Hi, you all..

Thanks for the reminder to blog, Kandi. Your first few weeks sucked! I could imagine packing up what few belongings I had left and heading north in a hurry. I admire you for your resilience.

I had some truly sucking weeks, too. Although I feel pretty wimpy compared to Kandi's travails. I told you all about the stressful crisis job I had? Well - I didn't last very long. I cried and/or vomited every single day. I was starting to hate my wonderful life.

There were a few events that made it impossible to stay at that bizarre job. One beauty was when I was told by my supervisor to tell the father of a son who had just had a psychotic break his first week at college to hang up and have his son call the crisis line because "if he keeps enabling his son, he's never going to get well." Too many appalling "therapeutic" interventions to bear.

So.... I'm in private practice. Life and Career Transitions. I have a little office and 3 clients in my second week. woo hoo. It will be a while before I can do much more than pay my office rent - but my decision couldn't have better for my overall well-being. I think I'm a lot more useful for my loved ones, too.

Oh yeah, and I was voted onto the Board of Directors of SCRAP. So that's cool.

Kandi -- you can expect a holiday care package from the Carmichael-Caseys.

I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of you all - so I hope you BLOG!

xoxoxoxo

Kelley

Hey ?!?!?-ers,

I didn't forget about you. It took me awhile to get my footing in the Eugene area, but I'm finally getting into the swing of things. Just in case any of you forgot about me.....here's the deal.

I finished my Ameri-stuff and moved to Eugene, OR for graduate school. After settling some things and working on some basic school logistics, I took a quick trip to the lovely island of Oahu and came back to the craziness of my life. When I got back.....

I found out that my new home was robbed. My instruments, craft box, and collection of two dollar bills disappeared from my life (along with a bunch of other stuff). I ended up having to move again, but just before I found a new place, my car got towed from behind the house by a very shady towing company that I wish I had enough money to sue. $250 dollar later, I piled everything into my car and found a new- less cursed place to live. Then the first week of school hit, my financial aid got messed up, the school tried to charge me $1500, and I got an awful cold. You know, life was looking pretty sad there for a second.

But alas, I hung in there.....although my dream of being an Amtrak stewardess was looking better and better. After so much hype about going back to school, it honestly was a slap in the face for the first week. I forgot how much it sucked sitting in a classroom and talking circles around "what it means to be post modern" and having people grade my thoughts. I secretly longed for the days where me and the mob were "getting things done."

But things did get better....I swear.

I finally remembered, after a long night of caffeine induced insomnia, why I decided to go to graduate school. I remembered all the things and people I met in the last year, and how much I wanted to do a better job of helping my community.....how I wanted to be more equipped to help my community. Yeah, some shitty life things were happening, but it didn't deter from the fact that I got into a really good program, and I have the opportunity to do some really cool stuff. I essentially got over my funk and am back to saving the world.

Whew, it was looking bleak for a second.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear how the rest of you are doing.

Just in case snail mail is your thing.....and I can't tell you how much I love holiday cards......my address is 70 N Cedar St. Eugene OR 97402

Kandi