Halloween Hijinx

It's almost Halloweekend!! And we all know what that means: it's time for another crazy counseling cohort get-together.

There are a few different things going on with the Counseling Crew (my new name for the cohort, or perhaps Kounseling Krew?) this weekend. The first is the Halloween kickback/party tomorrow night, during which we are going to provide evidence that there ain't no party like a counseling party. I think by now it's apparent that you don't necessarily stop having fun once you graduate from undergrad. Because trust me when I say we have just as much fun (maybe more) as the undergraduates do! Even some of the second year students are stopping by the party, which just goes to show that the students in our program are so down-to-earth and easygoing. That's definitely a major part of what made it so easy to fit in here.

The second thing that's going on for us this weekend is the big group trip to the homecoming football game against Brown on Saturday afternoon. I've heard that football isn't as big here as it was at UVA (I think our team sucks, for lack of a better word). But I'm so excited to learn about the football traditions here! At UVA, I learned all the cheers and the songs, so I guess I'm starting fresh by attending my very first Penn game. One tradition I have heard about, however, is the "toast". According to some of my coworkers and cohort members, the students celebrate with a toast, but since alcohol isn't allowed in the stadium, instead they throw pieces of toast (toasted bread, seriously) into the air at the games. I'm excited to see how that turns out...and to throw my own toast(ed bread) into the air.

Last, and the thing that's stressing out most of the cohort, is that we have a big assignment due Saturday night. It's a comparison paper for our interventions class, where we've been learning about all the different theoretical approaches to conducting psychotherapy. For this paper, we have to compare and contrast three different theories in 5-7 pages, APA style. Compared to all of the other papers we've had so far, this is the most objective and research-based. Rather than discussing our feelings toward what we've been learning or the skills we're using in our practicum experiences, we actually have to look up data to support logical arguments about comparisons between these theories.

I guess because this paper is so different, people are FREAKING OUT. Some level of freakout is understandable, of course, because our professor didn't give us a completely clear explanation of what he wanted for the paper, and until now we've just been writing about our feelings. However, I'm so tired of freaking out (which characterized pretty much everyone's undergraduate experience, I'm sure). I'm ready to just chill and write extensive papers while casually sipping on caffeinated beverages, in stereotypical graduate student fashion. So basically what I'm saying is DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY, which I'm somewhat obligated to say by virtue of my being a Caribbean student with dreadlocks.

I'd just like to say Bob Marley was right when he said that "every little thing is gonna be alright."