So, today is 9/11. Take a moment to remember if you havent already. On that note, I saw 25th Hour recently and I believe it is one of the first movies to show ground zero. It was pretty impactful.

well, I am pretty scared. I met with my supervisor today and she taught us all these techniques that we are supposed to use with clients and I am feeling very uncertain about my skills. Learning how to be a therapist is very challenging. they are so many rules and guidelines. It is not just chit chatting it up with someone, you actually have to follow a specific treatment plan with each client. It all makes a lot of sense to me, but I am still pretty scared. I start our drug and alcohol intervention group next week. I am really excited about it. I watched two videos that we use in that group today. one deals with drugs and the other with alcohol. They were amazing, they made a great impact on me. I cried in the drug one. It was so eye opening to learn how drugs and alcohol can affect people's lives, especially teens. It was so sad to hear about people dying in drug overdoses or seeing the car that someone died in while they were driving drunk. they had family members of the people that died talk about how it affected them. There was one guy who drove drunk and killed his two best friends who were in the car with him. He spoke from jail because he was convicted on two charges of vehicular manslaughter. He said that being in jail was hard, but not the hardest part. He said the hardest part was living with the fact that he killed his two best friends. Wow. I think people often forget that even if they dont care what happens to them, there are others in this world that do. They were both very powerful videos.

Since I am graduating in May, many people have asked me what I plan to do once I graduate. So, yesterday in class, i came up with a small list of some of my options once I graduate. Here they are. I could work as a therapist in a wilderness camp for at risk youth. This is something I have always wanted to do. I know several of the camps I would work at, I have researched them plenty. There are a few in Utah I would love to work at. I could also move to Lebanon for a few years and help set up a therapy/prevention education program through the American University of Beirut (AUB). I think this would be an amazing experience for me and it is something they desperatly need over there. I could find a job here in dallas and just work full time for once in my life. That would be kind of nice and then I wouldnt have to make the scary leap out of texas. I could also be a professor at a community college or an adjunt professor at a university. That would be really interesting to work with college students instead of high school students. I could also find a high school teaching position and go through the Region 10 program to get my teaching certificate. Or, I could just pack up and move to California :) and find an amazing social service position there. I feel that I have good social skills and that I could form a support network for myself no matter where I move, but it is still very scary for me to think of packing up and leaving all my family and amazing friends that I have here. Well, at least I still have 9 months before I really have to figure this all out. If you all have any suggestions, please let me know. :)

Well, I am off to take a nice relaxing bath on my one evening off before heading over to mark and nat's.