I’m a bit ashamed about not blogging for a long, long time. I’m finally in a mental/emotional/tangible place to write, but am still waiting on a dose of creativity. So until that actually happens, I am not too proud to solicit questions or respond to a meme. For now, I’ll just try to give a quick update on life since my last post in mid-April.
1. A month before my previous post, my world got rocked and not in a good way. I don’t think the blog is an appropriate place to delve into details, but I can say that the experience stole my sense of security, made me doubt my value as a woman and question the reliability of my internal compass. It messed with my head and it’s taken a long time for my head to get unmessed. I’m still working on it.
2. A few days later I found out I was not accepted into Arizona State’s social work program. So much for trading the big mitten for a big desert in June.
3. As a result of #1, school became a ridiculous challenge. I had to get special permission from the very gracious dean in order to get extensions for every single class I was enrolled in. I also had to fully withdraw from two class. I finally finished all my course work last week. That was a huge accomplishment since reading, writing and thinking in general had seemed impossible for a very long time.
4. As luck would have it, it doesn’t really matter that I didn’t get into ASU because I didn’t manage to complete all the necessary course work to finish the seminary portion of my degree. I essentially have no choice but to stay in Michigan for now. I’ll probably be here for two more years since for a lot of reasons it makes more sense for me to just do an MDiv in its entirety and then move on to an MSW or other counseling degree.
5. Work has also been a difficult thing to take on - a) b/c of my overall mental/emotional condition and b) because the mitten’s economy sucks and there are no part-time jobs for over-qualified hot chicks. So for right now, I am doing child care for two families. I’ve got one 9-year old boy and then 3-year old and 1-year old boys in the other family. They’re cute, love them to pieces.
6. I am completely broke. To the point of seeking public assistance. Last time I checked w/ DHS though, I was too broke and have worked too hard to be eligible for any aid. How the hell does that figure?
7. I’m in the middle of a series of tests to determine if I have a learning disability. Of course I do. It’s called Hebrew sucks.
8. My primary coping mechanism for dealing w/ items 1-7 has been running. Actually, for a while I went back and forth between beer and cigarettes, but eventually decided those were coping mechanisms for people w/ more money than I have. I eventually got up to 35-40 miles a week. Then I got, to quote my doctor, “the nastiest, ugliest out of control case of bursitis” he’s ever seen. I meant to take pictures to show you but forgot. You can still tell that one hip is way bigger than the other. At one point it looked like I had a softball under my skin. I had a gross bruise that went hip to knee, mid butt cheek to half to my crotch. (ummm…what are the appropriate words??) Oh…and I gave it frostbite early on. That rocked.
9. A robin built a nest in the tree outside my living room window. It laid eggs, had babies and the whole family is doing well. I meant to document this in pictures for everyone, but didn’t exactly get around to it. The baby birds have turned into real sized birds in just a week. It’s so cool.
That’s all. I’d say a 9-point update is sufficient.
cheers.
justjen