Not much to report today, beyond getting in the correct mindset for school this weekend. Here are a few things I checked out today…

This is a scary article about a scary new Pentagon program. “What?” you say, “What’s so scary, Matt? Comfort us!” I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about this one. DARPA is working on genetically modified “organisms” that are theoretically immortal, in the sense that their cells will not age. Scared yet? Okay, how about this one: they’ll have “kill switches” embedded in their genetic code to murder them if they try to take over the world. Say hello to your new masters…as soon as they can hack their own kill switches? We’re in trouble. With a capital “T”, that rhymes with global annihilation, etc.

Also, here’s a picture of a prehistoric shark. Alive. In cahoots with the immortals, I wouldn’t doubt.

What ain’t one?

Michael Steele’s the Chairman of the Republican Party. Want a great Michael Steele quote? Here you go: “Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money.” Really, Mr. Steele? Really?

While I’m fired up about that last one, check out this quote from David Axelrod: “We passed without, frankly, the help of the Republican caucus, we passed 25 tax cuts last year, mostly aimed at the middle class and small businesses.” Yeah, that’s absolutely true. Wish more people realized that before going to teabagging soirees and pretending they’re doing something that matters to anyone but themselves.

Like whiskey? Like old, musty whiskey? Then you’ll be ecstatic to find out that five crates of 100+ year-old alcohol left behind by an explorer have been found buried in ice not too far from the South Pole. Good quote here, too: “Mr Fastier said the trust was confident the crates contained intact alcohol, given that liquid could be heard when the crates were moved. The smell of whisky in the surrounding ice also indicated full bottles of spirits were inside, albeit that one or more might have broken.” I.e. you think this is a huge scientific discovery, but you’re basing your findings on (a.) sloshing the crates back and forth and (b.) smelling the ice the crates were buried in. Great science, guys. Keep it up.

A co-worker and I managed to solve an issue that management at work have been struggling with for a couple of years, today. Gave a presentation to the bosses, and I think they bought it wholeheartedly. Good feeling, that. Much kudos from all present, which is something to be proud of.

The studying odyssey continues. I’ve reviewed several thousand practice questions on the website I’m using…literally. As of a few minutes ago, the official count was 2,880 questions I’ve attempted. That’s a lot of time and effort, but of course, all worth it if I can pass this thing eventually. I’m not going to freak out if I don’t make it on my first try, but it sure would be nice to have it behind me and out of my head.

Watching some funny TV at the moment, while studying for the test (still). It’s odd to be studying for all of the time I usually spend reading, or doing one of my other ten or twenty hobbies. Odd, but totally worth it.

Test day’s a week from tomorrow.

I’m back to blogging. By definition, aren’t I blogging again if I just write a single blog? Let’s say I am.

Even though I’ve only written one or two entries in the last month, I do actually have an excuse, I swear. This test is taking up every moment of my free time, and it’s burning me out. I’m taking it on Thursday, February 11th. Only about a week and a day left to study, and I’m trying to decide whether I’m confident at this point or just so sick of studying all the time that I’m too tired to worry anymore. If I figure it out, I’ll let you all know. It all comes down to those 170 questions. I know tons and tons of information about tons of information within the field of social work, but there’s no way I can predict what 170 questions are going to show up on that computer screen. If I fail it, I can retake the thing after 90 days, which means May. My current license expires in June, so that would be fine. Of course I would rather pass it on my first try, and be done with this test. But if I don’t, it won’t be the end of me.

Just letting everyone know that I’ll survive either way. There isn’t any way to predict whether you’re ready for this or not. At some point, you’ve just gotta shoot for it and let the chips fall where they may. That’s the point I’m at.

Also, Lost was amazing tonight.

Tomorrow’s Sunday, and then I’ve made it through another 3-day school weekend. I have 8 days left of school–tomorrow, two days next month, three days in March, and two days in April. That’s it. Then I’ve got my Master’s degree, and that’s an odd feeling to have. Well, plus one more Field Conference and a couple little things to get done for that.

My brain’s fried. Time for bed.

I’m not entirely sure how this week could go much worse than it has been, really.

My clinical supervisor told me today she’s resigned from the agency. That means I’m losing yet another ally…and it’s a terrible thing. The impacts of this on me will be fairly minimal, luckily–she’s continuing to supervise me until I graduate, and then afterward, as I work on my independent license. That’s fortunate, since at this stage in the game it seems that finding someone else new would be a hard task for me.

The agency is falling down around my ears. Kinda hard to prove yourself to people when you’re looking at career-stuff when they all keep quitting. So today, the world continues to be in disarray.

School weekend’s coming, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been wanting to take this class on Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions since I saw it on the course listing when I started Case. It’s going to be fun. Plus, the professor scanned all the textbooks and uploaded them rather than having us buy them, which saves us all hundreds of dollars.

After 600 exam questions in the past few days, I’ve got a 65% accuracy rate. I also reviewed around 250 flashcards today. I’m moving toward the 70% I’ve got to make on the final test. Of course, it doesn’t matter how high my average is: all that matters is how I do on those 170 questions, on that day, in that testing room. The more material I drill, the better I have to assume I’ll do. Problem is, there are literally thousands of items that could potentially be on the test, and retaining everything is impossible. This is a case where a breadth AND depth knowledge matters, which one rarely encounters in real life. It isn’t just facts being spit back out, in a lot of cases. It’s judgments about the first step you should take in a given case, or the most important symptoms to assess for, or what to keep confidential in certain scenarios and what to divulge, and to whom. This is a lot to know, and I’m taking it seriously.

I know that I’m usually able to skate through things, and tests and papers and such are usually really really easy for me. That’s due to some combination of intuition, retention of information, and who knows what else. But this test is different, and will be a real validation of me as a social worker. It shows that I’m worthy to be in this field, and that I’ve proven it to the world, not just myself and people at my agency.

My clinical supervisor says that she’d be worried about me if I weren’t stressed about this test, because of what it means to me and my career. That helps me feel better about the stress, but doesn’t help the stress itself dissipate any.

Anyway, time for bed. Busy day tomorrow–after all, I’ve got to write my paper for Friday. And do my reading for Friday. Reference previous comments RE: skating by.

Ever feel like things were going in a good direction, and then it all went to shit?

It’s been a difficult day. I had a lot of good vibes about my agency’s new Clinical Director. We had a big, important, great project in its formative stages. I was heavily invested in this project, and this guy. He’s worked for my agency for three and a half weeks. Today, he quit. Or was asked to resign, and did. Or got abducted by an alien craft of some sort. Who really knows?

What I do know is that it’s been…difficult for me. Does that make sense? My plans for the next few years of my agency included having this guy (partially) in charge. I admired him for his genuine desire to bring about real changes in my agency, and for his vision. Him being gone makes me worried that change is going to have to be so much SLOWER than I wanted, even craved for it to be. It seems like it’s so HARD to try and get others to strive for better things without making everyone hate you in the process.

People are invested in their dysfunction, though, aren’t they. As someone in the field of mental health, I should know that already. Still, today was a tough one.

Watching the SNL Xmas special, and laughing quite a lot. It was a good retrospective of great bits from years gone by, and there were a lot of really funny things I’d forgotten about. Made for a nice time.

Rough therapy session today. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to do when a given situation arises in-session until it does. It’s tough to know what to do when someone falls apart in front of you, but I managed. Even though (of course) I would never mention specifics about a client or a session, today was definitely a learning experience for me. Those are nice, usually. In retrospect.

Half a day of work tomorrow, followed by work Xmas party, then I’m off for nine days straight. I’m really looking forward to catching up on some home stuff, hanging with K without a lot of stress, and maybe even a drama-less Xmas day. If that wouldn’t be too much to ask for. Not that K would be causing the drama, but someone else would. If someone dramatic isn’t around, so much the better.

I’m taking the social work exam a month from January first, so I’m really going into the home stretch here. It’s tempting to put off the test, but would that really benefit me any? I doubt it. It would be much more likely to make me laze off a bit more, and I don’t need to do that. I need to take this test in February and move toward my future, scary though it is.

In the spirit of Emily’s list post, and because it struck my fancy, here’s a list of my thoughts at the moment (disclaimer: her list items were much more concise. Maybe I’m just more wordy in general?):

* I love love love my new computer. No, they didn’t pay me to say that. It’s an amazing, light, powerful piece of metal and plastic, and it’s way better than my old new laptop. Still upset that it was stolen, but it was really all for the best, ultimately.

*It’s snowing. I have school this weekend, and am allowed to miss one of the days. I just might skip out on tomorrow–as long as the weather isn’t beautiful and I couldn’t rationalize it. The idea of lying around at home is more appealing at the moment. We’ll see. We might get as much as a foot and a half to two feet.

*I’m loving Stephen King’s Under The Dome. Great 1,000-page-plus King masterpiece, as usual. Buy it. If you have a Kindle, might be a good idea to buy it digitally–this thing’s heavy. K tried to convince me to do that, but I wanted a physical copy of this thing. Still, can hurt one’s wrists. Be aware.

*Our trip to Knoxville for Thanksgiving was pretty great. It’s nice to see the fam, and it would be even nicer to stay in touch on a more consistent basis. Still, we don’t seem very motivated to change that (none of us, really) so maybe it’s something I shouldn’t worry about. When we talk, we enjoy talking. When we don’t, we just wonder how people are doing. That’s life.

*Work is going swimmingly. I have possibilities here, and definite future options after I’ve gotten my independent license. A lot to think about in this area. So I’m thinking.

*School is…also going swimmingly, I guess. I didn’t think at this point in my grad school career that I’d be anticipating graduation so much, since I love learning and love my cohort so much. Still, three years is a long time. Almost a tenth of my life’s been spent in grad school, if I think about it. Strange. After this weekend and one more paper, I’m in my last semester. Two classes and finishing out this field period, then I’m done. And that’s really exciting to me.

*Studying when I get the chance, and when I feel motivated to do so, for my social work exam. Less than two months before I take it. I have around a thousand pages of review material, and it’s a lot to process and retain. At least I know a lot of it from my work experience. Still, it’s a lot to process and retain.

*Someone told me at work today that I’m not someone who ever gets stressed out about everything. That’s hilarious to me, since I’m nothing like that. I get stressed all the time, but don’t let most people know it. As I think more about genuineness with my Clinical Supervisor, and being who I am without sacrificing my true self for the sake of other people, it’s a complicated thing to balance. I think everybody “plays the game” when it comes to aspects of their personality that aren’t the norm, or things that the world doesn’t find desirable. Everyone successful at something, at any rate. If you’re really introverted, you don’t present that persona at work if you’re in a helping profession. It can be tough to be true to yourself, though, if you’ve been projecting a persona for a really long time in most settings. This is something that will continue to be an issue for me, I think, as I continue my career further.

*Finally got my Itunes straightened out in my new laptop last night, so I can go back to my podcasts. There you are, old friends. Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you?

That’s an encapsulation of the thoughts running around my head at the moment. Off to do something productive for another couple of hours, then to the grocery store and home to hide under a blanket and play Assassin’s Creed 2.

Nope, I’m not sick, just watching SNL. We nearly committed to adopting a dog today. Decided not to at the last moment, but it has me feeling a bit melancholy. She was a 6 year old Miniature Schnauzer, but it turned out she isn’t socialized well to kids, which would be a bad idea if we’re still wanting to try for a kid within the next year or two. She was very sweet, though, and I hope she ends up in a good home. Poor thing.

And we don’t have $800 to spend on her grandpuppies. Ah well.