A cool article on an old friend of mine who now has his own restuarant in our home town. If you are in the area or looking for a cool place to eat after visiting Leinie’s Lodge, check it out.

Jaycie’s been invited to attend some kind of AWANA church function with a friend from school. I’m a little freaked out because I don’t know anything about AWANA. Luckily, Ben is majoring in theology so I’m leaving this decision to him. I find it interesting that people are so open about inviting other people’s children to church events. It’s kind of presumptuous, but I suppose it goes with the whole evangelizing thing.

Well, classes are going fairly well. There is a lot of busy work, but nothing too strenuous yet. I’m still not digging my profs, but I’m not sure that will change. The class itself is focused mainly on clinical practice which is my area of interest, so I’ll just suffer through until I start my macro classes next term.

I have a job interview this week for a care advocate with a non-profit that deals with AIDS/HIV. It seems like an interesting position, but I don’t know if I’ll have enough experience. Whether or not I get this job, I’m going to put my notice in at my current place soon. I want to be done there by mid-March. I really love some of my co-workers so it’ll be sad, but the place is sucking the life out of me. I just want to cry every time I get near work. Yuck!

Lots going on in the political world–too much to try to catch up on. I’m freaking about both recent elections in Canada and Palestine. It’s going to change the whole global political spectrum. The whole Alito thing is crazy. I watched some of the confirmation hearings while I was sick and it was mainly white men giving props to him. Sadly, there isn’t much we can do to stop it. The minorities in this country are so poorly represented! And we don’t even have Canada to turn to anymore. Damn Conservatives are taking over the world!!!!!!!!!!

So, my first class wasn’t too bad. We have two professors so I’m not sure what to think about that, but overall it went fine. The material is mostly review since some people have been out of school for 5 years or so. It’s basically two years of social work undergrad class reviewed in one course. The books are new and there is a heavy focus on multiculturalism so that should make it more interesting. Interestingly enough, my class is made up of white, females, under the age of 35. The professors assure us our class will be more diverse when we mix with the other classes next term. I have a friend from St. Kate’s in class so that helps too. Lots of reading and writing to do before next Saturday! I’m so happy to be back in academia!

My educational career at Augsburg is off to a bad start. There have been several issues with registration, books, computer access, etc. that the program coordinator has neglected to address or very slow at addressing. So, I sent yet another e-mail yesterday seeking information, stating that I was concerned about the communication patterns. I wondered if this was representative of Augsburg as a school and the social work program. I received an e-mail with a detailed explanation for every issue which ended like this:

“In sum, I guess I can only say, we will not always do things perfectly. We are a small shop operation over here, so sometimes we are a bit informal about things. But as I said, this Fall was unusually awkward. We like to think, however, the positive side of our informality is that you can always call or email us with your concerns and we will go out of our way to address them. So I will leave it to you to decide if this is the right environment for you.”

Now, I understand the issues and the reasons behind them, but informality is not a good excuse for lack of communication. My problem was never that things got fucked up but the lack of communication from the school to the students. Informality should not excuse unprofessionalism. I’m a little more nervous about starting classes now. I don’t even know what to expect.

The year in review….
I lost one high school friend. Jilly’s Mom passed away too. Baby Liam was born. I graduate college and got my first professional job. Plus, I passed by licensure test with a 93! I was accepted to the U of M and Augsburg for grad school. I chose Augsburg because of its size and it fits my schedule. We celebrated our 10th anniversary. WOW! My heart was broken when Deep Throat was discovered. What a wonderful mystery it was! The kids spent a whole week with Ben’s parents. We had our first mini family vacation when we road tripped to Madison and Milwaukee. The kids loved staying the hotel and the zoo. I loved the road trip. We also found out my brother-in-law has a 4 year-old son. We got to meet him during our trip. We got to see Bob Mould in a smoke-free First Ave–still freaky! I got my dream car. Well…the runner up anyway. We went to an amazing pro-peace exhibit at St. Kate’s. And finally, I read 27 books over the course of the year. That number has really gone down, but there were some high quality books in there–Anna Karenina–Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Oh and I rocked the New Year’s Eve party last night with my awesome Chocolate Fountain!
So, now we are on to 2006. I’m not sure of my goals for 2006 yet. I know I need to renew my dedication to the whole “not smoking” thing. I’ve done well, but I’ve let myself slip way too much during the last six weeks. Hmmm…I’ll have to do some thinking.