grace aloud

It finally feels as if summer has arrived.  Our June class on Human Sexuality is ended, so I now have more than 5 free minutes at a time stringed together!  What to do what to do…. Research.  Oh my.

The June class was the last academic class of my Master’s degree.  Now all I have left is clinical hours (97 to be exact!), an extensive capstone presentation, and research.  Right now, I think I have my hand dipped in five different research projects…

One, my thesis, is looking at the importance of childbearing decision making to women, and whether that importance (or salience) affects their childbearing outcomes.  A second, part of the same global project, is a qualitative study of men’s childbearing decision making—this one’s just in the first stages.  The third is also part of the same grant, and it’s about couple’s agreement about childbearing decision making.  I’m excited about that one, because I’m presenting it at a national conference (the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists) in Atlanta this September.

In an unrelated note, I’m also working on a paper about empowering family members through promotion of interdependnece, as well as collecting data on a project about co-therapist dynamics.  For someone who doesn’t want to do research forever, I sure have gotten myself involved in a lot of it!  And none of this is paid work at the moment!  I’m playing with the idea of assigning a day to each project that i try to work at least two hours each day on research.  We’ll see how that goes.  

I know, though, from experience that without a schedule, I’ll never get any of it done!  There’s always more fun things to do, like going to the pool, getting snow-cones, grabbing lunch, going for walks, and other fun summery things!  BUT, if I make a schedule, at least I can make sure I have time for those things as well.

On the schedule today… I did a pilates mat workout right after I woke up.  If I can get my list together, I’m about to run to the grocery store before meeting a first-year to teach him how to close cases (my clinical job for the last year).  Then, I’ve got to take crisis calls at my off-site internship all afternoon (aka play on the computer because no one ever calls).  Tonight, I’m going to go to Zumba… Jon’s starting his new job!  More on that in another post.  Have a great day!

-grace