My Fall Trimester

Well, this is my last trimester before my internship begins. Yep, that's right...I CAN SEE THE LIGHT! However, after my first night of classes tonight, the tunnel still is pretty darn long. (in unison now...."awwwwwwwwwwwww").

There are many things I'm looking forward to this term. I'm doing a group practicum class. There are so many groups I want to do: a Men's Support, Women's Support, Gottman-7 Principles (Couple's Psychoeducational), and Parenting Support. Since I can only do one, I hope I can incorporate some of these groups at my future internship site. I'm also helping teach (for the second trimester in a row) a Family Systems (counseling class). I absolutely loved this class when I took it last summer, and love it even more now on the teaching side. I am also continuing to grad assist for the Department (of Psychology and Counseling) Chair, Dr. Dermer. I'm learning so much from her, and really enjoy her humor. Not a day goes by without her making me laugh and think about something. I'm going to miss so much when I graduate--but I'll save that for another post; there's no need to get too sappy with 11 months left. I am also hoping to be published a couple times before the end next summer and will be presenting at a conference this November. I gotta say, I really love that I have found my niche in life. I love counseling, especially couples, and have discovered that I want to teach--at the university level. Governors State University is trying to start a doctoral program, which is something I look forward to applying for in the near future. It will add on another 3-4 years to my educational process, but it will be so worth it. This way I can practice counseling (as Dr. Henderson) and teach a couple classes.

My schedule is quite crazy right now. I grad assist on Mondays and Thursdays from 9-4 and have class from 4:30-7:30. I co-teach the class on Wednesdays, and am at school from 5-10:30. Pete is on-call on Tuesday nights, which happens to be the night that Delaney and Katie have dance (they are currently in the same class together through December). And, Pete works on Saturdays. So, if you can imagine a little weekly schedule in your head, you can see that Pete and I basically see one another on Friday night, Saturday night, and Sundays. And, since I need my time with Pete to feel sane, secure, and comfortable, this term might be extremely difficult for me. Not to mention that on one of those nights/day that we do have together, I have to slip in an hour and a half group counseling session. Yikes!

Pete and I are good about spending quality time together, so hopefully that will be useful with our limited time together for the next four months. I am really going to try to not procrastinate this trimester, so on the days/nights we have together, we can lay around and watch T.V. and do some fun family activities. We're looking forward to going to Bengston's Pumpkin Farm again and to Wisconsin Dells. We have no plans yet for Thanksgiving--which is a first for us. It depends on whether or not the Henderson Uncles come to town.

So, after going over my schedule for the next four months, I have exhausted myself. Time for me to sign off and head to bed...for tomorrow is another day with a lot of plans.