Significant

I have graduated. It was a pretty decent day, not too hot and had that nice milestone feeling. I thought the speakers were thoughtful and (most important) not too long. This was just for the school of nursing so it was pretty specific, and I liked that. I must say, I was quite glad that I did not wear heels. Lots of walking, traffic was super awful. Apparently different schools had their convocation ceremonies at the Bass Concert Hall all day long, separated by 2 hours, so as people were leaving, we were arriving. I saw all my Psych NP classmates (all 9 of us).

I have to say, this would not have been possible without the support of my husband, Ken. It was quite a luxury to only work on the breaks (& even then, only because I wanted to). This was a successful joint project. I'm finally at the point of doing my life's work. BTW, here's a link to a story that eloquently explains why I feel that way. I want to be the one that makes a difference in someone's life in exactly this way. Modern Love Story

After graduation, Ken and I went to Kerbey Lane (yep, the original one). I've been going there since 1980, when I first came to UT. Yep, 33 years. Feels incredible. There was a loud table of young ones next to us with a few fellow graduates, drinking mimosas. Great way to spend a Texas afternoon. BTW, I just have to mention that I'm wearing two nursing pins on my gown, nurses go through this unique "pinning" ceremony when they first become nurses, one of them is my grandmother May's pin, who was a nurse in Arizona in the 1930's, the first surgical nurse in a small Arizona mining town. A pioneer. The second one is from my original graduation from Our Lady of the Lake College in Baton Rouge, in 2007. Another meaningful day. 

Then we flew to New York to go get our daughter. We had some fun, but it was a super quick trip (only there 4 days). We went to MOMA, wandered around Soho, and saw a Broadway show (Kinky Boots - fantastic, makes me want to be a drag queen for Halloween next year, ha!), and got her and her stuff back to Texas. We had six heavy suitcases and shipped two big boxes of clothes, but we did it. I ate the best Thai food I've ever had at a place called Peep in Soho, and of course, we had to try the vegan falafel sandwiches that Dani has been living on at Taim (it was as good as she said).

Here's some pics from what we did.

So now I'm just waiting for the authorization to take my boards, and I hope that will be soon although I haven't started studying yet. Not sweating it too much. 

This is an interesting time to be entering this profession. The DSM 5 just came out and is pretty controversial. I listened to an interview on NPR a few days ago with the new head of the American Psychiatric Assn. and I thought he explained/defended the viewpoint of the mental health professional community pretty well. NPR DSM-5  People are upset because we have much more detail in this volume - the first new edition since 1990, which is an eternity in science - but many people don't feel that upset about the fact that similar guidelines for physical diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, etc. have had even more growth in their body of knowledge. We know more, shouldn't we inform more? And no, I don't agree that we are pathologizing normal (which seems to be the main criticism), it's still an individual clinician that is licensed to make an actual diagnosis - no just anyone can do that - and one of the most important things that the DSM stresses over and over is that if you have a mental disorder it should cause you significant distress and impairment in your daily functioning. If those two criteria aren't met, that it should call the diagnosis into question. 

Next up on the agenda: buy our son a car this weekend, and get each teenager a job. No small feat. Hopefully I'll have job news myself in the next post. I talked to the director of Shoal Creek and I've essentially crossed that off my list because they don't anticipate a start date until September. That tells me they really aren't interested in new grads. I'm certainly not going to wait that long.