The Beginning of the End of the Year

It is the last work day of the year, and I am more than ready to be on break after today. I am exhausted and am really looking forward to being home without having the pressure to work. I anticipate that I will still be making videos for the YouTube channel, but I will not have an expectation of doing so. That's a nice place to be in.

I sat in the sunset yesterday and watched for the planetary conjunction. I never saw anything that I thought was "the brightest object (except the moon)" or "the Christmas Star," but I was able to see both of the planets with my naked eye from just after sunset until full darkness. I talked to my parents - Mom is talking on the phone lots more now that Dad is not doing well - and then sat in relative silence looking at the sky. Kansas skies always disappoint me - clouds happen regularly and ESPECIALLY when there is some sort of special planetary or solar system event that prevents me from seeing the full effect of every little thing. At least I saw the planets for a bit

Tomorrow is the beginning of my journey into Occupational Therapy. I am driving 45 minutes to my OT's clinic for an evaluation and the start of what I hope is recovery of my full fine motor skills. I also hope I can get some answers about prognosis and all that, but we will see. I also need to get an attorney so I can get protection for this injury in the future. Ugh. This is not what I want to be doing, but I have no choice, so onward!

Other than that, I have no appointments, no places to go, limited responsibilities, and lots of time with the cat in the next 12 days. I will not be going to California for this Christmas, and I know that I am staying safe, but I am also feeling guilty about not being able to assist my family members in caring for Dad. There are so many conflicting feelings that I have at the moment and none of them are really all that suitable for 12 days of alone time.

I am ready to go into 2021. I am.

Today, intern #30 graduates from my program. I am going to have to sit down and completely revamp my internship program to reflect the assignments, all my operational definitions for the competencies, and just all the things involved in my program in general. This year has demonstrated that there are lots of things that we need to be thinking about that we haven't thought about as a profession before now. I want to redesign some of my assignments since we haven't been able to see individuals, we haven't had the opportunity to assess clients, and it has been difficult to build therapeutic relationships the way we have been doing things. I need alternatives just in case the next interns run into the same problems, and I would like to prepare folks as much as possible for the new reality that is out there. So, I am putting on my thinking cap during this break.

It is time to get ready to go to work. I need to get an intern gift put together, wrap a gift for my friend, and then move myself into work mode. I may see some students around this afternoon - I may not. Kids are supposed to be back in the building for some afternoon holiday events. I hope they come down to music, but I anticipate that they will not. We will see. My senior intern made a "Good-Bye" video that I posted yesterday. She has not had a typical internship experience, and I regret that, but I know that I did the best for her that I could in this terrible, ever changing, unstable year.

So, tomorrow's goal is to get to OT and then make some cookies. I will spend some time sitting down with my journal and trying to make some sense of things I want to do during break. I will throw away three bags of junk from my craft room. I will nap when I need to nap. For now, though, I will head out to work for the last day of work for this calendar year. See you tomorrow? I hope so!