown foundation, an angled eyeliner brush for my cream and gel eyeliners and a smaller eyeshadow brush.

Lastly I picked up some nailpolishes. They are all neutrals and will be perfect for the Fall. 

So yeah, I have gone a little wild. I am hiding my wallet from myself for the next coming days but am super excited about all my packages that will come trickling in soon. 

Have you guys splurged lately?

And now I have procrastinated enough... Back to school work!

Things I am looking forward to...

My weekends suck. And are basically non-existent. 

Fridays I work an overnight shift from 6pm to 7am. From 7:30am to about 12:00pm, I come home and crash. Then I drop off the boyfriend at work, come home and shower and am off to work my Saturday 2pm to 9pm shift. Then I come home and sleep and work a Sunday shift. And then somehow it's Monday. 

So you definitely won't be coming here to read all those fun "Weekend Updates" that the other cool girls do. I literally do not remember the last time I stepped into a bar. Unless we are counting my boyfriend's which I don't because I literally just go there to eat free food and watch cable TV. 

But my life is about to change! For almost 1 year I have worked every.single. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Starting in April, however, I will be a (semi) free woman! 

I will cease working Saturdays!

I will get to sleep more than 3 hours! I will get to enjoy sunlight! And yard sales! And fresh air! And I will get to go to the dog park and chase balls with my puppy. 

I wonder if this is how they felt when the Berlin Wall came down? It's practically the same, right?

Other things I am looking forward to include:

• NASW (Nat'l Association of Social Worker's) LEAD Day on Monday!
• Handing in my damn paper on Tuesday
• ....And skipping Tuesday's night class to fulfill my Jewish obligations of eating a piece of Matzah and sleeping for 17 hours
• Presenting my damn project on Wednesday (talk about freedom- once I am done with that, 100% of my grade is determined and I can flake for the rest of the semester)
• My day off on Thursday which always includes tacos!

And that's it for now, but it's enough for me!

What things are you guys looking forward to this week?

Negative Nancy

I am the first person to call someone out for being a Negative Nancy. I know, I'm that girl. 

But today I just can't help but have my own Negative Nancy day. It was a frustrating day. A day that ended with me calling my Mommy on my way home from school sobbing while stuffing french fries in my mouth. 

Dramatic? Most definitely. 

Basically one of the two classes I need to take this summer is completely full. As in all six sections are full with minimum waiting lists of 8 people. I am currently number 8 for the 6-9:30pm class. My original plan was to enroll in the 9:00-12:30am class with the super awesome amazing professor but that section has a wait list of 18. I knew my chances weren't good. 

I desperately sent emails to all the professors pathetically pleading my case. I threw in everything I got. I work full-time. It takes me 2.5 hours to get to campus and back every day. I am really smart and promise to bring snacks to every class. 

Five minutes after sending my pathetic emails I got an email from my advisor recommending that I stop emailing professors. 

Hint taken.

Apparently they are opening one additional section for 17 students. There are currently 40+ students on waitlists for the other sections. 

The odds are most definitely not in my favor. 

So what can I do? I decided to refrain from emailing my professor while in my emotional state so I wouldn't freak out. Which left my only other option: cry pathetically while consuming french fries on my drive home. Don't you love drivers like me on the road? I'm like a walking Allstate commercial. 

But when all else fails in life, there is nothing more soothing than the voice of a Mama telling you to calm the hell down. Life will go on. Suck it up. Try to contain your road rage. No, that bump on your scalp is not cancer. 

So yes, life will go on. I will get over the reality that my fall semester may entail me taking three courses instead of two, working overnights and weekends while also having clinical three times a week. And yes, this may require me to drive 2.5 hours several times a week. And yes, this may mean that I have to listen to 20450 more hours of NPR asking me for $50 in exchange for a tote bag. 

But there are worse things in life... 

Like bumps on your head that may turn into cancer, despite what your nurse-mother says.

I Wanna Be a Blogstar

While it has been fun/mind-numbing to decorate my little spot here on the web, I do have to admit that staying up til 2am will probably not be the best decision come tomorrow. But hey, there's a Law & Order episode on right now and I can't just leave mid-episode. That's just rude. 

Tomorrow I get to head up nice and early to my campus. I was going to try to sneak in some gym time in the morning but seeing as how it's already 2am and I just got an email from my advisor asking to meet for tomorrow... gym will most likely not happen. 

It makes me almost regret that muffin I inhaled as lunch/dinner on my way to campus today. Almost. I'll do a sit-up tomorrow so that should cancel out most of those calories anyways. 

School has been keeping me very busy these past couple of weeks. Tomorrow I finally get to hand in a huge project (worth 100% of my grade because that totally makes sense) and then the following week I will present it along with other members of my group. And after that? We are literally done for the entire semester. 

And I have another big paper to hand in on Tuesday. So come the 27th, I will be passing out with either a glass of beer or a candy bar. Or both. Because one beer literally makes me drunk enough to fall down a staircase (yes that happened). Oh where, oh where did my college days go? I used to split a bottle of Jose with a friend and stay up til 5am and be ready to do it again the next night. These days just the smell of alcohol makes me decide to call it a night. 

I swear I used to be cool. And go to parties and clubs. And wear dresses and short skirts. These days I live in yoga pants and sports bras. And I barely even go to the gym. I have no need for that many sports bras but they're just so damn comfortable. And luckily I have a job where wearing yoga pants for working is pretty much dressing up. It truly is a dream job. 

Well now my episode is over and I really have no more excuses to be staying up this late. Good night blog world and I can't wait to meet all the new bloggers who I will be sure to stalk and comment on if I can't make myself fall asleep!