I am sitting on the porch of my DC condo trying to figure out what to write for this week’s blog. I have started at least three different drafts, one on the Dr. Gates story, one on the amazing kids I am currently working with, and one on the stress of being a graduate student. However for some reason each draft gets deleted and a fresh new empty page appears staring back at me with increasing pressure, another looming deadline on an increasing list of the To-Do’s of a graduate student. Believe me, it isn’t for a lack of things to say, being a graduate student I love the idea of people reading what I write. And it isn’t for a lack of passion and interest in this blog.

This past weekend I had the privilege to sit on the American Counseling Association’s Conference Blue Ribbon Panel. If you don’t know what that is, don’t feel bad, many members of ACA have no idea either. I have had this amazing opportunity twice now and to make a long story short, have you ever wondered what happens to conference proposal once you hit submit and how a proposal gets chosen to be a education session, learning institute, or poster session at the ACA conference? Well I do!

“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.” By Earl Nightingale Sitting amongst friends, someone asks me a simple question… “So how is teaching going?” This simple question some how lights a fire in me. I start by describing what it feels like to stand in front of a class, share knowledge, and witness understanding, confusion, or doubt. Whatever the result it is my opportunity to share with a group of students something that I am passionate about.

Probably one of the greatest parts of getting my Master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling was meeting the friends I have now. Three girls and myself still keep in touch on a regular basis. We try and meet for dinner or lunch about once a month. Sometimes it is easier than others to juggle our busy schedules. And what do we talk about when we get together? Inevitably the conversation turns to our careers. Of the four of us, I stayed on to get my Ph.D., one got a job as a State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, one works at an alternative school as a kind of case manager/intervener of crisis, and one is currently in the process of finding a field related job.

ACA has entered the Blogosphere… Twitter has dominated the headlines… and Facebook is the right of passage in a growing Internet generation. A few days ago during an open ethics discussion in one of the courses I teach, a school counseling student asked the question, “What are your thoughts on accepting students as friends on facebook?” This simple question evolved into a lengthy discussion that included everything from professional responsibility to how this generation of students has no idea of the impact their “cyber lives” have on their “real ones.”