2 terms down!!

What a great end to my second term of grad school! I have been feeling really great, academically speaking, this week.

We had our final in Assessment and Counseling, which I spent much of the weekend studying for. That went fairly well. There were a handful of questions that were much more specific than I had anticipated. But, considering I got a 95% on the midterm, I think I will at least get a B in the class.

After the final in Assessment, we were able to pick up the graded paper for our Practicum section of the class (in short, Assessment in Counseling is broken up into two classes. We only meet for the single class period each week, but the paper gets its own class and grade.) I was a little worried about it. I had looked at several people's papers and mine was very different and I felt like I was either going to totally BOMB the paper, or get an okay grade. So, when I opened the paper to look at my grade I was a little in shock. After I saw that I got 100 points, I had to double check what points it was out of (100, in case you wondered), and then double check that I had picked up the right paper! 100%! I was so happy!!

Then on Thursday, I had my group project presentation. We presented a module for counseling LGBT students based on an Adlerian model. It was a fun project and we were the last group to go so I feel like we might have had an unfair advantage since we got to learn from all the other groups first. Still, I enjoyed it. Since it was the last day of class, we decided to bring the class cupcakes, as well. The professor gave us our feedback during the break and pretty much told us we were all amazing. Midway through her notes there was a comment that said, "You are all 1st years?! Wow! :)" (There are people in the class who are in their second year of the program.)

And then some of us went out to Rogue Hall for some drinks (it apparently has great beer with cool names like dead man's ale and stuff... I had diet coke).

There was a theme in all of the comments and compliments I got this week on my work. Lots of people complimented me on how well organized and laid out everything is. I get the same compliments when I do a talk in church. No joke... people seriously come up and tell me that my talk was well organized. An interesting thing to consider as I continue in my grad program.

All of this self-esteem building was well needed. Last week I decided to google search school counselor job postings just to see and what I saw was scary. I was reading them and thinking, "Dear, God. Can I actually DO THIS?! I'm going to get a job and just seriously screw my kids up WORSE!" It wasn't good. And I'm sure this will happen again. Everyone has doubts. But now I have some pretty concrete stuff I can look back on and say, "Hey! I CAN do a good job on some pretty hard stuff. Go me!" Hopefully that will come in handy as I struggle through the next term.

In other news: I'm officially going to Hawaii!!! Yay!! Only 94 days until two weeks in Hawaii! And then it's only a few days after I get home from there that I head on to my next adventure in New York!! Only 112 days until that!!

So many things to look forward to. I'm very excited. ^^