Getting married was probably the best part of last year. Everything else was pretty terrible. Don't get me wrong, I loved, loved, loved working with my kids, but it was a difficult year. I worked at two very high demand schools. I often felt like I was doing the job of 4 people! I survived it all only to find out that my position was cut. I was replace by low-paid part-time interns. Sad. It was hard to leave all the kids behind and the teachers that I had worked with. The kids were harder to leave behind because I can be facebook friends with the teachers, but I lose contact with the kids. I worked really hard to create a good therapeutic relationship with each of my students and to have to leave that behind was aggravating. The busy-ness of my job prevented me from finishing my thesis, so graduation was delayed so that was a double fail for me.
We consoled ourselves by going to the temple, going home for visits, working hard on my thesis and looking for a new job. Sometimes we combined all of those things.
A month after my internship job ended, I was able to secure a job at the Utah State Hospital. I was initially interviewed over the phone while I was still an intern. Someone was picked over me, but it didn't end up working out for them. So they called me in July for a second interview and hired me at the end of it.
- 5 minutes away instead of 1 hour
- WAY less gas money as I'm not driving 100 miles a day, plus driving all over the district
- A small, tight-knit faculty and staff
- A caring principal
- A great school psych working there that I can learn from
- The patient's stay is generally less than a year, so if we were to leave Provo, it'd be easier to leave this job than another school psych job.
- Less responsibility (If someone runs away, I'm not blamed)
- More time to spend with Brian (when school is done, I'm done!)
- More time to actually FINISH my thesis
