Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Abby is thinking. Maggie is napping.

This is me, now, thinking and surfing. It’s kind of my spot. If I’m wearing away at any furniture in my apartment, it’s this chair I’m in now. I just did a whole sink full of dishes (and there is another full sinkload to go), and I got to thinking about thinking….

Today was my seminar with the psychiatry residents at the outpatient clinic I’m working in this rotation period. We did some reading about the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. I realized that, as always, I have a lot to say in seminars (or any type of class, really). My brain is chock full of content about this and that: a little here, a smidgen there. “Oh hey, that reminds me of Victor Frankl’s search for meaning in the concentration camp… But isn’t that the same as such-and-such’s theory of this-and-that?” The residents frequently comment on my wide knowledge of the topics we discuss, but I’m not even very educated in these areas, and I’m wondering where they get this idea!

There have honestly been times during school that I have made the active choice NOT to do the reading because I usually have too much to say already without even having the reading material under my belt! Some professors don’t like the chatty student, and sometimes it’s just easier to keep quiet if I only have tangential or pre-existing thoughts available. Once I hear something, if I’ve been paying attention, I know it. And I take in a lot, as is evidence by my wide breadth of knowledge about little things all over the web. I have breadth coming out my ears, but depth? Now that’s another matter. Of course I have depth in certain areas, but by nature, I’m a breadth woman. I can take in massive amounts of limited information on a wide variety of topics. This means I am very resourceful; very good at linking people with information they might be interested in.

OK, so I’ve said all that, but here’s the flip side. So I’m doing dishes, and I’m getting really worried about this job interview I have in a couple of weeks. I know I’m really perfect for the position, and if they hire me, they will be happy with me being there, but I really doubt my ability to impress them in the interview. Why? I always have this fear that someone will say, “Tell me everything you’ve learned about Topic X.” I completely suck at that kind of recall? If I am not cued, I’m sunk. It’s like there is something terribly wrong with my memory. I frequently forget what I’m saying, or basic things… For example, even though I’ve written my dissertation, I’m really afraid that at my defense, someone will ask something basic like, “What is validity?” and I will just freeze. While I’m great at using these ideas in context, if you take away the context, I’m lost at sea. Seriously.

I’ve done very well in school. I learn what I need to know. I’m a good teacher, too. I’m good at responding to people. At picking up on what people do and don’t know, and filling in the holes. I’m good at leading discussion. Lecturing? I need an outline. Put me in front of a group of people and tell me to talk about a subject I know well, and without a pre-sketched outline, there is tumbleweed in my head.

I know this all may sound a bit strange. A mix of extreme confidence and extreme insecurity, but it’s kind of neither. The truth is I have extreme strengths and extreme weaknesses. I don’t feel too bad or good about either. They just ARE. They are what I have. I just hope the format of the interview plays to my strengths. I could really use the security of knowing I have a job to go to when internship is over.

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Today was a pretty exhausting day. Spent about 4 hours over at a school dealing with a case… the case an administrator keeps referring to as "trial by fire" for a little intern like me! It was a trying morning, then on the way home in the car, I got a call saying I have an interview for a post-doc applied for recently. So that’s really good news! Happy me! Then later on, two cancellations that I was secretly kind of happy about. A couple of hours ago I reread the description of the job, and it’s a little different than I had first thought. Just like when I use a recipe, I always miss a detail or two. I’m still qualified, but I’m not as over-the-top excited as I was earlier. Still… a potential job. A way to move. It’s what I want, so I am happy.

Tonight, I thought I’d kick back and relax. Saw "21 Grams" sitting on the coffee table from my free Blockbuster trial membership. I put it in my queue because I heard it was filmed at my apartment complex. I tried skimming it, but it kept hooking me in. I probably watched about 40% of the whole movie, but man, it was wonderful. It was desperate. It was heartbreaking. I probably don’t need anything that heavy given my day job, but I think I may have to go back and watch the whole thing properly. I didn’t see my apartment building, but I saw lots of other things I recognized.

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Oh, and I won’t keep you hanging on why I love "Happiness is a Warm Gun" so much. It ain’t no thing. I have had many Beatles phases in my life, starting with my dad’s copy of Rubber Soul back when I was little bitty. This had another strong resurgence around the 5th grade when I asked for "The Beatles Box" for my birthday. By the time I reached college, I had gotten pretty far in their discography, but I never really GOT the white album… not until I met Annie. Annie turned me on to The Beatles I had always thought was "weird." Now, I can’t even imagine thinking the white album is weird in the least. Another thing about it is that it is singable in my rock ‘n’ roll voice, and it was one of the first things I could sing very well that way. Somehow all the classical training always ends up coming through. I think it probably still does, but "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was my first success in that arena.

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I’ve written an official letter to the program supervisor officially complaining about the sad lack of a usable computer in my cubicle in the school administration building. I’m under the impression that it’s completely out of his hands and that there is nothing I can do. I’m afraid this may be another case like the health insurance. I’ll do all this legwork to make things right (like shmoozing the big donors at the Christmas party) so that I end up helping the people who come here next year instead of helping myself. I mean, it’s something, but it’s… well… non-optimal. I’d kind of like my efforts to help me, too!

It’s a shame, really, because this internship is all kind of excellent. The supervisors, the organization of everything… it’s superb. It’s just that this one little day-to-day detail just isn’t as it should be, and it’s this constant irritant.

Aaron has been kind enough to lend me a laptop he has, but it’s a little bitty one that gets really hot really fast. I have to cart it to and fro. I need a computer that can live there in my office. It’s amazing to me that people expect that I can get by without a computer. My supervisor doesn’t use a computer. I’m not really sure how that works. Never done it. Maybe I’m spoiled, but if that’s the case, then so be it. I don’t think I am. I’m just technologically skilled, and I do better work when I have my whole toolkit available.

I’ve been browsing around online looking at deals on refurbs. I know eBay is an option, too. Gah! These stupid things… somet of them are using Windows 98. HELLO!!!! It’s 2005! Windows 98 is SEVEN YEARS OLD!!!! It just makes me really angry that I’m here, considering dropping a few hundred out of my big $15K for the year on equipment they should have provided for me. I’ll get on, get a real mouse to put there with it, so I don’t kill myself with carpal tunnel on a touchpad, and I’ll keep it locked in my cubicle.

I still won’t be hooked up to the printer or the Internet (it’s all protected somehow so plugging in doesn’t seem to work – plus, every site I’d want to visit is blocked). No, they won’t hook me up to these things. They only support computers they provide. No, they won’t give me any scoring software. Again, that’s only for their computers. But at least if I have a cheap laptop with a decent-sized screen, I’ll be able to have it there to work on… so I can, like, DO MY JOB! At least some of it… not the printing out things I write part. Not the checking my e-mail part. Not the utilizing online resources part. Not the scoring protocols part. But the writing report part… that, I will be able to do. Man, the more I write, the more I realize this still isn’t really a very good option.

Grrr. I get so angry when I think about it. Hey, at least I have a phone now. That’s something.

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I’m here at Otherlands Coffee Shop to drink coffee and use the WiFi, as my new speedy Road Runner cable modem is, sadly, down. It was a very busy morning testing one kid at one school and doing therapy with another across town. Ah, the exciting nomadic life of an almost-School Psychologist!

I’m going to sit here until I get a spectacular cover letter written for another job possibility in Boston. I can’t believe how busy I’ve been this week. I seem to work 15 hours a day. When I do new things (like write Psych reports using new LD criteria, for example), I tend to take forever the first few times, until I’m really confident I’m doing a damn good job. I want it done correctly! Working in the schools might frustrate me if I do it long-term for a few reasons, one being that I like to do really thorough assessments, and in the schools, they want quick and dirty testing, and reports that aren’t too long. I prefer the opposite, but I will say that having to do it their way is probably really good for me. Damn perfectionism!

They have Sirius radio on. You know, the station that got Howard Stern. Anyway, it’s this 80s alt-pop hits, and I of course know every word. "Noone Is to Blame" by Howard Jones (the Howard post!). So I say that I love this song, and Aaron says, "Isn’t it ironic?" His point is that "Noone Is to Blame" and "Isn’t It Ironic?" by Alanis Morisette have similarly bizarre lyrics… Which reminds me of the worst lyrics ever written in pop song lyrics… And the winner is…

"It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife."

I mean… WHAT?! Alanis is an idiot. I’m sorry. The only reason that "You Oughtta Know" was good was Flea and Dave Navarro. The rest of her career has just been a sad fluke.

So anyway, what I was going to say about that Howard Jones song is that in high school, I have the most vivid memory of driving my boyfriend Tristan crazy with that song in the back of Algebra II class. My friend Malcolm and I were both bored out of our minds with the work our "teacher" had given us, so we were singing and living it up, and Tristan was so focused! I recall really pissing him off with it that day. Wonder how they’re both doing. Last I heard, Tristan was expecting his second child and working in a corporate law firm and Malcolm was some bigwig at JP Morgan. Go them!

OK, I’m clearly on a ramble-fest. If you read all of this. If you get even half of it, then good on ya!

Off to chart my future from the local coffee shop…

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So my computer, which I feel really isn’t that old, is apparently old according to all things geek, or is it nerd or dweeb? (Only geeks, nerds, and dweebs know the diff amongst themselves.) I try to use iTunes or Photoshop or Adobe Acrobat, and there is a great slowing down… Tap, tap, tap… lalala… hmmm… Ctrl + Alt + Delete… pause… dum-dee-dum-dum… I was trying to just deal, but to see Aaron attempt to use my computer and get pretty much MORE frustrated than me sealed it. I can’t deny it. I need an upgrade. And so I have Aaron on the case, since he knows hardware and I don’t. We’re looking into a way to keep all my accessories (keyboard, disc drives, monitor, accessories, and just replace the mother board and other stuff I can’t remember the name of right now. So he’s thinking he can get me moving at a reasonable rate for about $350.

OK, so that’s cool, but I’ve accepted it, AND THEN… Grrrrr… So I design a few spreadsheets for all this logging I have to do this year. In the past few days, I have learned that I need to fill out a detailed time log for my graduate program using one format, a different time log for my internship program, a time sheet for the school system, a time sheet for my minor rotation, and a mileage journal for the schools. (It was bad enough I had to go through the entire application process for both my major and minor rotations as if I DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE THE FRAKIN’ JOB!!!!)

OK, anyway, so I go to sync my newly created Excel time sheets with my Sony Clie, and it isn’t working! So I go to upgrade the software I use (Documents to Go), and it upgrades on my desktop, but apparently my PDA isn’t running the correct operating system to run the software. I’m in the 4’s. I need to be in the 5’s. I’m especially annoyed that upgrading the software made the old software go away. Gah! I search all over the Internet and learn that, in fact, "The Palm OS® operating systems require specific CPU and hardware features to operate. Because of this, the newer Palm OS® operating systems are unable to operate on handhelds that lack these required CPU and hardware features." In other words, I’m completely SOL. If I want to be able to use Excel spreadsheets on my Clie (something I’ve been doing for years), I’m going to have to buy a new PDA.

Why do they do this? It’s bad enough I have to pay about a million dollars a month for the two channels I want to watch on TV and another million just to get basic phone service and DSL Lite. It’s price gouging. Why can’t it stop? WHY?!!!

I’m considering buying this. It’s a good price. Although hell, I’ll probably have to get a new case to fit it and a new who-knows-what-else just to make it work the way it should in the first place. Did I mention that at my major rotation I have a cubicle but not computer or phone? I have a stapler. Today, I wrote a report on a Windows 1998 machine with no Internet access. Do these people not understand the manner to which I have become accustomed?! IU has completely spoiled me, and I’m really not interested in going backwards.

So in short, I’m basically looking at $525 just to keep me afloat technologically. It’s like teeth. I count on them to just be there. I should just have stuff that works. I don’t make enough for these upgrades. Three years isn’t long enough for stuff to be old. It just isn’t.

{Stomp, stomp, tantrum, pout, grrrrrrr…}

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