I’ve written a lot of posts in my head, both during my week home and since we’ve been back here in Davis. When I was home, I was too busy with fun to want to sit down and post, and in Davis, I don’t have internet except for the time I want to spend in the apartment Club House using their slow and oft-breaking wireless (in which case, I’m frustrated trying to send out work- and school-related e-mails, looking into LCSW licensure, trying to save web pages I need to print onto my desktop so I can come home and print them later…). In other words, life without internet is sort of a pain. Now, I’ve organized a free afternoon, and am using the time before our dining table gets delivered to write a post in Word, and I’ll somehow post it later.
As I usually say, things here are good. They really are. I haven’t started school yet, but I’ve been to some orientation activities (optional, how great is that?…hence my free afternoon…), had some TB testing, physical stuff at the UC Davis Medical Center (Employee Health Services, which makes me feel special), and yesterday I went to meet with my mentor at the MIND. She introduced me around to everybody, showed me my office (!), and told me a bit about what I’ll be doing, or what my options are. I talked to her about gaining hours to get my LCSW (clinical license as a social worker), and she’s really excited about making it happen for me. She has no doubt it’ll work there. So basically, I’m an employee at the MIND, getting paid to work there, getting my LCSW hours, getting course credit, earning my Ph.D., working on projects and papers and chapters (I can’t wait until I’m published) with some incredible people, and looooooooving it there. I am so honored and so excited. They do such great work and have really positive far-reaching impact on the autism field. I love, love, love it.
School is there in my mind, too, but almost as a backdrop. I’ll only be taking two courses this quarter and getting the rest of my credits through research at the MIND. I begin classes next Thursday, late-night classes. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been going to some orientation activities, the ones that I think would be helpful for me. They really have been, for the most part. And on the first day, I found myself lost in a building on campus, trying to navigate its twists and turns to find the correct lecture hall. I saw another lost person out of the corner of my eye, turned around, and realized it was one of the two girls I already know. Since this week of orientation is for all graduate students, masters and Ph.D., in all fields, to find her right away was pretty lucky. She’s been my buddy all this week and that feels nice.
Last night Nik and I headed to downtown Sacramento to go to dinner at the Melting Pot. We had tons of food in the fridge at home, because we haven’t quite figured out yet how to shop and cook for just the two of us. Anyway, we still went, and it was delicious as always. We missed our Melting Pot double date partners, though!
Something else that is still on my mind is my week of fun back in LA. My aunt Sharon came to visit and we took her to Santa Monica and Pasadena…where we got stuck, literally, in the middle of a fight between an Apple Store security guard/police officer and a thief. It was a long struggle and eventually a failed arrest (unless they caught his getaway car later), but we were really stuck in the middle of it. We actually had to flee down the sidewalk, being at most 5 feet from the struggle, and run into another store to avoid getting held as hostage or shot or stabbed. We decided to watch the fight play out from the store windows, risking the gun thing, when the police officer threw the assailant against the window right into our faces! It was quite entertaining but pretty scary. This all came right after Sharon was talking about how, despite its reputation, she didn’t really think LA was too crime-ridden.
Also last week, Mandi had a lot of really fun birthday celebrations. I had sooo much fun at them and I hope she did, too. Happy birthday!
Time to wrap it up. Just a side note to praise JoJo, who is being quite exceptional in good behavior in her new home. I don’t know what to make of it. She’s being so good. She’s learned all the new rules (stay OFF the bed, stay OUT of the kitchen when Mommy and Daddy are in it, potty on the leash, be QUIET when Mommy and/or Daddy leave, NO trash, etc.). She’s calm and she listens and she hangs out or plays quietly. Maybe she’s growing up, or maybe all the walks every day are good for her. In any case, I’m so proud of her. Such a good girl.
Anyway, I have to mention how awesome my “cohort” at school is. We’ve all quickly bonded into a great group, and actually choose to spend time together in boring rooms, for example, than go home separately. Here they are! Here, we were faced with 2 or 3 free hours since our first class lasted 15 minutes (5 minutes of which were joke-telling about horse poop). We took a picture and then hung around and chatted. More about them as time progresses…