Thanks

for the thoughts and advice the other day. I appreciate it.

And thanks for not thinking I'm totally crazy. I just needed to think out loud a little bit.

I'll keep you posted.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

So I'm a little torn ... and kind of ticked off... about a couple of things and I thought it might help to blog it out. (hehe, OK saying "blog it out" makes me chuckle for some reason. Am I just weird that way?)

Ahem. Anyway.

I started writing a post and it felt like I was just ranting in an unproductive way. And I don't like that. So here's the gist of it...


I've basically been offered a title change. It's a title I'm quite familiar with. It's actually funny how it seems to follow me around: Assistant Director.

The title doesn't come with more money (which I kind of need and will hopefully get once I have license in hand- another source of ranting, don't get me started). The title might come with more responsibility, which would mostly be on paper (literally the classification in HR would change on paper)... but I mean, I've been doing the stuff already ..it would just be official. It would mean I would supervise people. It would probably carry some credibility with parents and maybe students. It might pave the way for some changes down the road.

But honestly the title seems to be quite overused around here. I'm not sure it means much to many people. Even though I'm already doing most of the stuff now...this would make it official and might create more administrative nonsense for me...which might take away from direct client care. And the supervisory responsibilities might be a bit much if I'm expected to keep my schedule the same.

So I'm not sure what to do. I need your thoughtful input. On the one hand...if not much changes, why wouldn't I take the title. I guess it looks pretty. On the other hand, is having additional responsibility worth it? Am I missing something? Am I just being weird and overthinking this whole thing?

Part of the complication is that I recently learned I kind of got screwed on my salary when I got here (thanks to one person who is no longer working here)...and that's what I'm trying not to rant about and y'all don't really need to know all the drama and sordid history. But yeah, I'm a bit bitter about that.

Thoughts??

Mystery Solved

First of all, while I was trying to create a little suspense, I wasn't intentionally trying to drag it out. I didn't have a chance to blog yesterday and I was gone all day today, so this is really the first chance I'm getting. I'm sorry to keep you waiting!

Back to the mystery of the Gerbera Daisy I found on my desk Thursday morning. I'd momentarily stepped out of my office when the flower bandit struck, leaving one for me, one for K-dog, and one for Lovely Miss L, so it really was a nice little surprise for me when I returned. I learned quickly that our colleague, who happens to be the Assistant Dean of Students, left them for us.

But why?

You might remember me mentioning that I had been working on a program with a faculty member in Psychology. We put together a collaborative, multi-disciplinary panel of speakers to discuss graduate school and careers in human services. Our panel consisted of a Clinical Psych faculty (not the one I was working with to organize the event), a Sociology/Human Services faculty who had a Masters of Social Work (MSW), myself (Counseling Psych), Lovely Miss L (a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)), and K-Dog (Clinical Psych). We prepared a few answers to our most frequently asked career/grad school questions, and hoped the student participants would have questions.

So I worked to get our panelists on board a while ago and spent much of this week and last week ironing out the details. We invited Psych and Soc majors and minors by email and my co-planner announced the program in her classes. We asked students to RSVP because we'd be feeding them. We hoped to have 15-20 students, which would be a decent turnout for such a program.

The invitation was sent last Thursday and by Friday at 5, we had received 15 responses. Woohoo! By the end of the day Monday, we'd gotten a few more and estimated we'd have nearly 40 people, including the panelists and other faculty who had been invited. I went shopping for snacks and drinks on Monday night, laughing about how much crap I piled in my cart. By Tuesday night we had 39 responses and had to change our location. At this point, Lovely Miss L was starting to get anxious about speaking to such a large group. By Wednesday morning, we had 50 student RSVPs! The program was Wednesday night, by the way. I flipped out at this point. Not because I had to speak in front of a large group, but because suddenly we did not have enough snacks, drinks OR plates/napkins. AND K-Dog started asking me questions about what he was supposed to do/say (I sent him a memo), the format of the program (also in the memo), and he started offering suggestions... though to his credit, he did apologize for not being involved in the process and then offering suggestions at the last minute. He also ran to get more snacks, drinks, etc., thank goodness because I had appointments!

The program went well, we had a very full room, some pretty good questions and our panelists seemed to enjoy themselves. The biggest compliment for me was when our Psych faculty panelist said, "Gosh, we've clearly invited the wrong people before! In the past when we've tried to do this we've had 8 students show up!"

When Miss L and I were cleaning up after the program we ran into B, who does men's programming and works directly under our Assistant Dean. He was excited to know how things went, especially since he talked me off a proverbial ledge when I was freaking out earlier. He was astounded that we only invited people through email and word of mouth, rather than posters, Facebook, etc. Oddly enough, B ran into the Assistant Dean at the grocery store later that evening and "told her the buzz" about our program. She was so excited and happy for us that she bought us the flowers. She loves giving small personal gifts and told us she wanted to do something nice since we'd put together such an awesome program that students were clearly interested in. She was also very happy that we were able to collaborate!

The rest of the week passed by in an exhausted blur. I'm hanging up my party planning hat for a while.

So that's it. Mystery solved.

All right, be honest. How many of you thought I had a romantic secret (or not-so-secret) admirer?

Success!

We've had a student intern working with us this year, and recently hired another one. They've been absolute blessings! My intern (I say "my" because I'm her direct supervisor, but she's really "ours") designed an amazing poster series for suicide prevention and some general advertising for our services. Let's face it, the old posters were ugly. And cheesy. Yuck, not us at all.

Hers are way better. Here's a partial shot of a nearly-final draft of her poster- I cropped it and added a watermark that doesn't appear in the actual poster, obviously.

I think that little wooden person is our new unofficial mascot! The posters are pretty powerful, no? I know we wouldn't have gotten these done without her hard work and creativity.

So I was a little nervous when I found out recently that the internships offered to students were being examined and we needed to "reapply" to be able to call our positions "internships". Clearly the benefits to the students were great- they can officially call it an internship on their resume, it's a higher level of pay, blah, blah. The benefits to US were huge too- higher minimum requirements, higher pay, learning objectives...all which basically meant that we would be more likely to attract more motivated, qualified students who would be around for a least a full year. Overall, I completely agreed with the decision to re-examine some things campus-wide, but the moment I found out we had to submit a job description, learning objectives, etc., I was overloaded and a little stressed.

Naturally, I had my intern fill out the applications. :-) She did a great job and we worked together to get everything submitted on time.

Then I got an email "suggesting" I make a change that I thought was silly and since I was in the middle of dealing with a few crises on campus, K-Dog and I decided it wasn't really necessary (and by the way, was not required according to their instructions). After a few weeks we got an email requesting additional information from the committee. A handful of tedious, miniscule points of clarification, including the previous suggestion. Again, my rock star intern took a stab at it- one of the points of clarification required percentages of time spent on each of the duties/tasks, so who better would know than the intern doing them? Exactly. Again she and I worked together to get the changes made and submitted.

I found out last week that our internships were approved!! Woohoo! Even better news: my rock star protégée is interested in keeping her position next year! Whew!

Saturday Morning Surprise

Instead of sleeping away the beautiful, sunny morning I got up and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put my contacts in so I could take the dogs out for a walk. At 8:25. On a Saturday. I know, not my typical Saturday routine. But we'd had so many days of dreary, wet weather I just couldn't pass this up.

Well, that and I spent my whole Friday night walking, brushing, and bathing my mutts. They hate baths. Lilly stays as far from me as possible and glares at me for hours after the horrific indignity I force her through. Montey actually loves the part after the bath, when I rub him dry with towels. Seriously, he will sit in my lap for hours letting me rub him down all while covering me with kisses. (OK, just realized that sentence could come across in a very dirty way. Ooops.)

Anyway, since my yard is dirty and the mutts are clean, we walked this morning. I had a simple breakfast and enjoyed my coffee while finishing my book and then decided to go thrifting to see what I could find.

And then I checked work email and read this subject line: "You've won an OTM award! Congratulations!"

Huh? A what?

After a little research, I found out that someone (I don't know who) nominated me for an Of The Month (OTM) award for March for a presentation I did in a residence hall. The OTM is given by the National Residence Hall Honorary, which I just learned is the "recognition branch of the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH), Inc." So apparently, since I won at the campus level, it will now go on to compete with other OTMs written by students on a state-wide level. If it wins there, then it could go on to compete for national awards.

Honestly, at first I thought it was some kind of mistake or fake award. Yes, I'm that cynical. But it appears to be legit. I have no idea how many nominations are submitted per month, or who else I was "competing" with on my campus to be deemed the winner. I'm sure it's really no big deal in the grand scheme of things. We'll see what happens, I suppose.

I guess I'm just kind of shocked. I mean, I was really just doing a part of my job. Granted, the topic is one I'm pretty passionate about, but still. An award? Really? Me?

Really?

Anyway, just thought I'd share my surprising news. Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

The Blind Leading the Blind

Somehow, I'm still not entirely sure how, I became the adviser of a just-forming student organization. There's a whole process to become "recognized" as an official student organization. I know very little about that process on this campus. And it seems that the students know only slightly more than me. As an adviser...shouldn't I be... advising?

The fact that we'd like to become a chapter of a national organization both helps and complicates things a little, I think. On one hand, the national organization has a lot of templates and examples to use in getting established. On the other hand, it seems as though one or two of their steps conflicts slightly with our process. Oy.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to get a big, collaborative program organized and like most of the other programs I've run recently, things are more complicated than they need to be. BUT we're nearly set. I hope. And thank goodness I have a faculty member helping coordinate things...yet she's only been here a few months longer than me.

The blind leading the blind. Yup, that describes my life right now.

To say that I'm feeling overwhelmed at this moment in time is an understatement.

A Nice Surprise

Imagine my surprise when I checked my email at work between appointments today and found a lovely note from a client I saw back in 2006-2007! Apparently this person looked me up to tell me how things were and to say thanks again. It was such a bright spot in a pretty hectic day!

The funny thing is, I have wondered about this particular client every so often since we ended our work together. I had always hoped things would go well and work out, but I don't often get to hear "the rest of the story" after my work with someone ends, so it was really nice to get a brief update. It will probably be one of those notes I'll save and pull out on really tough days.

A Case of the Grrrrrrs

Greetings from the Twin Cities!

I'm at my conference and I'm afraid I have a full-blown case of the Grrrrs. First, Monday (I was still at work) we STILL hadn't heard from the conference people about when we were supposed to present, which is completely crappy. So some tough people called to demand to know because the presentation is really the students' and they were only going to the conference to present. I, on the other hand, was attending because of that scholarship... and planned to attend for the whole thing. Anyway, we found out that the students couldn't go. They slotted us for the first afternoon and with such short notice (less than 48 hours) the students couldn't swing it, so we canceled the presentation. I don't blame them one bit... and really I am relieved... but OF COURSE I had worked on my part of it Monday morning. Grrr.

Second, I have been attending every session today (I skipped yesterday, as I was traveling and the sessions were not at all applicable to the work I do) and multiple people have asked me where my Director is... I kept saying that I was sure she was around and might be skipping the morning breakfast sessions. Um, no. After lunch I found out (from the conference registration people) that she canceled. I was never told. Thanks! Thanks a lot! I was getting worried too, thinking she was in an accident driving in the rain! Grr.

Third, I'm finding myself pretty disappointed with the sessions I've attended. I have been expecting a little more. Plus, they had a speaker at lunch and will have one at dinner. Can't we just have some down time to chat and network?! I refuse to attend the meeting after the speaker tonight. I'm not sitting in sessions until 8:00 pm. I'm grateful for this break right now, but seriously wish we just had dinner. Then I'd be done. Grr.

And the free stuff from vendors isn't even that great...though I did get a Rubick's cube. :-) And the pens from the hotel have cute sayings on them, like "play with words," and "use colorful language". Oh, and the hotel has Aveda products! Isn't this bed the most comfy-looking piece of heaven? Yeah, it doesn't just look good, it IS good.

The very best parts? I'm glad you asked! I get a break from work, which has been very busy and stressful. The hotel is pretty awesome. I get to spend time with my brother, who lives in the area! AND shopping at various stores, including IKEA!! Yay! Oh, and we got free theater tickets too. Woohoo!

I'm getting hungry.... good thing dinner is quickly approaching! I hope it's something fabulous!

Dear Diary...

I have felt so overwhelmed lately. I had a presentation the other evening that seemed to take me a long time to prepare, even though the topic is something I talk about every day! Why is that? I suppose it's different when I have an audience and feel as though I'm cramming so much into a short amount of time. Plus I wanted it to be fun and interactive, but that is often a "hit or miss" depending on the audience and the topic.

Anyway, it went well overall, though, as predicted, I had a bit more to say than time to say it. Oh well. I got a few laughs out of the students and the feedback I got was good and that the presentation was useful. I'm fine with that!

Now I'm trying to finish up this darn discussion guide I'm supposed to be writing. A while back, my Director and some students approached me to write a discussion guide to be used after this performance. Before I arrived here, some students, faculty and staff created this cool show, kind of along the lines of The Vagina Monologues, except more relevant to issues college students face AND included men in the conversation. It's a pretty powerful performance that deals with health, body image, gender roles, sexual assault, and culture. Sadly, I've only seen the performance on the DVD they've made...I'm sure it's much more powerful live. Anyway, they wanted to have a discussion guide to accompany it, so that's where I come in. Since I have done research on disordered eating and whatnot, they thought I might be interested. I was absolutely interested... but then things got a bit more complicated.

See, at some point, someone decided this should be submitted to a conference...to showcase what the students here did, how other campuses could do it, and then how to keep the conversation going. SO it's been submitted and accepted. I'm included as a presenter, since I'm doing the discussion guide and am kind of like the "expert" in the group. I'll be honest...there is a big part of me still really uncomfortable with being seen as "expert." But that's another story. My Director also basically told me I had to apply for this scholarship to attend (which basically gives me a free ride). And then I won the darn thing. Which means I need to send in a brief article to their newsletter after the conference talking about what I learned and how I'll use the info and all that. Note to self: Always read the fine print.

The most frustrating thing is that the conference is next Wednesday and the schedule isn't out yet! We have no idea when we're presenting and no idea of what the titles are for the other sessions. Apparently they're not always this disorganized...still, it's not a good first impression to this group and this conference. Grr.

In other news, I got the H1N1 vaccine this morning. I feel a little dizzy. So does K-Dog. I'll let you know if I start oinking.

XOXO,
heidi

Is It a Full Moon?

Lemme check my calendar...


Hmmm, nope.

Then what the heck?!? Has everyone gone mad? Is there something in the water? The air? What is going on?

I've been dealing with more issues, phone calls, and crises than I know what to do with! Cripes!

WTF?!?

OK seriously... work has heated up real quick-like. I was expecting it and it still feels like my head is spinning. Wowza.

There were a couple of times today that I felt really unsure of myself and at a loss... like I once again lost the ever-elusive "Mo Jo". Maybe it's just on the fritz, I'm not sure, but I hate the feeling. Even worse, though, is when Doubt lurks just around the corner. I really don't want to have Doubt hanging around- he's too clingy, overstays his welcome, and makes me nervous. Bleh.

Do you ever have moments/days/weeks like that?

In my line of work it's really important for me to take good care of myself and recharge my batteries often. And for about a week or so I've been thinking that I need to recharge, but I'm having a hard time doing that right now. I have so many things going on. And with studying for my licensing exam, I am literally dealing with work-related stuff more often than not. Even my obsession with cooking has quieted down...which means my eating and snacking isn't going as well as it was. And gosh darn it, I've been failing miserably at my repeated resolution to walk the dogs more often. Plus, I'm not sure exactly what I need in order to recharge this time. What do you do to recharge?

Oh, the Suspense!

Ah, Monday. What fun. Today is the first day of classes here and all the students are back. On one hand I'm excited, there's more energy in the air, I'm looking forward to seeing more students on a regular basis...on the other hand, I'm nervous, there are people everywhere (goodbye quiet, peaceful campus), and I'll be very busy soon...very busy. In and of itself, that's not a problem, but after the slow summer, it's gonna be a change.

Anywho, the weekend went by super-fast with all the home improvement work going on! I took lots and lots of pictures, and can't wait to show you. But... you're going to have to wait! I need to get the pics off the camera AND we have finishing work to do on the room next weekend. Plus, it will be more dramatic to see the actual "After" pictures.

Happy Monday!

I Feel Old

There have been a few times (recently) that I have been: a) mistaken for a college student at the college where I work, b) told I'm "too young!" to have a doctorate, own a house, etc. etc., and c) told that I am "the exact same age" as my coworkers' children! In spite of having JUST had a birthday.

I know, some day I will be quite happy to hear such things.

But last night, I had a different experience. I felt OLD. K-Dog and I were doing our last presentation for incoming first-year students and K-Dog, liking to change things up sometimes, decided to play a youtube video of the song "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" by C & C Music Factory. How many of you remember that song?? Anyone? Anyone? Apparently NO ONE in our audience knew the song. They stared at the screen, half-dumbfounded and half snickering.

I was beside myself. No one knew the song. No one. Just K-Dog and me. I felt old. I felt a mixture of shock, disgust, disbelief... and a slight amount of giddiness. Yes, giddiness. At being old. Then I start to think I'm odd for being happy about it. I'm not sure I can explain it exactly, but it's like I had proof in the form of a young, dumbfounded audience, that I am older than they are. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but it's the best I can do.

Today K-Dog and I realized that most of those students in the room were just babies (or not born yet) when the song came out. Now there's a reality check.

OK. Giddiness gone. I just feel old again.