Life in Stumptown

I worked on Friday and Saturday and I’m starting to feel like a productive, tax paying citizen again.

Last night I gave Beth a photography lesson.  It was great fun — we learned all about exposure and what makes an exposure (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO).  Next time — we’ll learn more about ISO and then we’ll move on to white balance.

We talked about the fruit of the vine passage (John 15) today at church.  Rick, the senior pastor, has been gone the past few weeks, and as much as I do love his sermons, I’ve enjoyed listening to the other pastors too.

After church, Amanda, Beth, and I had plans to check out the Waffle Window.  I say check out because they have not yet been!  But, being that we do live in Portland, our plans were interrupted by rain.  So, we went to a crepe place on Hawthorne that I’ve been wanting to try instead.  Delicious!  I had an apple cinnamon crepe with scrambled eggs and they both got a berry and custard crepe with bacon.  I highly recommend it, so if you come visit, we’ll go!

Beth had some errands to run, so Amanda and I went over to Buffalo Exchange, a trendy second hand clothing store, to kill time while we waited for Sarah to get done at the church nursery.  I bought a pair of cute Old Navy jeans for 10 bucks.  I like the cuff at the bottom and the back pockets   They’re dark denim, because there’s apparently something in my genetic make-up that prevents me from ever picking out a pair of light jeans.  Okay, you’re not Elena, you don’t care about that.  Anyhow…Sarah arrived and wanted to check out the Waffle Window because she had never been there either.  So, Amanda and I watched Sarah eat a ham and cheese waffle, which I felt was a poor choice, but she said she was in the mood for savory.  Yup, I even have opinions about other people’s waffles — can we say overbearing!

The sky still hadn’t made up it’s mind about raining or not raining (which I hear it won’t for the next 9 months) so we decided against Art in the Pearl (a little weekend festival in which artists of all kinds set up shop in the Pearl District).  Instead, we headed West to the lovely suburb of Beaverton.  We hit up JoAnn’s (there are rarely chain stores in Portland proper) for Amanda, drove by the international headquarters of Nike (which Amanda claims is “like Disney World!”), drove through Sarah’s soon to be apartment complex, and the grand finale — the Columbia employee store.  Columbia, which is obviously, typically not my style, is HUGE out here for the outdoorsy folk, and also the recent Ohio transplants who feel they should perhaps plan for rain.  Sarah’s friend works at Columbia and put her on the friends and family list.  Unfortunately the winter coats weren’t out yet, so I’ll have to return, but I was able to get a raincoat (windbreaker type thing) that will work until winter (where I hear it could get down to 40 degrees — how will I bear it!).  It’s lavender, gray, and dark purple and has a fantastic hood.  $32.50…originally $90.00…fabulous deal!  I also got a cute travel mug for $4.50.  I’ve been using Sarah’s and needed to buy my own before she moves out next month!

When we took Amanda back to her car in Hawthorne, Sarah and I couldn’t resist.  We went back to the Waffle Window.  Let me show you why:

Right now, we’re waiting on Bethany, a possible future roommate to come over and check out the house.  And then, I’m off to the grocery to kick off another week.  10.5 days until I get to come home for a bit!

I’ve been sitting at The Ugly Mug all afternoon, a coffee shop in Sellwood. The Ugly Mug brews Portland’s own Stumptown coffee and offers solid wood tables and duct taped couch seating paired with a diverse display of coffee mugs. Sellwood is a community on the southend of town near Reed College. This may come as a surprise, but it has a bustling strip of unique shops and cafes surrounded by a quaint neighborhood of bungalow type houses. It’s always fun to explore another Clintonville-esque neighborhood in Portland. Anyhow, it’s been quite the productive afternoon — I wrote a rough draft of a personal statement for a scholarship AND updated my entire facebook profile — can’t beat that!

I am, however, writing to tell you of a much more interesting find in Portland. Last night, Elena and I ventured to Mt. Tabor, which is a neighborhood, a park, and also an extinct volcano! You’d never know it though as most people don’t picture a volcano to have a paved road, stairs to the top, and tennis courts. We parked our car at the base (as there was a sign forbidding cars on Wednesdays) and embarked on our ascent. We circled around the top to find — and the surprises for the day continue — evergreen trees, along with a beautiful field of wild flowers, and a spectacular view of the city with a backdrop of the sun setting over the West Hills.

After our decent we thought we’d give that crazy Rempske’s another shot sense it was simply too early to call it a night. Although the decor still frightens us and the service is agonizingly slow, the brownie sundae and the frozen lemon mousse custard with raspberries were exponentially more delicious than that chocolate raspberry fool/cup of flavored whipped cream from last time. Also, we picked up this brochure to a hotel I so desperately want to travel to in Newport Beach, Oregon. It’s owned by the same lady and each room is thematically designed for an author such as E.B. White, Dr. Seuss, Alice Walker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, Earnest Hemingway, etc. They serve family style breakfast and dinner too! Someday… Now, I must also tell you about the bathroom. Remember that Rempske’s is in an old Victorian and people probably live there. So, when you walk up the staircase, you walk past door #1 on which a post-it reads “Not Here,” door #2 on which the post-it says “Or Here,” and door #3 labeled “Don’t Even Think About Here.” Upon opening the clearly labeled bathroom door, you better hope you don’t have to go too badly, otherwise you will surely wet your pants when you see the terrifying man staring at you in the bathroom. Don’t worry, he’s not real. He’s more realistic than a manican though and slightly less realistic than an actual human. He has slacks and a nice tie on in addition to his flippers and he’s hanging out in kayak on the floor. I’d love to share pictures with you, but I’m still awaiting Elena’s email that will include them. Now, if you haven’t wet your pants yet and you’d like to proceed to the toilet, you’ll have another fright when reaching for the TP. That would be because there are HANDS holding the toilet paper roll and they are coming out of a painting on the wall of a creepy woman who is handcuffed. And perhaps you have one more fright in store if you happen to glance up while doing your business and notice the feet coming out of the ceiling. When you realize they are supposed to be dangling from the wooden pier, also depicted realistically on the ceiling, you’ll put together that this bathroom wants you to believe you are under water (blue painted everything) and it may also just want to send the customers running. So, at this point, we are uncertain of the final verdict for Rempske’s and if we will decide to boycott the establishment or become occasional visitors.

Today was the last day of class for summer quarter!  I turned in my stats paper, Pam (my generalist practice teacher who knows Dr. Bronson from OSU) got us Hot Lips pizza for lunch, and then we sat through four hours of class presentations.  Hot Lips is a local chain that specializes in unique pizza toppings and makes their own fruit flavored sodas.  I say sodas not because Oregonians do, but because I spend too much time with Elena.  We talked for a bit over an hour today.  I find it hilarious that I still spend more time on the phone with her than the people I actually have to miss because they live thousands of miles away.  And as far as class presentations go, they weren’t horrible.  Since we’ve become quite close over the summer, I do have an interest in where my classmates’ field placements are and hearing about what they’ve been doing.  But four hours is a long time to sit still for anything, really.

After class, a bunch of us went to Nob Hill for happy hour at Blue Moon, which is another McMennamin’s restaurant (the same folks who own the Kennedy School and have a multitude of other places in Oregon and Washington).  I learned that McMennamin’s is known for having terrible service, but no one cares, because McMennamin’s is so cool, you just go anyway.  Plus, they have fantastic tater tots and this beer on tap called Ruby, which I actually like.  I’m not a beer drinker, in case you were unaware.  And yes, I realize I recently moved to the microbrewery capital of the free world which is also referred to as Brewtopia.  So anyway, I guess my dinner consisted of tater tots, hummus and pita, and a beer.  At least this is one of the nights that my dad didn’t ask me what I’m having for dinner.

I’m a huge fan of my classmates.  I think I just love hanging out with social workers.  They learned that I’m chatty outside of class, although they were fully convinced it was the one beer in my little person body.  It wasn’t.  I was just being me.  I told them about karaoke in Nashville in typical Ali story teller mode.  I love surprising people   We talked about everything from the Democratic National Convention to internships to who has and hasn’t smoked pot to religion to Tricia’s former job in the entertainment business.  And I think it’s safe to say no judgments were passed.  We’re all very different and we recognize that, but the unspoken social work bond is there, and we accept one another, and it was just really great to have a beer and chill on the last day of class for the summer.

I drove Elizabeth home and we found out we live pretty close to each other.  We’re going to try to grab a coffee or something sometime.  She reminds me a lot of Katie Schnobrich, I’ve decided.

So as always, I like new friends.

Ashley, Lindsay, Allison, Elizabeth, Nicole, Meghan, Theresa, and Katy

And once in a Blue Moon, I guess I also enjoy a good beer

For the past several hours I’ve been reading up on Motivational Interviewing.  I’m assuming most of my readers don’t really care about this, so I’ll try to keep it brief, or you can just not read this, but it’s quite interesting and I feel like writing about it!  That’s the benefit of having a blog you know, if I want to write about it, I can.  *Sticks tongue out*  Alright, now that I’ve clearly exposed my baby of the family make-up, I’ll move on…

Motivational interviewing is a “style,” rather than “technique” of counseling that an American psychologist developed in Norway while supervising a group of young psychologists.  They were incredibly inquisitive about his methods, forcing him to apply some tenets to how he had developed his style.  The approach is rooted in a wheel of change (stages of change that a client can circle around before achieving positive change) and several principles: expressing empathy, support self-efficacy, roll with resistance, and develop discrepancy.  These accurately align with social work values (dignity and worth of the individual, self-determination, importance of human relationships, etc…).

My worry is that I won’t be able to genuinely validate the clients’ feelings.  Will I actually be able to discuss the pros and cons of drug use and not sound fake?  I don’t know.

Anyhow, I do get it.  Of course, a person is going to be more open to changing their behavior if they feel heard, understood, and above all loved.  That’s right, loved.  Something social workers can’t really do for their clients right?  All kinds of ethical violations!  Well, I checked a lot of my speculation at the door when I got to the last point in Miller’s (American psychologist in Norway) article.  First of all, this guy’s so grounded.  He keeps talking about how this method was forced out of him and then he had to research it out of embarrassment of not having his facts straight.  Basically, the guys sounds humble.  So, there’s this article with 12 points that he learned about MI.  The last is this, and I’m going to quote this and not cite this and hope me and blog aren’t sued for plagerism:

There is something about love.  In American it is out of fashion for psychologists and researchers to talk about love.  We also mix up its multiple meanings.  I have found particularly helpful a little C.S. Lewis book called The Four Loves in which he distinguishes among four ancient Greek nouns, all of which are rendered in English as “love.”  One (eros) is erotic sexual love.  One (storge) is attraction love, like my own love for chocolate.  One (philia) is familial, close-bond loving.  All three of these are things that therapists are not supposed to do with their clients.  Then there is agape, a kind of selfless, other-directed, encompassing but nonpossessive love, likened to God’s love.  Its sole interest is in the well-being and growth of the other.  There is a mystical sense of oneness with the other, as though at least for this moment we were not separate beings.”

I get that.  That’s not just why I want to be a social worker, that’s why I am a social worker, not just by trade, but by who I am.  Galatians 5:6 says, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  That verse is the epitome of who I desire to be.  So, I’m not sure if the verb-age is right, but I pray God gives me the ability to “agape” my clients

Only in Portland would a dog wonder in through an open door at church, come in our aisle, and then straight up on stage.  Hilarious!

After church, Amanda, Elena, Beth, Jen, and I went to Le Petit Provence for brunch.  It’s a yummy, little place on Alberta and they gave us free pastries because it was taking a bit of time for our food to arrive.

Then Elena and I wondered around Laurelhurst Park for a bit.  Check out this algae infested pond, not to mention the gnomes:

After the park, we headed to the NW to lounge on the comfy, leather couch at Coffee Time and chat.  We went to a Fred Meyer with a parking garage (crazy) and then back to Elena’s to watch the video from our roadtrip that we never got around to watching.  We’ve deduced that probably no one thinks we’re funny but us, so if we try to get you to watch this video you should probably come up with an excuse and walk in the opposite direction.

What a relaxing weekend!

Saturday morning, I attended my first service project with Imago Dei.  There’s a group (I guess) in the church called Love Portland that focuses on doing exactly what the name entails.  On Saturday, we joined with churches across the city to beautify schools that were most in need.  I signed up for Franklin (the school church is in actually) along with Sarah and Beth.  I went early with Beth to help with registration and worked with Sarah once she arrived.  We were assigned to painting the gymnasium.  About an hour and a half into the morning, they asked for volunteers to go to another school.  So, we offered and ended up working with a non-profit that works to provide backpacks full of school supplies to each child in the schools in which at least 65% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.  They give each child at these schools a backpack on the first day to equalize the playing field and not leave anyone out.  They are distributing over 10,000 backpacks this year.  We put together about 500.  We worked in an assembly line and they determined that we packed a backpack every 2.75 seconds.  The winning score in the backpack Olympics was 2.2 I believe.  I met someone whose husband was a Buckeye and also someone from Gahanna.  There are Ohioans everywhere out here!  I also met someone whose starting the first year MSW program at PSU.

After lunch and a short nap, I had a meeting with some folks who are interested in having me shoot their wedding.  It went really well and I’m hired!  It’s this October, so Rob’s going to help!  I’m pumped for the opportunity to start building some clients up on this half of the country.  And they’re really big on candid over traditional, which is awesome!

I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of naps while reading my current Don Miller book.  What more could I ask for out of a Saturday, really?  Then some girls came over and we all watched the Sound of Music, which I have actually never seen.  My attention span was not at it’s best though, so I edited pictures during it, as well.  Overall, a successful Saturday!

I feel so productive!  This is what I got done today:

• I got enough sleep.
• I had a good conversation with my sister.
• I dropped off pictures to get developed.
• I shipped a certain SCUBA diver his birthday present for the big number FIVE!
• I went to school to rewrite my paper.  Yes, that’s right — rewrite.  I emailed my professor to look over it and she said it was beautiful, but with a fundamental problem.  Shoot!  I didn’t realize that independent t-tests require the dependent variable to be interval or ratio!  At least I did it early…and at least stats is almost over!
• I made a doctor’s appointment.
• I picked up my pictures.
• I went to the grocery.
• I cleaned the bathroom.
• I cleaned my room.
• I payed some bills.
• I wrote my mom and grandma letters, “snapshots” included!
• I finished my generalist practice presentation.
• I emailed Alice and Linda to ask for letters of rec. for a scholarship application.
• I prepared for my photography meeting tomorrow with a couple who is considering having me shoot their wedding.

I feel like there’s more that I can’t remember…

Anyhow, now I’m having Cowboy Coffees and watching the French giant play volleyball on the Olympics.  Oh actually, this just in…we’re watching The Birdcage instead.  Gotta run…

Tonight Amanda, Lisa, some other people from Imago and myself went to Staccato Gelato.  Portland has quite a few little gelato shops.  This particular one is located on a trendy strip in NE Portland.  It’s decorated with gigantic paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, bright polka dots on the wall, as well as a mural of a rocket ship and telephone wire adorned with tennis shoes and birds, and they played a mix of some indie girl music and the Mamma Mia soundtrack.  Anyhow…it was fun and way cute and I highly recommend it

Church was really great on Sunday again.  I’m so happy with Imago.  God speaks to me there like I haven’t experienced at any other church.  It was extra special that we got to sing one of my favorites during worship too:

A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out Lord, my soul cries out"

Sarah and I grabbed lunch afterward at Cha Cha Cha, a cheap, little Mexican chain with fantastic quesadillas.  Then we continued to brave the heat as I edited pictures and she cleaned her room.  It’s going to take a while to find a photography store I like here.  The Cord Camera people rocked in customer service and are hard to replace.  Perhaps if they see this plug they’d like to give me a discount from afar.  Probably not.  Anyhow, I’d much rather search for a photography store than church shop in a new city, so I’ll stop complaining.  The reason why I had to print pictures is because I have a meeting on Saturday with some folks who possibly want me to shoot their wedding.  I wanted to have some prints to show them.  Plus Grandma has requested that I send her some “snapshots,” so this was a good excuse to get that process started too

It cooled of this morning (Monday) when the day started with thunderstorms (which are apparently rare here) but made it feel like summer in the Midwest.  And it made the 100 degree heat that we’ve been having lately break.  It felt a bit like fall.  And I love fall!  I can’t wait for pumpkin lattes, colored leaves, and the smell of crisp air.  Mmmmm my first fall in Portland…I wonder what it will be like.

Also, someone from the Portland Women’s Crisis Line called me back today and offered me an on call job pending my references if I was interested, and I am!  So, I should know about that by the end of the week — yay!  I’m looking forward to a week from tomorrow — my last day of school for the quarter.  I have a presentation and a paper to write this week.  I’ve gotten ahead and I’m almost done with my presentation, but I’m kind of dreading the stats paper, blah.  Alright, that’s all for now.