It's strange...in the four years that I have spent here in Provo we have never had a winter this dry. Seriously, we have had absolutely NO snow. It snowed maybe like a quarter of an inch the Wednesday before Christmas but that for the most part has been it this year. Usually by this point, We got a little bit of snow today, but it wasn't much and if we keep having such unseasonably warm weather it's likely that it will be completely melted by Wednesday. All of this meteorological funkiness has been having some adverse consequences for me I think. I think because it has been so warm, it's been feeling more like the end of the semester rather than the beginning of it. That being said, this semester I have been experience some major apathy towards my classes. For example in my class on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders: 4th Edition (DSM-IV TR) I am already nearly 160pgs behind in my reading.  Problem? I think so. It really is time for me to whip my butt into shape and start buckling down to my school work, I mean after all that is what I am here for. 

In other news, this year in Relief Society we're learning about the teachings of President George Albert Smith. One of the things that we have talked a lot about since the start of the year has been Personal Creeds. Basically President Smith developed his "personal creeds" which were basically his maxims for life, the standards he lived by, etc. Since we've been talking about them so extensively I decided that it wouldn't hurt me to develop a few personal creeds of my own. I now I have a list of 19 of my own personal creeds hanging on the bulletin board over my bed. Don't worry though. I'm still pretty much wretched at keeping all of them. Something that I am working on extensively, especially the eating healthy idea. Hopefully though I'll get them sorted eventually.

So basically, that's life here in Provizzle. One extremely exhausted, lazy, and apathetic 23 year old Social Work student who is trying desperately to find a way to focus on the tasks at hand and at the same time become the best person she can, all while trying handle a full time job and 15 credits of grad school.

Oh, almost forgot! Internship placements were yesterday, I will be interning this spring at summer at the LDS Family Services offices in SLC Sugarhouse and next fall and winter I will be an intern at the VA Hospital in SLC. These are both exactly what I wanted so I couldn't be happier as far as that is concerned. : D

According to Dictionary.com the word exhaustion is defined as: "to drain of strength or energy, wear out, or fatigue greatly, as a person:  I have exhausted myself working."

I would have to say without a shadow of a doubt that there if I had to pick one word that best describes my life at this point in time, it would be that one. Lately I've been feeling as though I'm living in a perpetual state of exhaustion! Between work and school and trying to squeeze in some semblance of a social life I've only  been able to acquire 7 hours of sleep in the last 48. This, however is significantly better than finals week when I was trying to finish up writing papers and taking exams. That week I possibly got about 5 hours of sleep out of 168 in that entire time. So as you can see, I have cause to be somewhat tired. :)

I feel like this is actually a pretty accurate descriptor of my life...
 

Last semester one of the required classes that I took was a class on Social Welfare Policy. My professor's name was Dr. Seipel, he was obviously very liberal in a lot of his beliefs and there was many a day that I spent in his class where I found myself silently disagreeing with his expressed opinion in  the back of the classroom. However, there was this one day in that class where he decided to talk to the class about ways that citizen's could get involved in the decision making process. His example included, social protest, symbolic acts, petitions, letter writing, etc. Despite my various disagreements with Dr. Seipel's opinions I actually found this section of the class rather interesting.

Also, last semester I took a class on Models of Psychotherapy, basically a class discussing all the different type of therapeutic interventions we might be able to some day employ as Social Workers. During that class my professor, Dr. Cox, had a guest speaker, Dr. Michael Cheney, come address the class on the subject of Persogenics. Persogenics, is in many ways like the Color test, or the Meyer's-Brigs. It's a type of personality classification, but unlike the others Persogenics specifically addresses how you communicate with others. How you see yourself, how others see you, and how you are seen at work. The four communication styles are amiable (those who are always trying to help and don't really like to say "no"), analytical (those who are more focused on a step by step process, lists, etc.), dominants (who are very to the point, direct, and live very much in the present), and expressives (who are pretty much that chatty kathy that was constantly talking that you either were yourself, you loved, or you hated). Each of us was asked to take persogenics before Dr. Cheney visited the class to find out which communication/personality styles we scored highest on for example, when I took it I scored as most characteristic of an amiable/analytical. Dr. Cheney visited our class and talked about how the basis of Persogenics is to help people to learn to communicate better based on their dominant communication style. He applied it to social work because he said that it has proven to be extremely valuable in helping social workers to build strong, trusting therapeutic relationships with their clients. He also told us that next semester (this current one) be would be offering an entire class on Persogenics run through the School of Technology that we were welcome to sign up for and use as one of our electives in the program. I was definitely interested so I registered for the course.

The first day of class was last Thursday and I immediately knew that I made the right choice in which elective to take. Just from that first class I felt as if I learned so much from Dr. Cheney. Of course it also helped that he mentioned our tests for the class would be based on class participation, that pretty much the only thing we would be doing as far as assignments went was writing a 20-25 pg paper based on the interactions between a couple we interviewed, and that our final was going to consist of Dr. Cheney taking us all out to dinner. Not bad if I do say so myself. Especially since it was a class I enjoyed and felt like I was going to learn a lot from. The only problem was that only 6 of us signed up for the class and BYU has a strict 15 student minimum requirement in order to carry a class. We asked Dr. Cheney about it last week and he infomed us that we shouldn't worry about the possibility of the class being dropped because he had a good amount of support from the School of Technology who pretty much believed it was an important and useful class for anyone to take. Well, one of the girls registered for the class flaked and dropped it and that sent things into a tailspin. Today, as my peers and I sat in class eagerly awaiting it's commencement Dr. Cheney walked in and told us that it looked in fact like they were going to drop the course due to lack of enrollment. I'm just outraged! Anyway, I feel like at this point in my life I did Dr. Seipel proud. I went home after class today and wrote an email to the Director of the School of Technology as well as the Dean to the College of Engineering and Technology about how important this class was to us and how helpful it would be to our careers, etc. I gave them the whole sob story. Then I emailed all my classmates (all 4 of them) and asked them to do the same. Three of them agreed. I won't give up on this. I'm not losing this class without a fight! In the meantime, I've added another class, Marriage and Family Practice, which will still be interesting and I was planning on auditing anyway, but I really hope that somehow Persogenics can be saved. Regardless, I got involved in the decision making process, I made my voice heard, and now all that's left to do is sit and wait for the outcome, which I'm not expecting there to be much of one. But, I think somewhere out there Dr. Seipel is shedding a single tear if only for the fact that he actually influenced one of his students from last semester, especially me, which I'm sure he never thought would happen.

Today was a riveting full day of class for the first years of the MSW program!

Each of my classes is 2.5 hrs, but that's okay because I find them infinitely more interesting than the classes that I had to sit through last semester. One of my classes is on psychopathology. So basically the weird disorders and crap that people exhibit. Pretty fascinating stuff. Last semester when I was taking Social Work Direct Practice I would think to myself "Is class over yet?" then I would look up at the clock and it would only be like 9:45am and the class didn't end until 11:30. This semester though with psychopathology that thought didn't even cross my mind and when I did look up at the clock it was like 11:15. I'm a pretty happy camper with the way my classes are shaping up this semester.

Today, in my Stats class we were talking about Type I and Type II errors. A Type I error occurs when researchers reject the null hypothesis and claim that a variable has an effect when in fact it does not. A Type II error occurs when researchers accept the null hypothesis and claim that a variable does not have an effect when in fact it does. We were learning about how Type I is the more dangerous of the two errors to make because you could actually inflict harm on people where as making a Type II error you are just erring on the side of caution. For example, in the case of electroshock therapy, making a Type I error you would say that electroshock had an effect when in fact it didn't and you would end up unnecessarily electrocuting thousands of people, whereas with a Type II error you would say that electroshock didn't have an effect when it did so people wouldn't be getting a potentially effective treatment, but at the same time no one would really know any different. Anyway, the example my teacher was trying to use in class was in terms of sexual contact and viral infection (aids). Right as the words sexual contact came out of my professor's mouth this couple who didn't belong in the class came stumbling into the room. They quickly realized they were in the wrong place and left, and right after they did my professor broke down laughing so hard he was crying and exclaiming "Oh my gosh that was so awkward!" then he started joking and was like "That girl's probably like 'I'm from the honor code office and this is a surprise inspection!' and I can say 'Hey, I may have been talking about sexual contact but at least I remembered to shave this morning!'" Bahaha Ok, so maybe it was one of those had to be there moments but if you were it was super funny.

After school I went to the gym with my roommate Liz, it was good to get some exercise in and also get to spend some time with her and get to know her better. Following that my roommates and I all went grocery shopping which I definitely needed seeing as how I hadn't been shopping for groceries since before I went to Desi's and Mike's. : / My old roommate Jenny also came by for a visit tonight. All in all, I would say today was a pretty 'aight day. The picture above is Jenny and I just goofing off on my bed. She's kind of a crackhead sometimes :) and gets a little camera happy. haha Good memories.

Okay, I figure I owe it to myself to keep a better record of my day to day comings and goings this year. Hopefully, that will lead to this thing being updated a whole heck of a lot more.

I made it through last semester (my first in the MSW program at BYU) relatively unscathed. As part of the program we are not allowed to get more than two Cs. If you hit three you're automatically terminated from the program. I made it through with I think three B-'s, one B, and one B+, so no C's which is more than can be said for some of the people in my program, but I still didn't do as well as I would have liked. But then, I have to figure in too, that none of the other students were working a full time job in addition to taking 16 credit hours in grad school. So, the fact that I made it out of this last semester (which was pretty much the most stressful one of my life) without any C's was cause for celebration! I'm really excited about this semester, it's shaping up to be a little easier and more fun because we get to take electives now, having some say over what we're learning about whereas last semester there wasn't. I'm taking this one class on personality development and the final includes the instructor taking the entire class out for Chinese. I can...handle that. I'm a little concerned though, I contracted bronchitis over the Christmas Break and because of that I missed my first three classes of the semester. I made sure to email my professor's about it before hand though so I'm hoping the reprecussions won't be too severe,

This morning I woke myself up at 5:30 am and got ready for work. I was on the Children's Unit today. It was a long and stressful day for reasons that I can't really go into detail on. Let's just say that it ended with me getting kicked in the face...literally.

After work I headed out to run some errands. I had some checks that my roommates gave me for utilities a few months back that I never deposited so I did that, dropped some stuff off at DI, and a few other little things.

Early yesterday afternoon I got a text message from my old friend Cody Winters. He and I are both Glenwood alum and I guess you could say that we ran in sort of the same circles (he dated my old roommate and he at one time was Dave's roommate, in fact Cody still fondly regards Dave as the favorite roommate he's ever had.) Anyway, Cody was wanting to know how I was doing, what was going on in my life, etc. We chatted for a bit (or should I say texted) and it ended with him suggesting that we should hang out sometime soon. I of course, didn't see that message until this afternoon at which point I texted him and agreed. He then promptly responded and asked if he could drop by this afternoon. I said yes and we spent the afternoon talking about evolution and how and if it can fit into the framework of the gospel. We also spent some time discussing how you know if someone is the right person for you to be with for eternity and how sometimes you just have to decide that that person is the one that you're going to love for eternity. That you're going to devote yourself to them mind, body, and soul and never look back. It was a very interesting conversation. As he was leaving today though Cody looked at me and said "next time we should try not to talk about such heavy topics, it'll be more fun." haha

After Cody left my roommates and I hit the gym for a little bit. Can I just digress here for a little bit and mention how annoyed I get when the gym is overcrowded. Drives me insane. But at the same time it was good, I got some much needed exercise, because sad to say, I let myself go this last semester and I put on something like 5-10 lbs.

Back in August I got a text message from my friend whom I affectionately refer to as Craiggles asking me if I would be willing to help out with a surprise birthday party he was planning to throw for our friend Rulon Bailey. I agreed but it really couldn't have come at a worse time because it ended up with Craiggles dropping off 20+ bottles of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider, various boxes of crackers, and a giant ice cooler the size of my head at my old apartment at Glenwood three days before I was set to move into my new apartment at Chathamtowne. I eventually got it all sorted though and made the move to my new apartment along with all of the stuff for Rulon's party, which was held the day after I moved in. However, the only hitch was that the night of the party I somehow forgot to return the cooler to Craiggles. I have kept forgetting to do it ever since, even though I've seen them both a few times since then. Today though, in an effort to finally officially move into my apartment and declutter my half of my bedroom, I made a plate of cookies, stuck it inside Craiggles' cooler and knock-knock ditched it at his front door. I can thus officially say that I am completely moved into my new apartment. Good thing that it only took me a little over four months. :)

Okay...so I realize that my "30 Days of Blogging" that I instituted in an effort to get me to post more regulary was an Epic Fail!!!! But what can you do? Life and time just got away from me and while I could just continue on with the blogging schedule assigned in the 30 days and pretend like it hasn't been an obscene amount of time since my last post, we're just going to be realistic here and continue on with a normal boring old post. Perhaps someday I will finish up with the 30 days of blogging schedule and you will get the scoop on all those little tidbits of information about myself that I know you're so excited to hear about that you can't even contain yourself, but that day I'm sorry to inform you is not today.

Instead, you shall be getting this update! I totally, absotively, posolutely, 100% completely.....LOVE my life! :D You see...I think it started with George. For those of you who don't know, my last semester in my undergrad (wow, that's weird to say!) I took this class on Adult Development and Aging. One of the requirements for the class was what my professor termed a "service learning experience" where basically he wanted us to volunteer at an assisted living facility or nursing home, y'know spend time with the patient/residents, and then write a paper applying some of the concepts that we talked about in class to  what we actually saw in the facility that we volunteered at. I picked Courtyard at Jamestown which is an assisted living community in north Provo, I had two prior roommates who worked there and they always talked about how awesome it was so I thought it would be as good as any to volunteer at. During my time volunteering there I met some wonderful people including George. He is an 80 something year old man who lives alone with his little dog Charlie at Courtyard and would visit with me about some of his life experiences. Well, I finished up the my last semester at BYU and the class ended and I stopped volunteering at Courtyard, I intended to keep volunteering but at the start of the winter semester my life just got crazy busy with my job at the hospital and a couple of other projects I was trying to tackle. Fast forward two or three months, in March Grandpa got put into the hospital for some bladder problems he was having. Thankfully I lived close enough that I was able to go visit him while he was sick, but it got me thinking, if I hadn't lived close enough to go visit grandpa when he was sick or lonely and he didn't have any other family around, I would hope and want for someone to visit him. That being said I resumed my volunteering at Courtyard and George once again came into contact with my life. I started visiting him weekly again and we became pretty good chums. Well, Easter Sunday rolled around and I was feeling pretty down in the dumps because of some stuff that I was trying to work through/make sense of but that day when I went to go visit George we ended up talking about the Savior and he ended up sharing with me an experience that he had when he was serving a mission with his wife in which he had a dream where he saw the Savior and got to sit and walk and talk with him. It was really special and when I got up to leave that day George gave me a big hug and told me how much he appreciated and loved me (he does that every time I visit him now...which is just so adorable that I can't even stand it!) It was so amazing! Anyway, George has changed my life, he really has helped me to realize a lot about my relationship with the Lord. It just makes my day when I get to go see him. I think the love that I have for George is the most Christ-like love I have ever experienced and it has bled into all other aspects of my life. As you all know I'm pretty good at making snap-judgments but lately I've been trying really hard not to do that and just assume I know people's motives. I've been praying that I will be able to love other the way that the Lord does and that I will see in them the wonderful qualities that the Lord does. I've really just been trying to help others and be as supportive as I can of the decisions that they make despite my opinion on the matter. Anyway, life since then has just been getting progressively happier and happier. The funny thing is that I didn't even notice it really, I mean I still have my ups and downs but then there was this one day two or three weeks ago where my perspective completely shifted.
It was about a month ago on a Sunday and I was visiting George as per usual when he mentioned that he had a doctor's appointment that week that he didn't have a way to get to. I quickly offered to give him a ride. It was that Thursday and I was pretty tired that day because I'd worked a double shift at work the day before (16 hrs straight!) : O I got up and went running and then I went and got dressed and had lunch with Jim and then I went and took George to the doctor. While George was in with the doctor I took the liberty to call Nena and just chat with her on how life was. Then when George was done I dropped him off and promised I'd be back on Sunday for a visit. Immediately after that I went and saw Ariel and we went "running" which when her and I get together it's really a lot more like power walking. haha Following that I went and met Jonathan for Ice Cream at Baskin Robbin's (Which, by the way, is my new obsession! For anyone who hasn't, you definitely need to try the rock and pop swirl and the gold rush flavors!). On my way back from Jonathan's I stopped off at the store where I just so happened to run into Drew who was cooking for our dinner group that night. I helped him collect the ingredients for pigs in a blanket and then we went back to his apartment and I assisted him in making dinner. Following dinner my friends and I moved an extra table into Lacey's apartment and we proceeded to have a saloon themed poker night. Everyone dressed up in their best plaid/western attire and we got some Henry Weinhard's Root Beer (Yum!) and other snacks and proceeded to play Texas Hold 'Em from 8:30 -11:30pm when one person was finally the last man standing. It was so much fun! Anyway, it occurred to me on that extremely hectic day as I knelt down to say my prayers before bed that night that my life may not be what I imagined it would be at this point and it may not be exactly what I want it to be in all aspects, but it is still really fulfilling! More so than I would have ever believed it could be at the outset of this summer! I really do have so much to be thankful for! :) I have a great family who loves and cares about me, who have taught me the truths of the gospel, who have taught me how to care for others, who tease me and allow me to tease them back. I have amazing friends who have stuck by through thick and thin these past two or three years, who put up with my temper and other foibles,  who make me laugh and bring a smile to my face and hopefully allow me to do the same to theirs, and who have given me the awesome opportunity to be a part of their lives. I have been blessed to attend a fine university where I received my Bachelor's degree and where I will be continuing on for my Master's. I have an awesome job that I love so much; I get to go help people every day, make a difference in life, and occasionally get paid to do thing like play with Legos, color, play poker, and take visit's to the botanical gardens up in Salt Lake! I get and incredible amount of job satisfaction from my work. Seriously, back in April I was on the elliptical at the gym one day when Beat It by Michael Jackson came on and it made me think of this one day when I still in New Employee Orientation (NEO) when the unit I was observing on started playing that for the patients and the patients just got up and started dancing, I couldn't help but think at that moment that I hope when my friends who are still working on their degrees get out into the workforce that they are blessed to find jobs that they love as much as I love mine.
But as awesome as all of that stuff is and as blessed as I am...the biggest blessing that I have in my life this Gospel. It's the knowledge that if gives me that my Heavenly Father knows who I and loves me, that I am his daughter and that some day, because the Savior was willing to pay the price for my mistakes, I can be forgiven and live with my Heavenly Father again in the Celestial kingdom. I think those truths more than anything can account for my extreme happiness over these last few months. I know that they can bring happiness to anyone if you'll just let the Holy Ghost into your heart and let it sink.
Anyway, now that I feel that my ramble is sufficiently long I will depart and simply say love to you all! :D Until I get enough time to write again, which sad to say may be awhile.

Day 14- A Picture of Myself and My Family

And there you have it...
This is the most recent family photo, however it is missing two editions...soon to be four haha.
In other news....life in Provo remains pretty much the same! haha
Last night for whatever reason I couldn't sleep. Normally this would have been a mere inconvenience that I would have compensated for by sleeping into the late morning. However, this morning I had to be to work at 7am which means that I had to be out of bed by 6am. So I woke up and went to work, worked from 7am-3pm went home and went to the gym, came back played some James Bond on the Wii, went outside and played some Volleyball with some friends for a good 1.5-2hrs, showered, went to FHE, and then went to the magical land of WinCo with Tyrell, Jim, and Drew to do some much needed grocery shopping. T, Drew, and myself all had pretty lengthy grocery lists so it took us some time. We finished up and headed back to the Hood around 9:45 so that I could take Ryan to work and so that I could make it back for my graveyard shift tonight (which is where I am now.) I don't get off work until 7am and I'm taking my friend Ashley to the airport at 9:30am and then I have a build with Habitat for Humanity from 1-5pm. Adding all this up means that Felicia is going to be one very tired kid tomorrow. haha