I went to Vegas with Alex, Danielle, and her boyfriend, Justin over the weekend.  It was fun getting to go back to Vegas with Alex again.  We’ve only been one other time together about 2 years ago, and I wasn’t old enough to gamble at the time.  We had fun playing blackjack together   And when I could barely walk because of my joint pain late at night, he helped me walk.  He was also a good sport about leaving the casinos earlier than planned because it was getting to be too much for me.  So we went back to the hotel and he drew me a bath and gave me massages and everything.  It’s so nice having someone that cares about me so much when I’m having difficulties like this.

Speaking of the pain… I have another doctor appointment this Friday and I made an appointment to see a Rheumatologist on December 2nd, which was the earliest I could get in.  It’s getting unbelievably frustrating not knowing what is going on with me.  I can’t do half the things I was able to do before this started happening.  And while I may have a few days or even a week where I don’t really experience much pain, it always comes back.  And I’m sick of the doctors taking forever to see me and then not even having anything to tell me when I do see them.

On another note… I registered for classes this morning for next semester.  Here’s what it looks like:

MON - 4:15-7:00p - Marriage & Family Therapy I (PSY 639) with Amy Tuttle
TUE - 5:00-7:00p - Psychopharmacology (PSY 627) with Diana Hurlbut (only meets 9 weeks)
THU - 4:15-7:00p - Techniques of Counseling & Psychotherapy (PSY 637) with George Nalbach
THU - 7:15-10:00p - Clinical Management of Psychopathology (PSY 600) with Lisa Fasnacht-Hill
SAT (1/10 & 1/24) - 9:00a-4:45p - Human Sexuality (PSY 628) with Susan Johnson

It sounds like a lot… but it’s only 12 units, 1 class only meets on 2 saturdays in January, and 1 is only a 9 week course.  I just think it’s so doable so it doesn’t make sense not to cram this much in, especially while I still don’t have to do my practicum.  So it shouldn’t be too bad of a semester.

Halloween was awesome this year.  I had so much fun with Alex, Ash, and Alan.  We’re such a fun little group, haha.  And we looked amazing in our Playboy outfits   I think they were our best Halloween costumes thus far.  I uploaded a ton of picture to facebook and myspace, so go check them out if you want.  Here’s a preview:

Last night I went to this private party in Culver City entitled Wonderland that my sister was hired to perform at (which I think I mentioned in an earlier entry).  I was a swan   It was fun, but the night turned into shit pretty quickly and I don’t feel like discussing it.  Things are probably going to be pretty strange with my sister for awhile now after this, but I hope we can get through it.  I think it has to do with the fact that she doesn’t know how to process/handle my recent physical problems and she seems to be going about it completely wrong in my mind.  That’s really all I care to say on the matter.  Here are a few pics from last night:

I’ve been pretty hungover today, probably as a result of both Friday and Saturday night combined.  I had a field trip with my group therapy class this afternoon called “Art and Creativity for Healing” at a little studio in Laguna Niguel.  It was amazingly fun actually!  We were given blank canvases and were asked to express our emotions.  After we finished each painting we went around the room talking about our creations.  It was a really cool experience.

The first one was called “Melting Colors.”  We were told to imagine a scene where we were in the middle of a garden and the colors were just sort of melting around us.  This is what I came up with:

I thought of darker colors running together as if it was raining.

The next piece was on a bigger canvas, and it was called “What is Going On?”  This one was a lot more complex and tells about 6-7 different stories including things that are currently bothering me, people who are involved, consequences, happiness, spirituality, and love.

The red and brown in the upper left is the explosion between my sister and I that happened last night.  The flower in the bottom right corner is love.  The blue and orange spread throughout represents Alex and my mom (happiness that just sort of engulfs everything), and the teal and black in the upper right represents my feelings in the moment (mixed emotions raining down).

The last one is on a tiny canvas and it’s called “Gratitude.”  We were asked to just portray our idea of gratitude.

The colors that clearly came to mind for me with gratitude were orange and pink.  I’m not sure what the different shapes mean but I guess they’re sort of like happy swirls.  When I finished the painting I decided to give it the little border you see.  Not for any particular reason other than I just thought it would look cool.

When I got home I showed my mom my paintings and she wants to frame them, expecially the 2nd one   I’ll probably put the other 2 in my room.  I love how each one has it’s own little story and totally expresses what I was feeling at the time.

The nurse at my doctor’s office called me while I was in class tonight and left a message.  She said that they need to follow up with me in regards to my blood test, that it isn’t an immediate emergency, but that I need to give her a call as soon as possible.  Of course by the time I got the message, which was during my break halfway through class, it was too late for me to call them back because the office was closed.  This SUCKS because now I’m probably going to be losing sleep over this.  I want to know what’s wrong with me.

The good news is that they’ve found something.  This means there will be no more guesswork, right?  Right now, as I’m typing this, I have extreme pain in my left thumb, my right wrist, my left elbow, and my left ankle.  So as I’m dealing with all this pain right now, part of me is just feeling really thankful that at least they know what it is, even if I don’t yet.  The other part of me is scared shitless about what it might be.  My mom said to relax because of the fact that they said it wasn’t an immediate emergency.  Their choice of wording isn’t a comfort to me at all.  Just because it isn’t an immediate emergency doesn’t mean that it isn’t serious.

My mom is still convinced that it’s a vitamin deficiency, or that I’m anemic.  Let’s just hope that it’s an easy fix and that I don’t have some chronic autoimmune disease.  I’ve never been given a major diagnosis before, so you can imagine my distress over this.

On a happier note… I got an A on my very first exam in grad school   I got a 47/50.  It’s a really good thing too because this midterm is worth 50% of our grade.  I have another midterm Monday next week so let’s hope that one goes just as gracefully as this one went.

I’m taking a class this semester that is so unlike any class that I’ve ever taken before, and I always leave at the end of the night in a very strange/emotional state of mind.  It also tends to effect me at random times throughout the week.  It’s my group therapy class, and the structure of it is: for the first hour and a half we have a lecture about the way group sessions work and on the techniques the facilitator uses, or watch a video on group dynamics.  For the 2nd hour and a half, we have our training group.  The training group is like an actual support group, but it is also structured in a way to help us learn how groups work and the roll of the facilitator in the support group.  However, there are certain aspects of it (because it is a training group) that are different from normal support groups.

For the past few weeks or so, during our group sessions, we’ve had to share personal stories about ourselves, which other group members can then follow up with feedback about how the individual’s story has effected them and what parts of the story they could relate to.  Listening to what people have had to say about themselves has really effected me, primarily because I’ve never had anyone share such deep information with me before.  Clearly I cannot go into specifics about what has been said during our group sessions because that would be a breach of confidentiality.  But hearing people share such astronomical details of their lives has been quite an experience for me.  It makes me realize how little we know about everyone around us, and how WRONG our assumptions can be about one another.

In fact, one of the very first exercizes our professor/facilitator had us do in the group was to just look around the room at each classmate/group member and mentally decide what we think they must be like.  And she told us, “I guarrantee you, after a session or two of our group, the assumptions of each other that you just made are all going to be disproved.”  She was so right.  In fact, for the last 24 hours since our most recent group session, I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else.  I want to apologize to anyone I’ve ever misjudged because I realize now how little I’ve known.  An individual who outwardly shares so little of him/herself has more underneath than we could ever imagine.

I already feel a very special connection with the other people in my class, and I actually feel so honored to get the chance to meet people from the inside out.

The last few weeks of this class, however, have really made me realize how difficult it is going to be as a therapist.  As people share their deepest secrets, it’s very hard to not let it effect you, especially right there on the spot.  I’m going to have to hear about the most atrocious kinds of abuse and traumas, and yet I’ll have to fight all my immediate urges and just focus on the here and now with that individual.

All my other classes are standard lecture/midterm/final format though, haha.

I realize I haven’t been updating this blog as often as I would like, so I’m going to try to make quite an effort to write in here more, because there’s really no excuse for it.  I’m also going to try to get back into the swing of moblogging from my blackberry again.  Oh, and Twitter… well… that might be harder considering I never really was that much into Twitter.

I’ve sort of been having the time of my life in grad school over the past 2 weeks.  I absolutely love the program and I love Pepperdine.  My professors are awesome, as are my classmates.  I’ve met some pretty awesome people, and I’m just learning so much.  I’m starting to realize just how perfect this path in life is for me.  I think I can really do it well one day.

Right now Alex and I are watching Obama on Letterman (recordered from last night).  I love watching him   And to think we might have our first black president soon… that’s so exciting.  I really didn’t think that would ever happen.

I’ve been super busy ever since I got back from my Vegas trip with my mom and Lynda and I haven’t really been in the mood to blog.  I had so much fun in Vegas and I was sad to leave.  We did so many fun things everyday and Zumanity was great of course.  I posted photos on facebook and myspace (links are on the contact page).  I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to upload them to flickr.  I didn’t feel like my trip was long enough and it took us 8 hours to drive back with Labor Day traffic (normally the drive takes just under 4 hours), so I just wasn’t in a very good mood.  I also started school on Tuesday, so things have been crazy busy.

I’ve had 2 classes so far (I won’t start my Monday class until next week due to the holiday) and so far I think I’m really going to like it.  My 2 classes could not be any more different from one another (in terms of structure).  One class has no writing assignments, just a midterm and a final.  The other has no exams and in fact nothing is ever graded (the class is credit/no credit) but there are tons of reading and writing assignments, group projects, and activities.  It’s a class on group therapy, so it makes sense that we would be doing a lot of group activities.  Oh am I going to struggle in that class.  But nothing is graded and the professor said there are no right or wrong answers on the assignments… so how bad can it be?  Please note, I’ve been blogging in greater detail about my classes/overall experience in grad school at Psychofemme.com.  Though, everything from my blogs is automatically crossposted to Livejournal, so if that’s where you follow me, you can stay put.

Time to get back to work…

Rather than doing the responsible thing (which would have been going to bed seeing as how I have to wake up early tomorrow morning), I decided to finish up my new project and release it, officially. I am pleased to announce…

psychofemme.com

I start school in 3 1/2 weeks, so for now there won’t be a whole lot of activity there. But yay! It’s done!!!

This summer has left me with plenty of much-needed time to focus on my hobbies and to just relax. I’ve really enjoyed working on this website, and I can’t believe I took such a long break from graphic and web design. It’s as if I’ve rediscovered my love for Photoshop and CSS styles, lol. I’m sure no one will be too surprised that I have yet another project in the making. Yes, there is a new domain that I actually just purchased on Monday. I’ve finished the design already, but I still need to work on the content. It’s going to be a psychology website/blog that I’m going to use to reflect on my education and career developments over the next couple years. I realize this isn’t going to interest everyone, but it’s something that I feel will be very beneficial to me. Once I’ve completed everything, I will announce its official debut

Unfortunately, I seem to have contracted quite a vigorous little disease that has kept me bed ridden for the most part. I’ve been having endless headaches, back aches, coughing fits and sore throats for several days now and it still shows no sign of letting up. Surprisingly though, I’ve managed to only miss one day of work for this, but during that day I spent hours upon hours in Photoshop (when I wasn’t sleeping that is). My ill mind sure has a way of expressing itself in interesting ways.

My illness is also the reason why there’s been a lack of Flickr/moblog updates here. I don’t think anyone would be interested to see what I’ve been up to the last few days (haha). But I have a hair appointment in less than an hour, so I’ll be sure to Flickr it. Yes, I realize that I should NOT be getting my hair done in my current state of misery, but I’ve had this appointment for over a month and my hair desperately needs it. So I’m just going to have to deal.

My diploma came in the mail today! As soon as it came (which was like… 5 minutes ago), I immediately took my empty CSULB diploma frame off the wall in my room and put my diploma in it. YAY! It’s finally here!

Here’s a closeup

I woke up this morning in a pissed-off, sleepy state and was trying to think of anything that could get me out of work for the day. But of course, I sucked it up and went in like I always do, and I’m glad I did because I got a raise! It was a nice raise too, so I’m very glad I got over my morning gloom and went in.

That wasn’t the only good thing that happened today. Sometime this afternoon I received an email from CSULB notifying me that they have conferred my degree and that it is now posted to my transcript! This made me extremely giddy so I immediately went online to MyCSULB and viewed my unofficial transcript. Sure enough, there was my awarded degree! Aaaaaand… I got Cum Laude! Yayness

Unfortunately, when I got home from work around 2:30pm I came down with the worst migraine of my life. I guess my mind was just too overwhelmed from all the good stuff earlier. It was so bad that I was literally bed ridden and could not move. I actually thought I might end up in the hospital. But I feel SO much better now after taking Imitrex, drinking several bottles of water, and taking a 2 hour nap. Sheesh.