Things are coming together

I have been very nervous about a number of things for some time now. Will I get any participants for my dissertation? Will I get any job interview? Will I get my client hours before my internship ends? Will we have enough money to make it until I finish everything? WILL I BE ABLE TO FINISH ANYTHING???

Although many of those questions are persisting, I am beginning to feel better about many of them. For one thing, I'm beginning to get some response to my dissertation. I have one firm interview scheduled and a couple more should be scheduled soon. I've also plugged in to the Michigan Association for Play Therapy and a few social workers in the area (thanks, Rob!). I also will be conducting a mock interview session this weekend, thanks to some friends of ours (thanks Brett and Sarah!). Although I still have a long way to go in order to get the number of participants I need (I'm shooting for 10-14), I'm starting to feel much better than I did a month ago.

On the job search front, I'm feeling a little better too. I've gotten two definite rejections, and I still don't have interviews scheduled for the other positions (for good reasons), but I have five applications still out to potential employers, and I continue to learn about how I can promote myself and make the best case for hiring me. (For the record, I don't like to mention specific employers/institutions because the names and numbers seem to change frequently.)

On the clinical front, my practice is booming. I was really struggling for clients around Christmas. I was wondering whether I would get all of my hours by August or not. Since then, as always happens in therapy, I have gotten many new clients, and I am almost completely full, which is saying something since I have many potential slots for clients. If this continues, I might have to start a waiting list, which I have never done, although I've only had the ability to do that since I started my internship.

So overall, I'm feeling much better about my professional life, certainly much better than I did even a couple of weeks ago, despite the continued presence of many questions. This whole wacky Ph.D. experiment might actually work out after all!