I'm still trying to take the time to breathe, letting me adjust to my knew situation and reflect on my experience of the past two years. It's a little overwhelming as friends move away (to Germany?!?) and I try to organize the enormous amount of clutter around my apartment and in my brain.

The Silver School of Social Work has been a wonderful home away from home. I will miss it greatly.

And as a last note: I heard that the class gift had something to do with putting a TV in the student lounge... if that is true, it's one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. That lounge is a zoo during the day because it allows people the opportunity to interact face-to-face, without the impediment of technology distracting us from being human.

1177.5 - The conservative estimate of how many hours I have spent at placement (not including lunch) This number is actually higher because I put in a lot of extra time at my first year placement

40 - The number of papers I've written while in the program (I have 3 left!)

5 - The number of turkeys that are currently being harassed by a woman throwing projectiles outside of my office

3.50 - The cost of a bowl of soup (with homemade challah bread) at Stage Restaurant on 2nd Ave and St. Marks

6 - The number of groups I run each week

1 - The street number of the Silver School of Social Work

986,131,621,012 - The number of dollars spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001

1000's - The number of times I've questioned whether social work is right for me

1000's - The number of times I've answered that question with a YES!

I went into the class doubting my ability to really do the work and really understand the readings. I remembered from years ago struggling over highly abstract feminist and post-modern texts and I was concerned that I once again would struggle. I also doubted my ability to write intelligent, thoughtful and meaningful papers for the course.

I think I held a core belief that because I was male, I was destined to not do well in the class. This may have impacted how I read assignments and how much I struggled with pulling my thoughts together about the readings. I found myself feeling shy and nervous in class, which is very much how I've felt in school for my whole life, but I noticed it more in this class.

I also found myself experiencing the challenge that I had looked for through all of my courses. Feminist theory is not an easy thing to study, and although different feminist practices relate to social work, they do not necessarily fit with how I had learned to understand mental health. I loved this challenge, although it also nearly drove me crazy.

With two weeks left in the course, I'm realizing that the theories are gelling in my brain and that I have acheived a little bit of a paradigm shift. I am considerably more skeptical of the mental health system and I am able to view theories of practice even more critically than before taking the course. I also feel very proud of what I have learned in the course and I think it has been a boost for my self esteem.

I think I must be in reflection mode.

(Only 3 sentences, other than this one, in this blog post start with words other than "I"... is that narcissitic or just poor writing?)

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to have a dental check-up and a cleaning, and boy did it give me something to think about. Having a cleaning done by two students, very much in a similar boat to us MSW interns, was an interesting experience. I witnessed their lack of familiarity with certain processes and their occasional disorganization. In the same way it may take a new intern thirty minutes to complete a mini-mental status exam, it took these student hygienists a little while longer to complete the cleaning.

Moreover, when students and supervisors would speak, they would act like I was not even in the room. Here's a snippet of my process recording (no, I did not actually write a process recording for a dental visit, and this is a gross exageration):

Dentist: So does the patient have blah blah blah blah blah?
Student: I'm not sure the patient said they have blah blah blah blah blah?
Dentist: Well, it's important to know if they have blah blah blah, and to check of blah blah blah. Do you think they might have a history of blah blah blah?
Student: I think maybe.
Me: No, I have never done that.
Dentist: So he may have done that, what do you think the oral surgery he had was about?
Student: I don't know.
Me: It was to cut the little thingy from my gum to my lip.
Dentist: Let's ask doctor so and so when she comes in what she thinks it might have been for.
(In walks dr. so and so)
Dr. So and So: Daniel, what was the surgery for?
Me: To cut the little thingy from my gum and my lip.
Dr. So and So: so dentist and student, I don't think we really know what the surgery was for, but it may have been for an infection. All we know is that there was a graff, but we don't know what they did before that.
Me: They cut the little thingy from my gum to my lip.
Dr. So and So: When did they do the graff?
Me: When I was 10.
Student: So they did this when you were fifteen?
Me: no.
Dentist: It's definitely an interesting case. Let's get some exrays of it and see if there's more to do.

My mouth still hurts from those exrays and all the other prodding they did. I feel like I was used as a guinea pig, for the sole sake of the education of the students. I also feel like I was quite ignored. I have a feeling that many people seeing social work students might feel the same way. I know that when I ask a consumer the same question thirty to forty times and then report to my supervisor that I have no idea what the consumer's response was, it may appear like I am quite incompetent. I realize however, that these situations are all part of the learning experience. It's important for us to flounder through these and I realize once again how thankful I am for the wonderfully patient and understanding consumers that I have worked with me.

I also must say that the student hygienists really did a fantastic job and I am really pleased with my experience. In fact, I will be returning before my stu-dent plan runs out for another cleaning and I will be much more ready to sit back and allow the supervisors and students turn the cleaning into a wonderful learning scenario.

Although I work at a hospital and can really access the consumers/survivors there at just about any time I want, I have set, scheduled, weekly appointments with them and I choose not to just show up willy-nilly. I think these scheduled appointments are important because they help structure their day, as well as structuring my day. Today, however, I don't know how to contact the specific units to tell the specific people I am supposed to see that I will not be able to make it to see them. This is especially frustrating because, having been on spring break for a week, I have not seen them in two weeks already.

Some of you might suggest that I ask my supervisor to let them know. That makes perfect sense, and I half did this, but I also have this nearly overwhelming desire to not be a burden on anyone. I felt like a pretty big burden while at my placement last semester, and I don't think I've let the feeling go, although this new placement does not perpetuate it.

The imminent termination that is just around the corner probably adds to a lot of the feelings I'm experiencing, but I do not think it is the full explanation. I wonder, and I don't think this has been covered in a practice class yet, what is the best way for me to handle an absence at this stage of the internship. Should I have contact numbers for all of the units? Should I call every single one when I can't make it in? How do I maintain a sense of continuity if I do not see a consumer for three straight weeks?

April 9th is a mere three weeks before our last day of placement. We are in the process of termination already, and those last three Fridays are crucial to having a positive ending with a client. This week I will be reminding some of my clients that I will only be seeing them for 5 more sessions. What if I were to then complicate matters and say, "actually that's going to be just four more sessions, because in two weeks I won't be here, and then we have two sessions after that". I'm concerned that it would make for a harder termination for all involved.

This brings up the even bigger and more personal problem for me: how do I balance my school work, my placement, and my ever-growing list of preparations over the next six weeks? There seem to be constant conflicts between the three and despite how well NYU has taught me time management skills, I'm still concerned that I haven't mastered the art.

(Special Note) Having just finished reading the email referenced earlier, I am a little shocked to say that Fordham set up their Social Work job fair for the same time but on Friday April 23rd. Just one week before our last day of placement and two weeks before theirs.

(Special Note 2) Some of you may think that I'm REDIRECTING some of my own anxious feelings about graduating into anger towards Columbia and Fordham and their scheduling choices. I think I may be.

1) Passive-aggression. Leaving my muffin wrapper on the floor of my class this evening. After feeling frustrated with the class topic and sitting rather bored for one hour and thirty-five minutes, I forgot to pick up my muffin wrapper from the floor. Mark that off as one triumphant, subconsciously passive jab at whoever. Whoever? Yes, whoever. It's my subconscious. If I were able to access it to see who I'm really mad at, I probably wouldn't be engaging in passive aggressive behavior to begin with.

2) Sublimation. I can't tell you what unacceptable feeling or impulse my subconscious is dealing with, but I'm pretty sure that just attending placement is an effort at sublimation.

3) Intellectualization. I'm pretty sure I used this to deal with my practice class this evening. We were talking about licensing, and I know that licensing has to do with graduation and is therefore terrifying to me. Instead of feeling terrified though, I spent the whole class thinking about the process of licensing.

4) Undoing. I realized my partner might be angry at me for bypassing her homemade soup in search of some cheese for dinner, so I went back and tried to undo that action by serving myself up a bowl of the soup. It was really fantastic soup!

5) Rationalizing-Failed attempt. I said something detrimental to the group process at placement during one of the groups I was leading. About three hours later I realized what I said and became quite disappointed in myself. I then spent the next three hours trying to convince myself that as a student I can make mistakes. I feel pretty badly about what I said and still haven't fully rationalized it.

Coming up with top 5s is pretty hard, so I think I'm going to stop for awhile, especially because I think I'm using them as a way to write about something other than termination. Two months left of school.

1) How to properly conduct group therapy. I may not be good at it, but at least I have some idea how to do it.

2) How to identify CRACK by its smell. The combination of my second year/first semester field placement and my next door neighbor have given my nose some olefactory skills that I never imagined I would have.

3) How to acquire a "one-shot deal" from public assistance. Although I never successfully helped anyone complete the process, I understand how to do it in theory.

4) How to write a clear and concise biopsychosocial assessment.

5) How to navigate NYC's subway system! It's really much easier than it looks.

At 7:35 I rush out the door, checking to see that I have my ID and my giant key that will let me on the locked units that I visit later on in the day. I spend a good 2 minutes trying to situate my ipod and rush off to the subway station where I inevitably watch the doors of the train close as I fumble around for my metro-card.

When another train comes, which is usually within five minutes, I stand by the doors so I can look out their windows either at downtown Brooklyn or Red Hook. I go three stops and run out the door to transfer to another subway line. This is where my commute gets tricky and varies from day to day. I end up taking either one subway to Bay Ridge, or transferring three more times from local to express to local lines (in order to make up for that two minutes spent with the ipod... which by this time has run out of batteries because I failed to charge it the night before). At Bay Ridge I take a bus over the bridge to Staten Island and walk .8 miles to placement.

Upon arrival at placement I head to my office (I have my very own office!). I turn on the computer and adjust the cables in the back until the screen starts to work. I have to do this five or six times throughout the day if it's a computer heavy day. I check my email, find nothing pertaining to me, and then rush off to a team meeting at 9:30 where I sit by quietly and try not to call attention to myself.

After the team meeting I find myself meeting with any number of administrators who have the urge to supervise me on something or teach me something new and valuable. I enjoy the attention, and I think they enjoy having someone to listen to them. Soon I find myself heading to a unit and commence a one-on-one session that involves some Wellness Self Management and skill building. I return to my desk to eat lunch and prepare for three more individual sessions in the afternoon.

The first afternoon session I have is quite long and focused on cognitive remediation and social skill building. The second session is focused on engagement, which will likely remain the focus for the rest of my time there, and the third session is focused on supported employment. Now if you've been counting, you'll have noticed three (four?) different evidence-based practices that I wield on Wednesdays.

Why so many evidence-based practices? Because I took a class about them last semester and it was AWESOME! I suggest you take it too. It's called: Evidence Based Practice and shockingly enough, it's not about research. It's about practice.

After the third session, I return to my office and try to figure out everything I need to do when I return on Friday, while completing any pertinent paperwork. I write my updated Friday schedule in my notebook, email whoever I need to email and realize that it's time for me to skedaddle for the day. I walk a mile to the bus, hop aboard and zoom my way back to Brooklyn. What a day.

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. More than that it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." -Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

I've been thinking about this because this semester has been rather hard for me to balance school work, placement and the little bit of life left over. When I get stressed from all of the conflicting concerns and demands that I subject myself to, I find myself losing mindfulness and losing serenity, jumping to conclusions and acting pretty rash.

The major effect of this is that the work I do with the consumers at my placement isn't as thoughtful as I would like it to be. The peace that I want the consumers to experience is put in jeopardy if my stress gets in the way. Not only are the choices I make for myself affecting how peaceful or non-peaceful I may feel, but it affects the people around me... and I never like negatively affecting the people around me (unless they're very, very mean).

Because of this quote, and the thinking I've done about it, I propose that I spend more time meditating, reading for leisure and listening to soothing music. I propose that you do too. I'm also going to propose that my professors suspend all writing assignments... and by "suspend", I mean eliminate.

Six years ago this month I started a new leg of my journey towards social work. I applied to summer jobs throughout the Northeast. One place that I applied was the wonderful Wediko Children's Services. A short-term/stop-gap, residential treatment facility for seriously emotionally disturbed children and adolescents aged 7(6?) to 18 in the woods of New Hampshire. At the time I loved working with children and I was just as interested in mental illness and emotional disturbance as I am today.

Applying to Wediko falls in the top 3 of best choices I ever made. I had a wonderful summer, made wonderful friends and learned more clinical skills than I have in any setting since. I returned for a second summer, improving my crisis intervention skills and improving my resume.

After graduating with my bachelors, I found that acquiring employment was fairly simple because of the skills I had learned at Wediko. I have also found that I am already familiar with many of the basic concepts of social work that are taught in MSW programs.

An interesting piece of information about Wediko is that they're currently hiring. They've already received a few hundred applications, I believe, but they is still more space available. If you're interested in working with SED youth, improving your clinical skills and generally having a great summer, I suggest you apply! Here's their website again: www.wediko.org and if you have any further questions about my experiences their send me an email or a blog comment.

After the student's death, NYU administration reached out to the student community with emails from President Sexton reffering students to wellness services on campus. I thought that it was a decent effort from the school to provide support for the student community as well as to prevent any "copy-cat" actions.

A week following the death of the professor, I am wondering what has kept the school from sending out another email. I have not even heard/seen the school acknowledge the incident and I wonder what the best way to deal with it is. It is a considerably different issue than the suicide of a student, considering the professor was likely a mentor to many students and a friend to fellow faculty. I'm curious as to what supports the school has in place for faculty who are affected in some way. Considering that the professor lived in faculty housing, I imagine that everyone else in his building is subject to some shock and trauma by the incident.

If more suicides occur at NYU, I wonder what efforts faculty and students will make to come together to cope, considering that both communities have lost members. I hope that efforts are made (and I'm scared that they won't be) to unite students and faculty as support for each other. It can be hard for both faculty and students to see each other as real people, with real emotions and all the qualities of being human. We are all affected by trauma, and we all need other people for support sometimes. Any thoughts?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-11

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-2

http://blog.eatwellguide.org/2010/01/haiti-the-aid-masquerade/#more-1596

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight

Mary Daly has had a tremendous influence on my life, and yet I never took a class with her or read any of her books. I remember in early October of 2002, my first semester of college, I was sitting around with a group of seniors at a small party receiving a pep-talk about the merits of attending boston college despite being an activist opposed to Catholic dogma. There was all sorts of talk about change from the inside, and how important it is to understand the theology behind the dogma in order to challenge it. This discussion morphed into a retelling of the legend that was Mary Daly.

We discussed what it means to be radical, and I decided then that it is something to strive towards, although to this day I cannot give a sensical definition of the term. That discussion kept me at bc and also set the stage for me to really appreciate the education I could receive if I went searching for the right professors. That discussion also set the stage for me to be a social worker.

I love that Mary Daly refused to teach men in her Feminisms class. I love that she has called herself a positively revolting hag. I love that she not only wrote and taught about breaking down patriarchy, but that she believed in absolutely demolishing it with action.

I believe in demolishing things too.

"There are and will be those who think I have gone overboard. Let them rest assured that this assessment is correct, probably beyond their wildest imaginations, and that I will continue to do so." - M. Daly

An excuse: The truth of the matter is, I was almost consumed by finals, wild boars, placement, holidays, Tim Burton and Charlie Chaplain. They all have come into my life over the past few weeks and taken over my time, so as to leave me without a moment to compose a brief blog entry. I've been too busy.

I recognize that this situation may not be worth an apology or an excuse, but I do feel badly about not writing in the blog for two weeks. This situation also presents me with the opportunity to write about something that I think about sometimes.

Of the apology and the excuse, which do you like better?

In the apology I state the mistake I made, state how it seems to have affected you, and state how I will work to not make that mistake again. This is some hardcore "taking responsibility for myself".

In the excuse, I talk about outside events that are not relevant to you, state how I was helpless and could not have made a different choice. I'm shifting the blame, and not acknowledging how this might have impacted you.

The apology shows that I see myself as a being capable of making and fixing mistakes. It also shows that I see you as a being capable of feeling the effects of choices I make and that I hold some responsibility in our relationship to keep it a good relationship.

The excuse shows that I consider myself capable of making mistakes only when I am forced into them by outside sources. It also shows an utter disregard for how my actions could impact you; denying the validity of your experience in regards to my mistake. This can be rather hurtful.

I think this topic is very relevant to our work as social workers. How often do we make excuses to our clients about our actions because we feel constrained by the systems within which we work? How often do these excuses reinforce power dynamics in our relationships with our clients? When we make excuses to them, are we truly meeting them where they are? Or are we denying their role in the experience for a chance to vent our own problems?