dsm

My first DSM arrived and psychopathology starts on Wednesday.

That means that I'll be learning to diagnose this summer, which is a somewhat intimidating and scary thought.

But hopefully I will just learn a ton and then feel less intimidated about it afterwards. 

It's been quite a week.

Got through orientation and had my first 2 days of practicum at the hospital. 

It's a pretty independent and flexible internship (in terms of hours), which I'm excited for. 

We started off by putting together our art supply bags that we'll take around to waiting rooms and patient rooms. 

My supervisor is only there Mondays and Fridays, so we're pretty much on our own. 

Maralee, Annie, and I set up shop in same-day surgery waiting room and started making Hope Stones and Bottles of Hope. (I'll post a picture of those later.)

I got to practice my presentation of our these art therapy directives, but we didn't have too many takers.

Rejection in the waiting room does not really bother me. 

Some people just don't do art.

I also realized that I set up my presentation so that I wouldn't feel so rejected. 

I always say, "If you'd like to come join us, feel free." 

That way I leave it open-ended instead of being accepted or rejected with a yes or no question like, "Would you like to come join us?"

:)

Waiting rooms are just to get us feeling comfortable with the hospital and help us figure out how we're going to initiate art therapy with others. 

After a few weeks we'll start getting referrals and head into infusion rooms, which is where I mostly want to be.

I also get to start doing art therapy presentations for new employee orientation with another AT friend of mine this Tuesday.

Hopefully I will be a rock star at explaining art therapy by the time I leave this place. 

We also had our first open studio yesterday 2-7 pm. 

It's pretty exhausting to do that for 5 hours, but it was fun and I think I'll eventually become accustomed to the length.

I'm still used to my daily schedule of 2-3 hours of internship a day. 

I was at the hospital 8.5 hours yesterday!

Last night my professor's band had a gig in Riverwest so I met some friends there afterwards. 

Then I met Ben over at The Jazz Estate to hear another fabulous band that an EYM friend of mine plays in. 

I also got to say goodbye to Erin, who interned with me at EYM this last spring.

She graduated last week, packed up, and is moving to Louisville, Kentucky for an art therapy job.

I'm so happy for her because she is so deserving of it. 

She was such an important support for me this last semester. 

We're sad that we're not in Nebraska for the Harder reunion this weekend, but we'll definitely be making the most of our 3 day weekend. 

Time to clean, rest up, and prepare for Ben's last 2 weeks of school, as well as the start of my summer semester.