Christmas Eve Fire

Oops.

So, my mother's birthday is in December and I told her that, for her birthday, I will do all of the cooking when I'm home for Christmas. It was going well until tonight.

I was making catfish for dinner. Apparently, the broiler on my parents' new oven is incredibly powerful. Not knowing this, I proceeded to make the fish the normal way...

There was some smoke coming out of the oven, and I just kept an eye on it. I opened the oven door to take the cooked fish out.

And it erupted into flames. I loudly announced: "It's on fire."

Well, we just closed the door and smothered the fire, no big deal. But my parents have one of those alarm systems that alerts the fire department to any problems. We turned it off, but it kept going off every few minutes anyhow.

So, we had a group of firefighters show up. They were quite nice, telling us that this sort of thing happens all of the time.

We gave them a tin of the sugared pecans my mom makes...

This follows the Great Greyhound Adventures of yesterday. I love the Greyhound. There's a different sense of humanity than on the plane, I think. People are kind. Well, our lovely trip lasted 12 hours because the bus we were supposed to transfer onto was overbooked. We spent quite a bit of time in the Erie bus station.

oh, the shame!

So I have a phone meeting with this critical psychologist about an article I'm publishing. At 4:30 today. Okay, so I rush home (my hubby even picked me up in case the bus was running slow.) I gather my seltzer water and a phone card.

Only to be told "Ummm...it's 1:30 where I am. I'm looking forward to talking to you, but I can't right now."

Oh dear. I'm very embarrassed. DUH!!! The man lives in California! I KNOW this! *Sigh*

Lumpiness

I spent the morning in the lovely waiting room of Planned Parenthood, waiting for a medical professional to palpate my boob and make a declaration on the state (and fate) of my boob lump. After several hours of waiting, a friendly woman poked at my boob and declared it non-cancerous. It can stay! Relief abounded. (I had found a lump a few weeks ago. I knew the odds of it being cancerous were quite slim, but hearing someone with a medical degree tell me was really helpful.)

I did, however, discover a strange policy prohibiting women from taking their infants to the doctor with them. Odd.

Between semesters

It is this magical time of the year, where I'm BETWEEN SEMESTERS. This is the longest break I have without classes all year.

It's been, let's see...6 days.

I've knitted half of a blanket.

Read stacks of articles.

Read Kristeva's Black Sun....

Gone to my practicum and run groups.

Seen clients in person and done phone sessions.

Cleaned the (disgusting) apartment with my hubby.

Set a new personal Scrabble best.

Baked pumpkin bread.

Made latkes.

Ate them.

Slept and dreamt tons...

I love these breaks. It reminds me of What I Like To Do. The doctoral program can leave me so busy that I forget What I Do. These breaks make sure that I never completely forget.

Oh, and for the record....the lowest grade in my Intro class was a 6%. Impressive.

feminist psychoanalytic dreams

Wow. My dream life has been CRAZY the past few days...I blame my recent immersion in feminist psychoanalytic theory. (Ironically, I read the most between semesters when I actually have time.)

In one dream, a male classmate ripped my tongue out. The whole tongue. I couldn't speak or eat (nourish myself.) To make sure that the phallic reference isn't lost, I actually asked my mother if it would grow back! So yeah...silenced by society's castration....that's me!

Last night, I dreamt that I was standing in my kitchen on the phone with Bush, trying to convince him to enact a universal healthcare policy. I was being extraordinarily polite, even saying: "Well, Mr. President, I better let you get back to running the country."

So I was thinking of that in relation to the previous dream...I ripped out my own tongue.

Wow...

I'm still up in the office fielding questions. I was chatting on the phone with my college roommate. (We're celebrating her completion of her Last Exam Ever tomorrow night.) Somehow, between the conversation, the peanut M&M's, and the vending machine coffee, I let my guard down enough to decide that it was time to send in my dissertation proposal without a final edit. This isn't even the REAL proposal, just something I've done for my research class. It's a draft, really....

But what it comes down to is: I HAVE WRITTEN A FRIGGING PROPOSAL!!!

I already regret sending it to the professor who identifies with Dr. House before submitting it to one more layer of revision (and I also regret being forced to delete a citation because 2 hours of searching did not yield the publication date of the goddamn article), but I'm ecstatic that it feels like someday I'll actually write this thing and be the hell out of here!!!!

Three Events

1) I am in the Clinic until late tonight answering student e-mails. Their final exam is in the morning. So far, the e-mails I have received have included things like: "I was not there on the week that we covered ___________. Please tell me what questions you will ask about that topic." or "Hi!!!!!! So, I was looking at the essay options, and I was hoping that you would write the essays out for me so that I can see what you're looking for." I had to stop and have a cup of tea so that I was reasonably polite in my responses. ("Dear student....Google it.")

2) We had a fire drill at work today. No big deal, right? We have them once a month and you simply evacuate briefly. Well, no. They set off the alarm. We all dutifully walked towards our specified staircases. We noted that if we opened the door, we would propel a man on a ladder down the stairs. We turned around and went to the next closest stairwell and were yelled at for not following the plan. We all go outside and wait. I was standing with some of the people I know from the psychosis drop-in center. They were telling eachother that they imagined that they hadn't thought ahead to how they would turn the alarm back off. We all laughed. Well, yup....that's what happened. We stood in the cold for an hour while the administrators cursed and struggled to turn off the screeching alarm. One of the heads of the unit began to scream at everyone when people mistakenly thought it was okay to go back in. One man turned to another and said: "Wow. He's an angry dude." The other one said back: "Yeah. Just be happy he's not your shrink. I have panic attacks." They never did manage to turn off the strobe effect. And now I have a headache.

3) I was talking to another grad student and this undergraduate walked into the room. He asked me if I knew where Dr. _______ was. I said that I could show him to her office, but that she had gone home. He told me that his class was supposed to have a final with her but that she wasn't there. I walked over to her office, and sure enough...not there. Now I had a small crowd with me. I decided to call her at home: "Umm, hi, so...I'm up in the Clinic and a bunch of your students are here, and...umm....they thought that they had an exam tonight...." She swore profusely while I smiled professionally at her students. I eventually courteously told them that she's very sorry indeed, and that she will e-mail them when she's figured out what to do!

An Open Letter to Pro-Lifers who Hate Babies

Dear Pro-Lifers who Hate Babies,
Your position does not make sense. If women do not have abortions they will have....BABIES!!!! Yes, BABIES! I am aware that babies make loud noises and sometimes even distracting smells. But, alas, they are the product of NOT HAVING ABORTIONS. Let me outline a few things that you might have to change now that you have begun to understand that spreading the anti-abortion message means that there will be more babies around:
1) You can no longer condemn parents of crying babies, either by making *tsking* sounds, shaking your heads, or muttering under your breath.
2) If you happen to be a conservative theology professor, you can no longer forbid the presence of an infant in your office hours. Guess what? Your student didn't have an abortion. Now she has a baby whose daycare is over before your office hours. Throw a blanket on the floor and shut up about it!
3) Catholic universities (such as the one I attend) cannot forbid babies from entering buildings because they are crying. Babies cry. It's cold out. Babies need to be warm. Deal with with.
Thank you for attention,
Me

(This letter brought to you by frustration with those who crap on students with babies.)

New Office

I am huddling in the Psychology Clinic, trying to warm up before my 3:00 session.

Today was the first day in the new office at my practicum. It's a disaster. The heat isn't on in the building yet (we didn't have heat in the old place either, so at least we're used to that.) The elevator does not yet exist. I mean it...my supervisor was showing me around this morning and she pointed to a segment of the wall and said: "That's where the elevator will be." This means that one group member had to literally be carried up the steps to group. Dramatic moments in group were punctuated by drilling and strange noises coming from the not-ceiling. (The ceiling is not yet installed, so it's pretty much just pipes and bits of insulation.)

There was also drama surrounding the location of my office. HAVING an office is a step up for me - at the old place, I had to invade the office of any psychiatrist who had taken the day off. My supervisor had told me that I was in one particular room, so I set up shop there early this morning before our supervision. When she showed up, she decided that I better belonged in another office and that her earlier comments had been a mistake. Okay. I moved my stuff to the new office. Around 9:15, I said goodbye to my supervisor and helped the group leader find the group members and show them to the new room. On the group's break at 10:30, I noticed a sign on the door to what was supposedly my office that said: "Please Do Not Disturb. Occupied MTW 9-5." Hmmm....All of my stuff was in there, including my coffee pot (vital to my status as a non-bitchy therapist!), my coat (vital because I use it as a blanket when I do notes because of the lack of heat) and my backpack.

The door was open, so I disturbed! It turns out that they had assigned the same office to someone else. I found the unit supervisor, and no-one knew what I was supposed to do. Finally, I just moved my stuff back to the office my supervisor had originally told me to use.

I'm not sure if that's really where I'm supposed to be, but I have convinced maintenance to give me the key to it. And I took the keys to the locking desk and filing cabinet, too.

So, whatever, it's mine now!!!

Finals

I taught my last class of the semester today. Whoo. Now begins the parade of "Kristen-teach me everything that you taught the class because I wasn't there" e-mails. Except that every other word will be misspelled.

For the end of the semester, I'm doing quite well. I went over to a friend's house on Friday for a bit, went out on a date with my husband on Saturday night, and saw my brother Sunday morning. Not bad for finals!

I wonder, though, when did I become a time-management machine?

I haven't pulled an all-nighter in years, and it's strange!

Most of it comes down to my professional roles, I think. As an undergrad, I would show up for my classes looking Undead the week before finals. I wore lots of sweatpants, didn't shower daily, and kept massive amounts of caffeine coursing through my blood. I studied standing under lightposts and muttered to myself as I scuttled about campus.

All that has changed. I have to support my clients who are themselves disheveled, exhausted, and overly caffeinated. I have to knowingly suggest to my students that they should eat well and get lots of sleep. I feel too responsible for other people's well-being to not get enough sleep.

Honestly - and perhaps this is masochistic - I miss the frantic pyjama-clad nights, sitting up with friends trying to cram knowledge into our heads while drinking pots of coffee. I miss writing the names of psychologists on various foodstuff that we had strangely come to believe represented that thinker's works. I even miss my misguided escapades with No-Doz (I used it a lot in high school, but by college it did nothing but make my ears ring.)

So, yesterday, working on my dissertation proposal, I changed into pyjamas, mussed up my hair, and chugged some coffee. Just for old time's sake.

Moving Day

My practicum site is moving down the street from its current location. That means that, after group today, we all stole lunch from a drug rep (I say "stole" because NO ONE stayed for the lecture. We just ate and left...the kitchen had already been dismantled and the microwave was gone. We insisted that we had no choice.)

As we milled around filling boxes full of books on therapy and addiction, plants, boxes of tissues, and cheesy motivational posters, it occurred to me: anything therapists do as a group is funny.

When we all went sledding, it was funny.
Therapists taping their file cabinets shut in their sweater-vests: it's funny!
Therapists playing with children....funny!

I think my favorite, though, is the emergency system. If a consumer attacks, you hit a particular button on the phone. 60 (count them 60!!!!) therapists put down what they're doing and rush to your aide. They will kick down your door if it is locked.

Therapists kicking down a door...now that's funny!