book learnin'

Wow, transferring a person's social work license from MN to CA is not anything like "automatic"!!!

I now understand why it so hard for Navy Wives to keep a decent career. It's great review, but it would be nuts getting up the energy to take the clinical licencing exam and all of the required continuing ed every time we moved to a new state.

For California, I have to re-take the clinical license exam which in MN, was a four-hour grind that left me having to pee really really bad and with a smashing headache. Which I took after two years of full-time supervision, after college, waaay back in....well....a while back.

Then there is another California exam, the "clinical vignette," which sounds like some sort of yummy french baked good. But not.

I will take, mostly in on-line courses:

Human Sexuality (10 hours)

Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency (15 hours)

Spousal/Intimate Partner Abuse Assessment, Detection and Intervention Strategies (15 hours)

Aging and Long Term Care (10 hours)

Child Abuse Assessment and Reporting (7 hours, taken in the State of CA)

Then after all of those courses which I will of course pay for, I'll study up on things I know will be on the exam, like the ole biopsychosocial assessment, formulating your diagnosis and developing treatment plans, legal issues in California and ethical stuff.

My first on-line course was fascinating: social work with gay, bisexual and transgender adolescents. It showed the profound sense of isolation the teens feel and some of the experience. I want to learn more, and to reach out and help these kids.

Then I snored my way through a few hours on aging and let me tell you, those are three hours of my life, I'll never get back. Dry as toast!!!

To make a long story short, I'm back in school.

My mother and my grandmother had careers and nurses, and they defined themselves that way, and as wives and mothers. I defined myself as a mother, wife, and social worker until we came to Japan. Then I became a stay at home mom and homemaker.

It's been wonderful to be home for the boys in many ways, and to take care of them and our dogs and now that they are in school, have lots of time for myself also, to explore this country, and meet new people and develop new hobbies.

I'm not going to lie, though, sometimes I'm envious of my wonderful husband for going out into the world every day and helping sick people, and making a living. I know he has a world outside of the family, and when he is quiet, he is usually daydreaming about things he left at work: some intern he spoke with at work, some rash or lab value or other he saw, someone with a fever who is waiting for him to come back. I know he has a whole other life outside of our little family and dogs and our little townhouse in Ikego Hills Navy Family Housing, Japan.

So I'm excited to be back in school, now if I can just find some notebook paper and a pen that isn't chewed up by a dog...