Studying in Grad-school

Perhaps this is not everyone's experience but it feels sometimes even more difficult to study in graduate school. I don't know if it is because I am in part-time school and full-time work, or that I am just a bit older and more things have come into my life than just doing school now, or at the moment if it is adjusting to online school work. I don't feel that the work has truly gotten more difficult. Perhaps it has and I am just not paying attention or if it is that I am focused solely on social work classes so because all the classes I am taking are in the same subject instead of 5 different subjects. Yes, there are topics that might be challenging. Research class has been challenging my abilities and requires a lot of knowledge about how to run a research project, but the actual material doesn't seem more difficult than what I was doing in undergrad. 

I think the struggle that I am finding is that there seems to be so much more going on in my life now and so many more things taking up space in my brain than just school work. I am thinking about taking care of my car and thinking about paying some bills. With my job I am doing a full-time job that requires a lot of active thinking and working with coworkers that are different than the jobs I was doing on campus in undergrad. My on-campus jobs know that I am a student and the expectations were different. Not so with a "real grown-up job" the expectations are different being a student is fine and encouraged but your boss is not also working at the institute where you are studying. 

Now let's add this whole COVID-19 onto the experience. Now everything is online and I am very much missing the structure of meeting in person. I feel a bit more on my own and while I was homeschooled, homeschooling in high school is very different than trying to do at-home learning as a grad student. Add to that when you are doing online meetings with tutors or professors and your family and cat are around. Mostly my family is respectful of my needs, the cat not so much but she is gonna do what she wants. I have found the importance of making check-lists for the day of what needs to be done, putting due dates into a calendar, and also taking regular breaks to get up and move at home. Sometimes also extrinsic motivation like "I will watch the youtube video I want if I do ______". 

If you are a current grad-school student what are your experience with studying and how is it different from undergrad? If you are a student of any kind how are you managing studying from home? 

Social Work MSW Research Study

As you may or may not already know I am currently getting my Masters in Social Work right now and am currently in the research portion of my program.

I am conducting a research study on how much social workers know about developmental disabilities and knowledge's relationship with years of experience.

If you are a social worker, please consider participating in my study. It is completely anonymous. If you know of a social worker who would like to participate you are welcome to share the link to this survey with them. The survey is 10-15 minutes long. Thank you! I would really appreciate having participants.

I should say that I am also hoping to use this research for my capstone project which I am hoping will be making a handbook for child welfare workers on developmental disabilities.

CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT SURVEY

Spiritual in School: Intercessory Prayer

Saint Cecilia & Saint Theodora

In school, I often felt stressed and like I was struggling. I found praying to saints particularly my patron saint or a saint that I felt was tied the particular problem that was giving me stressed or upset. When I was a music major or I was doing anything musical I would pray to Saint Cecilia for intercession. In the Catholic church she is the patron saint of musicians. I always felt calmer and less stage fright before a performance when I asked for her prayer.

As a women's and gender studies major I searched for a woman saint who was strong and fought for women's rights. I found Saint Theodora who I will probably write a post about later. She was a strong and powerful woman. I have asked her for prayer for many things. Many times when I ask for prayer it is a quick thing as I am walking to classes or before presenting/performing. Reading about the saints and praying to saints has been so important for my faith in college.

This is a short post but I hope it was helpful.
Thank you for reading

Spiritual in School: Religion Minor

A hymn by Proclus that I used in my paper.
It is in the book Religions of Late Antiquity

I have a religion minor, which essentially means that I took 4 religion classes, two about christian religions and two on other religions. However, the two classes on other religions were Sex & the Hebrew Bible and Religions of Late Antiquity so they both relate to Christianity. Both my major papers and research projects related to Christianity in those classes. I know many people stereotype religion classes or have the experience of taking religion classes and losing their faith or leaving their religion because of it. However, that was not my experience. I actually found that the religion classes complimented my faith or helped me in times when I was struggling in faith.

When I took my first religion class it was Early Christianity and I read so many works such as the Martyrdom of Polycarp and others that are important religious documents. It was uplifting for my faith to read those and to study them. While I may not agree with everything my religion professors say I still have gained something positive.

The Sex & the Hebrew Bible class helped me in a time when I was really struggling with misogyny in religion. particularly as relates to the Adam and Eve story. When my professor spent a whole week going over different interpretations in the assigned reading and in class for the creation story and the story of the fall, it just helped me to realize that it is not as sexist as people will interpret it. It is hard to describe how studying it in my class made me feel okay in my faith and I was no longer troubled about it in my mind.

This past school year in  my Religions of Late Antiquity class I wrote a paper comparing two hymns to the Virgin Mary my Ambrose of Milan and Proclus of Constantinople and how they were responding to the heresies in their community( Arianism & Nestorianism). I wrote this around Christmas and after studying the hymns and then singing the hymns for the Nativity in church I felt like I had a deeper understanding of the theology of the Nativity hymnography. I saw the same arguments that Ambrose and Proclus were making. In my Medieval Christianity class we took a field trip to an Orthodox Monastery, which is self explanatory as to the significance for me of that.

All of this is to say that what you get out of your religion classes is up to you. I felt prepared mentally for how those classes could challenge my faith and I have been so surprised with how much they have actually strengthened my faith.

Love and Blessings

Graduated!!

Me holding my printed out capstone paper after turning it in.

I got through undergrad and now have graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Women's and Gender Studies with a minor in Music and a minor in Religion. I graduated Cum Laude and was inducted into the Triota Honors Society. All the grades are in to say I have officially completed all the course requirements. 

I don't know if it has really sunk in yet that I have graduated as it just currently feels like another summer break. I think it will be more real for me in the fall when I don't go back to school. Or maybe it will feel real when I actually hold my diploma in my hands. I think there was a moment during commencement when was looking out all the family and friends there for those who are graduating and realized "oh god I am graduating" and I started crying a little. That was the only moment when it felt real though. I am still waiting for it to really sink in. 

My best friends and I after the commencement ceremony.
We call ourselves the Feminist Fam. 

  I did not graduate with the degree I planned to. Little freshman me would be very surprised and possibly shocked. I know that it was the best degree for me though and I don't really regret starting in music because if I had not I would not have met my group of best friends. 

I will say that my future plans are to be in Americorps I have been interviewing and apply for the last 2 months and I think I am close to a placement. After that, I hope to apply to grad school for a Masters in Social Work and get a part time job at least. *fingers crossed* 

Some new adventures ahead and I look forward with both excitement and some anxiety to what the future will hold. I am hoping to write some posts about activities I am doing, books I am reading, feminist thoughts, and Orthodox religious. 

Much love

Spiritual in School: Fasting on a Campus

So first of all story time about the picture above. I got a new vegetarian cookbook and was flipping through it to mark recipes that sounded interesting. I notices that some were marked fast and my brain immediately thought it mean fast friendly for orthodox. After a few minutes I realized that it actually was referring to cooking time. I told my closest friend(who is not orthodox but well aware of it) and she called me a nerd. :)

Fasting on a campus can be a struggle. Vegetarian options can be sparse and hard to find, let alone vegan options. I do live at home so I can for the most part provide my own food for breakfast and lunch at school and on occasion buy lunch and/or breakfast. There have been many moments during lent or nativity fast that I stared at the menu boards and struggled to figure out which would be the best of the 2 vegetarian options. To be honest I am not sure I can provide any good advice for someone who lives on campus as I eat pretty much my own food during fasting seasons. One of my other struggles is living in a family where there are health concerns and not everyone can fast in the same way. So the meals we eat together(mostly dinner) do not follow the fast in exactly the way I want to fast. But at this moment I chose to practice being thankful for the food my parents are giving me and that I have parents who are willing to give me food for free while a young adult in college.

But I can tell you that one thing that I struggle with is coffee. I love coffee. It is hard to drink a latte with soy milk rather than my favorite 2%. So I have found that what is best is for me to bring black tea to school. I prefer black tea with milk and sugar but I can drink it with just sugar(or no sugar) and it is not as difficult as a soy latte. Also it can save me some money. That is my one fasting tip. Drink tea instead of coffee. Also eat a lot of vegetables for lunch. I do recommend making overnight oatmeal for breakfast as you can take that to school and I can change between regular milk and almond milk.

My best advice is to do what you can and to follow the spirit of the fast and to also attend church during a fast. I would also recommend talking to your parish priest about what would be best for you to do.

Much Love

Spiritual in School: The College Job

a picture from when I worked for catering

So I have worked a few different jobs now in my college career and I will write a different blog post talking about each of them. My first job, and the one I want to talk about today, was with the catering department on campus. I worked for them for two school years and two summers. It was not a fun job, quite frankly it was a really sucky job. But what can you do when you are a college student desperate for a job?

But this is a series about being spiritual and practicing orthodox faith while in school so why talk about a job? For one thing my first boss(we went through a lot of bosses and supervisors) found out I was an orthodox christian and asked me lots of questions about it. He had been learning about it from a class that he was taking at the university and was excited to me a practitioner. I lived out my faith through the job by answering his questions.

I know also that I had questions from co-workers, mostly along the lines of "what is that?" and "I have never heard of that?". Even in the sucky food service job that I worked through college I was able to share my faith. I am not one to just go about announcing my faith but when I asked I answer. I am a more "actions speak louder than words" and I hope that how I treated my co-workers and performed my job was able to speak about my faith.

Much love

Spiritual While in School: Let us Attend

My parish decorated for Palm Sunday

As you may have guessed this post is about church service attendance. It is the most important thing that you can do. Through attending church we are spiritually fed by the service and by partaking in communion. It is way to set aside time to participate in prayer and worship. Attending church can also be beneficial for destressing. It is something we are familiar with and know the rhythm of the service. It can be a time to clear our minds from our worldly cares and focus on the heavenly world.

Make a commitment to Sunday morning liturgy and strive to attend that the most. Vespers and an occasional evening service are good to attend as well once in a while. For Holy Week there are so many services but not everyone can always make it to all of them. I try to aim for all the evening services prioritizing holy Unction and my personal favorites. Often when I know holy week is coming I try to get ahead on some of my school work that I can so that I am not stressed about school while trying to attend services. When I was working for a particular catering job, I would request the evenings after 5pm off for religious reasons. Because the schedule changed form week to week I just had to give far enough notice in advance.

I understand the struggles of attending church there have been many times when I have not attended because a final project was due or finals were coming up. I have also not attended church because of work. I worked a for catering for 2 of my college years and if I worked a 7 hour shift on Saturday I would come home exhausted and none of my homework for Monday done. I didn't go to church the next day unless it was a feast day. I have one particular summer memory of working a 50 hour work week in food service and that Sunday being my first day off and I just needed to sleep. I wish I had been better about church attendance but it is the past and I know I can only go forward and keep working on it.

Much love

Orthodox Christians in College: Spiritual While in School

I am now entering my senior year at university and graduation is impending on the horizon. I have been an orthodox christian now since I was 14 and it is coming up on my(and my family's) seventh anniversary of our chrismation. It has been great to go through college and while I am thrilled and ready to be graduating I am also going to miss it.

There are some things that I wish I had know, or had a resource for as a college student and an orthodox christian. I wish someone had been able to tell me how to practice faith while also living the busy life of a student. Perhaps someone did try to tell me and I just didn't listen carefully. I have decided that I would like to to a post series on how I have struggled to maintain my practice of my faith through my college career and still struggle to do as graduation comes ever nearer. I expect some posts will describe particular things I have done, and some posts may talk about experiences. I would also like to be honest about my own struggles and failings because this is hard and not easy to do.

I will be speaking from my particular experience of college that I know may not match all persons. I lived at home with my parents while attending a private lutheran university and that impacted how I was able to attend church. For one thing I didn't have to find a new parish and for another I was able to stay connected to my family. Some of what I have done through my college experience for my faith may not be applicable to someone who is living in a dorm, but I do hope that some of it is.

I hope that someone will benefit from this series and grow. Knowing that other people struggle the same as you do I know can be helpful to just know.

I am very blessed to attend a school where Abbot Tryphon has visited regularly. :) This is from a couple years ago when I got him to take a picture with me.

Much love

Tea and Coffee

So I generally consider myself as more of a coffee drinker but college as helped me to appreciate other forms of caffeine as well. Such as tea. Mostly black tea. The fruity teas don't have the strong flavor that I like. My favorite brand of tea is The Republic of Tea which is sold at my school. My two favorite flavors are Cranberry Blood Orange and Ginger Peach.

I love that these are black teas so that they have more caffeine and the strong flavor I like, but also come with some really interesting flavors. I actually dink more tea during the school year than coffee as it is just more convenient and cheaper. I just have to pack the tea bags and my hot dink bottle and there is hot water provided at school. I get up so early that I don't have time to make coffee in the morning. It is just cheaper to get a bunch of tea bags for 10 or 12 bucks than to pay 4 to 5 buck everyday for the coffee at school. That is not to say I don't occasionally as a treat get a nice coffee.

I will say that I am still more of a coffee person but I do have a growing love for tea.
Elizabeth

Been a While

So..............

School really takes a lot of my time leaving little time to for fun on the internet. When I do have time I must admit I don't spend it writing post instead I spend it doing things that require less thought. I don't like writing post for the sake of writing posts. I want to write something of value for others to read.

Some cool stuff has happened at school. I got to play in a ton of concerts this semester and sing with a choir. My piano teacher said that I was a performance monster this year. I have had some very good classes this semester with some wonderful professor.

Also a monk from a local monastery came to school and I got to have my picture takes with him.

I wish I had some more interesting stuff to say but I just lack the time to create and organize a topic. Maybe I will have some inspiration to write a fantastic post at some point. 

Love

Elizabeth 

The Homeschool vs. Public School Struggle.

(This picture was taken my a wonderful friend of mine at school)

I have never felt ashamed of the fact that I was homeschooled(I get to use the past tense now!) and if I ever am it is only because I am ashamed of other homeschooler stupidity and rudeness. The fact that I was homeschooled is a huge part of my identity how I see myself. It doesn’t mean I see myself as hugely different form society rather only that I have a more different style of education.

That doesn’t mean that I have not had negative experiences from being homeschool, there are several. I remember when I was little maybe 6 years old I told it to some neighbor boys and they seemed to think that maybe I was stupid because I didn’t go to school like them. At the time I found it hurtful and from then on avoided the other kids in the neighborhood. Later however I could not avoid when they came and talked to me one girl it seemed delighted in making fun of us in front of my sisters and I and she seemed to think we were too stupid to understand that was what she was doing. It got to the point where I would make some excuse to stop riding my bike and go in the house when ever she came down to our part of the neighborhood. I was not sure how to deal with it as I was only 9 or 10. Because of all these negative experiences as a child I came up with a stereo type that public schooled kids were rude, mean, and stupid.
Later when my family left our old church(where 99 % of the population was homeschoolers) and started going to our current church I met public schooled kids(and private school) who seemed to be much nicer. I was still wary of them but as I got to know them and be friends with them I found my stereo type to be wrong. Which I was secretly relieved about because I didn’t want to go through my life having to deal with people being mean to me all the time.
That does not mean unpleasant experiences have stopped. At a birthday party for a friend I was asked the inevitable question that I loathed “where do you go to school?” and I replied with the answer that gets mixed reception “Oh, I don’t go to school I am homeschooled.” After that these two girls didn’t want to talk to me and avoided me for the rest of the party.
In college I have found that less people really seem to be bothered by where I got my education. They seem to be more open to homeschooling and even find it cool. One friend told me I was lucky because I had not had to deal with the bullying and other crap she had had to deal with in her school. There was one guy who I don’t think realized how rude he was being when he told me that I must have hated being homeschooled and how horrible it must have been for me. It really ruffled my feathers that he assumed I must have had a negative experience when really I had a positive one. However most of my friends have found it to be cool and don’t think I am a weirdo, or at least I am no weirder than they are. They really don’t actually care about where I got my education but rather whether my education was a good one.
Homeschooling gave me a chance to really focus and work on my weaknesses and explore my strengths. I worked hard at school in high school because I enjoyed it. I love learning and school. Lots of people sometimes assume that because I was homeschooled I had loads of free time. I really didn’t I worked on school for 6 to 7 hours a day. Maybe I did have more free time than my peers who went to school because homework does not work the same way when you are homeschooled, but that does not mean I didn’t work as hard.
Granted there are homeschoolers who’s necks I want to wring sometimes because they really are not doing the work and don’t seem to care about their education. I really get mad about homeschoolers who don’t really do school. It makes me so mad! They could have the best education they could possibly want but they are not doing the work! Words cannot express how frustrated and angry it makes me.
Back to homeschooler vs. publicschooler.
I think a lot of my negative experiences have to do with negative stereo types about homeschooled kids. I think most of them just don’t know what it really is and so they don’t know how to relate to us. I think kids are more prone to snub others who are not like them than adults are. At least that is the what I think based on my experience in college. I wish that homeschoolers would stop stereo typing publicschoolers, and publicschoolers would stop stereo typing homeschoolers then we could all sit down and find we are not so different after all.
I know I have a few homeschool followers and public school. How has your experience as a homeschooler been? Or for my public school friends what has your experience with homeschoolers been?
Lots of love!
~Elizabeth

Music Major

Hey Everyone! I am super excited to tell you that I got into the music program and am now officially declared a Bachelor of Music in piano performance!
I also recently got to perform for the first time in college. It was a short piece called Etude in E-Major by Heller. It was really exciting to get to play. I was also nervous but it went really well and I did not forget how to play it. It was really wonderful to play the piano that is used for performances. It has to be one of the most wonderful feeling pianos in that I have ever had the pleasure to play!
PE is over and I am way less stressed now! I will not me missing that class. I am looking forward to registering for class in the fall.
Music theory has been wonderful and amazing to do. I love to understand music, and now I can talk about music with much more depth.
Overall things are amazing right now and I hope you all are having an amazing time. Thank you all for still following me despite my inconsistent posting.
Lots of Love!
~Elizabeth