As I stare at a room full of boxes...

Wow - Never have I hated moving as much as I'm hating it this time around. Move-day was Sunday, and somehow the place still looks like we just got here. So Gina and I are hoping that by the end of this week things will start to look a little normal around here. But despite the boxes of books, random pieces of wood that were once an entertainment unit, and television on the floor, this apartment is wonderful! We take a lot of things for granted in life. These past two years I had been living in my 1 bedroom apartment I really learned to appreciate the value of odorlessness. My building for some reason always had a particular smell to it. I've become a Febreeze and Wisp guru. I've tried every air freshener on the market. And no matter how great the place smelled momentarily, every smell I attempted to infuse into the place would eventually succumb to the "au-de-mold" that emanated from the walls of that place. Oh but now, now I live in an apartment that among many other great amenitites comes with a very special feature. Complete lack of odor. I walk in the door completely unaware of my nose. And I must say that in and of itself is worth the move and the endless explanations about how to turn a key by the leasing consultant who we have affectionately nicknamed "that guy". And don't get me started on the fact that the bathroom is clean!!

Before I move on to another topic I just wanted to say that Hamid was SO unbelievably helpful with all this moving business. I wanted to just tell him thank you one more time in this very public and embarassing way ;) But truly, I think he lifted more heavy things than all of us put together! Thanks babe ;)

At some point last week school and practicum started... but I'm not quite tuned in yet since my home base is a mess. Harbor/UCLA seems good so far. At lot of my classmates are there though they are not in the same track/rotation as me. We got a tour during orientation of the psychiatric ward at the hospital. Some of the patients I will be testing will be inpatients in the psych ward. At one point during our tour another girl who is going to be working with me turned to me and whispered, "Why am I scared?" We laughed at ourselves for a moment for being a bit skiddish about being in a psychiatric ward. There seemed to be some unspoken pressure that we should be somehow non-challant about being there. But the truth is, it is scary. Maybe scary is not even the word I'd use. It feels very heavy in there. Its basically a long hallway with rooms off to each side. Thats it. Inpatients basically had the choice of sitting in their rooms or pacing the halls. Its strange, as we were moving things into my new apartment I remember thinking how annoyed I was with walking up and down the same walkway to get to the elevator over and over again and how it felt torturous and never ending.

Most of the patients I saw that day just looked scared to see us. We were new faces, all dressed up to impress our supervisor, walking through their hallway, peering into their rooms, looking at them but not stopping to acknowledge who we are. It was all very odd and very different than the position I've been trained to take so far as a therapist. It felt like we were peering into a fish tank and pretending the fish can't see us, though they clearly can.