Back to Life

Probably time to catch everyone up on my life again. It's been rather awhile, hasn't it? I graduated college after that last crazy semester and 'the "F".' I even managed to answer my own "which came first, the apartment or the job? conundrum" (either works, but you need to keep motivated). So I spent a year living the high life in a luxury apartment in Mansfield and working for Victoria's Secret.

Mansfield was fun while it lasted, but ultimately too expensive for 3 20-somethings making under $30K each yearly. My year in retail wasn't nearly as horrendous as expected. Most days I really enjoyed working for the company, but I felt pretty sleazy talking people into opening charge accounts (especially after they'd ask "is this like a credit card?"). I was good at my job, but I'm glad VS wasn't my life's calling. I still don't know what it, but after a year it was time to try for a psychology job again.

I managed to find a counseling-type job with all the bells and whistles--more than 12$ hourly, 2 weeks vacation time, and fully paid health insurance. That I found this job posted on Craigslist, should have clued me in to the deep, icy water I dove into, but I was dazzled by the perks. My boyfriend and I moved to Taunton, to a cozy 1 bedroom apartment, and I learned just what I had signed myself up for: keeper at a 'zoony bin'.

'Zoony Bin' is my lame contraction of "zoo" and "loony bin" and 80% of the time, that's an accurate, and sometimes generous, description of where I work. Essentially the company I work for combines a private special education (SE) school, with a small set of group homes, specifically for teen boys with mild to moderate mental retardation (MR), some sort of DSM-IV diagnosis (usually anxiety disorders or PTSD), and some sort of sexual behavior issue. (See where "loony bin" comes in? See?!). I work in one of the residences with the oldest (and some of the most aggressive) teens. The majority of my day is spent 'counselling' which in the residence means helping these guys complete daily tasks--cleaning, putting on matching clothes, showering, dinner, sports, phone calls, etc.. On great days, this means I've got some of the higher functioning guys, we get back from the school with minimal fuss, finish routines (showers, dinner, phone calls, cleaning) quickly, and spend the night playing sports and watching movies until 9pm (bedtime). Those are the days when I get home and go "Shit, I just got paid to eat hot dogs, go swimming, and watch Star Wars. EFF Yeah!"

Then there are the shitty days. Usually these are days where the guys can't get outside (winter, rain, etc.) or there's been drama building for a few days (and some of these guys are EPIC drama queens). Shitty days make me feel like I've just worked a shift as a zoo keeper, fending off clinging monkeys, squawking parrots, and hoping that the lions don't bite my hand at dinner. Shitty days are the days when there's a physical problem, and often times someone ends up hurt (like that time I got kicked across the chest a few weeks ago). Days when I leave the zoo make me want to find the bottom of a bottle, wine, liquor, whatever.

The Keeper culture is also mind boggling. We've all developed really twisted senses of humor. There are code words and inside jokes for days. Almost anything a keeper says is a double conversation, one meaning for keepers, the other for the guys that live in the house. Some days it seems like that double conversation is the only thing keeping us sane. Sarcasm in a heavy part of Keeper culture, but it has become a dangerous to use lately because there's now a guy living in the house who understands sarcasm pretty well, which means he'll hear the double meaning meant for Keepers, and giggle to himself, alerting any of the other guys nearby that they just missed some sort of joke at their expense.

For the most part that my new life. Working in a 'zoony bin' and living the dream, clearly.

Updates

I really am terrible with the updates. Last year as far as my apartment situation was concerned, was a train wreck, but unfortunately, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there with college horror stories. My apartment this year has worked out much better, and I have an amazing roommate (Tina) who's one of my favorite people in Salem. We all get along, the sponges don't smell, and no one considers me "mean and confrontational."

(As a side note: While I wouldn't call myself mean, I don't pretend to be a nice person. Hell, I don't even consider myself to be a nice person. Also, had I been confrontational, she'd have been sure of it. I'm perfectly happy with friendly debates and arguments over opinion. Being confrontational would involve my actively seeking to argue, which has never been the case.)

First semester was interesting. I spent a great deal of time mutely arguing with my senior thesis advisor. She saw fit to 'have [me] consider' changing my data set several times. Twenty-five scholarly sources was not enough for her (and please, keep in mind this is just an undergraduate paper, we're not giving me a million dollar grant for this work). Eventually I just decided that the whole project (which I've hated since day 2) was a waste of my time and effort. I had reached a standoff with my thesis advisor, and I'm not even considering going into the field. (I find that it is typically important for a psychologist to like people. Let's be honest here: I give great sarcastic commentary; I'm shit with advice). So, after 15 or so years of 3.0's or better, I took my first 'F.'

'F.' It was such a liberating letter. Perhaps the best decision I've ever made in college--admitting that I had a limit. By realising that I could fail, actually fail at something, and still be okay (my GPA is still over a 3.5, which shows you just what kind of a gung-ho, shuts-herself-in-her-room-all-the-time-in-order-to-study kind of student I've been all my life), I allowed myself to let go of all the ridiculous expectations (like still being bitter that I never went to BU, or applied to Brown, or that I would end up 0.004 points off from a clean 4.0). I'd never slept better than I did that first night after I decided to say "Fuck it!'

This semester, I'm still kicking myself for taking 6 classes, but for the most part, these are all classes I'm genuinely interested in. Which doesn't mean that I'm in love with the fact that my Cognitive Neuropsychology class (which I legitimately love, because any time I can talk about poking around in someome's brain...I'm interested. That's just plain cool) meets at 9:30 in the morning. I'm still convinced that the day should start no earlier than 10am, but I'm back to taking courses that I actually like. My Vietnam class has only furthered my opinion that American foreign policy is decided by people who must be on crack, but the professor is amazing. Hell, he even looks like George Carlin, circa 1988. Both of my psychology classes lead to discussions about PET scans, fMRIs and massive brain trauma, which is fantastic (unless it's you with the brain trauma). My history classes are Euro-centric, which is nice (only 6-10 real people you have to know, just change the number that follows their name), and cover much of the same material at some point during the semester. Phenomonology still continues to boggle my mind, but I think that's rather the point, but I'm not entirely sure.

Work is great and awful at the same time. I've explained at least 10 times in the last week how to properly use a semicolon. Please kill me before I commit homocide for crimes against grammar.