Sam's Birthday Weekend

 I needed to get a photo with this mullet when we were out!

Soooo I am supposed to be writing on a Sunday to update this baby, but i got home from CF in the afternoon and was too busy (and exhausted) to get round to updating. 

Packing is going well. Pretty much everything is done. I have my 2 suitcases ready to go (minus last minutes) and my carry-ons. Today I packed and shipped my one box. I was shocked at how cheap it was! I got quotes on 50 lb boxes from several places (USPS, UPS, FedEx, and several local shipping companies). All of these options were between $500 and $600. Needless to say, I decided not to go that option unless I did not have to. I even looked into cargo shipping companies and those sites were people bid on the cost they are willing to pick-up and deliver your shipments for. Those were way more expensive or did not ship to the UK. lame. 

I had it in my mind that I would just do the 2 suitcases and carry-ons, but after all the strategic packing I could muster I still had things I wanted. Sooo I decided to just ship one box full of things I thought were lighter - my vintage hats, belts, tights, leggins, headbands, etc. That one box ended up being 24 x 18 x 18 and weighing 31 lbs. I was not looking forward to shipping that baby. Finally drug it over to the USPS today after shoving it in my little car (that's soon not to be mine anymore!) around 3:30 pm. It took ages to fill out the customs form but luckily I had already made up my detailed list of contents and values. My grand total to ship it priority (I had no choice, but priority was actually the cheapest option anyways) came to $131 and will arrive in 6-10 business days. I am thrilled at this price! I am sure that I will need to pay a customs fee when it arrives, but definitely could not replace all of those items for anywhere near that number. Well worth the money spent as long as it arrives in one piece. Added bonuses - I got free insurance on it AND I should arrive in the country before the box does. My goodness that's exciting!

Super pumped to have that ticked off my list of things left to go (it's kinda a long list for having only one week left, lol). I have a feeling this week is only going to get busier. At least that will make the time fly by!

So to get on with the title of this blog. I spent from Wed the 1st to yesterday in CF with Sam for her birthday.  I loaded up the puppies and headed out before 11 am (impressive time, I thought considering all the things I had to do before I left the house), arriving around noon. I put the puppies in their decorated collars and headed for Sam's door....to find her not home! After several phone calls I find out she is at a massage and her boyfriend arrives to let me in. Sam gets in about a half hour later, totally not surprised since she parked next to my car. She was, however, pleased that i brought the puppies with me.

We had a really fun super extended weekend - ate the cake made out of donuts, went to the craziest session of Zumba at the local gym where we learned a squawking hawk dance move, rented some movies, etc.

On Friday she had a birthday party for which we made up some good food and had her friends over. That was followed by time at a karaoke bar where the DJ would not let us sing. I was pissed because he didn't know me as the famous karaoke star from Menomonie that I am. lol. When Jared found this out he got all puffed up and paid the DJ to let us sing a tune with 2 of Sam's friends. All in all it was a good time. The apartment was left a disaster at the end of the night, largely due to a vomit issue by Jared. lol. 

Saturday we had lunch with our family and some of our parent's friends at Red Lobster. We then attended the UNI basketball game. We saw a fun halftime show of a unicycle family that did some really neat tricks on like 8 ft tall unicyles. I got to meet the UNI president and the Recreation/Alum guy due to a family friend that attended the game with us being alum and his son donating the money for the McLeod Center. We beat the rival team that stole the 5th best player in the state from UNI. Best of all, I got to do the interlude dance again! Love that dance! It's clearly the best thing to come out of UNI ever. If you don't know it then you should check it out here! It is a song from a band called Attack! attack! and the dance was made up by some UNI students a few years ago. I will be bringing this to England with me!

We did not do too too much the rest of the time together, but it was some great sister time for sure. I had a wonderful little break in CF and even picked up a few new t-shirts that I am super excited about. Now that I am back things are starting to feel a bit unreal - almost like I am living in some strange dream. I am in a complete fog as my time of leaving rapidly approaches. I think this is a good thing because I would be quite intolerable if I were to express my excitement all the time for the big move! lol.

Keep checking back here, I have a feeling as the date approaches (one week to go!!) I will be using this to help cope with my utter excitement.

My 2012 Goals

All of the Girls from this past weekend's family graduation/going away party for me

I have decided since it is the last day of January that I can still get in my goals for this year in England. My thought is that if I put them in writing somewhere that I will stick to them! Here the are:

Health and Fitness: To become a Zumba instructor.

Personal Growth and Interests: To join a church and volunteer organization, attending both regularly.

Career: To find a job and get granted a Work Visa. 

Education and Training: To get accepted to the British Association for Counseling and Psychology (adding MBACP to the end of my name). 

Home Living and Improvement: To make a string tree mural on the wall of Alex and I’s future apartment. 

Time Management and Organization: To follow-up every job application submission in 2 weeks time. 

Family and Relationships: To hold true to Social Sundays (update my blog, skype people, mass email, etc).

Recreation and Leisure: Set aside bi-weekly “Me Time” to enjoy artzy things and one culturally English hobby.

I fixed my blog!!!!!

 This is my baby Morris and I all dressed up for Winter time!

Ok so, the few of you that actually read this probably have noticed that I have not updated since November. Well, for some reason I was frozen out of my account and the email I had linked to my blog is not inactive since I never use it. That being said, I could not contact blogspot to have them reset my frozen/hacked account. Welll I finally got it all straightened out so I am now able to blog away again! Yay! 

My new plan of action is to start blogging again, once a week, so that people can stay up to date with my adventure abroad. I am hoping I can stick to it! I will not have a laptop at first when I travel across the pond but will have Alex's laptop and desktop to use. I am hoping my blogging won't go to waste and that people will use it to keep up to date on things that are going on with me. 

The reason I started a blog the last time I went overseas was so that when I did get to speak to people I would not be spending the whole, expensive conversation explaining what was new with me. This way people can know about some of the bigger (and also very ordinary and seemly boring) things that i do, cutting through the need for that content in emails, facebook messages, and phonecalls.

The lowdown - I leave on 02/13 (TWO WEEKS!!!) and will land on Valentine's Day evening (during the middle of the day over here in the states). Once I am there and settled I plan on making Sunday's my blog, mass email, and skype day. Yes, I will be keeping my skype - and would love to be utilizing it to the fullest! My skype name is Cassandra.Lea if you have an account (or plan on making one). Add me up and you can be added to my Sunday Skype List! 

The Master plan for being overseas is to find a job that will get me a visa before I have to return in late June for my friend Sara's wedding that I am in. My fingers are crossed that I find something before then so my visa can process and I can return gainfully employed and get our own place (Alex and I). Until then, I will be residing with Alex's family....which I am so very very thankful for!

......So very much has happened since November that I cannot possibly take the time to play catch up, so I will end for now and just keep up on things from here :) Thanks to all of those who have decided to follow me. I hope you continue to enjoy reading about my life's adventures.

yup. work/internship update

Life continues to be hectic at the Eau Claire Academy. I was once again offered a promotion at work, which I had to turn down due to leaving the country shortly after graduation. I was offered a more than full-time permanent position complete with benefits, effective immediately or upon graduation. The interesting part was that it was offered to me on the exact day I came in armed with my official resignation letter, complete with last date of employment. My boss came in and stated that she was not trying to badger me into anything and was not trying to change my future plans, but that she had been authorized to give me another promotion with a salaried position. The offer came completely by surprise and I was very flattered to be given the opportunity. I politely declined the offer and gave her my resignation letter. She seemed genuinely disappointed but congratulated me on my move none the less. 

            Her offer made me reflect upon the work I am doing there. It seems that every time I get wrapped up in my work or stressed out then something happens to lift my spirits and remind me of the quality of the work I am doing. It is nice to know that my hard work and concentration has been noticed by others in the facility to the point where I was rewarded for it. It makes the past few weeks a bit easier to digest. In addition to notification by my co-workers at the ECA, I have been receiving verbal recognition from agency workers and parents of my clients. This is also a small way that my work has been recognized.

During the chaos of the past few weeks it has been easy to see the downfalls of working in a residential treatment facility of that caliber. It has been interesting to watch how my colleges have coped with the changes in dynamics in the building. Some of them have begun to isolate themselves to become more focused, others have reached out to one another, a few have taken personal days, and a couple have become a bit less patient with co-workers. This has been a good thing for me to reflect upon because it has given me the chance to see how each of these options has impacted the clinical team. A downfall of this chaos has been the stretching of the already limited resources available to the ECA. With the kids in such emotional distress, it has been difficult to pool resources enough to get them de-escalated and stabilized. Direct care staff has taken the hardest hit in this area due to the increase in client incidents left to be handled largely by this group of people. Unfortunately, these are typically the least trained individuals and the ones most likely to get impatient with the clients when they let the behavior of the client affect them on a personal level.

It has been such an interesting experience at the ECA due to the many opportunities they have given me to learn and grow as a professional. It is strange to think that now that I am completely comfortable and settled that I will have to soon begin transitioning out. It will be a good thing to move on to bigger and better things in a new country full of another large learning curve to get over. I have certainly learned a lot about working in this profession already and look forward to the transitioning process so that I can feel I have come full circle in the course of a year at my site.

My official Announcement

a typical English shoppe :)

Now that I have told the people closest to me about my decision, I feel it is ok for me to write it all down here.

The news - I have decided to move to England.

Yes, that is correct, I made a huge life decision and am announcing it here.

My plan is to graduate from Stout in December and then move back to Iowa by the end of the year. I will spend roughly 2 months in Iowa selling my things before I move to England in February.

From there I will try to find a job. I am hoping to get something in the mental health field, but am being realistic in the fact that I will not be ready to be a therapist over there right away. They run things differently and I think it would be best to be a case manager or work in crisis or adoption. We shall see tho, I am keeping a very open mind. My best bet it to find something in the social work realm (which does include some mental health jobs over there) working with children and their families. This is posted by the UK as a "high need job" and would be the easiest for me to get a visa for. Otherwise I will need to find a job that cannot be filled by the employers of the UK. This is why I am looking into crisis, as this is an up and coming field in which I have multiple years experience. Also residential work has a high turn over rate and I have many many years experience in that. 

I am in a wedding in June (yay Sara and Matt!) so I will be back in the states for a few weeks for that. I am hoping to have found a job by then so that my visa can process and I can send more of my personal things over. 

Once Alex and I are back in the UK we plan on getting a place of our own and starting a life together.

I know the economy is bad everywhere and still recovering from minor depressions. This is working against me a bit cuz there will be less jobs available and more people looking. A plus is that getting a masters is less popular in the UK than it is in the states. Hopefully my education and experience boosts me ahead of everyone. If not, the Alex and I are looking at getting married. I know I know, some people are against that idea. It is risky cuz we haven't been in the same country for long and blah blah....But we know our relationship and do have a very strong one despite being apart. It will work, if it comes down to that. The doubters will see :)

And that is pretty much it atm, as far at the plan goes. I am keeping it free of small details so I don't get caught up in being stressed or pressured or whatever. My detailed plans never work out anyways.

Alex and I are very excited about all of this. It will be 5 years we have been together before we have lived in the same country. How crazy. It is more than time for that to happen! I know there are several people who are less than pleased about this decision I am making, for a variety of reasons. I will further detail my reasoning for this in a future blog, I promise.