So how did the job go you ask?

The job has been crazy and frustrating and wonderful and challenging. I did get called a bitch on my first day of work. I didn't cry. I didn't get mad either, just rolled my eyes and told the kid to go outside. I've been doing this job two days a week for about 4 months. This next Friday and Saturday are actually my last days. The Fella and I are moving to Orange County! He got a great new job and I am going to focus on actually doing research. Of course, now I will have to travel to LA whenever I get lucky enough to interview someone. But back to the job:

People who take care of foster/homeless youth do not get enough pay or respect from management/social workers/therapists. They just don't. Basically, we are being asked to be parents to these kids for their time with us. This means that we are blamed whenever the youth does something against the rules. Like when a child throws a tantrum at the store, bystanders always mutter something about how the parents must be terrible. Well, if a child leaves the facility, gets high, trashes the dorm, then the first people to blame are the residential counselors. "Why was the youth unsupervised? Why don't you enforce rules? Why didn't you interact with them enough so that they want to stay in the program?" This is all bullshit. A youth stays if they want to. That said, there is no "one" way that you can make a child want to stay. Every child is different. Some kids just like being able to do what they want to do when they want to do it. Others like structure but miss their families. Still others want to go to school and get fed everyday. So some kids stay and others don't. I don't know what this means for my dissertation just yet.

I will miss the kids and my co-workers, but I'll be happy not to get up at 5am. I will also miss the (meager) extra paycheck.

I am currently studying for my preliminary examinations. After these are taken, I can call myself a "PhD Candidate" instead of just a 'student'. I'm nervous about them yet I don't want to study. I am the worst procrastinator. They begin in exactly two weeks in WA. I'm not even halfway through the studying process. I know I'll be ready, it will just be a painful process shoving all of this info into my brain.

I've been knitting like a madwoman to avoid studying. This is better than drinking. I've vowed not to knit starting tomorrow until I am home from WA. I have also decided that I need to force myself to get into the habit of writing. I will be doing one to two blogs a week starting in December. They will focus on crafting, nesting, anthropology, food and weightloss. These things are basically all of my hobbies. Speaking of weightloss, I'm now 25 lbs smaller than I was when I moved to LA. The Fella and I have been working hard.