First Day of School

My mom was is big on pictures.  She was into scrapbooking long before it was the cool thing to do.  While it was a bit harrowing to gather for family pictures at EVERY family event growing up, I am so so so grateful we did because the pictoral historical record of our family is so wonderful to look back on. 

The first day of school was a photo op never to be missed.  One of my favorites is of me walking on the bus the first day of first day of kindergarten or first grade while my toddler-aged brother is DOUBLED OVER sobbing that he can't go to school (I'm pretty sure it wasn't because he would miss me considering I was a rather horrible older sister to him.)

Well, I had my "first day of school" last Friday and my "first day of class" yesterday.  And, mom, I took a picture.  Just for you.

School has been WONDERFUL.  I am so excited.  The next four years are going to be a lot of work and a lot overwhelming, but I'm feeling really good about the GW program.  Our class seems to mesh really well.  We had all day together on Friday.  It was nice for everyone to get the "first day jitters" out of our system so that we could enjoy the weekend/spend it studying and not worrying and that the first days of class weren't really anxiety provoking at all.   It's cool to know that there are a handful of individuals in this group of 34 who will likely become lifelong friends as we share this crazy adventure together.

Cool group of people.  Some VERY impressive and interesting clinical and research experiences.  I would say majority are 25-28.  Maybe half or a little more already have master's degrees.  Several newly married twentysomethings in the group.  Primarily from the east coast.  Half of class identifies themselves as culturally Jewish which we found quite interesting. 

At the conculsion of Friday we had a reception where we were each presented a slightly opened rose.  At our hooding ceremony in four years the same people will shake our hands again and present us with a fully blossomed rose representing how we've grown throughout the program. 

Classes are very interesting so far (psychodynamic psychopathology & clinical assessment).  I'm impressed with the faculty and like the fact that everyone who teaches also has a clinical practice, so it's not a whole bunch of people so steeped in academia that they are out of touch with the work that they are training people to do.

Only major dissapointement this week was learning that Philip wouldn't get out of the desert on time to make the flight we had scheduled for him from London to DC this weekend.  I had started to get really excited, so we were both bummed (but not really suprised. . . this is the nature of the military - besides, after nine months what's another couple of weeks, right? sense the tone on that last comment) about that.  We haven't communicated much at all this last month which has been hard.  Now that his deployed time has been pushed out a bit, it's looking like after his DC trip he will need to spend the rest of his time outprocessing in the UK which means no cruise (we were going to meat in Barcelona for one last hurrah doing a western med cruise in October to break up the continued distance before he can come to DC).  Another bummer but makes my clinic schedule and school a little less complicated I suppose. . . 

Time to do some reading before yoga class this afternoon.  Most of my spare time the last few days has been spent reading and applying/searching for employment.  Thumbs up on reading.  Thumbs down on quest to find a decent-paying, flexible-schedule job.