Whew. It’s been quite some time since my last entry- a little over an year, to be exact. A little over a year ago, I was being all sentimental about graduating with my BA degree and here I am, halfway through my MA program. Daaaang.
I’m in the mood to get back into this and travel down Memory Lane as I do this, seeing how close I am coming to graduation once again. Two years is simply not enough for graduate school… I’m in the MA program for the School Counseling program, focusing on working with Deaf children and their families. I’ve been taking a heck of a courseload and just completed the first part of my practicum (that’s another word for a part-tme internship for those who went “huh?” at the word “practicum”) at MSSD right on campus.
I also kept myself insanely busy (well, it maintained my sanity in an ironic way) working for the Peer Health Advocates as their graduate assistant and having loads of fun being a sister for the Delta Epsilon Sorority. Last fall, I also co-directed the first-ever Junior Miss Deaf Michigan pageant back home… Well, I did the co-directing thing long-distance actually. Thank goodness for the Internet and a plane ticket or two 
What else? Oh- how could I forget the Vagina Monologues? Ohhhhh- I LOVED that experience, as much as I hated the late-night rehearsals consuming my precious time. When the play was presented at Gallaudet two years ago, the first for me as an audience member, I fell in love with Eve Ensler and swore that I’d become part of the next play. It wasn’t held last year, and this year Nicole Moran and Ally Bradley saved my life and took the lead as the director/producer. I’m really happy I decided to take part- I became inspired by the other strong women within the cast/crew and by acting out my story, “The Vagina Workshop.” Took a lot of guts to just cast aside my anxiety in translating a story into ASL and present it on stage… but it was WELL worth it.
I plan to travel further down Memory Lane as time goes by… heck, I’ve got plenty of time this summer, compared to the past year! I moved into an apartment in Maryland last month and am wrapping up my summer classes. As of June 22, when my comps are done (comps = our department’s “slang” for qualifying exams, the big exam that will determine whether we’re eligible for our full-time internship next spring), I’m going to celebrate and just KICK back and take a breather. I’ll keep working for the department as their graduate assistant throughout July, but my schoolwork obligations will be DONNNNNE! Until the end of August, anyway.
For about the past month and a half, I’ve been taking two summer courses and surprisingly, I’ve been having a blast. Compared to the typical fall/spring semester filled with 5 courses and a practicum, 2 courses are a breeze- and they’re FUN courses! I just completed the “Substance Abuse Prevention for Deaf Youth” with a wonderful adjunct professor who came down to DC during her week-long vacation from counseling at the school f/t Deaf in New Jersey, and I am about to complete “Play Therapy” with another wonderful adjunct professor, a local play therapist. Both professors graduated from our department and they know their stuff… and they’re fun My classmates also helped make classes fly by- we’ve been together since the beginning of our program last August, and we’ll continue together until we leave for our respective internships in January. That’ll be a tough day.
Enough for now, I suppose. I’ve still got a ****load of progress reports to complete for my practicum and some letters to send out, begging various schools f/t Deaf to accept me as their counseling intern for next spring
I think it’s time for a run. It’s been a while and I’ve always said running is my therapy… Gotta practice what I preach. Adios, people!
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