Not much new to write about. Still busy, but at least i was able to finish my first tape of my counseling session with my partner. I was so nervous, and you can tell if you listen to the tape!! I said the word "um" so many times, it sounded so dumb. I found out, though, that most of my classmates had the same problem, so i don't feel as bad. The main idea of this first session was to gather information from my client about what her problem was and what has been going on in her life to get her to come to counseling. The goal is to get the client to do most of the talking, with the counselor only asking open questions, then reflecting back to the client what she heard the client say. So, we each had to role-play the part of the "client" for our partner to "treat". Then we had to transcibe the 30 minute session, but we only needed to type just what we, as the counselors said (the questions we asked or the responses we made), not what the client said. If we did it correctly, we wouldn't have too much to type, because the client should be talking at least twice as much as the counselor. My partner told me she had 81 statements that she had said to me (when i was her client). I had 172 statements that I said to her( my client)during our session!! That's way too much. So, i guess that is proof that i talk way too much :0) In my defense, my partner is shy and i had to pull some information out of her, but i could have done better. Either way, it was an eye-opening exercise from which i learned a lot.
My other class, Ethics, is going ok. Most of it is book work, and i got 106 on my first test. Yay me! The only big project we have in that class is to interview two professionals who work in the human services field. I'm gonna have to set those up soon. I think i will ask the kid's old school counselor if i can interview her, and then maybe one of the pastor's of my church. It should be interesting.
The other thing that has been keeping me busy (other than homeschooling, dinner, laundry, cleaning, shopping, church, Bible study, homework, budgeting, and other "mom" stuff) is my involvement with the two honor societies i am a member of. For Phi Theta Kappa, the college-wide honor society, last week Rachel and I went to Dover Downs after the Friday evening race to help clean up 10 sections of the stands. It was neat to be able to drive on the tracks, it was HARD work to clean all the beer cans, soda cans, peanuts, cigarettes, wrappers, etc. from those stands. It took about 2 hours of back-braking work, but it felt good to know that we had participated. Tomorrow i am going to the Fall induction for new members to help set up, break down and direct the new members. I found out that PTK has just as much trouble as my other honor society, TUA, getting members to get involved. So, i'm trying to do as much as possible to help. It makes me feel useful and it also helps me look good to the advisers and helps me network for possible future jobs. I try to get the kids involved when possible, so that i can spend extra time with them and also so they can do some community service projects.
My other honor society, for which i am the president, takes more work for me because i am at the head of it. It is not a position i enjoy, i only volunteered because i saw a need. However, the lack of member involvement makes it very difficult to get anything done. And there is so much to do. We are not as formal as PTK, thank God, but i think sometimes we are too informal. Right now we are trying to raise money for the club, so we are doing a flower bulb fundraiser. We also are trying to put a yard/bake sale together for the middle of October. We have not really discussed any community service and the meetings that we have had so far have not really accomplished much. I need to run the meetings better than i have in the past, but it's not as easy as i thought it would be. I feel very responsible for the well-being of this club and i feel that i could be doing a lot better than i have been. I will not be running for office come next spring!! I would rather work on the sidelines.
Erin has decided to take her SAT's so we are in study mode. I am gonna be helping her study for the next month and then she will take them in November and again in December. I don't remember if i blogged about her maybe deciding that she may want to go off to college, but if i didn't-- she's thinking about it. Which doesn't give us much time to figure out what we need to be doing in order for that to happen, but we are working on it. She has been working a lot of hours at Mcdonalds and is co-oping for school, so she is only at school for a half a day. We are sharing the car and that is working out pretty good as well.
Matt has started work-outs for the basket ball season, and even though they are very hard on him physically, he feels good when they are done. His knee seems to slowly be getting better, thank God. He is enjoying working at McDonalds on the weekends and is slowly saving up for a car. By the time he gets his license, he will be well on his way to having enough for a car. I'm very proud of him because he works all weekend, but only keeps a fraction of his paycheck for spending and puts the rest away for his car.
Steven and Rachel are going down to Florida in December to help celebrate Steve's parent's 50th wedding anniversary. It would have been nice if all the kids could be there, but the tickets are just way out of our price range, and Rachel asked first.:)
Well, that's about it for today, i need to go get ready for school.
Today, i am thankful for:
1. Weekends
2. Sleep
3. Cool weather
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