How school is

I get a lot of people asking me "How's school going?" I often just say "good" because there's so much going on in school I don't know where to begin. It's an intense, grueling, exciting, awesome, hard, incredible learning experience every day. Some days I love it and want more, some days I hide in a bathroom stall and cry. I'm learning so much about myself; how to be a better friend, and how to better serve, love, and help those around me. I'm also learning a lot about the world. My community organization class has required that we as a class complete a community service project that includes research and writing a 100 + page manual, web, media, publicity, and fundraising for a project we call YCARE (Youth Conquering Alcohol Relapse Every day). I was the leader of the research and writing team for that project and it took quite a bit of my time. For my Psych theories class I am learning that the most helpful elements in therapy are love and empathy and client motivation in any therapeutic approach. In my stats class I learned to run an Ordinary Least Squares Regression analysis on data and write a methods and results section of my research project. I should have that done by the end of the semester (equivalent of a Masters Thesis.) In my Client Supervision class I have learned that it is important to be myself and not worry so much about whether I'm messing my client up or not, that even just listening can be therapeutic. In my group work class I'm learning how different group therapy is to individual therapy and that it is not a second rate counseling method, but very effective. In my marriage counseling class I'm learning how to be a pro-marriage professional in a confused world. In my workshop class I'm learning a lot about the program and its evolution. And somedays I just get humbled and sent on my way. I love it all and it is turning into one of the greatest experiences of my life.
One other very valuable thing I have learned is that I couldn't do it without Karli and Jared. Karli follows all my directions and the home is well kept and the kids are well taken care of. She is one of the family now, Weston informed me we have six people in our family (and I thought he meant including Lillian) so when he named Jared, Heather, Savanna, Fiora, Weston, and Karli I really felt how much he loved her. We all love her. The Lord blesses us greatly.
Jared is a great support when I get exhausted. He's so willing to grab some food on his way home, go to the store, or fix something here. He is so upbeat and really helps me keep my spirits up. And he pays for Karli which is so awesome of him alone. I am learning from school what a lucky girl I am to have Jared. All my other relationships seem to be on hold right now, but my marriage is better than ever.

So that's how schools going. Lots of work, but I'm almost to the point where its normal life for me now, and I'm not sure what I'll do with myself once I'm done! But that's a year away. In a few weeks I'll officially be a "2nd Year" MSW student. (Picture is of me and 2 of my friends in the program, Heidi and Shannon.)