He Did It!!!

It's official!! Hawksbill graduated yesterday!! Woo hoo!! He now has a Master's in Social Work from U of M!! The whole family went to his graduation ceremony and we are all so proud of him!! The last 2 years have been busy, crazy, exhausting, but it was worth every minute!! It is kind of weird having him actually finished now. What to do with our evenings? Hang out? Cook dinner instead of buying pizza for the 10,000th time? Take a family walk? So unreal!!

The above shot is Hawksbill lining up before graduation. Simon, Gwen and I sat in the very back row of the auditorium with my parents. I tried to take pictures inside, but the lighting wasn't great for photos.

A blurry shot of Hawksbill being "hooded" onstage.

Hawksbill with Simon and Gwen after the ceremony. It was a very windy day, but also nice and sunny. This was the first day I really noticed that spring has sprung. I have been so tired, exhausted, stressed out, etc. waiting for graduation, that I hardly noticed winter ending and all the trees blossoming. Wow--it is nice out and I have been missing it!

Finally, a family shot outside of the auditorium. I am glad that we brought the kids to Hawksbill's graduation, however, I have to say that it was difficult trying to make Gwen behave through the entire ceremony. I can only hope the keynote speaker didn't hear Gwen shouting, "Big Armpit!" while she was addressing the audience. I do want to apologize to the people sitting in front of us who were videotaping the ceremony, as the first 30 minutes of their tape is going to consist of me saying, "Gwen, please sit down, please be quiet, please, I'll pay you..please stop touching your brother...no, I don't have gummies, please stop! Give me my camera back!" etc. and so forth.

Two years, 60 credit hours, and countless sleepless nights, but you did it! So, congratulations again, my love! I am so proud of you! You did it!!!

My addiction

When I first applied for and was accepted to grad school I was required to send in a couple hundred dollar deposit to "hold" my spot in the school of social work. That was three years ago. Then I started school about two years ago, took out a ton of student loans and recently finished up all the classes and whatnot. But, for some reason the school never applied my deposit to any of my classes. A few weeks ago I called them about the negative balance on my account so they just sent us a check back for the deposit amount.

So, what do you do when you get a couple of hundred dollars you weren't expecting to get? I asked my lovely bride who said: "I don't care, spend it on whatever you want."

What else was there for me to do? I Promptly ordered another dozen board games for me and Simon. This time I picked out six games that were mostly kid oriented and six that were for me and the Foot Foot gang. They arrived last week.

In all I got: Amazonas, Babel, Caribbean, Castle Keep, Chateau Roquefort, Hare & Tortoise, Jambo, Mykerinos, Elfenland, O Zoo Le Mio, The Thief of Baghdad and Vikings.

So far they seem to be a fine batch o' games, but we've still only scratched the surface of all the games we've bought lately. Of this batch Simon and I played Chateau Roquefort and Hare & Tortoise a couple of days ago. And, the other night the Foot Foot gang had a gaming night and I played Vikings with Paul and Larry. Everything else is still shrink wrapped.

So far, Chateau Roquefort is about the coolest family game I've seen in a long time. The physical game itself is a bit of an engineering marvel. It is difficult to describe, but the game is played on 3 layers of thick cardstock representing the roof, and two layers of floor of a castle. Each player controls 4 mice who roam the castle in search of cheese. But the players can move the floor tiles underneath themselves or their opponents. This may either move a prized piece of cheese closer to your mice... or it might move a hole in the floor underneath an opponent causing one of their mice to fall into the "dungeon" and out of game. It is really quite clever.

Hare & Tortoise is a great game that Paul introduced me to some years back. Simon and I enjoyed playing it the other night and he does understand the rules, but still has a hard time choosing an optimum move out of all possible options. I consistently had to point out several good options for him to choose from when it was his turn. He did end up winning, but I wasn't entirely doing my best.

I'm also very pleased with Vikings, although it will be a long time before the kids can get into that one. In it each player controls a band of Viking explorers trying to find new islands in the north Atlantic. The game uses a number of familiar mechanics like an auction phase and tile placement, but it combines them in a very unique way that feels completely original. In the end of our game I tied with Larry on the scoring track, but he beat me on tie-breakers because he had ONE more gold coin than I did. Yeesh!

So, in the end I have a TON of new games to play and I can't wait to get them all to the table. I still have a big wishlist of still more that I want to buy though.

I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to.

No more teacher's dirty looks!

A little earlier today I went to my last class and submitted my final assignment for graduate school. I have one more day of internship left on Friday. Then, a week from Saturday I graduate with my Master's degree in social work (MSW).

This most recent semester was much less stressful than the Fall semester. This time I only had 3 classes and the workload seemed significantly lighter overall. It was quite a relief because I really thought I was losing my mind last November / December.

This year my internship has been at an urban Detroit hospital where they have a therapy program for children and adolescents who had either been witness to or been victimized by physical or sexual abuse or they had witnessed the death of a loved one. Along with conducting therapy sessions I was also responsible for interviewing families who had a child in the hospital for medical reasons. In these cases I had to determine what, if any, additional resources the family might need. I also had to ferret out possible child abuse and neglect.

Overall I filed about a half dozen cases with the local Child Protective Service agency. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm glad if I helped remove kids from dangerous situations in their home. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that these same kids won't face equal or worse abuse/neglect in foster care. There are very few good options for children in this situation.

This was a very different internship from the one I had last year. Last year I worked with adults who were violent offenders with schizophrenia. This year I worked with children and teens who were victims of violence in some way and with families dealing with difficult medical situations. Both were great internships, but this year's was more emotionally draining.

This year I saw dozens of families in moments of absolute crisis. In therapy I worked with kids who had witnessed terrible things at home, ranging from arguments and chair throwing between parents all the way to witnessing one parent murder the other and then commit suicide. On the inpatient units I worked with families who were living through nightmarish scenarios, such as a child's severe spinal injury or the diagnosis of a horrible disease.

This year I saw some people be unwaveringly strong and others demonstrate incredible stupidity. I talked with parents who showed admirable bravery in the face of Hell, and I called security on parents who couldn't control themselves and who started fighting in the hospital hallways. I worked with successful middle class, two parent families from the suburbs and I worked with impoverished, unemployed, homeless mothers with as many as ten children and no family or friends to help out. I saw the system work sometimes and I watched helplessly while children were taken away from their mother for no other reason than that they were poor.

All in all my classes were pretty good. Some of the classes were kind of a joke, and some were very difficult, but it was at the internships where I got my greatest education. It's been a good couple of years.

It may sound corny or schmaltzy, but one of the things I learned the most this year was sheer gratitude for Barb and the kids. My family is intact and not affected by divorce, violence, illness or poverty. After spending all that time at the hospital this year, things like divorce, violence, illness and poverty started to feel like the norm. It's easy to take our happy and pleasant life for granted.

Now I have to find a job. I have a couple of irons in the fire, as they say. I have my resume out to an outpatient adolescent medical clinic where they want to have a mental health therapist on staff and another resume out to an adolescent HIV/AIDS clinic. Barb's sister knows people at the local V.A. hospital and sent my resume to them yesterday for work with traumatized and/or addicted veterans.

So, that's it. The only thing left between me and my Master's is the graduation ceremony, which I wasn't even going to attend, but Barb is making me... and my mom is flying in for it as well. Even Simon is excited about it.

Until then, I just get to hang out, goof off, be lazy and play with the kids.

Tax Return = Games, Games, Games!!!

So, we got our tax return back the other day and allocated some of it as "fun money" for each of us to blow on anything we wanted. I, of course, spent my share on games. Board games, in this case. My shipment just arrived and I can't wait to try them out. Some of them are family games for me, Barb and Simon to enjoy now, and some are for when the kids are a bit older. And some of the games are for me... ones that I thought the guys would like also. All in all I got:

10 days in the USA, Arkadia, Aton, Blue Moon, Cartagena, Hera and Zeus, Lost Cities, Niagara, Odin's Ravens, Saint Petersburg, The Downfall of Pompeii and Zooloretto.

The other day I made a geeklist of all the games I'd like to get to have around the house for the kids (both for now and as they age a bit more. I selected these because a lot of them got good comments on that list.

Simon is really looking forward to Niagara. I borrowed it from Steve some months back and he really liked it and keeps asking when we'll get a copy. I also played Zooloretto at Steve's and I think Simon might like that one as well.

For our gaming group, I picked out Saint Petersburg, Downfall of Pompeii, Arkadia and Aton, unless there are only two players when any of the Kosmos games might be a good time.

Fun stuff. I can't wait to play 'em all!

Update:
Simon and I played two games of Niagara tonight and it went quite well. I thought I might have to simplify the rules a bit for him, but he did just fine and we were able to play with all rules as written. He doesn't really get the strategy yet, but he really does like the whole gem collecting aspect. But, he made me exchange the canoes for little paper stars he colored earlier and has been playing with all day. So, instead of canoes we were paddling stars up the Niagara river. Go figure. He says he can't wait to play more tomorrow. Woot!