nonlinear

A commissioned piece that traveled down to some dear friends in Florida this week. 

Greetings!

Happy to say that I am 6 days away from putting down my DSM-5 for a while.

The psychopathology final will take place this Wednesday, as well as my final Supervision class for the summer. 

We just have to turn in papers and do a brief presentation. 

That leaves me with my research class...but my hope is that with my other classes and my additional work hours at EYM out of the way, I'll be able to focus and write a nice first draft for myself. 

You're probably wondering what my research will be about...

It might be a little difficult to grasp this because art therapy lives in a very strange land...

but I will be researching the therapeutic potential of hope through the process of my own art-making, specifically while working with the oncological population. 

I'll be doing art-based inquiry, which means I'll meet with oncology patients to make art and hear about their own stories of hope (or not hope); then I'll do my own art making in response to our session (called response art). In the spring I'll analyze all of the art that I made (the data), find themes, and then write a paper. It's a pretty nuanced way of doing research, so I won't blame you for thinking it sounds bizarre. 

Like I said, art therapy lives in a very special world. 

And otherwise...

I've been making a lot of art and attempting to force myself to work on my homework...it feels almost impossible at times. 

Ben and I had our one year anniversary on July 20. 

I realized that I did not include a picture of our house sitting job, but that's basically what we were doing that weekend. 

It was for our church friends, who happen to live in a really beautiful farm house about 30 minutes from MKE. Ben was out there longer than me, feeding the sheep, chickens, cat & dog, as well as a few other chores. Austin drove over from Columbus, OH to join us, so his sister Taylor came over from Madison. It was great to spend some time in the country with friends. 

Then Ben and I drove back for church and ate our favorite food in the world...Pho and Bahn Mi...at one of our favorite Vietnamese restaurants. 

We have a little celebrating in order yet, because I don't think we tried hard enough and I was busy worrying about homework. :)

Maybe after class is done.