How Long It’s Been!

What have I been doing!?

Oh Gosh everyone! It has been sooo long since I have posted anything on this website! It’s been so long I honestly thought the website had expired! I am sorry I have not been more active on here, but I have not been doing nothing at all (most of the time).

I have been hard at work in my rapid back to back 7 week classes for my Bachelor degree in Social Work, and have just three more weeks until I start the final phase of this part of my journey which is a 7 month internship to prove I have the skills necessary to graduate and make it in the real world.

I will also be gaining more skills than the ones I currently have along the way. From the looks of things I will be interning at the Planned Parenthood outreach center which as I have become interested in working with communities and being an advocate and activist for human rights.

I am a bit nervous because this will be something new but I am over all very excited to expand my skills while being able to help people both at the agency and people in my community. I just had my final interview and now just have to wayt until monday for confirmation that everything is finalized.

Aside from preparing for obtaining my degree, I have been spending time helping my family when needed and trying to catch up with the flood of news about current events, social work/ mental health, the ever changing political arena, and other areas of social and environmental justice work. I have been trying to develop a consistant self care routine and daily life routine that increases my health, skills, knowledge, and other personal development. Oh, and I can’t forget spending every sunday afternoon watching my youngest brother excell at pop warner football (despite my limited knowledge on the subject, I just wait until people on our side start clapping to clap).

What will I do from here?

My plan moving forward is to develop a plan! (Just kidding I totally have a plan). No, in all seriousness, I plan on doing the very best I can do at my internship which will get me used to working in a social work position at relatively normal hours for someone in the field, though without the large volumes of class work I should have even more free time to devote back to this blog, maybe the youtube channel, but maybe not the youtube channel (I’m still keeping the old videos up in case anyone wants to see them).

I plan on continuing to work on myself and putting in serious effort into my non blog writing and intense self reflection to solidify my understanding of myself and of myself in relation to the world around me. I am going to use the next 7 months of my internship to take all of the chances I can and to dive into this work that excites me and fuels my passion.

I have also renewed my membership to the National Association of Social Workers at the student level and plan to use the treasure trove of resources the Association has to offer as a way of self improvement. I plan on volunteering again like I used to and getting more involved in the areas I have already committed to getting involved in as well as continuing my journey of spiritual development as that is an area of my life that I have not given much focus but which holds great significance for human beings.

Since it is important for people to have goals and hobbies not related to their area of work or study, I also have some plans for spending my free time in a way that is not aimless (like scrolling endlessly through facebook), but is also enriching and fulfilling.

My plan for this area of my life is to increase activities like

• My Latch Hooks
• New crafting mediums like clay and resin
• taking time to enjoy already loved and new media in the form of music, art, movies and television shows (like the new show on netflix about a certian infamous individual)
• writing stories and poems while planning to write a novel and improving my overall writing skills
• actually using my gym membership
• reading and listening to all of the books and podcasts in my media libraries
• any random activity, event, or type of hobbie that I might want to try as it comes up

Updates to my life and lessons I’ve learned since I’ve been gone.

Life Updates:

• My brother had a baby boy giving me a niece from my sister and a nephew from my brother
• My sister who gave me a niece last year is now having another baby who will be joining us very soon
• my aunt is having a baby and the family is thrilled
• One more sibling has graduated high school and another is set to graduate this school year leaving only 3 of 8 of my siblings who will still be in grade school.
• I am getting very close to graduating and life is overall going better than it has ever been in my past 28 years of life.

Lessons I have learned:

• Never say never.
• Give your best effort every day and try to find the positives, you will not always be able to give 100 percent every day, and some days all you may accomplish is getting out of bed and taking a shower, but as long as you have done your best that shower is an acomplishment to be celibrated. Also it may not always be easy, especially in the face of great adversity, but trying to look at life from a positive attitude will be better for your health in the long run.
• No one is perfect and that is okay, but you should never stop trying to be the best person you can be.
• Realize your limitations and weaknesses, but also realize your strengths, capabilities, and resources which may help you and seek to overcome obstacles in life by using these strengths and resources
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help or support when you need it. This one is very personal to me. I was struggling at first feeling like there was no way I could be ready to do my internship, but I reached out to all of the people who I knew could help me or give me advice or support, and now I’m feeling more confident and capable of starting and completing this next phase of my life.