pleased all around

It's been a good week for me.

Ya know, everyone goes through phases in their lives--personally, professionally, emotionally. There have been times when I was down. Right now I'm up, way up.

I've gotten the GRE out of the way, and I'm happy with my score. I've got the schools picked out which I want to apply to, and I've made up a checklist of what I need to do between now and December to complete my applications. I'm applying for early decision to allow room for panic if things don't go quite as I'd planned. If worst comes to worst, I'll still have time to apply to my alma mater (God forbid). Six months from now, hopefully, I'll know where I'll be getting my MSW from.

Adding to my happiness, I. Love. My. Job. I swear to God, I could not be happier with my current employment. Not only is it getting me great experience for my future career, but it's actually fun and fulfilling for me. And I'm good at it, if I do say so myself. I have opportunities to develop my leadership potential, affirming and competent coworkers and supervisors, and intrinsic altruistic benefits inherently associated with the line of work. I've worked for and with a number of nonprofits in the Baton Rouge area, and I've never encountered one as well run as this. I love it.

We had a fundraiser for the Volunteer Advisory Council at work today, and I, being the President of the VAC, was a little stressed about making sure it was a success. It occurred to me about halfway through that I, being by far the youngest person involved, had been responsible for coordinating the entire thing, and it was rolling right along quite smoothly. A year ago, I was finishing up my term of service in AmeriCorps, working for another nonprofit in Baton Rouge. Again, I was significantly younger than many of my colleagues. I remember feeling frustrated because I knew that I was young and inexperienced, and by the very nature of that fact was quite often less effective and competent than many of the people around me. It sucks to suck and know that you suck. What doesn't suck, is to look around and realize how much you've grown and matured. I feel very good about where I'm at right now.

Emotionally, I don't think I even need to explain. I'm happy. Happier than I was for a long time. And no, I'm not happy because there's a boy in my life. I have a great guy in my life because I'm happy, stable and confident. No one really talks about it much, but emotional stability doesn't exactly run rampant in my family (come on Mom, you can't get pissed for that, it's totally true). I was a bit crazy as a teenager, and well into college. I've invested a lot of time and energy into learning to manage my emotions, and it's paid off. I feel fanastic.

And finally, I got my loan check in the mail today, about ten days later than I'd expected it. Now I can stop begging people to feed me. The first day of my last year of undergrad starts Monday. I'm in the home stretch, people, and I'm lovin it.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 8:24 PM