Oh how I love my job!

Quote from one of the girls at work at the beginning of the shift, "Who would quit this job?"


Well, let me give you a little hint of one reason that someone might want to quit working at the group home.

Today there was A LOT of drama. Other than having to put 2 girls on consequence for doing stupid little things, and other drama with girls being mad and not wanting to be compliant, I had one girl who decided to throw a real fit. She is on a consequence called "Desert" which means she cannot leave her room. She has nothing in her room except her bed (and they've allowed her some paper and crayons). Also, there is a staff member sitting at her door watching her at all times. Well this afternoon, I had to leave to take a girl to a doctor appointment. While gone, one of my staff called me and said that this girl was "having seizures". I told him that she is just negative attention seeking and to ignore her. Watch her closely to make sure she doesn't do anything harmful but don't talk to her or anything and that I was just finishing up the appointment and would be back soon. Well, as i walked in the house with my girls I noticed not one person in sight. Right then I heard a yell/scream. I had my girls go downstairs where the other staff had taken the rest of the girls and I followed the scream. I found the girl on desert in her room with 2 staff holding her down. I grabbed the hand-cuffs from the office and joined them in the room. I yelled at the girl a little, telling her to calm down and that she wasn’t going anywhere (she had tried to run away). After a few minutes she did calm down and we talked to her saying that if she’d stay calm, the guy would get off of her. She agreed so he got off. He decided to go into the office (right across the hall) to do the incident report while the other female staff and I watched the girl. I then received a phone call from my boss telling me that she was going to be in late and if I would stay a few minutes extra for her. I of course told her briefly what happened and asked for permission to take the girls door off of her room which she agreed. As I got off the phone, I heard a slam and the girl had somehow locked and slammed the door on the other staff at her door. Instantly the guy with me kicked in the door, I ran in there and threw her on the ground. I was on her but she was in a ball so the guy grabbed her legs to pull them out as I got on her and put her into a hold my training had taught me. As I was getting situated, she got in a couple good kicks to my back and head butted me a few times but once I was settled, she couldn’t do anything but scream and swear at me calling me lots of nice things. She did try biting me but failed so the most damage that really shows is some scratches on my arm. After a few minutes we decided to hand-cuff her and I just remained sitting on her but was able to relax a little bit. We sat like that for quite a while with her laying face in the carpet. She did finally calm down and I let her sit by herself, with the hand-cuffs still on of course. After that, I did my incident report and as I went to leave (over an hour late) she said, “bye Cami!”. Hahahahah yes, she would pretend that nothing just happened the past couple hours. She knows I’m coming back tomorrow and wants to be on semi-decent terms with me. Well that was the most exciting aspects of work for me today.

So when I think back to the girl this morning asking why someone would ever quit that job….I want to go up to her, show her my scratched up arm with a little blood and say, “I have no idea why anyone would ever quit this job.” In reality though, it isn’t that bad. I didn’t get too stressed out today. I do enjoy working there. There are up and down days of course but all in all I enjoy working with and trying to help the girls.

My new goal.

Ok, so starting Practicum has been interesting. Very busy and not organized in my classroom with a teacher who does not plan and well.....other stuff. Today I also started probably the hardest class of my major (we’ll see), the Law class and my entire cohort was together again. It was fun to see everyone again. I got very used to being in the same class with everyone all the time. I found, though, that all we did was complain when we first got together. Granted, we are all having the same experience and can relate which is great, it was pretty negative. I have now decided, that I do not want to complain anymore. Well, I’ll want to but I shouldn’t. Complaining does not help the situation no matter how unorganized my teacher is or how brutal my supervisors are at grading, or how many assignments they want us to get done each week. I realize that in talking about things when I am overwhelmed, it tends to come out a complaint. I’ve also found that complaining and talking about how stressed I am just makes me more stressed. So, I’ve decided that no matter what, I cannot fix anything by complaining and will try my hardest for the rest of this experience of practicum (and Law class) to be positive even when overwhelmed and frustrated. All I can do is my best. For those of you reading this, if you hear me complaining tell me to stop! I am thankful to be this far in my program and cannot believe how soon it will all be over. I know that I will learn so much from this experience, I already have!

Trust the Lord

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” 

This was the central scripture of my lesson today.  I have had so many thoughts about this scripture and talked about it a lot in my lesson but right now I just need to let it speak for itself.  Great verse.

Miranda's Class Blog

My best friend had to do a blog on women's health for one of her classes here at BYU and did one on Breast Cancer.  She talked about my mom in it.  It's a great blog and definately hits home lately.

Click here to see Miranda's Blog

Quote of the Day

I learn so much in my classes and just love my teachers. My teacher from tonight is one of my all time favorites. She always has such great things to share. Today the quote from her class is, "You can't serve others from an empty plate." I really like this quote, it can mean so much. You can't give someone something that you don't have. Yes that is true when you think about it literally but there is so much more to it. This applies emotionally and spiritually as well. Trying to share something with a friend is not effective if you do not have it to share. It does not matter how much you want to share or help someone, you literally cannot if you do not have the resources to share. In order to influence others, sometimes you must learn and influence yourself first. This also goes along with a discussion we had in another class about “Reaching down to lift another” which was a wonderful discussion. We read and talked about this talk by President Hinckley and applied it in various situations. I love the opportunity to learn such wonderful principles from amazing professors which I can apply to my personal life as well as my future teaching career.
Here's a link to President Hinckley's talk:
LDS.org - Liahona Article - Reaching Down to Lift Another

Melodie's Pierogi

So this year in Melodie’s class, she has been working on her country report. What country did she have you ask? POLAND! It’s been fun to see her work. For her last day of school the students were all supposed to bring some food from their countries. Melodie asked me what to make and we considered our options. Bigos, Golabki, Barszcz, PIEROGI!!! Yes, sixth graders would eat Pierogi and we can make that! So the decision was made, we decided on Ruskie (potato) Pierogi and started cooking. Melodie did most of it which was great. We had fun and the Pierogi were a big hit in her class. Students were coming back for seconds and the teacher also loved them. Good job Melodie!!!  Here are some pictures of the Pierogi making process. In the first one, Melodie is making the Potatoe filling with butter and onion.  Then she definately shoes the dough who's boss.  The dough was winning in the beginning because it was so sticky.   In the third picture we are putting the filling into our Pierogi so that they are ready to cook.  Finally, there we are holding the yummy Pierogi! Smaczne!

Memorial Day weekend and following week.

I had plans for Memorial Day weekend to spend time with my brother Steven, his family, and my niece Castellia who was traveling down to visit from Idaho. This was flipped all upside down for me when my Mom found out that she had breast cancer. Thanks to my wonderful teachers and friends at work, I was able to pick up and go home for the weekend and all of the following week for Mom’s appointment with the surgeon as well as the actual surgery. I really wanted to be there with Mom and help her for the next few days after surgery. I’m not sure how to describe the trip. It was fun???? Well at times. There always was the looming Breast Cancer and upcoming appointment on my (and I could tell Mom’s) mind. Traci and her boys traveled up, Chad and Sanna were there with their kids and the Ione crew of course. So most of our family was there which was really nice. We did play games and hang out a lot. Monday we had a fun BBQ which included Slurpees from Josh’s new machine and lots of good food. That day we also uncovered the pool which turned into a huge slip-n-slide for the kids. I remember doing that every year while growing up. We also had Avery’s baseball game which was awesome. I’m glad he doesn’t get embarrassed very easily because I definitely did my share of yelling. Great game and of course he won. So we did have some fun stuff before Mom’s medical appointments. As far as those are concerned, we loved the surgeon. He definitely made us feel confident in him when he told us that without God he would not be able to do anything with his hands. He prays, very comforting. The day of the surgery was a long day. We were gone for 12 hours before returning home with a very sore and sick Momma. Despite very frustrating stuff and being in a lot of pain, Mom did really well. She just hung in there. I do have to say that leaving her to come back to Utah when she is not healed was really rough. I am anxious to find out about the other results we are waiting on and what treatment she will need. I just have to say my family is amazing. I love how when someone is struggling or sick, everyone is there for support and to help in any

way. This was a great testament of that and my siblings have already expressed their support in helping Mom make it to the beach trip which is coming up soon. We all love our Mom!