Van Dam Chicago visit

That’s right people, the parents AND Becca made it out for a visit this past week. I find it more than slightly hilarious that my parents visited on the one week (ahem month) when all Chicagoans go green crazy, drink themselves senseless, dye an entire river fluorescent, and generally act like frat boys. Oh and did I mention that I live directly above one of the most popular Irish pubs in the entire city? Just picture huge lines of green clad bros and hoes lining the sidewalk with the general smell of stale beer and vomit in the air and that’s what I’ve lived with for awhile now thanks to St. Paddy’s. Becca, I am so sorry for exposing you to that hot mess! Gladly, I was able to make sure my parents missed out on most of it.

The parents were here from Saturday until Wednesday and we were able to get a lot of touristy sightseeing and shopping time in while also hanging out a bit with Uncle Gerry, Aunt Tami and some of the cousins. We also stopped by some of my favorite restaurants in the city including Epic Burger, The Original Pancake House, Giordano’s Pizza, and Portillo’s. It was a little exhausting since I still had to work on Monday, get my homework done, and go to class on Wednesday morning, but it was fun to show them the sights. At times it has been hard to convey the experiences that I have had here because it is so far removed from everything I grew up with back in Montana. I could tell that my parents were a little shocked by city life and all that comes with it (ie: noise, traffic, lots of crazy rushed people, and public transportation). I hope that they enjoyed the visit though since this might be the only time they have a child living in Chicago, but who knows? I have really enjoyed my time in the city, so maybe at some point I’ll come back.

Becca stayed for almost her entire spring break which was a lot of fun. Just so you all know, my sister is the coolest, quirkiest little shit you’ll ever meet and I love her. We were able to hang out quite a bit while she was here since I only worked on Friday. We went to an Irish music performance, shopping, running at the park, saw a movie, watched our favorite TV shows, and bought some awesome shoes! Becca, you complete me. You are my home. And we are definitely soul mates and bosom friends (please tell me you get these references!). Thanks to my family for visiting, and now I’m really looking forward to seeing Jake and Jackie this summer at home.

Here are a few favorites from the Van Dam Chicago trip:
A few from Epic Burger





Millennium Park – The Bean



Shedd Aquarium



Butt Munch, you ruined my picture



Who’s your daddy!? Classic Becca face, I could show you a picture of baby Becca with this same expression on her face



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I have this high need for reflection time when I am trying to process difficult decisions. I’m up against pretty much the toughest decision ever and my options are pretty much endless. Needless to say, I’m going a bit crazy thinking about my life options after graduation, so I’m taking some blog space to talk it out.

All of my future plans pretty much depend on when I will be leaving for Peace Corps. The most frustrating thing ever is that I might get an invitation to leave on August 1 but the departure date might get pushed back into 2011! I might not even hear from the placement office for several months and what do I do in the meantime? As a result, my post graduation plans are not clear and I don’t have any way of telling when I will be invited. Sigh

Ok so, let’s try be at least a little constructive. I used to go over my life options with Laurissa as sort of a joke, but now I am getting scarily close to the time when I actually have to chose one and go for it. Here are some ideas:

Option 1: Continue living and working in Chicago until I receive a PC invitation. Go home a month before departure in order to get everything in order and packed up etc.
+ keeps me from being the post grad who still lives in my parents basement
+ I honestly cannot take another boring summer at home, especially after living in the city
+gain some more social work experience and keep building up my resume
+Chicago in the summertime is apparently awesome
-I need a roommate! and affordable housing! and a job that I can possibly leave within a few months!
-Need to be in Iowa and Minnesota for weddings
-Jake and Jackie are coming home in June and I WANT/NEED to be there
-Is this a financially viable option? Good question…

Option 2: Live at home, work at the greenhouse and possible at Hearts and Homes. Save up some money for a few trips during Peace Corps. See my family and friends from home and wait for a PC invitation
+Able to save more $$ since I won’t be paying for food, housing, and probably not gas
+Easier to get a ride to the weddings and I will be around when Jake and Jackie visit
+Easier to take an extended trip to see Katie and roadtrip through California possibly. I need a post grad trip right?
+Get to see friends and do cool summery stuff in Montana. Can’t beat it.
-Living at home as a post grad. Ick, please no. We don’t need to repeat last summer, huh mom :)
-I’m thinking it will be pretty horrible to go from Chicago to Churchill. Yea ouch. Just the thought of it hurts me.
-Finances are kind of the least of my worries. I mean, I just got a degree and now I’m going to be an unpaid volunteer for two years.

Option 3 and 4: Either live in Bozeman in an apartment or beg a place to live with Katie in Seattle. Work and wait to get a call from Peace Corps.
+Solves the problem of being the post grad living at home
+I would love to be in Seattle or Montana for the summer
+3 words: Post Grad Roadtrip
+According to Katie, barista jobs are easy to come by so easy temporary employment is a possibility
-Still need a job for this summer. Not sure if I’m up for another manual labor type job
-Still need to be in IA, MN, and MT for wedding and to see Jake and Jackie
-Paying for food and housing, not able to save as much $$

Do you see my predicament? If you have advice or suggestions for me regarding this topic just let me know. I honestly don’t know what to do. Peace Corps is messing up my life. But I’ve accepted that fact and I am still looking forward to entering service sometime soon. You’ll probably hear me screaming hundreds of miles away when/if I get my invitation packet in the mail. I’m that excited about it!

Peace

Beth

Fridays

You may be wondering why I haven’t talked more in depth about the work that I do. Well the biggest reason is that as a social worker, I am limited in what I can share because of the confidential nature of my work. As a result, I can’t go into specifics at anytime outside of my co-workers and practicum group. I can talk in very general terms about what I do though, so I’ll try and describe my favorite day --Friday.

This might be a little complicated, so I’ll give you a little bit of a background about what social workers (and related professionals) do at our clinics:

Low risk health worker: Social workers who have only a bachelors degree (usually). Work with pregnant women enrolled in our case management program. Provide services such as home and clinic visits, referrals, education, facilitate parenting and Centering support groups.

High Risk health worker: Social workers who have at least a Master’s degree. Work with pregnant women who are high risk due to certain factors (age of mother, twins, substance abuse, domestic violence, health conditions etc). Provides same services as above.

Pediatric worker: Social workers who work with the Moms once they deliver their babies. The Mom and baby are eligible for case management services until the baby’s first birthday.

Clerk: Often no college education. Responsible for case management enrollments, Medicaid Enrollments (medical cards), and MPE (short term medical coverage for pregnant women until real medical card can be processed).

Ok so on Friday I work with a MSW (master’s social work) intern who acts as the only permanent social worker at the clinic. She is responsible for doing pretty much everything a low risk worker, pediatric worker, and a clerk would normally do. The clinic is small, but at times there are too many clients for one person to see. That’s where I come in.

As a BSW intern, I am pretty much not qualified to do anything except what a clerk would normally do. So on Fridays, I have been mainly just observing enrollments and pregnancy testing, reading over the paper work, and being forced to do role plays with the MSW intern to get used to asking really personal questions of people I have just met. This is where the skills I learned in Practice Methods are supposed to come in, but I still find it difficult at times. For example, try to think of an appropriate/unembarrasing way to ask a client if they have ever had an STD? And which one specifically? And how many times have they had it? I have to remember that there is often a difference between how many children my clients have and the number of times they have been pregnant. And during the enrollment I have to try figure out what happened with the other pregnancies. I have to know the appropriate way to ask about health conditions, domestic violence, drug abuse, citizenship status, sexual partners etc. The list goes on and on. So needless to say, I’m learning a lot.

This past Friday I ended up flying solo because the MSW intern wasn’t able to come in to work. I was a little scared at first, unsure of my ability to take over for the day. The thing about my work is that even though I might have feel massively unqualified, my clients are real people with real needs, real problems, and real obstacles. It is pretty motivating to look at the appointment schedule and know I can be the one to ensure that some of those needs are met. Sometimes my clients are struggling with very basic things like food and housing. Things that I have taken for granted for 21 years. These are the things that motivate me.

And by the way, by the end of this semester I’m going to be an expert on subjects like the birthing process, breastfeeding, nutrition during pregnancy, and infant developmental stages. Who knew!

Sorry this post is long, but I have some really awesome and random pictures/stories from the past few weeks.

Picture #1 is the Central Park L stop near one of the clinics.


Picture #2 is a little sign I found at the High School clinic. It made me laugh. Now you know a really helpful phrase in Spanish!


Picture #3 is a very common sign seen on the streets downtown. The first time I saw it I immediately looked up searching for a deadly icicle ready to sneak attack me from above. After awhile I guess I realized that looking up won’t help anything so why even post a warning? I also recently saw some interesting modifications to this sign including “falling lice” “falling is nice” and “falling twice” :)


Picture #4 is my favorite hamburger ever!! If any of you come for a visit, we’ll have to make a stop at Epic Burger for one of these tasty tummy fillers.


Picture #5 can anyone guess this one? Look at the hat carefully.

Well, I am usually the only white person on the train by the time I get out to the clinic stop, but the other day I saw this big white guy get on the train a few stops before I had to get off. He was all beardy and rough looking and the first thought that came into my head was “he looks like he could be from Bozeman.” And so I was really really shocked when I realized he was wearing a Montana State blue and gold stocking cap!!! AND he sat right in front of me on the train, so I sneakily took a quick picture to show you all. Random huh?

Until next time…

Beth