My Simple, Happy, Beautiful Life

I have been reflecting on my time spent in my classroom with my boys with autism or in my fieldwork. My fieldwork is with adults with mental and physical disabilities. I would have never imagined myself working with this population but I absolutely love it. Working with disabilities is challenging but it is so rewarding at the same time. From my posts before, I think I have talked about that a lot. All they really need is a loving person with a sincere interest in their life. Someone who will actually listen to them and just have fun with them. Today there was this guy at my fieldwork who was talking about his favorite radio stations in Texas. He was naming off each radio station, what kind of music, the name of the station and why he liked/disliked the station. This isn't my favorite topic. I don't know anything about radio stations in Texas. I have never been to Texas. All I did was just listen to the client about his interests of radio stations. He told me after a while ...

In my Diversity class, we are learning about immigration and the melting pot. Every immigrant had their unique culture and lifestyle before moving to America to live the "american dream". I enjoy learning about history but learning about this history has made me upset. Don't get me wrong, I am American. I love America. My family moved here and I am so glad they moved here way back when. The American Dream was about freedom. So many people were oppressed and not receiving rights in their country. They found out that they could own land if they immigrated. They learned they could have more rights if they moved. What did they do? They moved. For some people, they received everything they wanted. For most people, they had some more opportunities but found themselves stuck. There weren't many job opportunities for immigrants who were the minority, so they were stuck in jobs of hard labor in harsh living situations. The hardest part that I am learning about is assimil...

Lately I have been doing some posts about my school. This one will be about my ridiculousness that has happened this last weekend. So, this weekend was my fun, not worry about school at all weekend. It was great. Very much needed. Now I will pay for it this week as I have to do so much work. This weekend can be my catch up weekend. I had some funny moments though. Tonight, I went to a fireside with a friend and then came home and played monopoly deal with my brother and sister in law. I hate playing games with my brother. He is the kind of person who will complain about the game if he is loosing. If he is winning, he will explain why he is winning. Once he wins, he will apologize and not mean it about how he feels so bad about us losers. Then he will drag on about how he was the winner. Who wants to be around him? So, we are playing this game and making chicken noises. Let me explain why we are making chicken noises. I know that not many people make chicken noises while playing b...

For those of you who don't me, you should know that I am very passionate about music. I believe that music has a healing power that can touch the heart. I play the piano and started taking lessons when I was in 1st grade. Of course I was a stubborn child and I hated piano lessons. My poor piano teacher had to deal with me saying how I thought piano was stupid. My mother kept paying for lessons so I was forced to go to my lessons and just tell my teacher how piano was the dumbest invention ever created. It wasn't until years later where I realized how powerful music is.  I could write a whole blog on how music has healed me and how I have seen it heal others. I want to share a couple of experiences though.  At my fieldwork, I work at an adult health care center for adults who have physical or mental disabilities. I am new to these kind of fieldwork. Working with middle school students with autism was amazing but much different than this population. There is one client wh...

We live in the present. We don't live in the future or past. The past already happened and we can't do anything to bring it back. I know that in Harry Potter, they have that clock that brings them back and they can change the past. We don't live in Harry Potter world, so we can't do that.  Many people's problems occur because they carry the past with them in the present. They carry this event or emotion that was in the past in the current moment. As they live in the current moment, all their energy is going to how they were hurt. This cycle happens where there is hurt, anger and an entitlement to where we feel like we deserve to feel this way because they did us wrong. We are the victim. We are hurt and in some ways deserve to get our revenge.  This process is wrong.  Everyone has gone through it though.  I remember when my ex boyfriend hurt me with his selection of words. These words were extremely hurtful and I carried these words with me. Wheneve...

Lately, I have been experiencing a lot of self doubt as I have started this program. I compare myself to a lot of the other students who have amazing experiences at all these agencies and I feel like I don't have anything to offer. It is really easy to get down on yourself when you compare yourself to other people. It is a pathway that leads downhill really quickly. You don't want to go down that pathway, trust me. I was driving home from school today and it really got to me. I started feeling so inadequate and then I didn't even know why I was doing graduate school. I came home and then I just started evaluating why I was feeling that way. Graduate school is really hard. I am a full time student with a lot of demands and responsibilities. My graduate program is good, but sometimes I don't agree with everything they talk about in classes. Sometimes my religious beliefs and the program contrast, and it can be hard to find out which truth I want to cling on to. Which ...

Have you ever just stared at strangers eyes for a long period of time? Probably not. I am assuming most people haven't. I am not talking about staring at someone you love. That is not a awkward stare when you are in a daze of your special loved one's beauty. I mean staring at a stranger and looking at them in the eye for an extended amount of time. For my class today, we had to stare at a stranger for a long time. We would step in closer until our feet were touching and I was way out of my comfort zone. In western culture, we have our personal space and mine was violated today. At first, I would look away but then look back at my partner because I could feel their eyes on me. It was really uncomfortable. What was the point of this awkward exercise? Let me tell you. We learned about how as social workers are meant to create. We create this relationship where our clients are comfortable talking about really hard things. You don't go to a social worker because your lif...

For my very first class in my program, It is called Social Work and Diverse Populations. The teacher starts talking about how we will experience triggers in our life and our professional career. We will be working with a client who says something or is experiencing something that will trigger us. She explained the importance of knowing how to handle our triggers in a professional manner when working with a client.  A trigger can be a word, action, image or sound. A trigger is anything that causes a reaction. Everyone has their unique triggers based on their experiences. She then explained how the purpose of this class was to purposely trigger us so we would know what triggers us and why. We are talking about diverse populations and the fun "isms". You know what I mean right? Sexism, racism...It is going to be a class where we are talking about touchy items. We had to discuss how to create a zone where everyone is heard, respected and validated. We need to have this found...

As I have already written, I am going back to get my masters in social work. Because I am doing a full time program, I have to quit my job as a permanent paraeducator in the middle school classroom. It has been a bittersweet ending. I have been challenged so much in my job and have so many good memories.  I will miss the kids so much. The whole reason we go to school everyday is because of them. The kids priorities are first and should always be first. They don't make sense a lot of the time. They can be annoying a lot of the time. It doesn't matter to me though because they have the biggest hearts. They have taught me more than I have taught them. All these lessons about math, art, reading, cooking and functional living skills are important, but the most important skills are learned just through my daily interactions with them. The lessons that are the most important are not taught in a textbook . They are taught from heart to heart. The kids have touched my hearts and I wi...