Over & out & a little about death

Well, I've officially polished off another semester on the way toward becoming a Mistress of Counseling Psychology. Or perhaps that's a Madame of Counseling Psychology. What *is* the feminine form of "master"?

I took my Ethics final tonight. No telling how I did on that. Maybe I aced it; maybe I missed the whole point. Either way, I reactivated the tendonitis in my hand with all the writing I did.

When it was over, two of my classmates and I talked to the professor about the hideous use of PowerPoint presentations during the term. Each student had been assigned a chapter and was required to give the class a PP presentation of no fewer than 20 slides on that chapter. This was the most incredibly boring part of grad school. Period. On my class evaluation earlier in the evening, I had written: The student PowerPoint presentations were an abysmal part of this class. Please MAKE ME ENGAGE WITH THE MATERIAL, rather than using it to anesthetize me.

In fact, tonight as we were waiting to take the final exam, we learned that there were still TWO MORE of these things through which to suffer. Hearing that, I leaned over to one of my classmates and said, I'm killing myself. I am *officially* suicidal. Dealing with suicidality was one of the focuses of the class, so I added: Please contact a significant person in my life and have them get me the fuck out of here.

If you've lived anything like my life, by now, you've learned how these things work. Even when I'm trying, I *never* manage to pull off sotto voce. And there is, of course, my talent for perfect timing. Which is why, in some lull after the professor announced the final two presentations and the class had stopped stirring, my deadpan tone was audible to everyone as I said, ... get me the fuck out of here.

Something similar happened earlier this year in a different class with the same professor. But then, the words falling from my tongue were, ... covered in white spooge, but I ate it anyway.

So when get me the fuck out of here was the audible reply to the prof's announcement tonight, she merely looked at me with a bit of a twinkle in her eye. A classmate across the room burst into prolonged laughter. But otherwise....

Well, despite *that* business, I talked to the prof tonight about whether she might be my faculty for an independent study. After this summer, I need five more elective credits to complete my program. I've got thoughts on how I might get two or three of those, but I've been thinking for some time that I want to create some of the depth I've been seeking in the program. I'm particularly interested in the intersection between story/writing and therapy, two things which have been parts of my life for many years.

There is an intersection of storytelling, sociology, psychology and culture (and perhaps media) that I'm interested in exploring, specifically where they all meet people facing their death (young or old). It was this that I spoke about with the professor after the three of us were done riding her ass about the endless PowerPoints. She seemed really into it, and suggested I watch some videos of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross actually *doing* her work, rather than reading about it. Sounds fascinating.

So perhaps next Fall or Spring -- or both, depending on the scale of what I choose to do -- I will dive into this subject with abandon. For now, however, I'm going to start dipping my toes a little here and a little there. I've got to do a lot of reading just to create some focus for what I want to do.

For the next few days, I have *nothing* to do. No school. No work. A vet appointment on Wednesday. Maybe a movie on Thursday night. So in the absence of any duties to perform, I think I'll visit Powell's City of Books and see if I can't find something about death and medicine and culture and philosophy into which I might put my nose for the next couple of weeks, as my classes do not resume until May 8.