As I mentioned before, I went to Chicago for a week for part of my masters degree in February. First of all, getting there was an absolute nightmare. I'd never flown completely by myself. Even when I went to Europe without my family in high school, I was still with a huge group of students led by my best friend's dad. Anyway, my plan was to fly in the night before the day we needed to check in with the school. So Husband took me to the airport and walked me up to the counter to check my bag since I was freaking out a bit. While in line to check my bag, I saw those flight status screens said my flight was cancelled. I thought that couldn't be right since I hadn't received any notification of this. So we went up to the counter and tried to get my boarding pass to scan, but it wouldn't. We asked the worker for help and he informed us that yes, my flight had been cancelled. The earliest he could get me to Chicago was Saturday, the day after I was supposed to check in. Chicago was being hit by epic snowstorms and according to him, Midway airport was completely closed. (Side note: this is exactly why I didn't want to go to stupid Chicago in February! S-N-O-W.) So, we asked him for a refund and went to try another airline to see if they could get me there Friday. Luckily, another airline was able to put me on the first flight the next morning to O'Hare.
The next morning, we tried again. I was already frustrated and feeling pretty drained. Throughout the night and morning, we checked the status of this flight to make sure it hadn't been cancelled or delayed. Things were looking good, so I got to the airport the requisite two hours early. I got through security super fast and settled in at my gate. Then the delays started. First my gate changed with a delay, then another delay, then another. All in all, I was waiting at the airport for SIX HOURS before I got to take off. Once I got to Chicago, things were fairly smooth. I took Lyft to the hotel and got myself all checked in with the hotel and school.
Then, Saturday morning, residency officially began. I won't go through the activities day by day, but I will say that I hit the jackpot with our professor and her doctoral student aide. There were both super helpful and knowledgable. Our professor has a background in things that I am interested in, and she also taught us about a bunch of different counseling techniques we could try. It became very apparent how much of a blessing this was when we switched cohorts with some students of a different professor. This other professor's students were very robotic and it was frustrating acting as their clients. When we were counseling her students, she told us we were doing things she told her students not to do, and was pretty abrasive in her delivery. It was clear that her approach was "my way or the highway" and I am SO GRATEFUL I wasn't in her cohort because we would have butted heads. Hard. Role playing as counselor and client for 5 1/2 days straight was a bit exhausting, but I learned so much and grew much more than I could have anticipated. By the end of those 5 1/2 days, our cohort felt more like a little family. I already miss the experience and being able to be surrounded with amazing people who share similar worldviews and values. Everyone was so supportive of each other, including our professor. It was clear very early how much she wanted us to succeed.
And now that leads me to the big challenge I've set for myself this year that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It came to me as I was reflecting about all the things I did within that week that I never thought I could. I already flew by myself and stayed away from home for a week by myself. I'm about a year into a graduate school program. So throughout this year, I want to do things that I never thought I could. I'm not sure exactly what those things are, or how many things that will be, but that's my challenge for myself for 2018. And as I do these things, I will try to post about them.
