Thinking, Thinking, Thinking......

I woke up this morning thinking about my birthday. I suddenly occurred to me that I am going to be 40 years old in seven weeks. I feel like I maybe I should be freaked out by this... but I'm not. Do I wish that I finished up my degree a few years ago so I would be working in a different field right now? Yes. BUT that means I probably would still be in the wrong field. Right in line with that "no coincidences" thing that I completely believe in, Lesley University showed up in my life at the exact right time.

I also woke up thinking about Grad school. Right now I've got three schools I'm applying to. The first one is Sarah Lawrence in New York. They have the only Masters in Health Advocacy in the country. I'm planning on taking a ride up there and seeing what the campus is like. They don't have graduate housing and it sounds like the area is pretty expensive to live in - but they are still on my list. The second choice is Boston University. They have a dual degree program that is a Masters in Social Work and a Masters in Public Health that looks very interesting to me. The program is three years and you get your MSW after two and then continue on and get your MPH. The third one is Lesley but that really is my "safe" school. They say you should have a "reach" school and a "safe" school. I would love to apply to the JFK school of government for their Masters in Public Policy. It's a two year intensive program that makes you live on campus. The prospect of living in Cambridge for two years is very exciting to me. The only problem with this program is that you have to take the GRE's which are the Graduate Record Exams. I don't do well at standardized testing so am not sure how I would do with this. I'm going to take the practice test online and see how I do. If I do OK I may sit for it and give the JRK school a try.

I never in a million years thought I would be in this position where I would be worried about getting "accepted". It's a bit nerve wracking.

Anyone out there with any advice? Who am I kidding I'm just looking for someone to tell me what to do!

The Week In Review

Wow - it's been a long and strangely eventful week. I'm sure you are all just waiting to hear about it.....

* Second full week with my new boss. You can see him starting to spread his wings I think he's going to work out great. We need someone in his position with a bit of a firm hand and he's seems to be exhibiting just that. I spoke to him about staying on four days but switching my day off from Friday to Thursday and he was all for that. So I don't have to give up the four day workweek! yayyyyy

* I had my meeting at Lesley University with the Board of Trustees and it went great. I got to meet the new president who is all over the adult learning division. It really gave us an opportunity to educate people about the our program and having the president there was such a huge bonus. He is going to be great for our program.

* Josh Beckett pitched his cute little butt off on Wednesday night to take the first game of the Red Sox / Dodgers series. They play again tonight at 8:30pm with Dice-K on the mound........I'm worried about that. I'd like to see us sweep the series but I'm not sure if that will happen.

* The Yankees got CRUSHED last night 11-3. As a Boston fan you always love to see that. Although I'm not sure if I want the Yankees to lose the series entirely. If they win the series I want them to go in 5 so they are tired.

* I had an extremely productive art class last night and did a couple of pieces that I'm really proud of. I took pictures of most of the class's work and I'll post it when I get home later on.

Ok maybe the week wasn't so busy......then why the hell am I so tired.

Off To Lunch

It's been a busy morning but I'm happy to say that my Thesis Proposal is DONE! I have a Thesis meeting at 1:30 and I'm sure they will send it back to me with tons of edits but thats ok because I think the changes will be minimal. My friend Alex told me he thought it was great which meant a lot to me because his work is always stellar.

So now we are off to lunch and after our thesis workshop we have a planning group. This when you sit with a professor of your choice and you talk about what you are going to work on for the semester. It's a place to flush out your ideas and to get to know the professors and see who you want to work with. It's kind of a waste of my time because I already know what I'm doing and who I want to work with but oh well - you gotta do what you gotta do right? Tomorrow we start working with our assigned professors and thats where the fun begins.

Tootles!

School Daze

I can't believe it's been a week since I updated. This week has been unbelievably busy. First of all my cousin is putting in wood floors - he actually pretty much finished up today. They look fantastic. I find myself paying closer attention when I'm walking and apologizing under my breath "sorry lady downstairs" when I drop something. We don't want to piss her off too badly - I hear she's a little nuts.

So anyway - this is my week to be at school. I have actually arrived a night earlier because I was elected a "voice" this semester which basically means that I have to greet all of the new students and help them through orientation. There were five of us elected but three of them are not returning to school - so now it's just me and Heather. So we are both here a night early to plan some things and because we didn't want to be up tomorrow at 5am to be here by 8.

I'm excited about this week but also a little nervous. We are at a new facility and we have to share rooms (gasp!). I really don't care about that but some people are really up in arms. The bottom line is - we got spoiled at our last place. The food was gourmet and we all had rooms to ourselves. This new place is a little more "retreaty" like. I really don't care as long as it's clean, I have a place to sleep, my roommate (or mates) aren't crazy and I can get my work done. Those all seem like they should be a given - we'll just have to wait and see.

So my plan is to update daily while I'm here to keep you all informed about school, my progress on my thesis and whether or not my roommate (or mates) are crazy.

Have a good night!

2 weeks off!

So I've mentioned that I'm in school full time right? Yeah, I thought so. Yesterday at 5:39 pm I passed in my final project (a power point presentation on Theories of Personality), the bibliography, my final bib for the semester and my first stab at my final transcript. And the best part is that none of that was due until TODAY. I was a whole 24+ hours a head of myself.

This means two things - I am now officially a thesis student which in my program is a student in their last semester (more on that in later posts) and more importantly it means that I have TWO WEEKS OFF. Two weeks where I can actually meet friends after work for drinks and food, two weeks where I can not read something school related on my lunch hour, two weeks where I am not scouring the Lesley Library website for journal articles and two weeks where I can come home from work and just lay on the couch and watch tv.

I'm so happy to be done with this semester it was a boring one - with the exception of my first study which was on Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. I'm fascinated by this whole period and by Mao himself. Let me be clear - Mao was a terrible, awful man who may actually be the biggest mass murdered in history (even bigger than Hitler) yet the country still loves him or at least they pretend to. I am just fascinated by the personality of a person who can convince a country of billions to do the things that Mao did. It was a fun but sad paper to write and I got an A which always makes even better. If you are at all interested in this period of time rent the movie "To Live". I know Netflix has it because that's where I got it. It's a bleak portrayal of the cultural revolution and a great movie.

My other two studies were boooorrriiiinnngg. Research Methods for Social Sciences - important for my career and I need to have it on my transcript for grad school but eeeesssshhhh did you ever try to read about research? Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds. In the end it worked out fine and I got an A- which is far above what I thought I would get. The one I passed in yesterday was Theories of Personality - I'm more interested in learining about people's personality and why they act they way they do but this was a totally basic study on some prominent theorist's and theories of personality. Not terribly exciting. I think the work is ok but I would imagine it's only B work. We'll see. As long as my GPA stays above 3.5 for grad school I'm happy.

So anyway, it's Saturday of Labor Day weekend and I'm heading down to a friends house in Jamestown RI. These people like to party and I can finally let go and have a little fun without that voice in my head saying - "shouldn't you be reading?" Some other friends are coming down to and as my friend said "could be ugly". I'm good with that,I have my vodka and I'm ready for an ugly weekend.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Thoughts on school and blogging

As I mentioned in that oh so swanky "about me" box I'm a full time college student. I am getting my Bachelors in Psychology from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. They offer this tremendous program called the Learning Community Bachelors Low Residency Program. Basically twice a year you hole up for a week at a hotel with 20-30 other adult learners. During this week you meet faculty, plan studies (not packets people, studies)and learn more about yourself and your learning style that you probably ever wanted to know. People take anywhere between 6-18 credits that are due during the six months in between residencies. I just passed in a paper that was due yesterday, it was a three credit elective course and I did it on Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution in China. You see that's the best thing, you get to pick what you want to learn! It's a hard program, you have to be self disciplined and humble enough to reach out to friends, other students and faculty when you are in trouble. I probably have it the easiest. I'm single, live alone and have no kids. There are plenty of people who have husbands, kids, pets...you name it. My biggest time issue is my job..but thats for another time. Anyway, I've met some incredible people and made some fabulous friends that I know I will keep for the rest of my life. That in itself is a strange thing. Making new friends at 39. These friends have added a whole new dimension to my life and I am forever grateful for that.

This whole blogging thing is just a bit bizarre. You can follow the lives of people that you don't even know. Check out this blog that I found completely by accident. I am able to follow this man's life as he re-enlists in the Marines just so he can go back to Iraq. Through his site I can follow his sister's journey while adopting a child. It's all so surreal...but I have to admit I like it.