And The Days Roll On....

God I hope work picks up...So far I have no referrals...zero, zilch, nada. Today was my second day at the school and I literally spent the entire 7 hour day checking my email over and over and over again. Oh wait, I went to Wendy's for a half an hour for lunch. Now keep in mind, I'm at an alternative school, so all of these kids most certainly have behavioral problems...I'm just not getting the referrals. If they haven't come by tomorrow morning, I'm going to ask my supervisor if I can send a memo out to all the teachers letting them know what I do instead of just waiting for referrals from the social worker. That way, if the teachers notice kids who are struggling, they can make referrals to me themselves. Until I get referrals, I have nothing to do and no clients to see.

One good thing that came out of today was that I started brainstorming for NaNoWriMo and I now have a plot, characters, and even a title!! So I started outlining a little bit and I'm really excited about my story now. Looking forward to starting it. It's a fantasy and the title will be A Sunrise in Nowhere. The story was inspired by a quote I read while I was bored and, well...reading quotes online. Here it is:

"No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." -Sigmund Freud (From Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, 1905.)

Update: Look who arrived at their new home today!!!

Day The First! & The Cholera Epidemic

Today was the oh so exciting first day at the new job and thank God I like to read! I was greeted this morning with three 200 page manuals...my reaction (in my head of course) was a very un-enthused "yay" as the coffee had not yet done it's job. The manuals actually aren't all that bad though because they lay out the three different therapeutic programs that we offer kids.

Here's a quick recap on what I'll be doing. I'll be place at a school that's only 5 minutes away from my house which is great news! The original place I was going to be at was about 40 minutes away from my house. I'm an employee of the state though, not an employee of the school system. The school I'm working at is a middle school for kids who have been expelled from other schools. My job is to assess and diagnose kids who the teachers and social workers think may "have a problem." If they do indeed "have a problem" I'll do a 12 week counseling program with them. The program is very structured and we have a program for kids with depression, behavioral disorders, and just this year, we added anxiety disorders.

My supervisor is really cool which made me happy. Life's so much easier when you like the people you're working with. The atmosphere is laid back and all of my nervousness that has built up over the last month has gone out the window. In fact, reading through the anxiety counseling manual today actually helped me! Go figure! So I'm really excited to be there and it will really be nice when that first check comes in!

Back to books tonight. Should have a Something Wicked This Way Comes review up soon...hopefully tonight.

Oh! And did you see that Oprah picked Love in the Time of Cholera as her new book club selection? I'm so happy that I bought my copy before they put her damn name on the cover! I have mixed feelings about it. I'm happy that so many people will read the book now, because it's an absolutely amazing book, but at the same time it bugs me and I don't know why...we've talked about this before on here. What is it about the "Oprah's Book Club Selection" sticker that irks people (like me). For instance, I still haven't bought a copy of The Road or Middlesex because I can't find a copy without her name on it! It's especially aggravating when there's no mention of the Pulitzer prize on the cover, but Oprah's name is on the cover. Oh well...it's spilled milk. I really don't have a problem with Oprah...she does some great things for the world and even has some great shows occasionally, but there is just something about Oprah and all of these books that doesn't work for me and I don't even know what it is! It's like she's taking over the world. Another very cool piece of Love in the Time of Cholera news...I saw a poster for the theatrical version in the movie theaters the other night! How cool!

Saturday Night Thoughts

I just got off of work for the night and had to tell my boss that I'll be leaving in a few weeks....and it was sad. I call her my boss, but I don't look at her in that way at all. Those people are family to me. I've mentioned it here before, but I'm a personal care attendant and work with a family of 3 people in wheelchairs ages 23-30 who live with their mom and dad and they are all amazing people. All 3 of the people I work with are considered to have sever mental retardation, though I debate that in some areas...they understand and make more sense than the rest of the world sometimes. They all have a rare muscle degenerative disease called Mucolipidosis Type IV. Their mom and dad are some of the most incredible people I've ever met. The dad has multiple sclerosis unrelated to the children's disease, and the mom does more charity work than anyone I've ever met, all while taking care of her kids and husband. I never leave their house without a smile on my face and I've never met a more positive and loving group of people in all my life. They'll continue to be in my life as long as they're on this earth, but it will be hard after 6 years of working with them to say goodbye in that respect. They are the reason that I'm in this field.

On a different note, how about those Tigers?!! LSU is doing one hell of a job of making me temporarily forget the travesty that was the Saints game on Thursday night. LSU just went into half-time against Virginia Tech 24-0! What an amazing team. I'd kill to be at that game right now. My sister got 4 tickets to the game, and I could've gone...but I had to work. It's all good though, I'm enjoying it on TV. Now if only the Saints could take some pointers from the Tigers, we might be OK! What the hell happened to the Saints? I'm really hoping that the Colts are just THAT good. Which they are, and they did play one hell of a game, but we did play a pretty shitty game. Step it up boys!
And finally, there are only 3 left right now, which may be gone by the time I post this, but Lisa Snellings-Clark has posted little black poppets!!! Of course I bought mine already :p Here's the link to her current sale. If you don't see them up anymore, keep checking back as she may add more. I noticed she also added some more purple poppets and those really cool harlequin candle holders! Also check out her latest blog post as she has a preview of things to come for Halloween time...mwuhahahah! Now go buy a goth poppet!

Surprise Day Off

Well I was supposed to be at work for 8:00 this morning and what do you know! I woke up to my phone ringing at 8:43 with my boss asking if I just wanted the day off. She's a very cool woman. At first I apologized profusely then realized that I finish all of my work by 9:00 and then sit on my butt until 1:00...so I'm enjoying my day off.

I haven't overslept in so long and that's always been a very anxiety provoking issue for me. When I was an undergrad in college I used to "oversleep" through class all the time. But that was mostly because I just didn't want to go to class. Now I worry all the time that when I get a "real job" I'm going to oversleep. So when the real job comes about, I think I'll start trying the old "put the alarm clock across the room so you have to out of bed to turn it off" trick. I'm afraid that's the only thing that will work for this guy.

Part of the reason I overslept is because I just can't make myself go to bed at night! It could have something to do with drinking coffee all day right up until 10 p.m. I just can't get to bed before midnight. Last night I laid in bed thinking of all sorts of stuff. Mostly of what I want to write about when NaNoWriMo comes around and I've ditched the old story line and I've finally come up with one that I really like and can't wait to write! Unfortunately it kept me up til 2 in the morning, but I have high hopes for it. It will be a modern fantasy...an urban fantasy I guess you could say and will involve faerie folk, a young boy, pods and will no doubt be depressing at times as my writing is....but my writing also tends to have an uplifting tone when everything works out, so hopefully it won't end in leaving everyone depressed. We'll see where it takes me.

Random Sleep Patterns

I got home around 4 yesterday and around 6:30 decided to lay down for a little while for a "nap". Yeah, definitely didn't wake up again until 11:30 at night and boy was I wide awake. So I stayed up until 5:00 in the morning and then slept until 11:00 this morning. Strange...

Needless to say, I did not allow myself to take a nap today and didn't really need one. Today was good though. I met my mom and Pier 1 and finally found bookshelves! They were 50% off and they're so nice. We bought 3, but they only had 1 in stock...so that one is nice and assembled and my books finally have a place to call home. The other 2 come in on Monday. They're made of pine, are nice and solid, and have a really pretty light "midnight" varnish. Love them.

Just got off of work. Long night at work....worked an extra hour because of things that went a wry that you really don't want me to get into. So I stopped off at the coffee shop after work to get some fuel and now I'm here sharing my new beautiful book shelves with all the world via the internet.

Everyone else's weekend going ok?

Looking Forward to Saturday Night

One would think that with a title like that, I have big plans for tomorrow night. But it is in fact the complete lack of plans that makes me happy.

We're in the process of moving right now. We're finally getting out of this duplex and moving on up to a full 3 bedroom house. Slowly moving towards our pre-Katrina state. The house that we're moving into is a palace compared to this place. I'm very happy about it even though my room has horrible wallpaper from the seventies with blue sailboats all over it. It's worse than what you're imagining, trust me. I'll post pics tomorrow. I like this house and it's right across the street from my Dad and Grandma. Could be a good thing I guess, but could be a bad thing....the latter is more likely.

The thing that I like about this house is that it's somewhat affordable for the salary I'm looking at when I graduate. So when my mom either rebuilds or buys another house, I can stay in this one. It would be perfect for me. Nice size master bedroom, and two small rooms which could be used as a guest bedroom and an office/library.

I can't wait to get all of my books back! They're all over the place since Katrina, and luckily Katrina didn't claim any of my books (took most of them with me). It will be so nice to fill a couple of bookshelves and then just sit back and admire my friends.

So that's why I'm excited about doing nothing tomorrow night. It's been a long week...feel like I got back from Florida a month ago, and it's only been four days. Stressful week at the hospital. Been moving all day today and tomorrow morning. Work tomorrow afternoon. And then I can sit back and enjoy my weekend, or what's left of it, in the privacy of my own room. What a nice feeling. It's funny what we take for granted until it's taken away. I guess Katrina did have it's good points if you can call it that. The name Katrina actually means a cleansing or to start anew. I found that to be very appropriate in a strange way. Funny how life works sometimes.