progress

it's been an even busier two weeks, now that I've got a plan for next year, the weather's getting slightly nicer and some of our residents are prepairing to age out of marian hall.

work has been rough recently as many of the girls have acquired some nasty new attitudes and increased their attention seeking behaviors, but today who cares because we had some major successes!!! our oldest resident, who has been there for 6 years, struggeled through multiple stints at rehab and couldn't maintain any kind of education or vocational program GRADUATED from a cooking program and GOT A JOB!!! She called screaming with excitement for her and I was so happy and proud of her I was screaming right back at her. then, another miracle, one of our toughest girls who's been in and out of psych hospitals since age 5 actually went to a housing interview and did well enough to make it to their waiting list!!! i honestly could not believe it. i was so excited for both of them my face was hurting from smiling so much. it made me want to cry. what a day.
im also planning a bunch of fun outings to do with them soon because they have a long spring break coming up. im hoping it will help me to enjoy working and their company a little more.

im continuing to enjoy community here in astoria. we have some pretty cool community nights (this week we went to a book release - a memoir-ish type book written by a former child prostitute turned founder of GEMS, a group that works with girls in forced sexual enslavement that marian hall has sent some residents to - really great stuff!) and we do a lot of fun things on our own too. im looking forward to another fun weekend filled with exploring the city and partying-hardy =]

in terms of next years plans things are coming together really quickly. i started french lessons yesterday. it was pretty hard because the teacher only speaks to us in french so i often have no idea whats going on, but i know it will help me learn faster so im just going to have to put in a lot of effort. its a small class of nice people, so hopefully it will be a fun and enjoyable experience. also i got a day off (!!) to attend a field placement open house at mcgill at the end of the month, and some staff there were nice enough to switch their schedules around to accommodate meeting with me! im going to meet with my future academic advisor to plan my class schedule and discuss my research interests and with the field advisor to discuss possible placements for next year. im really excited to know what ill be doing and happy that they were so nice to go out of their ways to meet with me since im from so far away. it makes me hopeful that im going to have a good experience next year at mcgill =] im hoping to learn about my housing options when i go up to visit, and i should hear about the TAship and scholarships soon. so exciting!!!