weekend

I got back from Abilene this afternoon, and I'm still figuring out if it was a good weekend or not. I'll let you decide.

I drove to Abilene on Thursday night because I didn't want to get up early on Friday and drive in. I also wanted to spend some time with my younger sister since her birthday is tomorrow, so I drove in by myself so that I could stay as long as I wanted. I arrived in Abilene around 10 p.m. and went to a college friend's house to spend the night.

My younger sister called me the next morning to tell me that my older sister was stuck in traffic in the metroplex and that my mom had fallen in the shower at her apartment. My parents had arrived the night before as well. My younger sister told me to go and take care of them because mom had fallen pretty hard.

We get to chapel (my older sister made it just in time), and my parents were presented with their ACU Parents of the Year award. Some relatives from Amarillo drove in for the festivities as well as some really good friends from the metroplex. The reception afterward was nice - a lot of my younger sister's friends and professors came.

Mom had been hurting pretty severely, so we went to an acute care clinic. My mom has three broken ribs. She went through the whole morning with broken bones. Is that amazing or what?!?

My parents left the next morning, but I stayed around because some of my younger sister's friends were going to throw her a party. I started feeling ill a little bit before the party. Everything was going OK, but then I got really sick - so sick that I had to have a trash can by my bed that night. It was a long, long night.

So, we went to church this morning and I drove back here after church ended. I haven't eaten solid food since last night. I'm on a clear liquid and cracker diet. Hopefully, I will be able to go to work tomorrow. I'm afraid if I don't, I'll be mad at myself if I feel OK. However, I don't want to spread this bug around either.

All in all, I guess it was an OK weekend. I enjoyed getting to see my family and celebrating my parents' award. I also heard one of the best ideas for a theme for GSP grub that I've ever heard: Ha-ΓΣΦ Potter. I would so go to that social.

Thanks for reading.

Results

I received an e-mail from my major professor yesterday. I passed supervision, ethical/professional/legal issues, research, and my specialty. I received a conditional in theory. So, I get to go on to the oral part of my exams. I just have to prove in orals that I know theory well enough to get a pass. Funny thing is that I thought I was the most prepared for the theory part of the exam. Here is what I know: out of nine people who took the exams, seven received conditionals on theory, one person failed, and one person passed. Everyone I've talked to is a little bit upset about those numbers. There are several other people who received conditionals on other parts of the exam too. I guess I just have to wait and see when my oral exams will be.

Thanks for reading.

8 Random Facts

This is for my friend who tagged me.

1. I don't like water. It has no taste. I rarely drink it, and because of that, I may die of kidney failure if I don't die of a heart attack first. I would much rather have Coke or Tea or something with taste.

2. I have hypertension. I've had high blood pressure since I was in high school. I finally started taking medicine about 6 months ago, and now it's controlled. My blood pressure before medication was 150/100.

3. My two dominant personality priorities are pleasing and superiority (in Adlerian psychology terms). I don't like people not liking me - it makes me uncomfortable. Also, I really try to be the best at everything I do. If I'm not the best, it irks me, and I tend to regress to black/white thinking of assuming I'm the worst.

4. I say I don't like cheese. BUT I like pizza and enchiladas and have even started taking cheese and crackers to school as part of my lunch. However, if you ask me, I will say I don't like cheese because I have never liked cheese. I believe I don't like cheese because I don't like grilled cheese sandwiches (gross!!) or cheese on my salads.

5. My apartment is a mess. It is probably the messiest apartment in the world. OK, that might be an exaggeration. People are always surprised to hear this. I used to be a clean freak. Now, I seem to be the complete opposite of that. I only clean when I have to...and I rarely, rarely have to.

6. I iron all my dress shirts and most of my dress slacks. I'm too poor to take them to the cleaners. I've been ironing since I was a freshman in college, and I'm pretty good at it now. Most people think I take my shirts to the cleaners, but I don't.

7. My favorite food is Bar-B-Q. That's why I want to live in Abilene...because of the BBQ.

8. One of my dreams is to live in a foreign country as an advisor to college students studying abroad. That way, it won't be so expensive (I'll live in university housing) and I'll get to teach at the same time. How cool would that be.

I know that's pretty boring, but that's what I got. I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for reading.

Done

I finished up my qualifying exams yesterday at 4:30. Sitting at a computer and typing for six hours for two days was a bit draining. We had the theories portion of the exam on Thursday morning, the ethics and supervision part of the exam on Thursday afternoon, the specialty part of the exam on Friday morning, and the research part of the exam on Friday afternoon.

Here are the exam questions I answered.

For theories:

1. Most people report the experience of a continuing sense of personal identity. Compare and contrast this sense of personal identity from three theoretical perspectives: psychoanalytic, Adlerian, and person-centered. Draw out theoretical and therapeutic implications of their differences.

2. In the landmark text, The Heart and Soul of Change (1999), Asay and Lambert summarized quantitative data about factors in positive outcome in psychotherapy. Summarize their findings. Describe and discuss the extent to which their findings are in alignment with your guiding theory of counseling and any three others from the following: Individual Psychology, person-centered, cognitive-behavioral, and REBT.

For ethics:

1. What constitutes ethical behavior in counseling?
2. Why is a code of ethics helpful for counselors?
3. What are some basic ethical issues in counseling?
4. What is the legal and ethical responsibility of the counselor when the client is seriously suicidal (at immediate risk)?

For supervision:

1. Describe a model of supervision. Include a description of assessment, stages of development and coinciding characteristics, supervision intervention strategies to facilitate growth, and the issues and concepts of the model

For specialty (adolescents and adults):

- see 1st Ahhhhhhh blog

For research:

1. List and discuss in length some primary concerns in writing a literature review.
2. Discuss at length some primary ethical concerns when conducting and publishing research.
3. Describe and compare in detail clinical, statistical, and practical significance and the benefits of each.

I will get my results in two or three weeks. Cross your fingers that I passed. After I finished, I called my older sister and asked if we could go to Babe's for dinner. So we did, and that was great. Later that night I spent some quality time with a great friend of mine. This morning, I got up and went back over to my sister's house and we took my nephew to the zoo. Here are some pics:

Now don't get all excited and think I'm going to start posting a lot of pictures. I don't have a digital camera. I just wanted to show everyone how I de-stressed after quals.

Thanks for reading.

Ahhhhhhhhhh #2

Alright, so studying for quals sucks! It's quite time consuming, and like I always do before exams, I will run out of time before I feel like I'm ready. I go back and forth between thinking that I know enough and freaking out that I don't know anything - it's very much a mental disorder in and of itself. Anyway, in the past two days, I've reviewed Freud's classic psychoanalysis, Adler's individual psychology, Rogers' client-centered approach, behavioral counseling, Beck's cognitive counseling, Ellis' rational emotive behavior therapy, and existential therapy. I still have a bit more to do on existentialism and then I will finish up with Wilber's integral psychology.

Here's a question that I hope they ask me for the theories portion of the exam: Identify your guiding theory of counseling and how you came to resonate with the theory, explain its philosophical underpinnings, how healthy and unhealthy functioning are conceptualized, how personality change occurs including stages (if any) that occur in counseling, the role of the client and counselor, and how the theory incorporates diversity and spirituality issues. Now that would be a good question, and I think I have a pretty decent answer.

Just three more days of studying and then it'll be here...I can't know everything, right?

Thanks for reading.