summer in the cities

Yes, I know that I have been terrible at updating this summer! I'm not going to bother giving any excuses, I'm just going to have to go forward and try to do better from now on :) Sometimes I forget that not everyone utilizes Facebook, and hasn't been able to follow along with all of my summer updates. But while you all did not get to enjoy any blog updates over the past couple of months, I am going to recap the summer in one massive post. I'll highlight the main events of each month.

MAY

The big event in May was my graduation from the University of Minnesota. Of course, it was only an unofficial graduation since I still had two summer classes to complete. However, it was wonderful to have so many family members be able to make it to St. Paul for the big event.

Following my graduation, I made it home to Milwaukee for a week to help Emily celebrate her 9th birthday! I made it back to Minnesota in time to help my little man, Paxton, celebrate his 3rd birthday! It's hard to believe that I've been taking care of him for two years now. He's grown into such a little bundle of energy.

The big excitement over Memorial Day weekend was that my good friend Ellie and her long-time boyfriend Marty got engaged! They have been dating for about four years now, and live together in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul. Marty popped the question while they were at Ellie's parents' cabin in Hudson, Wisconsin.

JUNE

June began with more celebration. Ellie and Marty hosted a wonderful party to celebrate their engagement, as well as Ellie's 25th birthday.

Mira and I made a trip to Madison around mid-June to meet up with some of our old college friends. We decided to go all out and spend a little extra money to stay in a hotel. We had an awesome time. The weather was perfect pretty much all weekend, and we really enjoyed getting to reconnect with some of the old crew, like Rachel and Betsy and Candace. Rachel is working as the Communications Director for Mayor Dave in Madison, a position that she has held for about the past two years now. Betsy recently got engaged and is working as a nurse at the Children's Hospital in Madison. Candace is working for Epic Systems in Verona, WI doing graphic design and other things. She recently became an Auntie for the first time! Mira and I also discovered a new favorite Madison destination: Lazy Jane's cafe on Willy Street, where the best scones in the entire world can be enjoyed.

The most important event in June, at least from my perspective, is that I met and started dating Allie. We met in Minneapolis at a place called The Kitty Cat Klub right before I left for Madison. After I returned we had our first official date: brunch at The French Meadow Cafe in Uptown. From there, the rest is history :) Ooh and I should also throw in that Mira met a special someone as well: Jim, who is a good friend of Marty's. He lives in Iowa at the moment, but so far they have been making the long-distance thing work out. He's a fantastic guy, and he and Mira are a wonderful match!

Twin Cities Pride was at the end of June. Pride is always a super fun event, with stuff going on all weekend. I went out Friday night, then spent some time at the festival grounds (at Loring Park in Minneapolis) on Saturday afternoon. The best day, however, was on Sunday. We had a few people over for a delicious early breakfast and then headed to Minneapolis for the parade. Following the parade, I spent the afternoon at the Pride festival with Allie and our friends Emily and Brian. We had a great time going around to different booths and just enjoying the sunshine.

Summer classes throughout much of June. I took two classes over the summer. The first was Mediation & Conflict Resolution. That class was only six sessions spread out over three weeks. Even though it was a short class, it was extremely intense! Each class lasted from 9:00-5:00. The instructor for the class, Mark Umbreit, is the director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Peace Studies. He is a leading practitioner and scholar in the field of mediation and restorative justice. The class was unbelievably inspiring. One of the most touching and unforgettable days was when Mary Johnson, a woman from North Minneapolis, came to speak to us. Her son was murdered many years ago, and she has gone through the healing and forgiveness process and has come to forge a close relationship with her son's killer, as well as begin an organization that works to end violence through the facilitation of healing and reconciliation through families of victims and perpetrators. (Read an article about her inspiring story in the Star Tribune right here). Another very touching moment came when viewing an amazing documentary called Pray the Devil Back to Hell which documents a peace movement organized by Christian and Muslim women in Liberia. Amazingly, one of my classmates was from Liberia and actually was a member of the church where this movement began. He was able to share firsthand his own perspective with us, which made the documentary even more moving. I would recommend it to everyone (it's available on Netflix). It's so important to hear these stories that we in America often have such little awareness of.

My other class was much less inspiring, but still interesting: Psychopathology and Social Work Practice. That class ran throughout June and into July. It covered all of the basic mental health diagnostic type of stuff.

JULY

July was a mostly relaxing and enjoyable month. It included activities such as a wonderful party on my friend Trish's balcony in downtown St. Paul, a fantastic visit to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum with Allie, and a trip to Winona, MN for the Midwest Music Festival with my friend Emily. We went specifically to see one of our favorite local artists, Dessa, perform. I first tuned into Dessa back in May, after Emily introduced me to her. She is a quickly rising star in the Twin Cities music scene. She started out writing spoken word poetry and later became a member of the Doomtree Hip-Hop Collective. She's an incredible writer and performer and earned a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the U of M at the age of 20. At the age of 28, she now also has a Master's degree and teaches at the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. My friend Emily is more or less her number one fan, so we've become somewhat of Dessa groupies this summer, going to many of her shows. (Middle picture is of Emily and me with Dessa in the middle, at her show in Winona). The rest of July included lazy afternoons, coffee shops, outings with Allie and her dog Puffs (who is the second love of my life), and trying to escape the sweltering heat.

AUGUST

August began with a wonderful trip home to Milwaukee with Allie. We went to the Firefly Art Fair, had lunch with Katelyn and Emily at Alterra on the Lake, took Emily to the movies, went to the Zoo, explored Milwaukee a bit, and had a wonderful dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. The final day of our trip we made a stop in Madison, which had to be cut short because Allie was not feeling well. Despite the shortened ending of the trip, it was overall a lovely long-weekend getaway!

Other miscellaneous mid-August events included my friend Jessica's 23rd birthday celebration, the Pizza Luce Block Party in Uptown (where Dessa performed), and a visit with Paxton and his new baby brother Emerson, Melody's 28th birthday celebration, cheering Mira on as she ran a half marathon, and a fun ladies night where we all dressed up in formal wear.

Near the end of August, I got the big news that I was being offered a job as a Mental Health Practitioner for Fraser's autism program. Knowing that my job would be starting and Allie's classes at the U would be starting up soon, we decided to have a little getaway and go to her family's cabin near Spooner, Wisconsin. We spent about two nights at the cabin and had such a nice and relaxing time.

When we got back from the cabin, the next big adventure was attending the Minnesota State Fair, otherwise known as the Great Minnesota Get-Together. I went twice because Mira and I had gotten tickets to see one of our favorite artists, Brandi Carlile, perform at the State Fair Grandstand. So I went the evening of the 29th with Mira and enjoyed the amazing show. Then Allie and I went together a couple of days later and had the best time ever. We ate fried pickle slices, a turkey drumstick and a grilled marshmallow, banana and chocolate sandwich. We visited with alpacas, rode rides, and had an all around fantastic fair experience!

SEPTEMBER

The first official day that summer ended for me was September 7th, my hire date at Fraser. I had new staff orientation, which was pretty boring, focusing mostly on HIPAA and work safety, etc. The 7th was also Allie's first day of classes. She has been in school for 3 years now, but this is her first semester at the University of Minnesota. To celebrate the beginning of our new adventures, we went on a fancy date to an italian restaurant in Uptown called Il Gatto. It was a bittersweet evening, knowing that things were likely to change once our schedules became much, much more busy.

So that pretty much sums up my summer! Sometime soon I will post about my first week and a half at the new job.

Buh-bye hair!

In celebration of summer and heat waves, I decided to get my hair chopped off. Pictures are included below, for your viewing pleasure.

Amy and Mira's Quarter of a Century Fiesta!

Since Mira's birthday was on April 8th and mine was on the 30th, we thought that having a combined birthday celebration would make a lot of sense. So on Friday the 23rd we had a gathering of people at our apartment to celebrate the two of us turning 25 years old. It was a classy event, as our parties usually are, with guests requested to come in their party dresses and ties. We had a lovely spread of treats and wine, champagne, and more. Some of you may have already seen pictures on Facebook, but for the many of you who are not social networkers, I thought I'd post some select photos here as well!

The apartment, pre-party:

Birthday girls!

With my three favorite Twin Cities girls: Maria, Mira and Ellie.

Me and my friend Nilofar:

Me and my friend Emily:

Me and Melody (yes, I did change dresses... It was my birthday!):

Cupcakes!

This may very well be my most random blog entry yet, but it should be a fun one nonetheless! I have decided that cupcakes are just about the most fantastic baked good ever. They are fun and delicious and there's so much you can do with one. While I was home in March, I came across a fantastic cupcake recipe book at Goodwill for about $2. It is called Cupcakes! From the Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn. All of the recipes use cake mix as their base. I have been having non-stop fun with this book ever since. My first experiment was the Peanut Butter Surprise cupcakes that I made for my mom's birthday. With a delicious peanut butter-y cake, chocolate buttercream frosting, and chopped up Reese's peanut butter cups on the top, these were a huge hit. The surprise? A Hershey's kiss baked into the center of each cupcake.

My next venture was into the muffin section of the book. I was signed up to bring snack to my Thursday morning class during the same week that Wellstone was on spring break. Since I knew I'd have Wednesday off, I thought "Why not use some of that free time baking something special for my fellow MSW students?" So I busted out the Cupcake book and tried out two muffin recipes. The Banana Butter Pecan was moist and delicious, with fresh banana, butterscotch pudding and chopped pecans sprinkled on the bottom and top of each muffin. The Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins used real canned pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie stuff), and were dense, yummy and chocolate-y.

The second Monday in April was our monthly book club gathering, and Mira would be hosting. It was also book club member Chelsea's birthday. To celebrate, Mira and I both made cupcakes from the book. Mira made the healthier option, the Lemon Curd Cupcakes with Whipped Lemon Cream Frosting and Raspberries and I made the more decadent option, the Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. The batter for my cupcakes was the most incredible thing in the world. I had to beat a cup of sour cream into the batter, which gave it this very marshmallow-y like texture. Then it had crushed oreos mixed in and half of an oreo cookie baked into the bottom of each one.

My next occasion for cupcake-baking came when I volunteered to bring some baked goods for the School of Social Work bake sale. So I made Pineapple Banana Smoothie cupcakes with Pineapple Buttercream frosting. They were so yummy! But as I was in the process of making them, I had the strangest feeling about the bake sale. I went to check on the date again, and realized that I was making the cupcakes a week ahead of time. Oops! So I ended up bringing the 2 dozen cupcakes to my Wednesday night class. They were a big hit.

Even though the Pineapple Banana Smoothie cupcakes were very delicious, I wanted to try something new the next week, when it came time to make something for the actual bake sale. So I tried out the Malted Milk Cupcakes. These were pretty incredible. It used a yellow cake mix as the base, with chocolate pudding and chocolate chips mixed in (among other ingredients). The frosting was a buttercream, with a couple tablespoons of malted milk power added in. Then they were topped off with crushed malted milk balls. I'm told that they were quite popular at the bake sale. In my opinion, they might have been the most delicious ones yet. Although the Peanut Butter Surprise may come in a very close second.

And that is all of the cupcake baking that I have done up until now! There are still many, many recipes in the book that I want to try out. But I won't be making any until another occasion comes up. Otherwise we just have a bunch of cupcakes sitting around the house, and that is NEVER a good thing!!

Minnesota Education Job Fair

Two days ago, I attended the Minnesota Education Job Fair in downtown Minneapolis. There were school districts from all over the Metro area, Minnesota and the rest of the country (even some international schools). My interest was obviously in positions for school social workers, which I was told schools would be hiring for. Before going, I had looked at all of the school districts attending, done research on certain ones, and printed off several copies of my resume.

When I got there on Monday morning it became quickly apparent to me that there weren't many schools with vacancies for school social workers. Most districts didn't yet know whether they would have any openings, and told me to keep checking online or submit my application to the pool for if any positions opened up. I was frustrated because all of that is stuff that I could have figured out on my own. Nevertheless, I got to have some nice conversations with a couple of different school districts. I stopped by the Minneapolis Public Schools table, the St. Paul Public Schools, and Bloomington Public Schools. At Bloomington I got to have a great talk with one of their recruiters, Raymond Yu, who is a principal at an elementary school in Bloomington. Soon into our conversation I discovered that he was the former principal here at Wellstone Elementary! We had a nice chat about Wellstone, and who was still working there, etc.

Two districts did actually have vacancies for school social workers. The Northeast Metro Intermediate School District had openings for two different positions, and I had a chat with their recruiter, leaving her a copy of my resume. Then I headed over the Wayzata Public Schools table and spoke with their director of Special Education services. They are hiring a Middle School social worker. We had a good conversation and she seemed really excited about all of my experience working with diverse and low-income student populations. She gave me her card and told me to apply online and then e-mail her after I had submitted the application. Wayzata is in Hennepin County and is one of Minneapolis's western suburbs, about a 30 minute drive. It wouldn't be ideal, but I could manage it.

Once I got back home from the fair, I spent a significant amount of time beginning online applications for various school districts. So far I've submitted my application to St. Paul Public Schools, Bloomington Public Schools, NE Metro Intermediate District, and I'm working on my application for a number of others. The Wayzata position hadn't been posted yet, so I e-mailed the recruiter last night and she told me that it had gotten held up but should be posted soon, and that I should make sure to keep checking.

So hopefully something will have come out of this experience. At the very least, I got some practice in speaking with potential employers and learning a little more about different districts. With a any luck, I'll be back in the schools next fall!

Two good reads

Usually I don't have much time for pleasure reading during the semester. However, this semester I've managed to read two really good books that weren't part of my assigned coursework but were still related to my field of study. Both are books that I would highly recommend.

The first book I was easily able to reconcile taking the time to read because for my mood disorders class we have an assignment to read either a memoir or self-help book on the subject of mood disorders. As it turned out, a book that I had been wanting to read fit right into that category. The

book is called An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. Ms. Jamison is a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and also one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive illness. She also happens to have strugg

led with this illness for the better part of her life. I've read various accounts of manic-depression (more commonly referred to as bipolar disorder these days), often in the form of a memoir written by a child of someone who had suffered. This book was unlike any I had read before because not only was it from the perspective of the patient, it was also from the perspective of a clinician and expert on the disease. She writes about it with a clarity and understanding unlike anything I've read before, while at the same time describing t

he stunning depths of her cycles of depression and mania. It's a wonderful book for anyone interested in really learning about man

ic-depression, and it's also just a good read in general.

The second book that I have been working on whenever I get a little time for extra reading is called The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing by Bruce Perry. I had read some articles written by Dr. Perry last semester and always appreciated the way that he wrote about complex issues in a readable way. This book is no different. Dr. Perry is a long-time child psychiatrist, former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital and currently Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy. This book chronicles some of the stories of the children he has worked with, children who have experienced profound traumas such as genocide, witness to murder, and extreme neglect. He was brought in to work with the Branch Davidian children in Waco during and after the whole stand-off. What's so interesting and unique about Dr. Perry's work is that he is very concerned with the neurobiology behind trauma. He explains in very user-friendly language about how the brain is affected by early traumas, and he discusses his methods for helping children to overcome this developmental damage. It's a topic that I'm very interested in, and it's great to read about his methods. Some of the accounts are very difficult to read because they're just so traumatic, but it's worth it for anyone interested in this subject.

Papers, papers, papers...

This past week has been very writing intensive. Social work classes have always been more paper heavy than exam focused, but besides finals week I usually don't have a lot due all at once. Last week though... First, I had a paper due on Sunday by noon. Technically I didn't have to turn it in until a couple of weeks later, but it's the first part of a two-part paper and if I wait to turn it in later then the entire thing is due at one time. If we turn the first part in early, our instructor said that she would give us feedback on it so we can make possible revisions. This paper was for my advanced policy class on family and child welfare policy. For the first part of the paper we have to pick a problem statement related to children or families and write a review on the literature. Basically, what is the problem, why is it a problem?, what social, environmental and biological factors influence the problem? The second part of the paper, due later in March, will be exploring two different programs/policies that address the problem and evaluating them.

The problem statement that I chose was on childhood obesity. With the rates having more or less tripled over the past 30 years and Michelle Obama starting her first big initiative on the issue, it's definitely something that I knew I'd be able to find a lot of research on. However, I wasn't thinking about the fact that many of the consequences of childhood obesity are health-related. So to review the literature on the medical consequences of childhood obesity, I had to read all kinds of articles from medical journals that took me quite a bit of time to get through, mostly because I had to look up a lot of words. I'm a social worker -- I have no idea what C-reactive protein is or what "biliary excretion of cholesterol" means! However, once I learned a lot of the most common conditions and terms, I was able to get through things much quicker, and also became a pro at reading abstracts, introductions and then skimming down to the results and discussion parts of research articles. Because I'm big on corroborating -- I'm not going to write that childhood obesity can cause precocious puberty unless I can cite more than one piece of literature -- I had to read a lot of what was basically the same thing over and over. However, now I feel a whole lot smarter. I wanted to tell my instructor that she's lucky she now has a very comprehensive overview of the consequences of childhood obesity that has been translated into understandable language! I also looked at the social and economic costs as well as the different possible causes or influences. It was quite the paper and I was up until 3:30 AM last Saturday finishing it. Haven't been up that late finishing a paper since undergrad.

I felt like I had barely finished that paper when it was time for me to write the next one. I had another paper due on Wednesday for my working with immigrants class. This paper was very similar to the other one, in that it was meant to be a lit review on a problem statement. Only this problem statement had to do with a problem in the delivery process of social services to one or more immigrants/refugee groups, and unlike the 10-15 pages that my last paper was, this only had to be 5-6 pages. I had gathered my research already, but hadn't read through any of it yet and hadn't started writing. Tuesdays are my days off, so I had planned to spend all day working on it. My initial plan was to write about the lack of cultural competency in completing mental health screenings with immigrants and refugees. I read a few articles Tuesday morning, went to the gym, ate lunch, then settled myself into my favorite neighborhood coffee shop.

I started to get increasingly frustrated with the lack of research and finally realized that my problem statement was much, much too broad. So I decided to narrow it down, but this meant that I had to do all new research. Since I already have quite a bit of knowledge on the Somali community thanks to my diversity project from last semester, I decided to make my problem statement on the under-identification of mental health needs among Somali children. I was surprisingly able to find quite a bit of research on Somali mental health, and many of the research articles actually focused on the Somali community in Minnesota. I found some fascinating articles, but unfortunately once the time came for me to go home and get ready to leave for tutoring, I had just finished reading and hadn't even begun writing.

I got home from tutoring around 7:20 and immediately got to work, finishing the paper at just about 11:30. In the paper I reviewed the history of the Somali community, explored the mental health concerns and cultural considerations relating to the population, and explained the need for more accurate mental health screenings of Somali youth. I think it turned out to be a very interesting paper, and I got to write about one of my main areas of interest, which is treatment of trauma and intergenerational trauma transmission. Perhaps I'll even post the paper on here, if people are interested.

So finally I got to have a break from papers, although then it was time for me to study for a quiz in my Friday mood disorders class. There's never a break in the life of a student! At least this semester, the papers that I'm writing actually make me feel as though I'm learning something. That always makes for a nice change!

My Weight-Loss Journey

For the most part I've kept my posts pretty much confined to issues of school and work, and nothing much from my personal life. Plus, it makes me a little uncomfortable to talk about losing weight. Mira and I were discussing this issue and how it feels weird when people talk about how good you look now, sort of indirectly saying that before you looked like a fat cow. I know that's not what most people mean, but it still feels a little uncomfortable. However, tonight I just ran 4 miles for the first time, and really feel like sharing my little story of the past several months. Although 4 miles may not seem like a whole lot, believe me, it's about 5x more than I could do when I was first starting!

My weight has really fluctuated a lot over the years. Between 8th and 9th grade I went from about 110 pounds to close to 130, something which I attributed to going on the pill. When I started college I was down to about 120 and feeling pretty good about my body. Over the next 5 years I really put on the weight. Due in part to poor eating habits and not being particularly active, among other things. At my lowest point (or I guess, highest) I hit 150. Then I moved to Minnesota and in a few months time I dropped about 10 pounds without even trying, just from having a more regular schedule, eating better and getting out more. I remember when I went to have my annual exam and the nurse read my weight -- 137 -- and I was shocked. I felt good, but I knew that I wasn't yet where I wanted to be.

For me it was never really about losing the weight, although being thinner is of course nice. It was more about feeling good and being healthy. I just didn't feel so good, my energy was low, I didn't have a good control over my diet, and I knew that I was terribly out of shape. I was eager to make a change, and Mira and I decided to join a fitness center last summer. The best part of this was that the gym is just around the corner from our house, which made it much easier to motivate myself to go. I started going a couple days a week. I was feeling good and enjoying that endorphin rush that I would get after a workout. Working for a week at Camp Sunrise and doing that canoe trip really inspired me to keep it up. For some reason the girls in my crew really saw me as this strong woman, and I thought, "Yes. That's what I want to be." It was slow going, but by Christmas I was down to 130 and felt amazing. I had more energy than I had ever had before, which is partly attributable to some other things, but I know a lot has to do with the exercise.

There was still something else though... I still knew that I needed to make some serious changes in my diet. It wasn't a problem of eating too much, it was more an issue of not eating the right things. Mira, who has slimmed down significantly over the past several months, had been using a website called SparkPeople.com and really liked it. So I decided to give it a try. SparkPeople is a free website that creates personalized fitness and "diet" programs and allows you to track goals and other things. Apparently it's super popular, although I had never heard of it until Mira started. I put "diet" in quotes because really the focus is on creating healthy eating patterns and a healthy lifestyle -- something that is sustainable. So when you first join you have to enter in information about yourself, height, weight, etc. including goal weight and when you want to reach it. It then generates you a nutrition and fitness plan. It does require you to restrict and count calories. You have to enter in all of the food that you eat each day, although their database has nearly everything in it already. So if I have a 1/2 cup of Preferida refried beans I just type that into the search and it pops up with all the nutritional info and I can add it to my meal plan. They also give you meal plans that you can follow.

Although it requires calorie restriction, I actually feel like I'm eating more than I ever have before. I eat five or six times a day to meet my goals. The goals that they automatically give you are for calories, carbohydrates, fat and protein and then you can add other nutrients to track as well. So for me, I am supposed to consume 1200-1550 calories, 163-236g carbs, 32-56g fat, and 60-127g protein. I also have slowly added other nutrients to track so that now my goals are also to consume 25-35g fiber, 0-250g cholesterol and 500-2300g sodium. You also track how many cups of water you drink each day with a goal of drinking 8. In terms of my fitness routine, I am supposed to do 160 minutes of cardio, burning 1000 calories. I'm also supposed to be doing strength training, but I haven't added that on yet. I'm a little intimidated by all of the weight machines to be honest!

I've been doing this for about two months now, and it has honestly changed the way that I eat and think about food. First of all, I have to pay attention the serving sizes and measure out what I eat. It's very interesting when you realize what the actual serving sizes of things are, and really helps with portion control. Tracking my nutrients was also a big wake up call for me as to what exactly it was that I was consuming each day. Restricting the calories wasn't that hard, but I realized that I was getting nowhere near enough protein or fiber in my diet. I've really had to work to up my protein intake, but now I'm typically consuming close to 90g of protein a day and meeting my goals for fiber almost every day as well. I pay attention to what's in things now, and am actually consuming milk again! I've never been a huge milk fan, but I make sure to have at least 8oz each day in my morning cereal. Archer Farms (Target Brand) Cinnamon Start with Protein is currently my breakfast of choice -- one serving (3/4C) has 15g of protein in it. So along with the milk, I get 24g at the start of the day. Finally, this really forces me to plan out my meals in advance. I've made a few batch items, including delicious Vegan Lentil Burgers (taste really yummy with cheese and avocado) and Spicy Chicken Peanut Soup. Typically I plan out my days meals at the beginning of the day.

The other thing that I really like about SparkPeople is that it has tons of really informative and helpful articles on health, nutrition, fitness and even motivation. As an example, some of the articles that I've saved are "How to Meet My Protein Needs Without Meat", "Easy Ways to Boost Fiber Intake", "Daily Stretching Routine", and "De-Stress in 3 Minutes or Less." The other thing is that you can create your own goals to track besides just the fitness and nutrition. So I've added in getting 8 hours of sleep, journal 5 minutes per day and 10 minutes of deep breathing before bed.

It's not just a healthy lifestyle that I've been developing here, there have also been results! It's been slow going, with just about a pound lost each week but as of this past Tuesday I was down to 122! I've also lost inches everywhere. They have you weigh yourself just once a week (my day is Tuesday) and measure yourself once a month. The goal weight that I made was 115, but honestly I would be happy right here as well. I feel fantastic, I'm eating great, and those chocolate and junk food cravings have miraculously gone away! I still get them now and again, but there's always a little room for "splurging." I really enjoy the Sugar-free Jell-o pudding packs because they have only 60 calories and 2g of fat while still allowing the occasional chocolate indulgence! Also good are the Skinny Cow ice cream products. The ice cream sandwiches are delicious and have 140 calories, 2g of fat and 4g of protein.

So all in all I'm very satisfied with how things have been going. Obviously it's not something that I plan to do forever -- tracking my calories and nutrients. The goal is to eventually be able to develop eating habits that are naturally going to keep me in good ranges. I will also definitely be maintaining the work-out routine because I really enjoy it, and hopefully I will add strength training eventually :) It's amazing to me how much I've progressed since I started last summer. When I first started I would use the elliptical trainer and go for about 25-30 minutes at about 4.5 mph with no incline and would be exhausted by the end. Now I do it in the hill mode for 35 minutes and am going 8+ mph. I've also added on the treadmill, which at first I was intimidated by. I could only do about 10 minutes at 5mph and I would be ready to collapse. Tonight I did it for 45 min (with 5 min cool down), ran 4 miles and probably could have kept right on running! Mira's really gotten into the running since the summer and ran a 5K over Thanksgiving and is now planning to do a half marathon this summer. I'm definitely not ready for something like that, but I just might consider doing a 5K sometime! I can tell that my legs have gotten so much stronger and I actually can see muscles when I flex! The only downside to all of this has been that most of my clothes are too big, even stuff that I bought in the late fall/early winter is loose. I can't really afford to get a new wardrobe, and I'm not looking forward to when summer comes, when pretty much nothing that I own will fit. I'm going to have to hit up the thrift stores big time! Oh and this might be oversharing, but I also had to get all new bras because I've gone down an entire cup size :(

Well, I realize that this was incredibly long. So thanks for reading if you made it all the way through. I promise that I haven't become some kind of crazed nutrition or exercise nut. I'm just really happy and proud of myself and wanted to share, especially since I've gotten so many questions and comments regarding my weight loss. Love to you all XOXOXO

Amy, August 2009

Amy, February 2010

Okay, they're not super obvious, but you can sort of see some muscle there!

Attachment Theory

I know that I said such a long time ago that I would put something in here about attachment theory, so I'm finally doing it. Attachment theory is really at the foundation of child development and many models of intervention for childhood mental health problems. The following is part of a literature review that I did for one of my final papers last semester. It details a lot of the key elements of attachment. If you have a desire to learn more ... let me know! I'd be happy to ramble on about this stuff forever :)

Attachment is a foundational experience for children. Cairns (2002) refers to it as “formative” because it provides the models upon which children will base their views of self and others; attachment also shares an important function in the development of the young brain. What is attachment? Essentially, attachment describes the responsive relationship between an infant and its caregiver. It involves the appropriate and attuned responses of a caregiver to an infant’s needs; it provides the infant with a sense of security and competence. Through the caregiver, the infant learns how to regulate emotions. Later, a secure attachment will result in the confidence to explore the world and learn and grow. (Cairns, 2002).

Insecure attachment, therefore, results from caregiver behavior that is not supportive to the infant. The parent is unable to provide appropriate soothing, or does not interact with the child in a way that is interactive or attuned to his or her needs (Lieberman, 2004; Hipwell, et al, 2000). Parents who form insecure attachments with their children often have insecure adult style of attachment. Many parents of insecurely attached children are suffering from their own unresolved traumas (Cairns 2000; Liotti, 2004; Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Parsons, 1999; Scheungel, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Ijzendoorn, 1999). Insecurely attached children have been classified into three different subtypes: avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, and disorganized. The disorganized attachment style is most often linked to “fright without solution”, or the experience of the infant feeling scared or frightened by a caregiver’s behavior while at the same time feeling the desire for comfort and protection from the same person who is frightening them (Lieberman, 2004; Liotti, 2004; Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Parsons, 1999; van der Kolk, 2005). Lyons-Ruth, et al (1999) also discuss the idea of “failure of repair.” Under this hypothesis, disorganized attachment results after neither anxious or avoidant attachment styles work to change parental responses. The child is left not knowing what to do. The authors’ other hypothesis is one of “competing strategies” in which parents might use conflicting parental attachment styles with their children – sometimes yelling, sometimes soothing, without any pattern.

Disorganized children frequently come from environments with high risk factors. Their parents are more likely to suffer from psychopathology or substance abuse (Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Parsons, 1999). Impeded by their mental illness or chemical use, these parents are less able to interact with their children in ways that are meaningful or reciprocal (Hipwell, et al, 2000). The results for the children are often very devastating. Secure attachment has been found to be an important component of healthy brain development, while disorganized attachment hinders the development of important neural pathways, most notably in the right hemisphere of the brain (Cairns, 2000; Hinshaw-Fuselier, Boris, & Zeanah, 1999; Liotti, 2004; Schore, 2001).

It has been found that caregiver-induced trauma, otherwise known as “relational trauma”, alters the healthy development of socio-emotional functioning. Schore (2001) explains, “Early traumatic events that induce atypical patterns of neural activity interfere with the organization of cortical-limbic areas and compromise brain-mediated functions such as attachment, empathy and affect regulation” (p. 220). The stress connected to relational trauma alters the development of these areas of the brain, which has significant consequences. For example, the prefrontal cortex is unable to reach its full adult capacity (Cairns, 2002); this is the part of the brain where executive functioning, such as planning, impulse control, abstract thought, etc. occurs. The amygdala can also be affected, which causes changes in the formation of social bonds and regulation of emotions; Schore (2001) notes that these changes have even appeared to increase in magnitude over time.

A child affected by disorganized attachment and its resulting neurobiological challenges will have many different presenting issues. They will often respond inappropriately to stress because they have no good strategies for handling stress; they will use aggression, hyperactivity, dissociation, or other techniques as a way to deal with stressful situations (Cairns, 2002; Hinshaw-Fusellier, Boris, & Zeanah, 1999; van Der Kolk, 2005). They have difficulty developing trust, since the inner working model that they have developed is one in which they anticipate trauma; they often have a sense of shame, and have a difficult time distinguishing other feelings from those of shame (Cairns, 2002; van der Kolk, 2005). Disorganized children are often controlling, often with a great deal of anxiety; new experiences are frequently seen as threatening (Cairns, 2002; Liotti, 2004; van der Kolk, 2005). Most significantly perhaps, disorganized children have difficulty relating to others socially because of their lack of trust, empathy, and unmodulated affect (Cairns, 2002; Van der Kolk, 2005).

Unless disorganized children are able to receive intensive interventions that can change their inner working models and allow them to form secure attachments, the outlooks are grim. Disorganized children are at great risk for developing psychopathologies later in life, especially dissociative disorders or personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder (Liotti, 2004).

References

Cairns, K. (2002). Attachment, trauma, and resilience: therapeutic caring for children. London, UK: British Association for Adoption and Fostering.

Hinshaw-Fuselier, S., Boris, N., & Zeanah, C.H. (1999). Reactive attachment disorder in maltreated twins. Infant Mental Health Journal, 20(1), 42-59.

Hipwell, A.E., Gossens, F.A., Melhuish, E.C., & Kumar, R. (2000). Severe maternal psychopathology and infant-mother attachment. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 157-175.

Lieberman, A.F. (2004). Traumatic stress and quality of attachment: reality and internalization in disorders of infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 25(4), 336-351.

Liotti, G., (2004). Trauma, dissociation, and disorganized attachment: three strands of a single braid. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41(4), 472-486.

Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E., & Parsons, E. (1999). Maternal frightened, frightening or atypical behavior and disorganized infant attachment patterns. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64(3), 67-96.

Schuengel, C., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J., & Van Ijzendoorn, M.H. (1999). Frightening maternal behavior linking unresolved loss and disorganized attachment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(1), 54-63.

Schore, A.N. (2001) The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1-2), 201-269.

van der Kolk, B.A. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder: towards a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals, 35(5), 401-408.

Semester Two at Wellstone

It already feels as though I've been at Wellstone forever, even though it's only been about five months. I started back up on January 4th, the day that the St. Paul Public Schools got back into session. This past month I feel like I've really gotten a flow going, and have found where and how I fit in. I also was finally able to finish my own schedule, so that more or less every part of my day is loosely structured. Granted, working in a school requires flexibility and there are always changes in the schedule, but it's nice to have something to work off of on those days when things are slow and there aren't any crises.

I'm down to only two days a week now, since I now have a class on Friday right in the middle of the day. There was never much going on on Friday anyway, just supervision and 6th grade girls group. Nevertheless, I was disappointed to have to say good-bye to that group. I had enjoyed working with those girls, but at least I'll still see them around all of the time. So here's a sample of my schedule so you can get a feel for what I do during the day. This is my Wednesday schedule:

9-9:30 Individual work with 6th grade girl, working on building relationship skills, independent living skills, etc.

9:30-10:00 1st grade classroom -- Spending time working with some of the kids who have IEPs

10:00-11:30 Dog therapy program -- Our darling dogs, Maybelle and Dusty arrive with their owner Michelle and I run the schedule, going to get the kids from their classrooms to go read with the dogs. I have small 15 minute breaks between getting kids during which I check in on various students, write e-mails, finish up any last minute group lesson plans.

11:30-12:00 1st grade group -- This is a brand new group that is being run all by me! Miss Amy's Friendship Group is composed of three 1st graders (2 girls and a boy). We're working on basic social skills and things like feelings vocabulary, sharing, manners, respect. Last week we practiced safe ways of "getting your angries out." They are so much fun!

12:00-12:15 Usually eat lunch really quickly, but if I don't have time, I eat later.

12:15-12:45 5th grade boys group -- This is the same group that Julianne and I have been working with all year. It's a great group of 5 boys with varying levels of cognitive and social skills. I love working with this group. Right now we've been focusing a lot on impulse control and not interrupting.

12:45-1:40 This is a time when I can eat lunch if I haven't already and kind of go wherever I might be needed.

1:40-2:30 Individual work with 6th grade boy. I'm working with him both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. We're working on writing and reading and also some math.

2:30-3:15 Individual work with 1st grade boy. This is the boy that I wrote about once before (I think I referred to him as "Ian"). He's a kiddo with ADHD and some impulse control. He's also one of the few African American students in the dual immersion program. I'm giving him classroom support to provide on-the-spot help with his focus and impulse control. He's such a sweet boy. It's always fun to go into that class.

3:15-4:00 This is all dismissal time. I usually go down to one of the kindergarten classrooms and help them finish up snack and get their things together. Then I go with them for the first round of buses, come back to the classroom and read with them, then go with them for second round as well. These kindergartners are some of the most darling, entertaining kids in the world. I love ending my day with them!

So now you see some of what goes into my day at Wellstone. As you can see, I'm doing a lot more individual work this semester, including working with my very own group. Mondays I work with a couple of the same kids plus some others (a 2nd grade girl and boy, a 5th grade boy, a kindergarten group, and a group composed of a 4th,5th, and 6th grader.) I'm enjoying my new responsibilities, and am loving the chance to get to know so many of the students.

Second Semester Commences

First off, so sorry for the recent lack of entries. I didn't feel much a reason to update over winter break though, since I was home for most of it and not doing much exciting. Plus I got to see most of you during that time anyway!

Now that second semester is in full swing, I thought it was time to update. This is going to be fairly brief, as I'm getting ready to head to bed soon (yes, it's 9:00... I had a long day!) But hopefully I'll update again in the next couple of days.

I'm taking four classes again this semester, plus my field seminar. Field seminar, however, is a joke because we only meet every other week for 45 minutes. We're supposed to discuss what's going on in our field placements, etc., but that amount of time gives us little opportunity to get much accomplished. When I was completing my BSW at UW-Madison, our field seminars met every single week for 2 hours, and we were really able to process and expand upon what we were learning in our field placements. I was pretty annoyed when I discovered how it works here at the U. It ends up just feeling like a waste of time.

However, my four "real" classes are all going quite well. I'm much more satisfied than I was last semester, which is great. My first class of the week is on Wednesday evenings from 5:00-7:00. That class is called "Working with Immigrant Populations." The thing that I really enjoy about this class so far is that almost every week we have a guest speaker for the first half of class. Last week it was a man that worked with refugees at a resettlement agency. He talked all about the resettlement process and what refugees have to go through prior to and after coming to the U.S. I feel like in a place such as the Twin Cities, home to so many immigrant and refugee populations, a class like this is necessary for any social worker.

Thursday I have class from 8:30-11:30 and 1:55-4:55. The first class of the day is "Interventions with Families." That class is basically about teaching us how to do family therapy, which is quite useful. We'll be learning various different models of family therapy and then practicing them intensively in role play situations. I really like the instructor, Judy Hoy. She's a community faculty member and has her own practice. She's been doing family therapy for years and years, and just has a wealth of stories to share.

The second class of the day is my policy class, which was a requirement. There were a couple of policy classes to choose from (health & mental health policy, global policy, etc.), and I chose family and child welfare policy. I chose this first of all because my focus is in the area of children and families, and also because Mira took the class last year with the same instructor and highly recommended it. The instructor, Tammy Kincaid, worked for years and years in the area of child welfare and is now the director of human services in Pierce County, Wisconsin (just across the border). She's extremely knowledgeable about policy.

My last class of the week is on Fridays from 11:45-1:40 and is entitled "Mood Disorders: New Directions in Clinical Care." It obviously focuses on mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. I thought it would be a very valuable class to take since so many people suffer from mood disorders, and since bipolar disorder is "the ADHD of the new millennium", with ridiculous numbers of very young children being given the diagnosis and being put on dangerous atypical antipsychotic medications that have not been tested in children. The class will be looking at models of assessment and intervention for clients with mood disorders. We'll be learning about cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy and pharmacological treatments. We'll also learn about cultural, class, race, gender, age differences in treating and identifying mood disorders. Again, I really like the instructor for the course, Mark Meier. He's another community faculty. He's a licensed clinical social worker as well as the CEO of Creative Workplace Solutions, a consulting firm dedicated to raising awareness about depression.

So that's a quick summary of my course load for the semester. In the very near future (I would say tomorrow, but I don't want to make any promises) I will update with some info about what I'm doing at Wellstone for the second half of the year.

Love to all!

SEMESTER ONE: FINISHED!

Just about exactly two hours ago I e-mailed my final paper for Risk & Resilience to my professor, and I just now printed off my final paper for Children & Adolescents that I will be dropping off at the School of Social Work tomorrow. This makes me officially finished with my first semester of graduate school!

Tomorrow, after going to turn in my paper, I will be spending the day doing absolutely NOTHING ... Well, I will be packing for vacation and doing some laundry. But other than that, I will be relaxing and thinking about all of the things that I don't have to be doing!! It feels good to know that I have an entire month now where I will have no school work to think about.

Thanks everyone for your love and support in this first challenging semester!! Can't wait to see most of you over this coming holiday season.

Done with class!

Today was my last class of the semester!!! I spent all day working on my final paper for my Children & Adolescents class, and am nearly finished. Then I just have to finish my paper for Risk & Resilience and I'll be all DONE!!

Last day

It's a week of lasts. Today was the last day of my favorite class, Adv. Practice with Children & Adolescents, taught by the incredible Anne Gearity. It truly was a sad morning, and I wish that the class could continue for another semester at least. I learned so much in that class, about child development, about children's mental health, about clinical social work... I will remember her class for the rest of my career I'm sure.

Tonight is my last tutoring session with D'Angelo until after the New Year. Tomorrow is my last day at Wellstone until after the New Year. I'll be going in on Tuesday for a meeting, but tomorrow will be my last real day for a while. The next day will be my last Saturday class (hopefully forever!), and my last time watching Paxton for a couple of weeks. Monday will be my last day of classes for the semester. The semester is really wrapping up, now if only my last two exams would write themselves!

Group presentation

Last night in my diversity class my group did our presentation. This is the presentation concerning our fictitious social service agency, where we had to do two "staff meetings" or in-services. I feel confident saying that we totally rocked it! Our instructor seemed very pleased and said that we did a very good job and were able to cover a lot of subtle things that he hadn't expected us to mention.

Now all I have left for that class is our group paper, due next Monday (my last day of class for the semester). I've been sort of designated as the "group leader" just because I've taken charge of a lot of things. Rather than assign me a part of the paper, I've instead been given the task of editing it and making sure all the citations are correct, etc. I'm a little concerned because it's going to be much longer than 20 pages and I'm going to have to edit it down. However, I'm not going to worry too much about length because he gave us a list of about 24 bullet points that he wanted covered in the paper. So the way I figure it, he's asking for it!

O Christmas Tree

When I got back from my Thanksgiving vacation, Mira and Mel surprised me with a Christmas tree! They had purchased it from the YMCA while I was gone. It's an adorable little tree that we have sitting on a table right by our front windows. Today I braved the Christmas shoppers at Target and got some decorations for it. We couldn't put anything breakable on it, or anything that looks like a cat toy. So I got white and silver bows and blue and silver glittery snowflakes. We already had white and blue lights on it, so we seem to have a white/silver/blue theme going on. It looks really pretty and adds a little bit of Christmas spirit to our house! It's bigger than it looks in the photo, it's probably about four feet tall and on the table it stands taller than me.

Update

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything in here. It's been a combination of things -- busy with school and internship and also trying to figure out what exactly is appropriate for me to write about. I've struggled over how much I can share with you all on here, as the issue of confidentiality is always at the forefront of my mind. If I were working somewhere such as the county or a large non-profit, I could easily share stories about cases just by changing names and some details. However, since I work at a school where there are a limited number of kids that I am working with, I feel uncomfortable sharing stories. If someone from Wellstone happened to come across this blog, they could probably identify who I was talking about, even with names changed. So I've decided that I can share some more general information about what I do, including stories about positive interactions. But it wouldn't be ethical for me to divulge any sensitive information. That somewhat limits what I can share, but there are plenty of other things going on in my life that I can talk about. So I will try to update a bit more frequently :)

The first thing that I would like to tell you about is the results of the Washburn toy drive. A little bit ago I posted a letter from Mira that was asking for donations. Each year the Washburn Center for Children, where Mira works, sponsors a toy drive for the case management kids. This year, as anyone who read her plea knows, they had come up short in funding. They were only going to be able to purchase toys for about half of the kids, which left the case managers in the tough position of having to decide which of their clients should get toys. Since most of these families are low-income and really struggling, sometimes these toys are all that the children will be getting for the holidays. So Mira and all of the other case managers went out to try to collect donations. I just spoke with Mira today and learned that over the past couple of weeks they were able to raise over $3000 through both corporate and private donations. This was enough to cover not only all of the case management kids, but also EVERY single child that Washburn serves!! In such a challenging year for social services, this is truly a happy story that I am thrilled to be able to share.

In other news, I have one week left of classes and then it is finals week. I don't have any final exams, just a number of final papers due. I am all finished with my Program Evaluation final because my wonderful professor utilized an "installment plan", where we turned in drafts of the final paper over the semester. Therefore, I've been working on it all semester and revising after each draft was returned. Another final that is nearly complete is the one for my diversity class, which has been a semester-long headache. The final is a group presentation and 20-page paper involving the creation of a fictitious multicultural social service agency. Each group had to select a specific culture that we planned to develop services for. We first had to write a 12-page community mapping paper for that culture, which identified the various resources available to that culture, along with demographic information and cultural strengths, weaknesses and barriers to service. Then we had to prepare a 30 minute presentation which involves two simulations of a staff meeting where we are presenting information about culturally responsive service delivery for that culture, along with identifying a real-life community organization that we plan to collaborate with. The 20 page paper describes our made-up organization. My group chose to do the Somali culture, which most of you know is a huge population in the Twin Cities. I have learned a lot, but it's been a ton of work. Luckily we are nearly done. Our group presents on Monday and the final paper is due on the 14th. We have been utilizing the wonderful tool of Google Documents, which is basically like Microsoft Word except it is online and a group of people can have access to it. We can all go in on our own and add to the paper. It's worked out quite well.

My last two final papers are extremely similar. They both involve doing a client assessment and creating a case plan. One of them is a bit more involved, as it requires me to do a literature review on one of the client's issues, along with creating a genogram (sort of like a family tree) of the client and a whole bunch of other things. The other one is more like an actual assessment, where I go through the case history, presenting issues, overall functioning, etc. Then I have to do a DSM-IV diagnosis of the client and create a case plan. I've already gotten a good start on the more involved one. I still have to do the literature review, which means reading over a whole bunch of journal articles that I've collected. I plan to review the literature on how relational trauma affects a child's attachment. Relational trauma pretty much refers to some type of trauma in the child's important relationships. In the case of my client, the relational trauma involves parental neglect, substance abuse and mental illness. Typically relational trauma results in an insecure parent-child attachment, where the child is unable to learn important skills from the parent, such as self-regulation. They child also develops a poor inner-working model (IWM). We all develop an IWM throughout our life, that says what we think about ourselves and our relationships with other people. A child with a poor IWM might think of himself as being unlovable or not having value and probably doesn't trust other people or think that relationships will be positive.

This reminds me that I never wrote anything about attachment, which I said way back that I was going to do. Attachment theory is huge in children's mental health, and is something that I will probably refer to a lot. I'll make sure to get something written about it sometime soon.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is doing well and I'm looking forward to getting home again in just a couple of weeks!!

Graduation

It's crazy that I just started grad school and am already thinking about graduation, but that's how it is with this advanced standing program. We had a "Steps to Graduation" meeting on Thursday, and I got all of the info regarding the School of Social Work's (SSW) graduation ceremony. So here is the date and information:

SSW Graduation Ceremony

Saturday, May 15, 2010 4:00PM

Tedd Mann Concert Hall (2128 S. 4th St, Minneapolis)

So everyone is invited, although I certainly don't expect you all to attend! There's no limit on how many guests that we can have, and there are no tickets or anything. The ceremony is only for the SSW, so it is small and intimate and supposed to be very lovely. Whatever family that I have in attendance will get to come up to stage and "hood" me in the graduate hood. There is a reception afterwards at the Concert Hall.

I just thought I'd throw the date out there for anyone that has an interest in making a trip to the Cities. I wish that I could offer a place to stay for everyone, but obviously space is extremely limited at my apartment so you'd be on your own in terms of accommodations.

The funny thing is that, although I will be walking in the ceremony, I won't actually be finished with school until the end of the July because I'm taking three summer classes. So my degree won't be posted until August. They allow that because most advanced standing students have to take summer classes to get all of their credits in, and it wouldn't really be fair to not let us participate in the ceremony just because we have to complete more credits than the full program students.

Again, I know that my parents will hopefully be coming and that is more than enough to make me happy, so please don't feel any obligation to attend just because I'm posting about this. I just wanted to make the information available!