It's 6:45 am last Thursday morning. I'm getting ready, as usual, already on my second cup of coffee. I hear my phone go off, which is quite strange for 6:45 in the morning, and look to see a text from my supervisor telling me she was up all night with a horrible cold and won't be able to make it to school. I'm on my own. For the first time. AHHHHHHH! Now she was very gracious and said that she wanted me to do the first session but that I could cancel the other 4 if I wanted. It was up to me. Seeing as I had only done one hello song so far on my own, that option was very tempting. But I'd just come off a super encouraging time with Jesus that morning, so I decided to go for it :) I finished getting ready in record speed, meaning I forgot to pack nearly everything I needed for the day, and headed to the school. Our Thursday mornings are kinda crazy in the fact that we have 3 groups and 2 individual sessions basically back to back. I had about an hour to write all five plans and tailor them to address as many of the students goals as I possibly could. Seeing as I had very limited repertoire, I had to learn a couple new songs, quickly, and come up with a few on the spot. Man am I glad I do well under pressure. I finished my plan in the first session far to quickly and landed myself 10 mins to fill and a SUPER bouncy autistic teenager staring at me like, "Really, that's all ya got?" My response, thought know it sounds cliche, was, when all else fails, dance. Oh and dance we did. We shimmied and we shaked and we hand jived to our hearts content. The next session waaaaaaas... a little nuts, most def some of my more challenging kiddos, but no one tried to kill me, bite me maybe, squeeze my ever popular chub cheeks, most def, but no attempts on my life. The last 3 went pretty smoothly and included songs with lyrics such as, "A boy says hi, a girl says hi, and a duck says quack quack quack!" and, "Miss Fort's got a duck on her head, and she keeps it there all day." All in all, by the time I lunch hit I felt like I'd been run over by a truck, but was still grinnin. The transition from doing one or two sessions a week in school, to five or six a day in the internship and the real world is a tough one for sure, but it's good. It makes you think on your feet, learn new things, quickly, and realize that it's all about what is going to be best for the client and how to better yourself as a therapist so you can provide it.
Also, yesterday I got my schedule all set and it looks like I'll be working with ages 6-20 and about 10 different diagnosis, fabulous! Got my work cut out for me. Highlight of my day today? Attempting to teach 3 teenage ASD boys how to do the 'shimmy' part of the chicken dance, HILARIOUS!
you rockstar, you!
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