"It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long, lonely lonely lonely time..."

Jake and I went to see Lez Zeppelin, an all-girl Led Zeppelin cover band on Friday night. Opie was going to come along, but then randomly on Thursday he decided to buy a plane ticket to Madison so he could drink beer at Bockfest all weekend. So, Jake was supposed to give Opie's ticket to either Matt or Brian (both guys that work at the patent office). Here's a picture of Jake outside the State Theatre in Falls Church (where we saw the concert). We were both freezing waiting to meet people and give away the ticket. I'm glad we went though...it's been a while since I've seen a concert and it was fun. I think my purpose in life may be to get drunk and listen to loud music...
Jake and I also tried to go curling this weekend, but the curling place was packed. They were having a free day at this curling place in Maryland. They give a lesson on how the sport is played and let you try it out. But, everyone must have been watching the Olympics and decided that they wanted to give it a whirl. Oh well...I think I should convince Jake to take me when they have a free day again (which I think is in, like, October...).
I should hear back from Montgomery Co. by the end of the week about the internship position. I was so nervous at the interview...I doubt that I will get it. But at least I'll know for sure at the end of the week. Prince George's finally got back to me and told me that I've been put on their "back-up list", meaning that if one of their internship offers falls through, they will give me a call. Crap, I feel like I am so screwed. I think I need someone to pity me or to just get lucky to get an internship. Ugh.

"First I was afraid, I was petrified..."

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has posted on here or talked to me over the phone to cheer me up. I'm glad that I have all of you! You have helped me deal with this better than if I had to do it on my own. I am feeling a bit more positive about the whole thing. I still think it was super-shitty that those people didn't even bother to wait until they interviewed me, but whatever...it's over now and I can't change it.

I emailed the woman from Prince William today to tell her that I decided that I'm not going to come in for the (futile) interview she said that she would still "honor". I asked her if she could give the names of other places that might be taking on interns, what I should do in the next year if I don't get an internship, and what I can do to improve my application materials. She surprised me by sending me back an email a half hour later. She suggested a few other counties in VA that I haven't applied to yet, but I know I've tried to contact some of them and haven't had luck before. I can try again, I guess. Hopefully, they haven't already interviewed and taken on people, too. She wasn't too helpful with the job ideas for if I don't get an internship...all she suggested was that I look for something similar to my practicum experience. She said that I don't need to do anything to improve my application, it's just that it was a "timing issue" with my interview. Bah. "Timing issue"...I wish she would've made that "timing issue" a little bit clearer when she was setting up the interview with me.

Anyway, it made me feel a little better that she included that she felt "certain" I'd find an internship spot this year. But it also worried me that she said that she was "surprised" at the volume of applications for the internship position at Prince William and at the number of people who applied from out-of-state. I just have this feeling that there is this huge influx of school psych applicants to the DC area this year for some reason.

Sometimes I think it wouldn't be so bad to take a year off and just do something that would be an interesting experience. I'm sure I could find something cool out in DC...whether it be a job or just some volunteer stuff. I feel like it'd be hard to apply again for internships the next year, though. I'd have to make my profs save their recommendation letters for me again next year. Plus, I wouldn't want to have to try to explain to people why I didn't get an internship right away. Oh, I don't know...

I can't sleep because I keep ruminating on everything

I think I'm getting myself more and more worked up about this whole job situation thing. It's really straining everything in my life right now. I'm afraid that it all is going to make me so angry, upset, and bitter that everyone's going to hate me. I think I made Jake really angry at me today. I just cried and cried over the phone about the internship that got given away before I even had a chance to interview for it. When I start to think that I'm not going to have a job next year, I start to question everything else in my life. I start asking Jake why he even wants to marry me. Seriously, it doesn't make any sense to me. It's like the "fortune" I got on those cookies of Lelani's over winter break...I have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I think the only thing that I have going for me is that I'm "smart"...meaning that I can retain factual information and spit it back out. I don't have what people need to get a job. I don't have skills communicating with people. I'm not effervescent. I have no charisma. I come into interviews nervous and awkward and on the brink of tears. I am destined to work a job where they just want a warm body filling a spot. I can't demonstrate any special skill...
I'm afraid that I'm this huge disappointment to people. I feel like everyone expects me to get an internship, and if I don't, there will be all these people who think less of me. My mom is waiting until I find out about internships before she puts an engagement announcement in the newspaper. I don't know what will happen if I don't get anything...maybe she'll be too embarrassed of me to even put out an announcement? Jake's family will probably wonder why I can't find a job. My professors here will be disappointed. I'll be disappointed in myself. I don't want all this stupid education to go to waste. Why the hell did I go to grad school if I'm not going to be able to get a job? What an expensive, expensive waste of my life.
It makes me ill that I paid $300 to fly out for this interview and they didn't even give me a chance. What a load of horse shit.

Crap.

Prince William called me this afternoon and told me that they already filled their internship positions. WTF? I haven't even interviewed with them yet. They told me that they would still interview me, but I really have no way of getting hired by them. I don't know if I should go and ask them what I should do to try to apply for next year, or if I should just say screw it and not go. I'm highly upset by this. I feel that I was mislead. When she called to set up my interview, she told me that she was interviewing as late as Feb. 24. I told her that that day worked well for me (I was trying to think ahead to when I probably wouldn't have to work on cases at school...it's WSPA at the same time...). But she never told me that they would hire before they finished interviewing...
I'm really pissed. I feel worse and worse about my whole job situation all the time now...ugh...I wanna throw up...

Handwriting

I got some fair trade chocolate in the mail today as a Valentine's present from Jake. Anyway, there was a card along with it with a message from Jake. The handwriting didn't look like Jake's normal handwriting. The writing was printed, and Jake normally writes in cursive, so I thought that maybe he had just printed the note inside. I made a mental note to tell him that I liked the printing inside the card, because I found the writing in the card to be fairly attractive. Very nice printing...

Anyway, I talked to him on the phone and he told me that he didn't write the note. Apparently, he just filled out some form online and typed in the info. for the note. But I swear, the note looks like it's handwritten! It doesn't look like some kind of font or something. For example, all the y's and the h's each look a little bit different, the left margin isn't perfectly lined up, and some of the lines of text slope upwards. What the hell? Could this be some advanced type of font that mimics actually handwriting, or do you think someone at the fair trade chocolate company actually wrote out what Jake typed in?

I'm slightly disappointed that this isn't actually Jake's writing. I was all excited that I had a fiance with the ability to print beautifully. Damn.

What celebrities do I look like?

Lelani let me know about this
Celebrity Face Recogntion website and now I'm addicted. I decided to do my own research by picking a variety of pictures and seeing what names came up most often. The name that came up most often for my picture was Hilary Swank. Second most often was Linsay Lohan. Next in line were Jane Fonda and Hillary Duff. Sandra Bullock showed up a few times, which makes sense because my nickname in 8th grade was "Sandy" due to other people saying I look like her. Scarlett Johansson showed up twice. Once Dan told me that I look like her in Lost in Translation, but I don't know how much I really do look like her. I guess if I were a dude, I'd be Keanu Reeves...
Jake apparently looks most like this guy named Stefan Raab, who is like a German VJ or something. I don't think he's very good looking, so it's kind of disappointing. Other names that came up alot were Matthew Perry, Keith Richards, Billy Bob Thorton, and John Edwards. Those made more sense to me.
Lelani looks most like some woman named Nana Mouskouri. She also apparently looks a lot like Elton John. Natalie Portman came up once when I scanned a picture of her, so made they *should* be best friends... :)
The name that came up the most for Maria was Kristen Dunst. Annette Benning came next, and then Camilla Parker Bowles, Hilary Swank, and Maryl Streep tied for third place...
I'm so addicted now! I've spent a couple hours doing this poo...yup, the motivation for school has definitely declined...

Bad Valentines

Man, is there anyone that comes out with "break-up" Valentines nowadays? This is awesome...

Making adjustments

What's a normal amount of time it takes to get used to a living situation? I'm used to Eau Claire now, but I don't know if I'd say I've completely "adjusted" to it. I think I came here with the attitude that I'd be leaving in two years anyway. It partly feels like there's not much point to settling in too much. So maybe I haven't allowed myself to adjust. Maybe that's why I'm not really friends with anyone here. Maybe I've put up walls by being so eager to get the heck out of Eau Claire.

I leech myself onto group activities sometimes, but I don't have anyone that I call up or make plans with ever. It's sad, really. I really do want to have friends. I think the idea of having friends from all parts of my life is really appealing. If I'm not close with anyone here, who will I have to look back on these times with? The people in my program really do understand the stresses of what I'm going through right now. It's just hard to actually hang out with any of them because so many of them leave on the weekends or are married or have kids or something.

I think sometimes when I'm totally uprooted, it takes me two or three years to feel completely comfortable being where I am. Adjustments are hard for me. I wonder how it will be moving out to DC. At least I'll have Jake out there, so it won't be like starting from scratch. Somehow, I don't think that it'll be as hard as when I started high school, or when I moved to Madison, or when I moved here. It was easier to move to Eau Claire than to move to Madison, but I feel like adjusting to Madison paid off so much more for me. I guess I didn't know anyone in either place. I know some people out in DC. I'm pretty excited to move there because I think that it'll be more likely that I'll have people to hang out with. Hey, as long as Jake comes home after work, I'll at least have him to hang out with, which is 100 times better than my current situation of spending days at a time without human contact.

What if I don't get an internship?

I think that it is a real possibility that I might not get an internship out by Jake. I don't know if that would be horrible or not. Does my life always have to follow a well-planned out trajectory? It scares me to not know what I'm going to do next. I always feel like I should have a plan. The plan right now is to work on becoming a school psych. But maybe it wouldn't kill me to spend some time trying something different out. I could find a different job somewhere by Jake if I was given some time. I don't think that it would break my heart if I didn't become a school psychologist. But I will be pissed if I can't get a job that at least requires a college degree. After all, I have been in school for the past six years. I'm going to have to pay off all this school soon.

Road Trip to Canada

Sarah came to visit me today. We ate lunch at Panera and went to see Brokeback Mountain. Yay! I had fun. The landscapes in Brokeback were gorgeous. Now I want to go to Canada because that's where it was filmed. Lelani, let's go on vacation. We can pick up Maria on the way. I want to go camping in the mountains.

I'm stressed...again...

My schedule changed like 18 times today. It gave me a pounding headache. I'm so irritated because one of my profs is so disorganized. She gave us a list of dates for our casework and then this morning said that those dates don't work (she didn't check with the social work prof. who collaborates with us on those cases), so four different dates in my planner had to be rescheduled. And as we were rescheduling those dates, my prof. couldn't make up her mind, so now there's all sorts of scribbles throughout my planner.

I thought that I'd get to administer DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills...basically, it's a quick way to measure reading skills)to some kindergarteners in Eau Claire next week, but then there was another schedule change and I have to test for one of my cases on Thursday instead of Friday. The reason that changed is complicated...and I don't want to get into it, but it was kind of unfair to me and the other students in the program...

I have another internship interview. It's in Montgomery Co., MD and is two hours after my flight comes in on January 23. Jake's going to have to pick me up at the airport and drive me straight there. I hope that it works out and I can get there...

I'm taking the NASP exam on March 4th. That's coming up really fast. I don't know how I'm going to study for it.

I keep dwelling on things and it's just making things worse...

I need to go to sleep because I have a school visit I have to go on tomorrow morning (that I didn't find out about until today...ugh!). I'm so pissed that I've had 80 billion things dumped on me today. I hope that I don't feel like this every Wednesday (the only day I meet for regular class).