Interview/Internship Update

I was waiting until things were more set in stone, but people keep asking me how things went (yay for having supportive people in my life who care about me!), so I thought I'd provide an update.

A long time ago I made a list (albeit a very short one) of places I wanted to do my internships at. One was the Sante' Center for Healing, an inpatient treatment facility about 15 minutes from our house. The other was LifeSTAR Dallas, which is a treatment program for couples. LifeSTAR is about 40 minutes away from us if we are not driving during rush hour.

I waited to contact the locations until after I had my letters of recommendation because I have very little experience to list on my resume and a resume with nothing much on it does not usually cause potential internship sites to swoon over interns. I spoke to one of my professors shortly after getting my second letter of recommendation and he asked who I was contacting. Thirty minutes later I got an email from him saying he had called Sante' on my behalf and was waiting to hear back from them! A few hours later he emailed me the contact information for the head of HR! I was blown away that he would do that for me :)

I contacted Sante' and was told they didn't think they currently had an opening for an intern, but they would let me know.

I also contacted Mark Bird at LifeSTAR. I was a bit intimidated by contacting him as I've quoted him in several papers and projects. He is awesome! Anyway, he got back to me within a few hours and wanted to set up a meeting. We met a few days later. The interview went really well I think! He is going to talk to his business partner about having me do my internship with them :) He worked at Sante' for several years before starting LifeSTAR Dallas. When he learned that I had contacted them as well, he said he'd talk to his contacts there to see if I might be able to do some of my hours there! If this all works out, I'd be doing my internships at BOTH of my top two choices, including working with Dr. Bird, who I am starstruck by! I'm waiting to hear back and will update when I know for sure what is happening :)

Anyway, so that was Friday. The following Wednesday was PDI (the prostitution thing I volunteer for once a month) night for March. It was slow for an hour or two, so several of the volunteers got to talk for a while. The upcoming John School came up. The prostitutes aren't the only ones who are picked up by PDI. The johns are too. They are made to attend an educational program that teaches them about things like human trafficking and sexual addiction. They pay for it and the funds are used to help pay for treatment for the prostitutes. I found out that the lecture on sexual addiction was being given by Pennie Johnson, who works with Patrick Carnes. For those of you who do not know who Patrick Carnes is, he is the father of sexual addiction studies. There is an award for the therapist that has been most influential in that field. It is named the Patrick Carnes award. He is definitely the big kahuna! I asked if I could go listen to the lecture. Renee', who is awesome and never gets annoyed by me getting all excited about things like this, not only told me I was welcome, but said she'd introduce me to Pennie Johnson!

Rob got all excited for me when I told him and happily agreed to hang out at home with the kids on Saturday so I could go. He is awesome too :) So, I headed into Dallas on Saturday. Renee' not only introduced me to Pennie, but also said all sorts of nice things about me to her and the three of us ended up talking for quite a while. I listened to the lecture, taking lots of notes and learning tons of stuff. Pennie talked to me afterwards and offered to work with me and teach me how to give presentations on sexual addiction!!!

Then the day was made even more unforgettable because the power went out and Renee' and two other women were stuck in the elevator for an hour until the fire department finally got there and pried the doors open.

It blows me away by how many people are willing to help me! It validates to me that we are, in fact, making the right choice and this is where I need to be. Both Rob and I know that I am supposed to pursue this and things like everything that has happened over the past two weeks reinforces our belief. I am so blessed by the people in my life!