Late Winter Update

I managed to survive my first winter in Chicago in 5 years. I was gone for a month, but that's nothing when winter lasts six months, right? It's been quite a season.

I spent an entire month away, including a week in Texas and 3 weeks in California for my research study. In Texas, it was all about rest, friends and sunshine. I flew to Dallas/Fort Worth to see my BFF, and we just hung out and did a little bit of jogging/walking outside. Then we drove to San Antonio together, where her parents live, and we spent most of the week there. We did some jogging/walking for exercise (it was in the 70's and very nice!), sightseeing at one of the missions, and holiday stuff. I spent Christmas with them, which was very nice. I cooked good food, rested, talked a LOT with her and her parents, and finished preparing my doctoral applications.

Then it was off to California.

California was a 3-week whirlwind. I hit the ground running. I set up my trailer in a RV park across the street from Disneyland and prepared like crazy for running my study. After having more (yes, MORE) RV problems, I was exhausted--I already knew my refrigerator wasn't working, but to top it off it started to REEK of ammonia, so much that I froze my ass off one night to sleep with the windows open because it was so strong (beauty shop perm x 10). I had to have someone come in and remove the damn thing, fix a minor propane issue, and then I bought a small electric fridge. Problem solved? Um, no. The side vent for the fridge started leaking during several downpours of rain, so more sleepless nights ensued as I tried to patch up the leaky went edges. Urgh. I had so little time to deal with it, I wonder now how the thing is doing all by itself out there.

And I was worried about rodents and spiders! Ha!

My research study went extraordinarily well. The goal of the study is to recruit 80-100 subjects, and my mentor thought that getting 20 or 25 would be impressive. Well, I ended up with 56 this round! Scheduling was insane, with many cancellations and reschedules (damn college students!), the actual sessions were back-to-back and brutal (with near-constant speaking and data collecting for 6 hours, including up to 4 lectures or guided relaxations per day), but I'm so glad I had some trusty undergrad assistants to help me! And I have more than two whole boxes full of data. And a whole refrigerator full of spit. But that's another topic.

I even managed to get down to San Diego for a jog on the beach one day. I really miss San Diego.

My last day there was in mid-January and involved cleaning the RV sewer and packing it all up (a HUGE job!) on an 80-degree sunny day...and then flying back to the dead of winter. All in all, I flew on 5 flights for the whole trip. Lots of flying! Lots of panic attacks! But I made it.

When I got back, and ever since, I hit the ground running in Chicago with massage work on the weekends and an internship at a halfway house for addictions counseling. I'm also taking three addictions counseling classes at COD, one women's studies class (my last one for my graduate certificate!), am working on finishing my thesis, and had a poster presentation for the American Psychosomatic Society for my thesis research in March. I'm also teaching Hypnobirthing. It's been overwhelmingly busy.

I think being busy was a good thing this winter. However, it's been a mixed blessing because I am not taking care of myself lately. I'm doing too much massage and I am needing more time to recover from my internship, since it is so draining. Overall, I am glad I planned all of this for the spring, in order to keep busy and try to deter the seasonal depression--however, I am not really into what I'm doing. I feel a little lost again. I don't like working with addicts and my body is very, very tired from all of the massage. But it will be over soon.

I'll be going back to California in May to finish data collection for my study, and in July I'll start a year-long internship at a rape crisis center--a population I'm really looking forward to working with! I'm hoping to integrate it into working with pregnant women who've survived trauma. I hope to enjoy my summer as well.

I applied to two doctoral programs for the fall (one PhD, one PsyD at my current school) and I was waitlisted for both. So that means I'll know in late April (I think) if I get an offer. I'm ambivalent about getting accepted. If I don't get accepted, it means I'll apply next year--to UC Irvine and other warm-climate locations. And that sounds really appealing right now!

And my BFF is moving to Detroit! She'll be very close! And, more importantly, I'll have someone close to me (who also hates cold weather) to tolerate the winter with.