A little resolution on the internship front

I'm pleased to say my internship is almost offically stable! I interviewed with my new supervisor and task supervisor and hammered out the details. I feel like I'm actually ending up in a better situation with the move. My new supervisor is very approachable and eager to help. I will be splitting my time between oncology and patient counseling. They said their goal is to teach me the ropes of the medical world so I can be either hired on after graduation or marketable for a job elsewhere. Woot! That sounds good to me! I think it's going to be a good opportunity. Plus I won't be working Saturdays like I would have in the ER. I'm feeling good about it and I think I can now let the idea of pursuing the LDS social services opportunity rest...at least for the remainder of the school year:).

So that said they didn't waste any time in getting me going...after all I already have the ID, training, drug screaning, background check,web access, and parking pass situation squared away from my three weeks of interning in the ER. I start Thursday. It's going to be an adventure.

If you post it they will come....or something

So i have been chastised for not posting for such a long time. What can I say. I have an aversion to writing after a year of grad school. I lived life offline as much as possible over the summer and I'm sorry that I have been unable to stay in touch with everyone. I have been assured that people do actually still look at my blog though and that if I post something it will be read...so here it is friends! It is impossible to recap the jam packed goodness of my ultra exciting life (note the sarcasm please) but here are some fun things I have been up to in no particular order.

I spent three weeks of the summer with my parents at the beach house in Delaware. It was the best! Lots of opportunities to walk, bike, and swim. It felt good to be moving and relaxing in turn. Plus I love spending time with the Glasmann clan. It's always fun to be around the Taylor family and I really enjoyed all the fun and laughter. There was card games, complete with smack talk and ribbing, and more good food then I will probably see again for some time. I have to stock up on my cheese steak sandwiches while I'm back there! I got drenched in a thunderstorm while I was out attempting to walk 6 miles. I made it 3 and then was drenched in .2 seconds and rescued by my mother. It was also fun to have my cousin Paul and his family come for a quick visit. The trip ended with an insane drive made by me and my dad all the way from Delaware to Oregon. On the drive out we stopped somewhere every night and we had three drivers. On the drive back....we stopped in Sydney Nebraska and there were two drivers. It was fun though.

My cousin's got baptized in Utah at Brewer Camp. That was a really special experience. It was cool to have them baptized at a place rich with family history. The trip to Utah was fast but it was really nice to see so many friends and family members. I also really loved my cafe rio!! Ah I miss that place so much.







On the drive out to Delaware we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park. Holy Cow! Beautiful place. I loved the drive and would love to go back and do some hiking there sometime. It was so impressive to be driving up to the top of the Rockies. I recommend visiting the park!

Just before school started up I walked in the Newport Half Marathon. I walked with my aunt Karen and my brother in law Zach ran it. It was a lot of fun. I was surprised that I felt so good all the way up to mile 10. The last 3 miles were hard because they didn't have any water tables out. Next time I will walk with my water bottle! It was a beautiful course that went through trails in the mountains and then led us over to the beach. The course was 6.5 miles of beach walking. That was unexpected and took a little more effort but it was beautiful. I finished the 13.5 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes. not shabby

I started my internship for the year at the Salem Hospital in the Emergency Department. I loved the 3 weeks I put in before school started....but it looks like that is all I get to love. My supervisor has had a family emergency and due to the stress and the need for erratic and possibly long periods of absence I am being reassigned to another supervisor. Initially it looked like I was going to be able to go back to the ED but now I have had word that if I choose to keep the hospital placement I will be permanently assigned to patient counseling and oncology. I have been struggling with this decision and I have my interview tomorrow. I plan to meet the supervisor and gather info and then make the final big decision. About the time everything went south with my internship I heard from a friend who did her internship at LDS family services last year that they were now looking for a student. Ironically when I wanted the placement last summer they didn't want a student! So I have been torn by the decision between two things I really want and not really having enough information to make a decision has made things interesting.

Alright well I think that brings you all up to speed on the things that have been on my mind lately.

I do still exist

I know it feels like I have fallen off the face of the universe but I do still exist. I had good intentions to update my blog a few weeks ago at the start of spring term but life happens and my blog didn't. Winter term just about did me in. Apparently winter term first year is the worst term in the masters of social work program. People told me this toward the begining of the term and I thought ok it has some tough assignments I will plan ahead. There was no room to plan ahead. I was always writing papers! I'm tempted to post my theory paper on ego psych just as a sample of the intensity of the papers I was cranking out last term. But I don't think anyone would really read it so why go to all the trouble. Sping Break was not much of a break for me either. By the time the last paper was in and I was done at my internship I had a few days to breath and then I started cooking to fulfill my calling for break the fast. I did enjoy spending time with my family and going over to the coast, but the reprive was short lived.
Spring term started and things looked a bit more managable. Then two weeks into the term there was an unexpected blow that knocked us down. My friend and classmate Paula died unexpectedly of heart failure. She had no history of heart problems and nothing to indicate trouble. She got a virus and told us she was sick as a dog and the next day she went to the doctor and ended up having heart failure in the doctors office. In the Portland State MSW program you have a generalist instructor and class of about 20 students who stay together for the whole first year of the program. So my generalist class is like a little support system of people all experience comiserating and relating to each other. We formed some strong bonds. Paula was also in a small group with me that started at the begining of winter term and our group formed an amazing friendship, in large part due to Paula's amazing warmth and big heart. Paula's death has been a struggle for our generalist class. It has been a unique experience dealing with death at the scholastic level. We basicaly had group therapy our first day back together, it was a unique and beautiful experience. Last week was an attempt at a transition back to classwork...but we didn't quite make it. I'm not sure how assignments for that class are going to go. The biggest project for this term was a group project and as my group involved Paula my group is the one most in limbo. So I feel like I'm playing catchup and trying to juggle and compartmentalize everything to manage. This too shall pass and soon I will be taking on a new internship and looking toward graduation. Spring term ends the first week of June and I'm looking forward to some time off. I plan to catch up on blogs and post some pictures and do fun stuff. Hopefully I will be able to pay a visit to Utah and see many dear friends. I am also really hoping for a family trip to Disneyland...hint hint (did that help mom?). I interview this weekend for my potential placement next year. I'm hoping to be placed at a hospital emergancy department! I'm excited about the opportunity and praying the interview goes well and I get the placement. Hope the sun has shined where ever you are. We had a brief bout of sunshine this last weekend and it was amazing. I will post pictures of my venture out at the tulip festival the next time I post.

I'm back!

Now where have I been you ask?...
~Started my Masters in Social Work program in the end of September. Class from 8am to 8:30pm Monday which mean I wake up at 6am and have to fight Portland traffic by 7:15 in order to make it to my class. It's pretty much non stop from then on!
~Internship! As part of the MSW program I have a year long internship where I am required to log 167 hours per term. That makes for 17 hours a week. So I am in class all Monday and then Wednesday and Thursday are full time internship days. Friday usually finds me at some kind of training meeting and Tuesday is my erron/ homework day. I haven't found much time to update my blog or spend time on the Internet.
~reading, reading, reading! Grad school involved more reading then I was expecting. I was often reminded of my days rooming with Jesse who was a English major...I have to read more then that. My usual weekly reading is about 150-200 pages per class. That adds up to about 500+ pages! I'm a slow reader too.
~writing papers. Jackie can attest to this. She said a few weeks ago "It seems like you are always writing a paper" and I am! I have turned in 7 or 8 papers between Sept 30 and Dec 1st. The average paper was 10 pages in length, the last one was 15! I was talking with a friend applying to grad school and he reminded me that in undergrad we would have one paper like that all term. Oh well you get used to it!
~being sick! I feel like as soon as the term started I was sick. I ended up with a very bad sinus infection. The only reason I got this taken care of pretty fast was because I live in Oregon and you can't buy anything besides Tylenol sinus or Theraflue over the counter. So Sudafed, Advil cold and sinus....all require a prescription here in Oregon! I called up to see if I could sweet talk the doctor into giving me some without me coming in....that didn't go over so well. I had to give the nurse all my symptoms so she could tell the doctor and the doctor insisted he needed to see me that my symptoms didn't sound good. So I went in, somewhat disgruntled as I had to leave my internship about 2 hours early and drive from Portland down to Corvallis, and when I said all I need is some drugs to hep clear up my sinuses the doc said....well bonus you get antibiotics too!
~being tired! As if grad school wasn't enough to make a person tired I found out on my impromptu doctors visit that my thyroid level has been way off for the last year. I have been on medication for hypothyroid since I was a sophomore in high school. This is the first time my level has been off so far that I required the highest level of thyroid hormone they make! Sweet! So that helped me not feel so sleepy all the time and run down.
~visiting family. I'm sure many of you have read their blogs and know the details. There has been the addition of a new baby to the family and a few complications with mom's health along with that. Birthdays, Halloween,and Thanksgiving and lots of fun in between.

Wish I had some pictures to share...but I don't. I will have to steel some from Jackie since most of the fun outings have involved her boys. School is all done now and I came to C* for the weekend and I may be staying longer because there is 4 inches of snow and the forecast is for it to stick around and maybe continue snowing!

I'm back in bloggosphere

I was somewhat dismayed to visit my sisters page the other day and notice that it says under the link to my blog that I havn't posted in 5 weeks. Pretty sad. I have lots to say but right now I'm just doing a short post. We are currently in the process of canning about 120 pounds of peaches! We got a lot done in the 3 hours we worked this morning and I'm sure we will get even more done after lunch. I'm excited to have my friend Kacie coming to visit for the week and my aunt and uncle from Deleware following that visit up! It will be a busy time as I prepare for my masters program to start. In relation to my masters program starting I have been considering going private with my blog. I have enjoyed having it be open and having friends find me through it but I'm leary with starting work in the social work field. These people will know more info about me then my former work...and thus will likely be able to google me and find my blog if they really wanted too. So I'm going to waite about a month and then go private. I will invite people if I have your email address. If you don't know if I have your email...send me one and then you will know I have it!
Hope everyone is enjoying summers wrap up. I love fall but it is always hard to let summer go.

Start your engines

This week has passed in a whirlwind and I have had good intentions of updating my blog, but best laid plans and all that. The driving crue, of which I am a part, departs in a few hours. I spent the weekend looking at housing in the Portland area. It was a discouraging trip. Before I went up I had looked on various online postings and tried to get some idea of price range and location. I had high hopes of finding housing around the $600 range. It became clear once I was up there however that unless I found someone to live with the price range would leave me with undesirable housing. I was either going to live in a total dump, or live in a just above dump status in a scary neighborhood, or someplace semi decent that was in the $700 range. Needless to say I'm exploring other options.
I have been trying to get up to visit the YSA wards and get a feel for them and meet the housing coordinators and the likes for the past three weeks. The first attempt was a poor choice of weekend and we had some family stuff so I decided to stay and planned to go up next sunday. During the week I got a call from the new relief society presidency and they asked me to teach the lesson for the coming Sunday. I thought ok that still leaves me with two weeks before our beach trip I can just go up next sunday. Yeah....about that. So I get a call the night before the sunday I teach, can I come in and meet with the bishopric they want to extend me a new calling. Side note: our student wards here got a make over about a month ago. Instead of two "student" wards that included marrieds without kids and anyone 18 an up attending school we now have a YSA ward, and it got combined into one ward. ok end of side note!
Anyway I got in and I'm thinking maybe since they asked me to teach I will get called as a teacher. Oh no, the relief society president happened to know I played the piano back in the day...so I got called as the relief society pianist. This took some restraint on my part. My first impulse was to laugh, and in fact that was my brothers first reaction when I told him. Once upon a time I could play most hymns without much difficulty...enter school and work and no piano for me to practice on for the last four years. I had a serious phobia of playing with people singing, in fact I just have a phobia of people. I may come off friendly but deep down I'm still scared of you when I'm talking. I got called as the relief society pianist when I was at Ricks, way back in the day, and then had to play in sacrament a few times. I believe I didn't sleep much the night before I had to play if I remember correctly. Then on my mission I was the only one who could even remotly play the hymns in wards and so the germans didn't care if I botched the chords they just liked having some background music for a change and it bolstered my confidence. See the thing about the church is you are surrounded by talented people and especially going to a church school and having piano majors and super skilled poeple that can play the songs in their sleep it makes you feel stupid when you are asked to play. So post mission I had less fear but I still don't volunteer to play because I know that my skill level isn't as high as others. This was a long tangent..props to you if you are still with me here. The point of this rambling is that I accepted the calling but found it funny. I think the Lord is trying to get me ready for doing things that scare me in the coming months. Kind of warming me up slowly.
So along with the calling to be pianist they snuck in a assignment to give a talk. That's right that would be another week in a row that I couldn't make it to Portland to check out housing! So we are down to the wire here this last week and I was determined. Forget that calling I mentioned, housing was taking priority. I go up and I have the times all checked out of the different YSA wards and I'm psyching myself up to be agressive and overcome this deepdown scared child that is afraid of talking to people....and then this morning I got a call from a friend up there who I had emailed on Saturday....foiled again!!!! There was a regional conference for the YSA wards in Portland. Every single one of them was meeting in Vancoover. I just had to laugh. Oh well my friend was kind enough to help me out with housing info and was going to check to see if anyone was looking for a roommate so one of the main purposes of going up was taken care of. I just didn't get to get a feel for the wards. Sigh...sometimes it just feels like everything is conspiring against me.

I drove back down this afternoon with all Jackie & Zach's gear and the trailor is packed and the dog is freeking out thinking we are leaving him and last minute preperations are in full swing. I don't know if I will have the chance to post while I'm back there because the internet connection is not reliable. I will get emails and internet access on my phone though so keep in touch! I will be checking blogs! I'm excited for this trip and I feel like this is the begining of the big changes ahead.

Harward Family Reunion

The first ever M. E. Harward family reunion was a big sucess! I personally had tons of fun. It was enjoyable to see cousins that I don't get to see all that often and play with all their kids and just hang out and enjoy one another. Jackie posted a bunch about the family auction and i would have to agree with her post about how talented our family is. The items auctioned off were mostly hand made and they were all donated so that the proceeds of the auction went to help fund next years reunion. I was lucky enough to get a quilt made by my aunt suzie. I feel really lucky to have the keepsake and am looking forward to having it on my bed when I move in September. I was eyeing the quilt before the auction and I was hoping to be able to get it. The starting bid was $75 so I didn't know if it got up too high if I would be able to justify getting it. I need a new bedspread since I will have a full size bed when I move in the fall and all my previous bedding is for a twin. My parents were super awesome and they got the quilt for me! I will have to post a picture later. The auction included such amazing hand made items including: kids rocking chair, baby blanket, quilted wall hanging/ doll blankets, kids aprons with amazing fabric such as disney princess and pirates and clowns, doilys, decorative tiles with vinal sayings...and the list goes on. Here are some of my favorite photos depicting the many fun activities going on at the cabin during the weekend reunion. Sadly I don't think anyone got a picture of the firework viewing. We went to newport and enjoyed quite a spectacular showing. Playing games: Jayme, Virginia, Grandpa & Maxine playing polish poker The great grand kids Playing horseshoes: Cara & Megan The marshmellow fight reenactment of the battle of bunker hill! Kids down by the river The whole gang that showed for the reunion Silly Harward clan Madeline, Katie, Mark show their marshmellow shooting abilities Making dream boats (explained below) Here is a video of the launching of our dream boats. Every family had at least one dream boat but most of the kids made their own, so this video doesn't really do it justice. I wish I had a video of the legend that my mom told that goes along with the dream boats. The dream boats were something the Harward sisters did when they were little. Apparently their uncle told them about some river fairy's and the great granddaddy crawdad and the dream boats were to be homes for the fairy's. It was a fun activiity and everyone seemed to enjoy carrying on a little tradition from our parents.