Finally Caving In

As you might have guessed, I caved. What did I cave on? My 113 days of being soda free. I have been debating giving myself a cheat day for a while but I have ALWAYS denied myself that luxury. I didn't want to drink the stuff. Today however, it was necessary. I haven't gotten more than six hours of sleep on any given night this past week. Between my final meetings with my sorority, the ceiling leaking, work, wanting to make it to all of my last classes, and my practicum PLUS all of the tests and assignments that happen the week before final's week, I haven't had the ability to be asleep by 12.

Last night I went to bed around 2:00 am and had to be up at 6:30 to be at my practicum site by 7:00. Thank you so much to the amazingly, WONDERFUL Brianna for letting me crash at her house and then waking up with me at an ungodly hour to drive me to my practicum. You're a beautiful human and I love you.

Today was technically my "last" day with my practicum students and in order to completely all my hours on time, I had to get to the site BEFORE IT OPENED. This is all because my evil practicum teacher (not affiliated with the site) refused to let me turn in my signed hours if my hours extended past 12 on April 25th. Word cannot describe how excited I am to NEVER have to deal with this woman ever again. Anyway, I spent ten and a half hours at my site. During this time I managed to get in an almost 2 hour long nap thanks to some really boring war movie that the staff decided to have them all watch. I was a little sad to see some of the kids leave today. It finally hit me that after next week, I won't be involved in their lives anymore. I won't get to ask them how everything was or sit with them and help them succeed in a subject. These kids need permanent guidance from someone and I was so privileged to have been that person for these last few months.

My day is not yet finished though. After my practicum I had to go straight to work where I have been and where I will stay until 2 in the morning. Woo. 

Losing a Student

Today I learned a valuable lesson for both my present self and my future self. Half of  the students at my internship are new and the other half have been in the program for at least a month. There are now a total of 8 middle schoolers which are the group of kids that I work with most often. I'm pretty good buddies with what used to be 4 of the 8. Until today. 

My favorite hate to love/love to hate student ran away from his home for five days, lost his placement at my internship and now he has to go to Pensacola to be apart of a real juvenile detention center. Mikael (not his real name) is not the first student to be labeled on the run nor will he be the last. He was however, a really good kid. I don't know what he did to end up involved with the law but he's  not that troubled of a kid. Mikael hadn't missed a single day of school and he was rocking a 4.0 GPA before he ran. He had completed all of his sanctions and was about to be taken off of probation. He was almost done! 

"Losing" Mikael really upsets me and I've only known him for a month. He was one of the main reasons I was so excite to go every Tuesday and Thursday. I felt that I could possibly make a difference in his life. I still want to. I'm legitimately worried about this 15 year old kid.

The lesson I learned was that I can't let myself get attached so easily. I'm not in control of anyone else's actions so I cannot count on anyone else to keep doing a behavior or to not to a behavior. The same thing applies later on.  I won't be able to count on a client to listen to my opinion or not to relapse or to keep up with a program. As much as I want to, it's not an option.

Well That's Different

Usually there is quote right here followed by a picture of some sort in order to get people's attention. Today didn't warrant that. Today was a little different. 

I went to my internship and worked on my assignment for the class by filming my placement site and interviewing the director of treatment for the kids. Afterwards I joined the kids in the cafeteria and started talking to a few of them about their day. A bunch of them have started to be able to recognize me and talk to me more openly which is great! I really like that a few of them are opening up and not being so quiet or abrasive. 

After lunch, I joined the middle schoolers for math and life skills where we spent 2 hours getting four 14 and 15 year old boys to do a project that consisted of learning how to budget and do percents. Two hours. It was really frustrating but fun none the less. Eventually I was able to help one of the students work on one of his sanction essays to hopefully change his case a little bit.

IN OTHER NEWS MY BIG CAME TO VISIT TODAY AND I'M SO HAPPY BECAUSE I LOVE HER AND SHE PERECT AND IM DONE