I think I have a good heart, but I get intimidated too easily and I am not the most professional guera you will ever meet. Really. Trying to write my statement of intent for admittance to an MSW program makes me feel like a hypocrite. The worst section is the analysis of my strengths and weaknesses. My only strength is that I have a heightened sense of compassion and love for the underprivileged. I am absolutely riddled with the kinds of weaknesses that would make me a mediocre social worker. Jini Roby once said that social work is not all about having a caring, bleeding heart, but it's having the skills and instincts to be able to help effectively. (Also to set appropriate boundaries in a client/worker relationship, effectively communicate, and in general avoiding being a spaz.) Maybe I was wrong all the time, except for the 3 weeks of spring semester right after my mission when I suddenly and desperately wanted to change my major to special-ed. That frantic phase of neurosis passed quickly in what I thought at the time was a "smoothbeautifully folded" miracle but now I have a heavy heart about it again.
I LOVE social work, everything about it is glorious to me. I love the idea of seeing the whole person in the whole environment because that is what Christ does. I know studying it has made me a better person and I have gotten to know AMAZING people. But maybe actually practicing it not be in the best interest of anyone? In any case, it's always good to have a plan de respaldo (back up plan) so I tried to make a list of possible other careers that are in line with my skills set. Since it's unlikely that I can gain employment playing checkers, making toast, or reciting Slim Shady lyrics, my ideas are working in a tanning salon or in a mall kiosk. Paper route? Lemonade stand? Let me know if you have any brilliant ideas. I'll be back from Mexico in the bleak midwinter...unemployed. (In Greenland).
We have no established traditions for the 4th, so we wing it every year.
This year, we went to Lost Creek with Jana and kids and then had some
friends over...
1 week ago
10 comments:
rachel, you know that you are perfect for this. you cant be to hard on yourself, you are still WAY young in the career. I have no doubt that you will be great. Give it a lil time. But in the event that you do open a lemonade stand let me know....i may need a drink to replace dp. Jajaja me stop dp? thats not happening. :-)
Rachel you have the biggest heart in the world!! I think it's great you're applying for MSW programs. Just from reading your posts, I think you definitely have the heart and the know-how. And if you wind up in a kiosk at the New Gate Mall let me know...I'll drop by and purchase whatever it is you're selling.
Let's be honest...none of the skills Dr. Roby mentioned would mean anything if a social worker did not have a compassionate heart. I think your having a great heart is the necessary trait that others may not have. Those other things can be learned and developed. Yes? So no worries Rachel, you will do great!
Ok obviously you feel like a hypocrite about pretty much everything, I think we've had this discussion before. I'm sure you'll be great and I'm sure you're a great social worker.
Now if it doesn't work out, I think you should just enlist. You'd make a mean drill sergeant :) Love ya Rachel
so, your (in Greenland) made me laugh, thanks for writing that. I don't know all that's involved in social work (I know I couldn't do it) but I know it's important to do what you love. would you really feel fulfilled working at a tanning salon? Maybe you're just not feeling super about it because you're going back to BYU - that is the plan right? you should go to USU. My cousin's husband went there for... some kind of social something-ology. He said the department is great and they have lost of different specific areas. You should look into it.... and then decided to go there and live with me! really though, i hope it all starts to feel better. i'm so excited to see you!!
I skimmed this thing too fast, and so the only word I actually read was LOVE. Whatever that means. I hope that doesn't seem insouciant, but I'm kind of scatterbrained and less committed to reading every word that comes across the screen. ANYways, back to me...
One time I saw a video of myself as a young awkward child (before I became a young awkward adult). I climbed out of a swimming pool and walked catching my breath and dripping to face the camera, at which point I delivered what I thought was an epiphany of sorts. "Cats are good climbers, and dogs are good swimmers." I then turned around and jumped back into the pool with a spastic twist. I believe my father was filming me at the time. I often imagine what he was thinking at the time that this discourse was delivered. Perhaps he wondered if it was a phase. Maybe I would grow out of my embarrassing ignorance and become a socially presentable representation of his seed. Perhaps he wondered whether to prescribe medicine for me. Maybe he knew that my harry potter appearance and spastic entrances into social interaction would eventually be the downfall of my social experience from 4th to 8th grade (and the beliefs caused by such interactions would lead to insecurities faced daily with contemporary colleagues.) Maybe he hoped that some sort of redeeming factor would save me from utter ridicule. Maybe he prepared responses to feared embarrassments that I would eventually lay upon him through my just a little off perception of reality and sociality.
Or maybe he just laughed, smiled and said, "I love that kid. I'm glad he's mine." I'm pretty sure one of my dads was thinking that.
piersu- what you do when you can't find your harbor.
and YOU. When I found you you were so slobbering drunk you couldn't buy BRANDY!
It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by life a song,
But the man worthwhile
Is the one who will Smile
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble
And it always comes with the year
And the smile that is worth
All the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through the tears.
It is easy enough to be prudent
When nothing tempts you to stray
When from without or within
No voice of sin
Is luring your soul away.
But it's only a negative virture
Until it is tried in the fire,
And the soul that is worth
All the glory of earth
Is the one that resists desire.
By the cynic, the sad, and the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The earth's highway is cluttered today:
These make up the stuff of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
Or the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth
All the homage of earth
For we find them but once in a while.
love the reference to one of my favorite movies.
there is so much to say about all this, but do you know what the bottom line is? you will be AMAZING at whatever you decide to do because you know how to treat people with dignity and respect. from orange faced girls coming into the tanning salon for the 6th time that week to little kids with dirty faces because their parents are gone, you will make an impact wherever you choose to end up (obviously the tanning salon reference is a joke, but i was making a point).
did you get my email? i don't know if you saw my comment about it a few posts back and i want to make sure to re-send it if i have the wrong email address.
when are you home?
I'm figuring you're probably being too hard on yourself. But assuming for a moment that you aren't, I think you may be looking at this from the wrong angle.
You're focusing so much on what you're already good at. But girl, you can learn new things! That's what going through a program is FOR! If you don't feel like you're the best at acting effectively yet, make that your goal. Tell the program that you already know some things about acting effectively to help others (as I'm sure you are with all your experience), but that you want to learn even more.
If you don't feel that you already are the best person for the job, you can certainly become that person. You don't have to give up your dream just because you aren't there yet. Work for it. Pray for it. Give the dream the work and attention it deserves, and you can acquire any attributes you don't already possess. (Learning to recognize these attributes in yourself--to see yourself as the Lord sees you, so that you can assess yourself accurately--might also be something to pray and work for.) Remember that the Lord has promised these things to us, that when we bring our weaknesses to him, then he will make the weak things strong.
So go for it. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be willing to try.
Rachel, you don't know how nice it is to read this post, because this is just the way I feel too.
I think only sucky social workers feel completely confident.
And Jini Roby once told me that she could never do clinical work.
I know you will be completely amazing and wonderful! Whatever it takes, you've got it.
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