virginia (1)

guys, we went to virginia!

i went for school for one week, and stayed with this really nice family, and jordan and his family came out for a week after my school week and we met at a resort and we toured the east! it was so great!

(these will be two pretty long posts. fyi)


prologue (travel day)
i traveled with minimal anxiety. and it was. amazing. god bless celexa!! i don't care what you say. meds save my life.
i got a free cookie from einstein because they were closing and i had to eat my bagel sandwich on bread.

my flight got in at midnight and i got lost trying to find the roskelley's house. and i made janet stay up til like 1:00 because i kept getting lost. it was super stressful. and i felt real bad. but their house is gorgeous. and i drove a 2013 ford fusion.

day 1
i couldn't figure out how to turn on the lights on my rental car. it was brights or nothing. and the east is really dark. and it was really really stressful. i got yelled at by someone at a stop light to turn off my brights.
i got to live in the attic and it was beautiful. trust me. also the weather was fabulous

i went and killed some time at target on saturday (i landed friday night/saturday morning, and class didn't start til monday. i had some serious time to kill).
bought some veggies and chopped them up to eat with my ranch dip during the week. and bread and meat and cheese. so i could brown bag it all week.

 their dog dooley. friends from the start!

half of their main level

day 2
i went to church with the roskelleys. and met bishop shorter who was my other contact for a place to stay. so maybe i need to contact him my next trip out. but maybe roskelley's will house me again.
we went on a walk. also their daughter was staying with them with her two daughters. and sometimes i saw them during the week.

day 3 (day 1 of class)
we met for the first day of in the morning as a whole huge class (yes, we sure prayed every morning!)

top: am prayer // bottom: pm devotional + dr johnny baker 

and then split in the afternoon into smaller classes of 20 (where we would usually also pray. after devotional). as luck would have it, all the ladies i was sitting next to in the morning were in my afternoon breakout group. and we became fast friends. groups were formed for student practice counseling sessions in class.

also i t-boned a minivan. everyone's fine.

the campus police officer's name was precious. haaa

day 4
another day of class. i facetimed mandy + max during lunchtime.

i rode in the dumptruck.

also i was exhausted and still got lost all the time trying to get home and just needed to have a photoshoot with their dog dooley. he was my bud.

also my two shows weren't entertaining enough on their own, so i watched them simultaneously. like a boss.
oh brother.

day 5
my friends and i went to a luncheon with all the other intensive souls.

girl on the left is erica. she was a HOOT. also she was very interested in mormons and caffeine.
i answered lots of mormon questions at this luncheon. it was so great.

a girl came in in the middle of the week, to pickup where she'd left off last week after having to leave for an emergency. two groups needed to lose 1 member each to form another triad. no one from my group would volunteer, so i finally offered, after my groupmate who was going to counsel me told me not to leave. i joined new girl and found out that she's crazy and needs legit help.
we met with our separate filming groups that night as well.

the student center. it was gorgeous! we were supposed to film here.

then the rooms didn't work out so we went to a hotel room instead

it worked out much better

day 6
more of the same, minus a luncheon. we did all run to applebees, though! and i def took my own lunch and ate it in the corner there. because i'm classy.

 after lunch, we all sat around in the classroom laughing and joking. it was so fun.
during the break i made a comment to my previous groupmate apologizing for leaving her--i was regretting it (because new girl was so difficult to work with--defensive and wouldn't accept feedback from my observations..). my groupmate says "it's okay--i know you were dragged" in her heavy jamaican accent, and i laugh and say "no..i volunteered" as i see new girl walking back in the classroom.

L to R: hilda, my ruth, vanessa (jamaican), and katrina (voice of reason)

megan, girl i don't know, and lady's name i don't remember. but she was a hoot.

commence drama: new girl gathers her bag and drink and keys and storms out of the room saying to the room in general "well, you don't have to worry about being dragged anymore!" and she left the building.
ummmm...what?
uncomfortable silence and glances at each other around the room, and we recommence talking, when i make eye contact with the mousey faced graduate assistant out in the hallway appearing somewhat agitated and concerned talking to her advisor standing next to her. the ga raises her finger to her face and wiggles it towards her, beckoning me towards her like a child.

ummmm.
i go out in the hallway and she folds her arms, puts her face close to mine and says in a low, quiet voice, "so, one of your classmates left. do you know anything about that?"

OKAY. i'm being blamed for someone having a temper tantrum? this is cool. i say "yeah! it was a misunderstanding-- she came walking in the room and misheard a conversation that was going on."
"okay." she nods her head and shows she's listening like a good counselor does (i hate working with other therapists. they're obnoxious.) good thing i'm not one of them.
i ask if she's left and state that i'm frankly relieved because in a real-world situation i would have referred her to another therapist- we didn't get along. i get another "okay." and head nodding. lots of head nodding. and still so close to my face! the ga says "i don't know--i told dr. baker (the real therapist here. the old man with lots of experience) to go get his student. (because you are the boss of all of us. okay (head nodding).)

the ga decides she's done with me and tells me to "hang tight" i tell her i'll just be right inside the classroom if anyone needs me!! and i resume my position sitting on the table and rejoin the conversation amidst concerned glances from those cute ladies i've grown close to in just days. i raise my eyebrows back at them, try to give a quick summary and get back to a normal conversation before dr. baker or new girl comes back in.

it's 10 mins past when class should have started again, and dr. baker hasn't returned. he walks in a few minutes later, and the other girl in our triad--a very kind, fair-minded soul, katrina--asks "so, are we gonna get back to this?" motioning to where she, new girl and i had been sitting before the break. lucky for me, all that was left was for me to counsel new girl. to which dr. baker says "yes, why don't you and you come with me, we're just going to go right out here" and directed the rest of the groups to get back to it. katrina and i walk with dr. baker to the hallway and he discusses with us that our fellow classmate is "feeling hurt, and and defensive, and and unloved" (yes two ands every time) i roll my eyes to myself but try to keep an open mind. dr. baker tells us we're going to go into this other classroom and try to finish our counseling session. and that this will be a perfect opportunity to practice our skills. GREAT! i'd like to practice my cage fighting skills--is that what we're talking about?
i don't appreciate being made the protagonist, when i didn't even do anything! so. it's cool. let's go talk it out.

so we walk into the classroom and there new girl is sitting with the head of the whole intensive week in the back of the room, with a pile of napkins and red eyes. cool.

we walk in and sit down, and i want to cry, or blow up, but i have to hold it together, because i'm the logical soul in this whole debacle. (well, me and katrina) so we sit down and for the next half hour new girl proceeds to rail on me, with dr. baker and katrina sitting by. she shouts at me "i SAW you say dragged...you aren't doing me any favors...i don't care if you are in this...i came back because i need to get this done... i don't need you... you don't know what i went through last week!" i get called a liar, fake--"i don't buy this--nice, whatever you put on--you don't fool me!", full of bullsh* (she totally cussed. in front of these devout evangelicals. they were not thrilled. and certainly dr. baker never came to my rescue. so that was fine). and she talked herself in hysterical circles, combatting my efforts at stating that she misunderstood, misheard, her perception has been misconstrued, with nonsense. yelling at me for being a liar and saying she's so upset because i won't even offer an apology--so i say, "i'm sorry you misunderstood." and dr. baker asks if she will accept that and new girl says "no! no i will not accept that" so i look at katrina and dr. baker hopelessly and katrina finally steps in and says okay, so we can all see that this is not going to get settled right here right now. so can we agree to set it aside and move on? cause i personally would like to be able to get this done. (ha! god bless katrina).

new girl finally calms down enough to be able to be counseled, and with dr. baker's help we work through her problem of "writing too many lists" "if it's not on a list i don't do it" and she has lists to keep track of her lists. i ask her in our intake session if she feels that this is a problem. "no--not a problem, per se" okay...so how are we going to work on it if you don't actually think it's a problem?? so wednesday and thursday were spent discussing potential ways to bring up with her something that could actually be worked through--only to be met with resistance by her, insisting that this "is her only problem that she's willing to talk about" "she doesn't trust people" and no way will she discuss anything else with anyone here. cool. so dr. baker does most of the counseling and i just sit there, because i don't have anything that will get us anywhere with such a belligerent soul, while dr. baker carefully brings up "have you ever heard of obsessive compulsive disorder?" "yeah" "okay, okay"...and proceeds to talk about it for a second before moving on realizing that she doesn't think she has it. and then finally when everyone's more calm he hands the reigns over to me and new girl realizes she's gotta give something for us to get through this so she says that a realistic goal for her to make would be to reduce her 3 constant lists down to 2. and to eliminate her "cleaning list". super. so we make progress and everyone leaves for the day--i am exhausted, insulted, and bruised, but new girl feels placated, and that's what is important here. obviously.

we meet up again with our separate filming groups to film what we learned and practiced in the afternoon session today, and my group just looks at me in horror as i describe to them the events of the day, and comfort me with things like "she is NUTS" "kelli, you cause so much trouble" and the like. i survive the day, and finally am able to make it to roskelley's without much help from the gps. and dooley just rested his head on my lap the whole time i ate my dinner. such a little love.

day 7 (FRIDAY!)
i am so anxious about having to counsel new girl again, but just pray real hard that it'll be over quick. last day! we can survive this. sitting in the morning class with my tired friends, and we talk in disbelief about the previous day's events between each other before class starts. 10 mins after it begins, new girl walks in, again in unfortunate leggings that she's worn all week, showing her generous figure and a shirt not covering her rear (which should always be done when wearing leggings, regardless of your body type wedge flip flops) and reeking of cigarette smoke.
when we made it to our breakout groups in the afternoon, i complimented her shirt, and we pretended to be friends and survived the day.

we met one last time to finish our filming for our separate groups, and said goodbyes to everyone we'd grown so close to over the week! i headed back to the roskelley's to finally relax and unwind. i think i just worked out then watched tv episodes til bedtime. it was a lot of tv. thanks hulu/netflix!

i got packed up friday night and finished up saturday, getting ready to go pick up my sunshine at the airport!!!! 7 days is so long to be apart. i said goodbye to the roskelleys and took off. well. they actually said goodbye to me...they took off like an hour before i needed to leave. so that's cool.

to be continued at the airport...