Practicum



Oh, awesome news! I've been interviewed by Girl Warrior! Check it out here :D
The lost year. The year of education. The year of starting over. I've given 2018 a few names this year. The very start of it was filled with fruitless job hunting and despiration. It transitioned into working at a convenience store, and then jumping through a dozen hoops to get into college.

I won't prattle much about that part... the original college I applied to ended up pushing back their program start date twice, and then cancelled it entirely, after which they transferred me to Herzing, with the beginning date being two days from when I learned of their cancellation. So that was a little bit chaotic, but I was able to attend without any problems.

From May 28th onwards, there have been no days off. Wake. College. Home. Eat. Study. Sleep. On the weekend, wake, work, home, eat, study, sleep. Every single day. I'm not going to lie, it got to me at times. I can't even count the number of social events and friend gatherings that I've passed on, because I forced myself to go to sleep at 20:00 every single night (and 19:00 in practicum). It was the lost year. The year of growth, education, and a new career path, but a year of passing on literally every fun thing available. The year that consisted of nothing but work, class, eat, and sleep. I was grumpy and miserable every single time I had to go out to buy groceries (never mind the anxiety of having very little money to do so), or every time I had to do laundry. Every single other chore took time away from studying.

But that's changing now. It hasn't fully kicked in yet, but it's changing. I couldn't take doing 7 days a week while in practicum, I didn't want my training there to suffer, and the manager at the convenience store had a very firm notion that 'negative reinforcement' was the only way to encourage her employees. I didn't want the combination of no free time and negativity to adversely affect my practicum, where the "real" learning happens, so I gave my 2-week notice well... two weeks ago. Today, September 23rd, is my first day off since beginning college!

To be fair, for the past few weeks, I haven't had to study when I got home for the day, but I don't think that's really sunk in yet. Somehow or another, every spare minute is still filled and I find myself rushing to get to bed. I think that'll taper off though, and I'll find some normality in the routine. Aside from it being an unusually cold September out, I'll pretty soon begin to come home and... realize that I have time to exist again! I think slowly things are cleaning up in some way or another around here, the odds and ends that I've been putting off for the better part of the year are starting to be finished, and by golly, soon I'll actually have free time again!

I plan to begin my livestream again somewhere in the next few weeks, but in the meantime I've started singing a song every day, and am now 143 days into it! It started out with me planning to reach a month, but then wanted to keep singing so I aimed for two months. Well, it didn't stop there, so I'm over 4 months into it now, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I have a current goal to go a full year singing a song every day, with a backup goal of making 1000 straight days of music. It's fun!

What else, what else... oohh, I had a fun biking trip a few weeks ago. I was going to the skate bowl near downtown, rode up on my mountain bike, and watched some of the other riders on their BMX bikes riding around in there. After they took a few turns each, I pulled up to go. I ride down into the bowl, and pull off one of the best lines that I've ridden in years ^_^. I get out of the bowl, and the two guys that were riding before me were just... speechless. Just utterly blown away. They explained it to me, they saw this girl in pink ride up, on a mountain bike (which to be fair, is never really seen in the skate bowl... wrong type of bike and such), and thought that I was just there to watch. When they saw me roll up to the drop in, they expected me to just roll to a stop at the bottom, or fall over. For several minutes, they couldn't get over it.

Then they asked me to do another run, because they wanted to record it. Lol, they said that I was riding better than they were XD.

So that was pretty fun. Had a few other biking treks, and OH, I also had a few tattoos touched up! I had a female symbol on my left ankle, which I've had turned into a transgender symbol! At the same time, I had my meow tattoo touched up as well, darkening the letters 'eow' to better match the 'm'. I'm much happier with it now :3

And I guess that's about it for the time being. More practicum tomorrow and for the next 6 weeks, and then off to finding a job as a health care aide! Wish me luck :D

Kabutroid/KatieLynne Harder/dragonmotherk

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College college college college college. What more is there to say about this year? My summer has entirely vanished into the textbook and into the classroom.
BUT... there's been a handful of changes! I'm in practicum now, which is hands-on work, and I don't need to spend every evening and weekend studying! I HAVE SPARE TIME AGAIN!
All that hard work and studying paid off though. I made the Dean's List with a 4.0 GPA! I was a bit nervous towards the end, but still pulled it off. Following the class there's 8 weeks of practicum, with 6 weeks left to go, working in a personal care home with the residents there.
It's very fulfilling, enjoyable work, aside from a stressful morning. I have 20 minutes to get a resident up, washed, dressed, toiletted, and to the meal room. After that, it's very enjoyable, making beds, helping them eat, talking with them, and generally just helping them enjoy the day.
The other change is that I've left my job at the convenience store, and will be living on my savings until practicum is over. Management was very negative, and doing 7 days of physical work a week was too draining, and I didn't want practicum to suffer because of it. Officially, September 23rd is my first day off since May! So yeah, that's what's been occupying my time. Studying is done, so I actually have time to catch up on chores after practicum, and I'll actually get to experience weekends again!




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