Pasternak Progress Flower Eyes & Cotton Soul

I thought I would get an early jump on tonights post because if I wait until evening as is my usual routine it may not happen due to weariness. I'm doing a bit of reflection today on the birth of this blog at a time when I was beginning graduate school. I can't remember if I have touched on graduate school in past posts, but I am attending a distance education graduate school program through the School of Social Work at East Carolina University. The pursuit of my MSW degree has brought many rewards as well as many changes in my life. I remember the trepidation I felt prior to meeting my classmates wondering if I would be the "old" one out and the relief I felt when I realized many classmates that were near my age. Over the past 2 1/2 years I have developed a deep bond with the 15 classmates.that remain out of the initial 22, and our time together is coming to end come May 2013. We have experienced many things together with exhaustion as well as sacrifice being common links. When you have a full time job and then come home to study, read, write papers, you find it takes away from your family life. I am lucky in that my step son grew up and moved out years before I began school. But my wife has suffered though with my attention being focused on school.  It is difficult to balance the pressures and I am trying to do a better job with self care. It is not always easy.

One aspect of Social Work education that is rewarding is the field internship but it is also a burden. It is a burden in terms of the time required (24 hours a week) and how draining it can be for an individual that is working at least 40 hours a week and cannot flex their work schedule. I won't go into the particular difficulties I faced this year with finding a field internship but I will say that it worked out extremely well working in a clinic from 5am to 8am before going to work. Yes, I am up at 3:45am Monday through Saturday to be there at 5am. Yes it means that I get home at 5:30pm, do a little studying, eat and go to bed early. And yes, I don't have time for this blog like I have in the past. Oh, don't forget the loss of "me time" for the eternal search for finding records.

Today was a day where I did not have to go to school but still had my 3 hours of field internship. Then took the car for an oil change. I did get an opportunity to look for records. I found one place that appeared to have daily yard sale. I bought 8 45's but quite frankly this place just depressed me. These people had a house full of junk as well as an outdoor car port full of junk. They had buckets of 45's that had been just sitting in the rain probably all summer. Horrible horrible evilness. Many 45's that would have been wonderful pickups such as Sam Cooke's Sugar Dumpling that were left to moldy wet labels that were torn and stuck together. Or the lps that were left in the rain that were ruined. I mentioned to them how records needed to be stored better and their response was they could be cleaned easily. I went to my friend Jim's as he went to an auction last week that I turned him on to as I had to go to school. He ended up winning a box of 200+ 45's and what a great pickup. I ended up picking up several from him including a moody obscure garage 45 from a group The Shadows on Union Rougue. Tonights post, however, was from the Myrtle Beach trip I took in August.