You may have noticed I have not written in some time. I really haven’t had the time or desire to write on here in quite a while. For now I am going to say I’m not going to blog. I have no immediate plans to do any writing here anytime soon. I won’t say I won’t ever return to this blog, but for now, I’m closed.

Thanks to all my friends who read my post Monday and let me know that you have faith in me. I appreciate it!

Yesterday and today were better days, for the most part. In addition to the post I did write Monday, I had planned to complain about one of my training cohort members, but then I learned something about her that explained her behavior and made me very glad I had not publicly posted my thoughts. It reminded me that all too often I make snap judgments about people and contrary to my popular belief, I am not always right.

Something I am going to post about is the trainer we have for this section of training. Our training is broken into several sections and for each section we typically have two trainers. Each section usually has two different trainers than the section before it. Up to this point I have liked all the trainers we’ve had. Then we began this week of training.

Now, I am going to preface this with the fact that I only know this trainer as a trainer. I have no idea how she is as a person outside of the training. But perhaps training is not her forte. Here are the things that are getting under my skin this week:

• She did not read our ground rules. On day one of our training we were asked to develop ground rules and each trainer was supposed to get a copy and read it. Contained in these ground rules are the fact that we have a cohort member that is allergic to citrus fruit, so of course we prohibit citrus. Also in the ground rules is that we need to limit (not eliminate) sidebar conversations. More on that later.
• She is way too authoritative. She may have been with the agency a long time, I think she said something like 16 years, but that does not mean we are not adults and don’t deserve the respect of an adult class. Some of her methods are more in line with teaching middle or high schoolers.
• She shushes us. Yes, we can get a little loud at times. We are a group of 26 people and the stuff we are discussing is not stuff you just sit back and say, “hmmm, that was interesting.” These are topics that require some processing and discussion. Being the adults we are, we realized on day one that we would need this processing and discussion and we decided a ground rule would be to limit the sidebars because eliminating was not realistic. This trainer is notorious for saying, in a derogatory tone, “Come on guys,” or just “Guuuuys” when she feels we are too loud. I don’t think I could even attempt to tell you how many times she says it in one day or how many eye rolls she gets because of it. One of our cohort members even tried to explain the ground rule to her (since she didn’t bother to read them), and she pretty much ignored her.
• She repeats things. Half an hour ago she may have gone over the physical signs you need to look for in sexually abused children. Guess what, it’s 30 minutes later and we’re going to go over the physical signs of sexual abuse again. Pretty much verbatim to what she previously said. It’s not for emphasis or making sure we get the point because she does it with little things too.
• She doesn’t attempt to find answers. In every other training we’ve had the trainers all told us to ask any question we might have. If they did not know an answer, they would find out for us. If this trainer doesn’t know an answer, she will just tell us she doesn’t know and then gloss over the fact you asked her anything.
• She hides behind a higher power. Today we needed to bring our laptops to the classroom to begin learning the state’s electronic system for data entry. This part of the training was to take place in the afternoon. Most of us got our computers out in the morning so we could figure out spacing on our tables and cord alignment. After watching a video, the trainer says to us, “What did SoSo say about computers during class?” (SoSo is one of the big dogs in the department.) She gives us all a look you would give to a 3 year old you were admonishing for stealing a cookie before dinner. “She said absolutely not,” the trainer goes on in her ‘you did a no-no’ voice. “I’ve seen people fired for it. If SoSo came in here, she would look over your shoulder, pat you on the shoulder, and take you out of here. I’ve see it done.” Um, okay whatever. I’ve seen SoSo twice since we started training and while she is a top dog who knows she is a top dog, I don’t see her firing someone for having their work-issued laptop out during a work-related training. If trainer lady didn’t want us having our laptops out during the first part of training, she simply could have said that rather than trying to threaten us with SoSo firing us.
• She says one thing and then does another. Going back to the authoritative thing, she insists on everyone raising their hands to speak. Fine, but it’s not always going to happen when you have a large group of people passionate about their work and what they are learning. So on Tuesday, we are discussing something and she is enforcing the hand raising. She says to us, “Some of you who are not speaking up need to start talking.” She tells one of the training observers that they need to watch the class and let her know who isn’t speaking up. Well, I had not said much of anything up to this point, so on the next discussion point, I enthusiastically raised my hand. I was prepared to comment. She didn’t call on me. No big deal, I thought, I will comment on the next point. Again, my hand goes up. Again, trainer lady calls on the same select group of people who were previously doing all the talking. Well, okay, next time, I think. One more attempt and one more denial and I was done. Forget it, if she is only going to call on the people who already do all the talking, then she can’t ask for other people to speak up.
• She lied to us. We had a little competition yesterday at the beginning of our discussion on sex abuse. We were separated into groups and had to come up with words people might use for different body parts, for example, breasts. The point of the activity is to show that there are many terms we could hear while working in the field and we have to be prepared for them and be able to use the terms when talking with children and not be shocked or laugh. Anyway, my group scored the most terms and trainer lady said she would bring us a prize that afternoon or the next day (which would have been today). No prizes were had. This is not really a big deal, but combined with all the other stuff, she is just grating on my nerves. Treat us like children and we may act like children. I want my prize, dammit!

Needless to say, this has not been the easiest week of training. I am getting sick of being away from home and now I have lousy trainer to top it all off. Boo!

Sorry I didn’t post sooner, but here’s the story behind the “What is it ” photo posted on August 4th:

I’ve not kept up on the house as well as I should since I am doing so much traveling between home and the state capital. Before I headed up to training the week first week of August, I cleaned out the fridge and found a small carton of cream in the back. When I poured it out these clumps of mold got caught in the sink drain. I know, icky, but it made an interesting photo.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I’ve started several posts recently, but they just don’t go anywhere. So, here I am again trying to write something I think people will be semi-interested in reading and again failing. I am going to finish the post, but I’m not promising anything. If you get bored, go ahead and hop on over to another blog. I’ve got some really good ones linked over in the sidebar.

Today I’ve felt some of my old depression creeping in. It may be a one-time thing, but I will have to keep an eye on it and talk with my doctor if it begins to be an ongoing re-occurrence. I am again in the state capital training for my new job as a CPS assessor. That is over three hours from M. and my boys (the cats for my infrequent readers). That could be the reason for the downer mood tonight. It could be the weather. Today was kind of dark and dreary even though it didn’t rain.

It could be the abuse slides we had to look at today in training – bruises. I didn’t feel too bothered by it, so we’ll have to wait and see how I feel in the next couple days. We will be going over burns and sex abuse. People keep asking me how I like the job so far. I have no answer for them. I think this is going to be an incredibly hard job for me to do. Not because of the children in bad homes and situations – I can handle that, most of the time. What is going to be hard is that I need to go to people’s homes and engage them in conversation. I have to be able to talk with people and ask them questions to draw out information. I am not the most talkative, engaging person. I have to work at meeting people, talking with people, asking people about themselves. But this is a job I want to be able to do, so I am willing to put in the energy and effort it is going to take me to do it, but I just don’t want to screw it up in the meantime. Because it’s important. Because it can mean the safety of children.

Tomorrow brings a new day and I am looking forward to that. Better yet, I wish I could fast forward to 8pm Friday evening…

I know I am probably guilty of this too, but something that just really irks me is when you email someone and they reply with some stupid answer that doesn’t even address your question.

For instance: earlier this week I received an email from the school I was planning on enrolling at for a library science degree. I was a bit surprised since I had made the decision to defer my enrollment and thought I was set for a year. This particular email was about the financial aid form I submitted. Apparently, I had not indicated enough credits per term to be considered for financial aid. The email requested I complete a new form, which was attached to the email, and send it in at my earliest convenience. Okay, I thought, no big deal. I will just complete a new form and send it back in.

I put it off for a bit while I did other internet things: reading other emails, browsing through my FaceBook news feed, catching up on my favorite blogs. Then I went back to the email and took a look at the form. The form states:

To be considered a full-time student you must be enrolled for at least 12 credits (undergraduate students) or 9 credits (graduate students). To be eligible for federal loan funds, you must be enrolled at least half-time. Students enrolled less than half-time are not eligible for most federal funds.

How do you interpret this? The way I interpreted it was that I had to be enrolled for at least 9 credit hours for the school year to be considered full-time and that would be more than what was needed to be eligible for federal funds since it was full-time which is more than half-time. This may be totally off, but I read it several times last night and each time came to that same conclusion. There are 4 terms in the school year, so on the original financial aid form I submitted, I wrote I was planning to take 3 credits per term for a total of 12 credits for the year thinking I would be exceeding the requirements stated on the form.

I still planned to get a new form completed and mailed in, but I was now confused since the email from a guy who’s signature says he is the Assistant Director for the Student Resource Center/Financial Aid stated that I needed to be enrolled for at least 4.5 credits per term to be considered for federal funds. I decided to reply to the email  to see if I could get clarification on the issue. Here’s my email:

On the financial aid form, it states that to receive aid a graduate student must be enrolled at least half-time and that to be considered full-time, graduate students must take 9 credits. Is this 9 credits per quarter or 9 credits total? I was reading that I would need to be enrolled in 9 credits total, and the 3 credits per term would fulfill this requirement since there are 4 terms and I would then be taking a total of 12 credits. Your email and the actual form seem to say two different things to me.

I am also deferring my enrollment. How does this affect the need to redo this form? Thank you for your assistance.

And here is the reply I received today (again from the Assistant Director for the Student Resource Center/Financial Aid):

Thank you for your e-mail.  Under federal guidelines, a student must be enrolled at least half-time per term in order to receive federal aid for that term. If you are planning to defer your enrollment, then you will want to fill out the revised form indicating the number of credits for each term that you plan to be enrolled.  Once we have received your revised form, we will be able to process your financial aid based upon your specifications.  Please feel free to contact the Financial Aid Office if you have any questions!

Well, Mr. Assistant Director of Financial Aid, I did ask you a  question and you kind of just glossed over the entire thing even though it was the bulk of my email to you. Yes, I understand that there appear to be Federal guidelines in place dictating how many credit hours I need to take, but why does your financial aid form seem to contradict this? If it doesn’t contradict the Federal guidelines and I am confusing things, why did you not explain things for me?

It is probably a lost cause to again email Mr. Assistant Director of Financial Aid again, so I guess I will place a call to a person and actually speak to someone. The entire thing is most likely a lost cause since it is very unlikely I will qualify for any financial aid no matter how many credits I am taking.

July was a crazy month for me. I began my job as a child protective services assessor for my state. The first 12 weeks of the job are strictly training and shadowing other workers. Plus, a majority of the training is in our state capital in an effort to centralize everything. On the whole the centralization of the training is a good thing, but it means a 3.5 our commute for me and it is becoming harder and harder to remember where I have been and where I am supposed to be!

Of course, this job came at a point where I had made the decision to put social work behind me and move into librarianship, but things seem to be working out the way they should. I am a big believer in things will always work out the way they are supposed to, but the path to get to that point may be hard, frustrating and confusing. That has certainly been true for me in my employment quest since being laid off last October!

I don’t have a lot to blog about since I sit in a classroom for training most of the time, but I thought I better do a check-in for the 3 faithful readers I have.   I started with the easiest section to update: Book Bag and found out I’ve read a total of 39 books already this year! Go me! Here’s what my August looks like:

August 3-7: Training in state capital ALL WEEK

August 3: Started a new class at JessicaSprague.com on using Photoshop brushes. I will be posting my work on my art page.

August 5: Niece’s 4 year birthday. Ahh!

August 6: My parent’s anniversary- they have been married for 32 years and have been great role models for me. It is also my sister-in-law’s birthday.

August 7: Julie & Julia the movie starts! RR – we need to make plans!

August 8-9: Our library is having a book sale M. and I plan to attend. M. is hoping to scope out some cheap war books that he will probably never read. I will just look for some interesting books at a good price.

August 10-14: I get to work in my home county ALL WEEK and sleep in my own bed!

August 17-21: Back up to the state capital <SIGH>

August 17: New season of Flipping Out on Bravo!

August 23: Nephew’s 7th birthday

August 24-28: A mixed week of in county and at state capital

August 31: My little brother’s birthday. Happy Birthday J. Back up in the state capital…
And, just for fun, here’s a photo I took recently. What do you think it is?

Can you guess what this is?

It seems like forever since I’ve done a Curious as a Cat meme!

1) Describe the worst job you’ve ever had? And your best?
I’ve felt pretty good and accomplished about most of the jobs I have had, but the worst was probably a hotel maid for four years while I was in high school. Drudge work is never fun, plus some catty, snotty girls from my high school worked there as well. One day I was approached by our supervisor and was told that one of these girls claimed I had cussed her out in front of hotel guests. Not only was this totally untrue, it was ridiculous as well since I really was not a cusser. I still have no idea why she decided to lie about this.

Even though I complained about it a lot, my best job thus far was probably my last one. Most of the people I worked with were terrific. Plus, I was in a line of work that helped bring families together. I am thinking the job I am currently training for is going to be pretty good too, but it’s too early to tell.

2) Name the most terrifying moment of your life so far.
I think of myself as fairly fearless 
But I can think of a couple times I was terrified. One Halloween when I was young but what I considered too old for trick or treating, I was home alone and someone was shining a flashlight around the edges of our yard. Typing it now, it doesn’t sound too scary, but I had myself pretty spooked. I think I even called my best friend at the time to tell her about the spooky light.

The other time was a different kind of scary. My first year of college was at a school 5 hours away from home. I spent a lot of time in my dorm room, being a very shy freshman. My connection to the world outside was the internet. I met the guys I dated that year online, including M. Because internet dating didn’t seem to really equate to real life, I ended up dating a couple guys at the same time. They both thought we had an exclusive relationship and they eventually found out about each other in one of the chat rooms I frequented. Facing them was a pretty scary prospect, but I ended up making the right choice in the end.

3) What are you wearing right now?
My zip-up terrycloth robe. M. calls it wearing my “towel.”

4) Show and Tell. What comes to mind first when you see this picture? Or, tell a story if it reminds you of one.
Ahh, relaxation! I could use some of that right now with all this training and driving!

Yesterday was my first day actually in the office I will be working out of. After meeting people, it was a lot of sitting, listening, organizing my desk, you know, the first day stuff. I met my supervisor and she is great. Now I have to drive back up to our state capital for more training up there and won’t be back in county for three days. The entire 12 weeks of my training will be this back and forth stuff.

After work I made a run to Target to pick up a couple items I will need before I make that drive back up north. I ended up in a checkout line behind a husky guy. Because it was getting off work time, the lines were somewhat long and I had plenty of time to examine the contents of his cart. Among the other sundry items, he had a big box containing a chocolate fondue set. But then, in the little child seat section of the cart he had a hardback book on transforming your metabolism. Chocolate fondue and metabolic transformation? The two did not seem to go together.

So, I had just had a full day of training and my mind was working on the dilemma of why husky guy was buying a chocolate fondue set and a book on slimming down at the same time. Husky guy must have had this dilemma working around in his brain too because when he finally got up to the cashier, he handed over the book and told her he had decided not to purchase it. I guess the chocolate won.

Here are the photos I completed for the last few days of the free class I am taking on JessicaSprague.com.

using clipping masks; adding texture and frames

combining techniques

I had my first day of training for my new job today. Yesterday I made the almost 4 hour drive up to our state capital, found my hotel, hauled all my junk up to the 3rd floor, did some Zumba and then crashed early since I had to get up early (4:30 am home time) to make it downtown in time.

I made it downtown with no problems, but then had a bit of trouble finding the parking garage I was supposed to use. After some stressful circling in downtown big-city traffic, I found the garage, but pulled into the wrong entrance lane. The lane I pulled into needed a government-issued badge. I ended up backing out onto a very busy street – and I’m not all that great at backing up in the first place.

After the driving/parking debacle, the day went fairly well, although it was LONG. And not all that exciting. It was all the first day, general HR stuff – forms, benefit review, sexual harassment training. The highlight was the swearing-in as a state employee.

In the job offer letter I received it  was stated that we’d have this swearing-in the first day and we were to wear “professional business attire” because we’d also have our picture taken with a judge. So I wore my cream colored suit which is pretty professional and put-together looking. Apparently, the interpretation of “professional business attire” varies greatly. We got a chance to check out each person’s outfit as they received their certificate and had their photo taken. Of the 30 or so state employees being trained, only a handful wore suits. Most wore what I would call “business casual” – khakis, polos, nice blouses, etc.  Then there was the handful that wore some interesting “business attire.”

One lady was wearing some denim outfit. All stonewashed and elastic-waisted. Oh, there was also a lot of flowery embroidery. Another lady appeared to have done nothing with her hair this morning (perhaps she had to get up even earlier than I to make it on time). Her outfit was made up of clothing that was too big for her and made her look decidedly slouchy. And the best “business attire” was the bright pink sweats and yellow polka dotted shirt. All the guys looked pretty put-together, even the ones not in suits.

After the day was over, I followed the herd back out to the parking garage, and then had some more downtown driving confusion before finally making it back to my hotel. Exhausted!

The rest of the week we’re training in a facility closer to the hotel, so hopefully the driving stress will be eliminated. We are also going to start focusing on the actual job of a family case manager. Now my social worker education needs to be reactivated…

Time for some tea and then early bedtime!