rocket [wo]man

"...and all this science, I don't understand. It's just my job five days a week..."
-Elton John

I really do love psychology, but sometimes I feel very disconnected from the world of academia. I want to understand people and to know how to help people, but some days it feels like the stuff I spend my time doing has very little to do with any of that. Sometimes grad school feels like some sort of silly obstacle course, and instead of teaching us what we need to know, it tests to see how badly we want to know, then releases us out into the world with a degree that qualifies us to figure it out on our own.

I was thinking the other day about my first day at Pathways, when I didn't even realize what I had been hired to do. I was passively observing a group therapy session, and Vicki, my boss, abruptly asked me to take the uncooperative kid next to me into the other room for an individual session. I was shocked and terrified, and I felt like I was mostly making stuff up as I went along. It turned out to be one of my best sessions, actually, but the whole time, I just kept thinking about how I unqualified I was to do what I was doing. And yet... after a year (almost) of grad school, I can't think of anything that I know now that would've made me any more prepared or less freaked out about that situation. That's not to say I haven't learned anything; I've learned some research things and some theories and such, but hardly anything that really translates into how to be a therapist.

Maybe next year.

elegy for the king of pop

Billy Jean isn't my lover either,
and I don't know if Annie's okay,
and I realize that I didn't know him,
but I really miss MJ today.

In dance class, my goal was to be just like him,
And I did learn "Remember the Time,"
But I never could do isolations (or moonwalks)
the way Michael did in his prime.

Back then, when he asked, "Will you be there?"
I felt strongly compelled to say, "Yes,"
For it seemed that the world didn't get it
And instead caused this great man distress.

Even so, he told us that we are the world,
And also that we can heal it,
And now that he's gone it seems silly to say,
But his spirit's still here. I can feel it.

frustrated grad student haiku

academia
is the epitome of
ridiculousness.

ecclesiastes
sums up how I feel right now:
this is meaningless!

juxtaposed haiku

juxtaposition

of stripes and rusty faces

is funny looking

flatland haiku

there are no hills here

mountains used to protect me

I feel so exposed

yoga haiku

I exhale all the stress

focus on a new drishti

and say namaste

live oak haiku

in mississippi
lying down and looking up
this is what you see