Future Plans/Dear 308, My Life Would Suck Without You. Love, Megan.

Good morning everyone!

Right now I am gorging myself on some Glee music.  Awesome?  Yes, I think so.  Guess what?!  Spring break begins in 31 hours!  That's right!  WHOOOT!

So, I am thinking about my future and where I want to go.  (This subject came up because I'm brainstorming ideas for Supervision Conversations for the rest of the semester.)  I love Social Work so much because you learn the basic skills, but then you can essentially help any kind of client you like.  You can go into alcohol and drug addictions, clinical social work (which is the stereotypical working one-on-one with a client,) aiding entire communities, working as a government sort of social worker, working in a school, etc.  I love jobs where you can still have learned the basics, but every day is different.  I think this might be why I became so fond of cashier work.  You know how to run the register, it's the same every time.  But you get new clients who buy different combinations of things.  It's fun!  But I digress.  In essence, social work is perfect for me.

I'm trying to figure out what area of social work I want to find myself in for a good 10-20 years.  I would like to try to figure this out before my senior year of college so that when I am in my senior, full-year internship, I'll be in a placement getting experience in the particular area of social work that I want to be working in after grad school.  (Which is a whole 'nother OMG situation.)

Grad School-*sigh*, here we go.  Right now, the Champlain College SWK program is not accredited by CSWE (the body that actually accredits the SWK programs throughtout the nation.)  This means that unless I get grandfathered in with the accredidation, I won't have something called Advanced Standing, which means that I will only need to be in grad school for a year to a year-and-a-half instead of the full two years.  I would like to get into UVM's MSW program and get my Master's from there, but depending on how things work out in the future, I don't know.  See, Ryan and I want to live together at some point.  His junior year (my senior year), he would like to go to England to study abroad for a semester (which he should TOTALLY do if he gets in!)  But I'm a little nervous about what my transition from undergrad college student to grad student at UVM is going to look like.  Apparently, if you're in a grad school program there's a chance that you can live on campus through the college.  THIS means, that if I can get into UVM's program straight out of Champlain, I can live with Ryan his senior year of college while I'll be going through my first year of my MSW program.  This would be SO perfect.

I do kind of want to stay in the Burlington area, but housing here is so expensive.  The landlords do not generally take great care of the apartments.  They know that college students are looking to get off campus so they can drink and party at their leisure, which means that the landlords know that the students are desperate.  So if the apartment isn't really up to par, oh well. They're still going to have to keep the apartment until the school year is over, why spend money to fix it up when you know you aren't going to lose your tenants?  This is all relevant becase ideally I would like to end up working at Casey Family Services (located in Winooski.)  Although now I think about it, this is kind of stupid.  I have the agency picked out where I eventually would like to work, but I still don't know what branch of social work I want to get into.  What?!  Ugh, nothing makes any sense. :(  I do know that I want to end up in a place that has great benefits (i.e. Casey's,) but what if it's a branch of work I don't enjoy?  WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE??!?!?!!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  Although, I think I would definitely enjoy working with kids.  Maybe it'll work out?

In other words, I don't know whats going to happen.  I'm not financially stable enough to be able to live on my own, or to be able to afford my own apartment (even with roommates.)  Because of my full-time student status, I don't have the time to work enough hours to afford keeping myself in an apartment.  And again, Ryan and I would like to live together after college is all over with and such, but he also wants to go for his Master's as well.  Why do our schedules work out SO well?

On a futuristic note a little close to us in time, I'm not sure whats happening for where I'm living next year.  See, there's a problem.  Velvet wants/needs to live in International House (because this is the only dorm kept open on campus over breaks.)  Ashley doesn't like the temperature of it (it's always so warm.  It's on UVM heat because we lease it from UVM every year....so..yeah..) and I think it's just a really gross, old, too-lived in building.  (You can tell when certain buildings have just had people living there too long.)  So, we don't know.  If Velvet were able to get a job back in NY that she was able to go home to on breaks and such, we wouldn't be stuck in as big a conundrum.  The other option would be for Ashley and I to find a nice double somewhere where there is enough space to have one (or two) other people spend the night once in a while. I would feel bad about this though because to me, it feels like we're ditching Velvet. See, I'd be fine with staying in the same triple in 308 next year...but once again, Velvet would need to make sure she has a job to go back to over breaks, or make sure she can stay with someone here in Burlington.  Actually, staying at 308 would really be ideal.  The couch is nice for when Ryan comes over, and if Velvet is our third roommate, we could TOTALLY have this.  Everything is just...AHHHHH!!!!

I hate feeling like I don't know what I'm doing.  I want to be able to provide for myself, and to see what it feels like to have my own place (or share it with Ryan.) Hahaha. I don't know!  I know what I generally want to do with my life, but I need help figuring out the details.

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Dear 308,

I love you all!  I want to thank you all sooooooo much will all the support you have provided to me this year, and this semester specifically.  I've made a lot of life changes this year, and it's been one hell of a ride trying to figure out what's happening.  I want you all to know I love you, and in fact, my life would suck without you.  I want us all to be in the same nursing home when we're 90 and senile.  Ashley will just start writing random tidbits on her walls, Ryan and I will be WTFing everywhere, and Velvet will be the old cranky lady who yells at everybody.  Hahahahahaha! 

I love you guys so much!  Thank you for everything!

Love to everybody!

-Megan