Friday, September 11, 2009

in the basement thinking about the government

I keep changing my mind about where I'm going with my Masters degree.

At first I wanted to be a school counsellor. Now that I've paid more attention to what school counsellors do, I've realised this probably isn't it. They spend a lot more of their time fiddling with class schedules and doing administrivia than they actually do with counselling people. I pictured it differently than it looks in reality.

Then I was thinking about other kind of counselling. Like marriage counselling. Like individual therapy.

But I'm not totally sure I want to do this either. I'm less sure about WHY in this case. Just that something about it makes me a little uneasy. Maybe it's all the contact with human beings.

Lately I'm thinking I might want to be a school psychologist at the district, rather than school, level.

This would involve a little travelling. I like the idea of being paid to drive, short of being a trucker. It's nice being alone with the radio and my thoughts.

I also like the idea of working with clients one-on-one, or with small groups, like their families. I've come to learn over the past year the true significance of psychoeducational assessments, and I'm thinking this might be a good place to make a real impact. Maybe. But it's so hard to know. It's entirely possible that school psychologists actually spend more of their time Windexing the mirrors or picking up dog poop or something. There's just no way to know for sure until you follow them around for a couple of days.

I'm meeting with a district supervisor on Thursday, a fact which I find somewhat astonishing. I'm amazed that he's even interested in talking to me, actually. But I'm seizing my chance and going to find out if there's any advice or any pearls of wisdom he can offer me.

Meanwhile I'm continuing to ponder how I can pursue my career/educational goals and still keep helping with the mortgage, the child-raising, and so forth.

I want everything.



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