Action research - first person

Post Test Reflections...

Well, it is over with. I think I botched the data analysis section and probably the findings/results section - I may be the second person in the history of the doctoral program to flunk the exam twice... I had the the thought that I wished I'd never entered the program when I was crying on Les after the test, but then I considered the thought and realized it wasn't true... the joys brought me outweigh the pain, even in a worst case scenario (I flunk again and get kicked out). I have met some amazing souls, I've really loved learning, and I got to stay home with my animals and get paid a stipend to study for a year and a half, as well as have my tuition paid for. Not a bad gig, all said and done, no matter what the outcome of the test...

So, if I'm ejected, what shall my next gig be?? Hmmmmmmm... I'm sick of the lotto question... I know I'll get a decent paying gig so that Les and I can get a house and she can have an art studio space... I suppose I'll do some sort of therapy gig, or maybe I could do a hodge podge of contracting work (grant writing and clinical). I could start my own practice for CBT/psychosis - maybe I could work out of CFC... dunno... but to do that I'd have to get my ass to England for some real training... or I could ask ani if she wants to start an alternative community foundation for Buffalo... she might like that.

Oh, did I mention that Les found a lump in my left breast?! That makes the health insurance issue a bit sticky, and of course can't get on Leslie's because of same sex unions not being legally recognized... never mind that we've been together for years and are in word and deed each other's next of kin - according to the good ol' USA, we are 'legal strangers' and I cannot access health insurance benefits through her employer...

Enough on that... I'm trying to cheer myself by thinking of all the options that I may manifest... hmmm... I don't really like fund-raising. But consulting... maybe... maybe Roberta and I should start a consulting business... I could check with Judy Simpson re: how she did hers... or... I could work at the Wellness Center...

Being a therapist sounds fun... maybe I could get certified in CBT... and then train in England...

Drinking with the Locals: Adventures in Dog-sitting and Test Avoidance Continue...

I am hung over - I freaked out after studying and took off to to a local bar/restaurant and had a tiny adventure of sorts. I had a fine chat with the bartender and a couple of the locals - one works for Blossom Music Hall and the other is a waiter who will probably go to Iraq after he gets off probation. Also got to meet the owner of the restaurant, and we all bitched together about the Winking Lizard (corporate) restaurant across the street, which was filled to the brim with yuppies while our local joint was empty.

I bought shots for the two local guys, 'cause it was the waiter guy's birthday and he wasn't doing anything for it, and I reassured them that I was happily involved in a relationship and wasn't hitting on them or anything. I had my old glasses on and a crazy Pebbles Flintstone style pony-tail on the top of my head. My jean shorts had a giant red ink spot on my leg where I'd rolled over a red pen while studying earlier in the day. It was a comical role reversal of sorts - I felt like the 'yucky man barfly' buying shots for a pair of young single women at the bar - never mind that the Blossom guy was older than me - somewhere in his 50s he said. The waiter guy just turned 26, and I am 33.

I woke up today to Neil Young's 'Stupid Girl' playing in my head - that must mean something. How about I'm hung over the day before take II of my doctoral qualifying exam, and if I don't pass it this time I'm out of the program... I did study yesterday, though. I think I'll go check out what's on cable...

More Dogs and Test Anxiety...

Now I'm waiting for Er and her dogs to come over. Hopefully they'll do okay with Cinder and Jazzie, who are like two peas in a pod (Zuni tends to keep to herself).

My classmates from out-of-town are in town; they want us to study together. They'll probably want to process my failure of the exam the first time... I think I know what I did wrong - I wrote at a maniacal pace and intellectually vomited every technicality I knew and could critique/comment on, rather than reflectively assimilating as is my usual writing style when doing academic stuff. I really want to slow down; if I don't know it, I can look it up. I'm going to relax and take it easy this time - it's eight hours that I never wanted to do again, and so I shan't - at least, not in the same fashion. I shall take pee breaks. I shall eat lunch. And I shall drink merrily afterword...

Uh, oh. Thunder!! Er and her doggers and the rest of us may be stuck indoors... But at least my plant babies at home will be getting watered...

I feel reclusive - I think I need to study with other folks, or I'm not going to study at all (my study stuff is still in my car...). But I cringe away - I don't understand this aspect of myself, so explaining it to others is difficult... I go through these phases where I don't return calls right away, or even at all if the person leaves demanding messages. By 'the person', I generally mean long-time friends... which would basically mean I'm an asshole... (More thunder - I love storms!!!) Why do I treat people like this? I guess it's the people that don't give me space when I need it - when 'I' need it - never mind what they might need - see, there's the asshole factor again :(. (There's a beautiful reddish finch taking shelter from the rain in the bush outside the window - I could almost touch her - this place is akin to paradise... poor little Jazzie is hiding under my chair so that the evil Thunder Monster doesn't get him...) But I've struggled with this aspect of myself for so long... I don't always answer my phone, and I don't call back right away sometimes... but it has to do with when the relationship is becoming draining or otherwise screwed up... that much I do know. I love my friends - I guess I'm lucky they put up with my crap, as I put up with theirs...

So, I suppose I should call my classmates and set up our study date... they don't even give me any crap - it's the test issue that is making me pull back... I just want to go in and take it cold - fuck preparing. What good did it do me?? Maybe part of me wants to fail again so I could have an obvious (although embarrassing) reason as to why I was out of the program... But I suppose I want to pass, and stay. I do like qualitative research, and teaching, and there are those who do not scoff at my contributions... and more importantly, I do not scoff at my contributions...

Of obsessions and dogs...

Cinder is yelping - I think that means that there are worker people here to finish the front side walk. I shall remain hidden in my pjs in the back room, and continue to avoid studying for my doctoral qualifying exam take II by writing in my blog. Such are the perils and/or fringe benefits of doggy sitting.

Cinder is a large, black pitbull/lab mix. Her people rescued her.... now she's eating toilet paper - where she found the tp I'm not sure - hopefully she has not unravelled a roll somewhere. She has large ears that stand up on her big head and sort of punctuate her sweet smiling face - she sort of looks like a gremlin. There is a scar around her neck, from where the collar she was wearing when they found her on the street had grown into her skin.

Zuni is the other dog I'm watching. She is more like a cat, with regards to personality. She looks like a chubby coyote. She is very old, and she has her own room (she took over the guest room) where she spends most of her time sleeping behind the guest bed. She has arthritis, and takes medications which I've been hiding in Einstein's salmon cream cheese to get her to take. She has trouble getting up the back stairs of the deck, so I lift her hind-end up and we 'wheel barrel' up the stairs. This morning we didn't get it quite right the first time - she fell over and cried out and I felt terrible. But she got right back up and resumed the 'wheel barrel' position, and the second time we got it right. She is too big and heavy for me to lift, and I don't know whether she'd let me, anyway. Alas, I suppose the 'wheel barrel' method will suffice.

My little Jazzie dog is with us - he is a small, feisty terrier mix, black and white - and perhaps the great love of my life - I found him running in the street just a couple of blocks from where Roberta found Cinder. Now he's barking too ... Yep, it's the sidewalk people.

Jazzie is the healthiest obsession I've ever had. I never want to be obsessed with a human again. I've told my partner this on more than one occassion. I love my partner dearly, but I'm not obsessed and never have been in the five years we've been together. Prior to Jazzie, I spent nearly a decade obsessed. My obsessions consisted of the sad cliches of wanting people who didn't want me (that'd be Doug; my obsession with him lasted about 4 years) and/or people who were already in committed relationships (that'd be Roberta, which lasted about 6 years, but eventually morphed into a fine friendship in which we double-date with our partners and watch each other's dogs). Melissa says that Roberta and I are like a french movie; I guess that is one way of explaining our connection. (I often think of my life as a movie, but more like a cheesy b-movie or a really low-budget indy flick...)

And then there's my ex, Renee, who was obsessed with me rather than the other way around... Renee literally had a psychotic break when I broke it off... obsessions suck. They are energy and sanity-siphoning - no wonder I'm interested in CBT!!! Let's hear it for thought-stopping techniques!!!!

That garbage-eating troll dog opened the trash can and took tp out of it!!! The can has one of those foot (and/or apparently paw) pedal devices that opens the lid...

I'm baaackkkkkkk - must contemplate goals further...

I'm dog-sitting; cable and a hot tub are at my disposal - 'tis nice. They even left me the adult channel code, which is 000000. There is little food here, but ample wine. It's a decent gig for now - beats 9 to 5 -ing. I wonder if I went into the doctoral program full-time cuz I was exhausted to the depths of my soul with working forty plus hour weeks in social work for nearly a decade... It was actually easy, compared to the work week grind. I loved my course work. My advisor too. I disliked the pedantic and self-reinforcing culture of academ (note: I never used the word pedantic until I entered a PhD program!!!). But it was easy enough to not attend to; all was glorious, until I failed my qualifer... and my little bubble burst.

I know I desperately wanted to contribute something relevant and useful to the struggling public mental health system that I've worked in so long and know so well... I wanted my dissertation to be concretely helpful, applicable, but now it is so egg-head jargon filled that I can't even explain it to most folks... how did this happen??? Why did I change my topic from CBT with psychosis to 'ecological validity' (yes, that is a real word...), with regards to implementing mental health practice innovations in complex stakeholder settings???? I remember thinking that focusing on one intervention would be too narrow, and implementating interventions seems to be such challenge, and also the place where research actually becomes (or does not become) useful and used...

What if I did pursue CBT in England, instead of finishing my PhD which I have no motivation for?? Or maybe - is it my dissertation topic that I don't like?? What if I changed my topic?

But, if I focus just on micro practice, then I feel like I'm ignoring the larger macro/ social justice issues, which pains me. I'm just so tired of that kind of battling - I did years of activism, and now I suppose I'm burned out with that form of protesting - I'm introverted and conflict-avoidant by nature, so activism certainly took a toll on me. I feel more in a healer rather than warrior or visionary/scholar mode right now. I'd like to think of my practice as 'therapy as revolution', but many would say therapy simply reinforces our capacity to tolerate the status quo rather than rebelling against it, and ultimately serves the interests of the professional elite at the expenese of working class interests. Sort of like Prozac Nation's (I think that is the title) asserting that we medicate ourselves so that we can tolerate the intolerable... I take Prozac, and although I feel a zillion times better, I wonder... I have this Marxian book that is completely ideological and basically reams therapy. Others call therapy the new 'secular religion' and the therapy session the church of the individual....

I actually wrote a paper theoretically taking a stab at integrating Beck's cognitive theory with Foucault's reflexive thought as self-liberation. It wasn't half bad. Foucault's thing is that we have to reflect in order to de-colonize our minds; or as ani d. would say 'I've been around the world... the mind control is steep here... it's deep here...'.

Hmmm... must be that time of year - May. It's been a year since my first post; but it's no weird May thing - why I felt like posting again right now is simply because I'm dog-sitting and my paper journal is far away.

I am trying to take inventory of my life; I am sort of in this pleasant apathetis state, flowing to a fault... I am taking my doctoral qualifying exam - again - flunked part of it the first time. It's this Friday, and I'm so not into it, or the program and social events and trainings and publishing and the cloud of 'thinly veiled competition' in most folks' eyes. I'm came close to buying in - I did - but being ripped a new asshole for the part of the exam I failed shocked me right out of it. It was a trauma in my (at that time) ever-shrinking mind - I felt shame and betrayal. Now... I feel free. But I don't know what's next, exactly. I have a wonderful place to live, a loving partner. I don't know what my 'path with a heart' looks like anymore. I'm happy living on a shoe-string budget, gardening and playing with my animals. Teaching and clinical practice call distantly to me, but, I am so in the moment that it is easy to stay with the path of least resistance. And what is wrong with that, anyway???????? I wonder if I'm lazy or unmotivated - my goals are so simple and I prefer working with my body and reject the egg-head life-style which I once flirted with. I suppose I remain an intellectual, but not an academic (bell hooks distinguishes these nicely in her most recent book about teaching community). But even such labels are kinda boring...

Travelling was interesting. I went to Slovakia and now I'm very intrigiued with communism and post-communism, as it played out there and the rest of Eastern Europe. I was there when Slovakia and the other 'new' countries joined the European Union, and had some very interesting conversations with folks about the perceived pros and cons of joining. I want to see the movie 'Goodbye, Lenin' now, and I've been trying to read and educate myself. I realized I was/am embarassingly ignorant about communism, other than the cute little text book history I got in some homogenized history class way back when...

They seem to be embracing capitalism big-time as a culture now; I hope they pay attention to how countries like Holland have done it - a socialist capitalism might be the ideal - certainly our way is not, although one of my favorite profs insists that capitalism is the ONLY economic system that allows a nation-state to generate a surplus enough to create a social welfare system/safety next for its citizens. I guess my arguments are two-fold - 1) what if such a large welfare machine was not necessary, cuz citizens were basically making it without such a costly safety net; and 2) he does not take into account the increasing transfer of wealth transfer to transnational corporations, many of which have larger GDPs as compared to countries...

Well, speaking of capitalism and wealth transfer, what would I do if I won the lotto?? This is my question that supposedly helps me see what my life goals are... Well, I used to say I'd be studying full-time in the doctoral program and travelling... maybe I am afraid of failing again. I dunno. It's easier to detach than to be afraid. But I was having trouble with the whole academic sub-culture before the failure; it just sort of served as a catalyst for my angst. Whatever. Okay, lotto question...
1) Pay off our debts & the debts of our families
2)Buy a big old house in our neighborhood with a huge backyard for the hounds
3) Use the bulk of the $$$$ as an endowment to start a foundation for animals rights, mental health, and various other social justice issues and projects
4) Travel (after I've rested up from my most recent jaunt...)
5) Buy bunches of forest acreage and put them in some sort of land-trust protected status
6) Donate $ to our church toward the wellness center



I don't have any work stuff there - no school, no writing, no practice stuff... I suppose starting the foundation could be construed as work-related.... dunno. I have no major goals. Guess I knew this. We're working on our debts, and I'm sure we'll get the old house at some point. I'll volunteer for the wellness center, and I already travel. I suppose I'm lucky and blessed... So why do I feel so quietly weary and a tinge sad? What happened to my 'dreams of youth'? Is it that I've achieved many of them, or is it more an Indigo Girl thing of 'my dreams came in like needy children, tugging at my sleeve - I said I have no way of feeding you so leave..."