Last Day

Today is the last day of school. I can't believe it is FINALLY here. While I am sure the last day of school will always be a significant day, it is especially significant for me because it is the last day of my first year of work. I knew it would be a difficult year solely because I had to prove to my school that I know what I am doing and that I am capable of holding my own in a difficult environment. It has been a long, hard year, but a very rewarding one as well. I have grown as an individual and as a professional and am very happy with the job I did. Sure, there are areas where I need to improve, but isn't there always something we can do better?

In 10 months I have changed a lot. I am more articulate and well-spoken, I can stand up for myself when I am right and I can accept criticism with grace when I am wrong. I learned how to sympathize with parents, how to control my emotions, and how to quiet my critics. I learned to not take things personally, like when I give parents negative reports and make them cry or when I tell a teacher something they don't want to hear and they get mad. I now know that "taking one for the team" is really not that bad and can help open doors, but also that I need to assert myself and not let people walk all over me. There are many more things that I have learned this year, but those are just a few examples. Each experience this year has taught me something, and I really need to reflect on everything during summer break so that I am refreshed and ready in August. Because I am not going to lie.....I am tired and ready for a break.

And speaking of August.... If you follow me on twitter you know that my position was terminated back in April due to budget cuts, but that I was reinstated earlier this month and will continue to work for my district next school year. I am so glad I can relax this summer knowing that I have a job to come back to in August!

Office Tour

I'm still here!

I have survived the first half of the first week of school. I have spent most of my time getting my office together and organizing everything for the school year. I even took pictures of my office on my BlackBerry. I am not done decorating; I need to fill my walls with posters, but you can get an idea of where I spend my days!

My half of the office (I share with the Speech Language Pathologist)

My kid table topped with bins of crayons, toys, and other things I need to assess students

My desk

My filing cabinet plastered with motivational sayings from the principal. I have since filled the two empty bins with my test kit materials.

The SLP let me steal some of her magnetic letters, but didn't have enough letters for "psych*ologist"

The view from my desk

Inside my desk drawer

I have enough pens/pencils/markers to last me my entire career

I heart Sharpies

My shelf filled with all my books and binders

Hope you enjoyed my office tour! Life is crazy the next two weeks, bear with me while I am MIA.

Woo Hoo!

Things are looking up! As you may have read on twitter....

I was offered a school psych*ologist position in the county where I am completing my internship! So excited!!

Graduation....In Pictures!

I know you are probably so sick of hearing about graduation....so I will just jump to the pictures!

This is not the most flattering picture, and the lighting in our hotel room was terrible, but here is the promised photo of my dress!

Some pictures from the ceremony...

With my class!

My Proud Husband!

With my grad school BFF...

So happy to be done!

I Did It!

We are off to North Carolina for my graduation!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Random School Related Thoughts

• Tomorrow I head down to North Carolina for my last internship meeting before graduation. Wooo hooooo!

• I have printed three copies of my thesis, will have them bound and delivered to the appropriate places, and will wash my hands of the project that ruled my life for almost THREE years. Boy, will that feel amazing! This is what our dining room table currently looks like:

• Checklists, and forms, and papers galore! I also can't wait to get rid of the stacks of articles that have littered our apartment since August, 2006. Seriously, I never thought this day would come!

• On a nostalgic note...I am so close to being done with graduate school that it is starting to dawn on me that my academic life is over (unless I decide to go back and get my Ph.D., of course). It is so weird, considering I have been in school since I was 5.

• Yesterday I had to observe a student I am currently testing, so I attended his 9th grade English class. When I walked in I was reminded of that Matthew Perry movie that was on TNT a couple years ago. Anyway, the class is reading To Kill a Mockingbird, so during the first 20 minutes the class took a reading quiz. Half the kids didn't even take out paper. They had no problem telling the teacher they didn't read and they didn't care of they got a zero. So sad. But on the bright side, it spurred memories of the book, even though I couldn't answer all of the questions. This reminded me that I want to go back and read all the classic high school books. The second part of the class was a lesson on prepositions and the infinitive. This reminded me that I need to work on my grammar.

Sorry for the randomness! Hopefully I will be back to normal posting after I return from my trip south. Until then, make sure you enter my giveaway!

Ohhh High Schools

Just a funny little excerpt from my day:

Today I had to test at a high school. I don't have my own office at this school so I set up shop wherever there is free space. Today they put me in a random office that no one was using at the moment. I assumed it was the speech pathologist's office; they usually have offices that are not being used. Sigh.

Anyway, I was busy getting all my materials ready and only briefly noticed the wall art. I did register that all these really cute monkeys with bananas were hanging on the wall, as well as sparkly letters and posters everywhere. The monkeys with bananas were things that a lot of elementary school teachers use to showcase who is in their class. Know what I mean?

After a while I tuned in more closely. This is when I realized I was in the probation officer's office. Yes, the high school apparently has a probation officer on staff.


I then decided to investigate the wall art more thoroughly. Written on the bananas were things like "pay court costs", "electronic monitoring", "CHARGES", "no re-offending", "obey all laws", "pay restitution", "complete community service", as well as plenty of other motivational and informative phrases and words related to being arrested. Lovely.


I can't speak from experience, but I don't think the kids on probation really want to see monkeys with bananas. It's a little age inappropriate!

Work = Tired

I am definitely not used to working yet.

I get up at 6am (okay, today I got up at 7am and let my hair hang curly so I could sleep the extra hour), drive to work (it is so glorious driving the opposite way of traffic), work (I am still orienting and school doesn't start for kids until Monday so it's pretty uneventful), drive home from work, take Kona out, decompress (i.e. sit on the couch), make dinner/get take out, think about how tired I am while watching TV/reading/playing on the internet, go to bed anywhere between 8:30pm and 10pm, and repeat.

I feel like a zombie! I am so tired all the time and I am not even really doing anything at work. I sit around in the office and read books/manuals/articles to "refresh" my memory on how to do my job.

Sidebar...in actuality it is some of the older school psychologists (i.e. trained on completely different models/theories/systems) that I think should do some reading. I feel like such an ageist lately, but if you saw the way some of them were acting at our staff meeting yesterday, you would be annoyed with them too. Maybe someday when I'm not so tired I will report on their unacceptable behavior.

I could attribute my tiredness to getting up early, but I go to bed early as well so I feel like I am getting enough sleep. I guess it is just the change in routine. Boo!! I can't wait to settle into the routine and be able to function like a normal human being.

I guess my tiredness means I won't be posting about anything meaningful tonight.

I do have a few things to look forward to...My BFF is coming to visit tomorrow night AND I don't have to work on Friday. Thank goodness it is only a four day week! I love superintendent's days!!

First Day

After reading many uplifting and kind comments (thank you all!) my spirits rose and I decided you all are right...everyone has moments of sadness, but this too shall pass.

On to a different topic.....

On the first day of school each year, my mom made a special breakfast (usually waffles) and took pictures of my brother and I in our new school clothes. It was a fun tradition that always made the first day of school extra special. Although today technically isn't the first day of school for students, it was the first day at my new school job. That counts right? I had to get up at 6 AM, an hour I haven't seen in many months, so a hearty breakfast wasn't a priority, but I still got my picture taken...this time by my husband. I think I look quite chipper for it being 7 AM.

Now for the shocker.....I bought the shirt from Express and the skirt from the Gap back in early high school. I have tons of new "school" clothes that I could have worn today, but last night as I was combing through my closet and trying on numerous outfits, I decided on this one. I have probably worn this outfit 30+ times over the past 8 years. I last wore this outfit for my thesis proposal (not to be confused with my defense) last September, so although I don't wear often, I have still worn it a lot (that makes sense right?). I remember I went through the same thing the night before my proposal, ultimating choosing this outfit. Does anyone else consistently wear the same outfits because they just work?

Anyway.... Yay for surviving the first day of orientation! While most of it was boring and predictable it was nice to have a schedule, meet some new people, and start to get acquainted with the life of a grown-up.

Done!

I survived!

I was quite nervous at the beginning...but about 10 minutes into my presentation I calmed down and rocked it! I can't believe how well I did (sorry for the self-promotion!). Well actually I can believe how well I did, I spent a year and a half working on my thesis, and after hours and hours devoted to writing, research, experimenting, and perfecting.... I KNEW what I was talking about.

So despite the many horror stories I heard about people falling apart and getting grilled to the point of submission, I find that if you go into the defense with a thorough understanding of your statistics, theories, and "what it all means", you will be okay. Because you will surely be asked about all three of those points and will need to demonstrate that you have a grasp on them. In regards to the actual experiment/participants/procedure/etc., I think it should be a given that you would be able to discuss this stuff, I mean c'mon....you ran the experiment right? If not, you probably aren't ready to defend. And there is nothing wrong with waiting until you do fully understand....well unless you have to graduate or go on internship or something, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Sure, some of the questions my committee asked had me sweating for a hot second, but after taking a breath and telling myself "you know this, just think before you speak" I was able to put together a well thought out response that showed I was capable of doing and understanding research. And for the one question I didn't know how to respond to, I fed the committee member's egos, said I wasn't sure, and asked for guidance and an explanation on how I could better understand. Because, let's face it, graduate students aren't supposed to know everything. Despite what we all may think....just kidding. But, seriously :)

So for now, I celebrate!! Maybe some other day I will elaborate on the experience....but overall, I would say it was a big success!

Waiting....

I am sitting in the room where I will defend my thesis in less than an hour. Just waiting...

I can't figure out how to connect my laptop to the projector in the room, so despite arriving early in an effort to set everything up and be ready when my committee shows up....looks like I will have to wait and see if they can help me. And since it is summer, there aren't any random tech folks just roaming around either, so there is no hope that I could snag one of them and have them hook me up.

Sigh....

Well I suppose I should read over my thesis one more time to ensure that I know it forwards and backwards. UGH, I can't wait until this is over!

Tales of a School Psych(o)

Remember when I took the Praxis II quite hungover a month ago? Well I can finally stop worrying about having to retake the exam.....because......dun dun dun....I passed! With flying colors of course. I guess that is a good testament to my program, as I relied mostly on the knowledge I gained from the two years of classes and my year of practicum instead of studying. Now, I must say that the exam and the stuff I learned in school were similar. But (and this is a big but), the thing that annoys me about all the classes I took and the exam in general is that the scenarios are all too perfect and require best practice actions....but that is NOT what happened in my real life practice. So annoying. And after emailing with Ashley (a fellow school psychologist who found my blog) and hearing about her experiences thus far, she seems to think the same thing. So I hope that all the effort I have put into the last two years pays off in some other way than just helping me pass this exam. Rant ended.

Next up....I have to defend my thesis, which is what I will be doing Tuesday morning. Then I will be one step closer to being finished with grad school. In reality though, I still have my internship and have to make a portfolio showcasing all the things I have learned and can do. These will both take the entire school year to complete....so graduation still seems far away....in fact it is scheduled for May 8th. Which I see is a Friday. That is pretty annoying. Oh well, I will deal with that when it arrives.

Until then, I must start preparing for my defense so that I rock!

P.S. Sorry for being crabby, I have bad cramps and have a pounding headache....which apparently translates into less than happy blog posts, despite initially planning to be excited about passing my exam!

Impropmtu Alley Party

The school psychology Praxis II is one of the required components of all graduate school psych programs. This morning at 7:30 AM, yes 7:30 AM...I had to take this licensure exam at the University of Maryland so that I am eligible to be licensed once I complete my year long internship. I didn't really study because I spent the last two years fully immersed in all things school psych, which I felt has more than prepared me for the life of a school psychologist. I did not however, plan on having a hangover when I took the test, so now I am unsure of how well I performed.*

So how did I end up with a hangover the night before an important and very early test? Alson usually takes Kona out at around 5 0'clock, (We have finally got her on a three times a day schedule!) and last night he happened to go out the back door of our building so that Kona could be in the less traveled alley. Four of our neighbors as well as a neighbors friend were all sitting out back in the alley having an impromptu happy hour get together. I know, the alley sounds like a gross place to hang out, but ours is actually nicely shaded with trees and all the neighbors we met have the entrances to their condos back there and it is nicely kept. I did not, however, know that it was the cool hangout in our building. The way our apartment is situated, we can enter from either the front or the back, and we just never happened to see anyone out there if we did use the back door.

Anyway, Alson called me out so we could finally meet some of our neighbors, and I was offered a beer. We sat out back (antique folding chairs and a large patio table umbrella provided for a nice atmosphere) and met a bunch of other neighbors on their walk home from work, as they were headed out for the night, etc. etc. Well one beer turned into two, two turned into a glass of wine, and before you know it we were eating pizza with one set of neighbors at Dupont Italian Kitchen...and it was 11 o'clock. Yikes! I like ran home, chugged water, took some Advil, and went straight to bed so that I wouldn't be miserable when 6 AM rolled around. False, I felt terrible this morning.

Now don't get me wrong, it was really great meeting everyone and I had a TON of fun chatting with everyone, but somehow time flew by, we didn't eat dinner and I ended being drunk instead of in bed getting a good night's rest before the big test. You would think that I would be able to control myself and take responsibility of my drinking, right? Well I have rationalized that being bombarded with potential friends is definitely not something we experience everyday, and we just couldn't afford to turn down the opportunity to hang out and get to know some new people. And although it came at a terrible time in terms of "professional" responsibility, it was perfect timing for our social life (or lack there of) because I was seriously starting to get discouraged with DC and I have been missing my friends back in NC and NY terribly. So here is to hoping that we will hang out with the neighbors again and that I get licensed!

*Honestly, the test was not that difficult and I do know my stuff, I am probably just overacting and being a basketcase.