The last few weeks have been some of the craziest ever. This is because the deadlines are starting to pile up (and in some instances overlap with each other), and the department, in all their wisdom, had decided to add the addition pressure of us finding internship sites for next year. The one completely magical and wonderful moment this week was celebrating two years with David, which has been awesome J

I have been slowly working my way through my ‘June to September To-Do’ list, and am now over half-way through my literature review, half-way through my data collection, and have devised a two-part plan for data analysis and discussion of my research. I even have a sort of ‘research group’, which stemmed from a realization that I needed a research ‘buddy’ and as most of my class are rather relaxed about their research, I selected Luke as the lucky buddy, reasoning that he needed to finish his thesis anyway. Somehow this changed to include Megan (his fellow lab mate), and then changed yet again to me being a part of their weekly lab meetings, where weekly research goals are set. The best part about these meetings is they have stoked up my enthusiasm for my research again.

The awful and much-dreaded June exam was written on Wednesday. Apart from my mom interrupting me by calling my phone incessantly (and thus sparking the major panic attack I had, as I was convinced she was calling because there was a very real emergency – luckily all was fine).

I am making slow but steady progress in most of my coursework, and have even serendipitously managed to locate a second hand copy of a book of transactional analysis for toddlers, and thus I can now even devise a programme for my class at the nursery school where we do our community psychology pracs. Transactional analysis is far from my favourite psychological therapy, but it is simple enough – the basic premise is to get the individual to the optimal state of believing “I’m okay, you’re okay”. It is simple, and will probably work, or at a minimum get the kids at the school into a better emotional space. These children are almost like the exact opposite of the kids at Keera’s little school, as they are often severely emotionally deprived and in some cases abused. So it is a really good feeling to know that this will help them. The kids are just too cute - here are some of the kids in the class I take:

The best news is that I have secured my top two internship sites, and so on Monday morning I will actually be turning one site down. It is a really awesome feeling to know that this has been sorted out, and I got my first choice site.

And we are semi-‘on holiday’ as we only have supervision and clients for the next three weeks, and one seminar paper and presentation for Thursday (unfortunately, it is for community psychology, and it counts 35% of it course, and my group are only starting to work on it – time has not been kind to us!)

The point is that for the first time in months I woke up feeling a strange sense of freedom – I didn’t have deadlines (well, at least not until Monday) and the only place I ‘had’ to be was at Bedford Centre to watch an afternoon showing of a movie. I didn’t even have plans with David, as he is running a workshop this weekend. Naturally this changed within 10 minutes of waking up, and within 30 minutes of waking I was off to attend a 5-hour workshop on one of the scholastic assessments and meet with my assessment partner to go through our supervisor’s comments on our work. Then I dashed around Johannesburg between book stores purchasing a father’s day gift for my dad and a gift book for Gaby (who is being christened tomorrow), before charging off to Bedford Centre to meet Luke to watch ‘Sunshine Cleaning’. This is an awesome movie, by the way, and I would so recommend it. We then spent far too long looking at travel books (a major indulgence of mine) and I have now added Umbria and the Czech Republic to my list of ‘Places to go’. I am now spending this evening working on the community psychology paper, so that one more thing can be ticked off the list!