Some stats for you.....

As you know I've been up to my neck in sexual assault stuff these past few days. I've got a 60 minute presentation to do on it tomorrow. Thought I'd share some frustrating/alarming/scary stats that I've been stumbling upon:

• An American is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network RAINN, 2009).


• 80% of sex crimes are perpetrated by assailants known to the victim (National Center for Victims of Crime, 2009).


• 32 000 pregnancies result from rape every year (AIDS Patient Care and STDs, 1999).


• National survey reported that 34% of women were victims of sexual coercion by a husband or intimate partner in their lifetime (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2002).


• 75% of male rapes occur before the age of 18; 48% occur before the age of 12 (National Institute of Justice Report, 2000).


• 95% of violent episodes against people with disabilities involve sexual violence (Beail & Warden, 1995).


• One in four sexual assaults takes place in the victim’s home, making it the most common place for an assault to take place. One in six takes place in or near a relative’s or friend’s home; one in five on the street; one in six in a parking garage or commercial building. Three out of five sexual assaults occur at night, with the largest proportion occurring between 6:00 pm and midnight (Crime and Crime Prevention Statistics).


• Victims of sexual assault are: 3 times more likely to suffer from depression, 6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide (RAINN, 2010).

Thoughts? Feelings? Gut reactions?

Observations around town...

1. it hasn't snowed since Saturday at about 7:00 pm
2. school was closed today
3. drove by a school on my way to EMU and the parking lot wasn't even plowed yet, no wonder school was cancelled ?!?!?!
4. roads, main roads, still have loads of snow and slush on them....sometimes so deep that the bottom of my car was dragging through and I know I would have got stuck if I had to stop and start again
5. felt like I was off-roading in the Honda because of the bumpy snow potholes and ice build up on all the roads
6. can't believe people are allowed to park their cars on the road
7. plows down here are garbage trucks with plows on the front...I laughed really hard at this one
8. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO DO
9. they have already cancelled school for tomorrow because there are still places that have not yet been plowed out
10. I'm trying not to get frustrated driving, but it's really hard. At least when we get this crap we're equipped, down here not so much. Is this were grace should come in, because all I'm getting is an accelerated heart rate due to frustration when I'm driving right now
11. better take the longest way to EMU tonight when I go back because it is the path most travelled and surely things should be cleaned up by then
12. good news.....25 more centimetres coming tomorrow afternoon/evening.....arghhhhhhh!

2 hours later...

Can I just tell you how thankful I am for the woman I rent from? I went outside today to shovel out my car, and I literally wanted to start bawling; the task at hand seemed way too big. I knew it wouldn't help any though, so I just started shovelling. Not too long after, Reta came out and saved the day. It was much better having someone help me, and working together to accomplish what we felt like a great victory in the end. As you'll see from the pictures below there was way too much snow. I decided to shovel out the front to the driveway and pull forward. After lots of digging it worked thankfully!!! Do you see how far from the driveway I parked my car? STUPID!! Lesson learned...and look how far in we had to shovel to get to the door... do you feel bad for me yet?
This was a happy moment!!!! Next time I'm calling Erica's boyfriend and using his connections. Actually let me rephrase that there better not be a next time!!!!

What's this???

Why it's the Honda on the road smothered under 76 centimetres of snow...yup you read that right 76 freaking centimetres of snow in 24 hours. I think we're in a state of emergency here people :) Seriously though whens the last time we had a storm like this in NB?? This sucker has paralyzed Northern Virginia, DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia to name a few. Glad I'm not flying today or I'd be an unhappy person I think. Oh this is also going to be called tomorrow's project, I'm not touching this sucker tonight.....

Week 4....

• EMOTIONAL!!!! man oh man this program
• had guest speakers form the local crisis sexual asault clinic come.... some stats I found nteresting/scary: 1 in 4 woman have been sexually abused, 1 in 6 men, 50% of children who have been sexually abused have been abused by other children who are either frinds or famly members (HOLY CRAP), only 1 in 10 victims report the abuse when it actually happens-------> TALK TO YOUR KIDS PEOPLE!!!! I'm sure I'll learn lots of other goodies over the next few years and I don't want to scare you guys but I want everyone to be aware.....Erica's going to do her internship there so we'll learn lots :)
• there's an owl that "hoo"s all the time in the backyard at night time...I'm used to it now but it took a bit, I don't know if I've ever heard that before aside from movies/cartoons
• had the opportunity to go spend the weekend in Manhattan for free, Jason you're lucky I promised you I wouldn't go there without you!...it was soooo hard to turn down
• got a couple of DVD's because I'm going to be snowed in...there are definitely some things that rock down here.....for example Redbox...put your credit card in a machine at the grocery store, select a movie from loads of titles, have it back by 9 the next night and it's only $1 isn't that cray? So I'm going to be watching The Proposal and He's Just Not That Into You this weekend....seemed like a chick flick time and I know Jason has no interest in these
• am learning lots, wow I'm really going to be a counselor some day
• had too much snow this past week and right now in another storm... theweathernetwork. com just says 50+ cm of snow for the next 24 hours....is that weird to anyone else? 50+?? Not only is that INSANE for down here....BUT.... did they just give up counting or something? I want to come home where it's just cold and less snow....oh and Jason's there too :)
• very thankful for a good friend who is going to be telling her story to my crisis class
• local Christian radio station switched to KLOVE.... a friend told me about this when I was home and it's a great Christian radio station, now I'm lucky and even get to listen to it in my car, although I do miss the CKOE guy's "good morning" in his weird voice :)
• been craving some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies thanks to a friend who talks about them nonstop....hmmmm maybe she's preggers? ha ha ha.....regardless I may need to bake some of these suckers
• have a huge sexual assault presentation that I'll be working on for most of the weekend,
• praying I don't get a migraine because I forgot to buy more Ibuprofen and I'm all out
• hoping to connect with friends at some point this weekend
• saw the movie Kite Runner last weekend....have any of you read this book? I guess it's quite famous....anyways I LOVED the movie, not something I would have picked but the woman I rent from and her neighbour made supper and watched a movie last weekend and invited me because it was storming and it turned out being a really touching move (could I have put anymore ands in that sentence???)... my favorite line, which I sent to Jason in a text that night "For you? A thousand times over"...story of my life people.....if it wasn't for that guy I would have given up a long time ago and just accepted being where I'm at in my head space but wanting to bless him with me, all of me, the whole me, keeps me putting one foot in front of the other... especially in those times when everything in me is wanting to jam the breaks on and that's been happening a lot lately....so perhaps the movie wouldn't be as touching to you :)
• ummmmmm I'm sure there's more but that's all I've got for now... stay tuned for more this weekend on my snowy situation, love to you all!

More random things....

So picture this....class of 12. 6 told to go in the center of the room and form a circle facing inward. The other 6 (where I was) are to walk around the circle and whisper into the individual's ear what they wanted to hear as a child and never heard....meaning I had to say to 6 people the same thing, what I needed to hear as a child and never did, over and over...hard right? Yup, that's what I thought. THEN it was my turn to go in the middle and hear 6 totally different things that all connected. We were a crying group this afternoon let me tell you. Man oh man! It's nuts how there were so many commonalities "I'm sorry that happened to you", "You are worthy", "I'll love you no matter what you do", "I'm so proud of you"......phewf, makes me take a deep breath again just typing that. Who wants to go to graduate school to get a masters in counseling :)

Had a photo shoot...for lack of better words...with the EMU newspaper I guess...I don't even know....for the freaking ethics team. They were taking all these serious pictures and then she said "do something funny"....and here's what we got

oh and of course guess what picture they are going to publish??? You got it, great way to start off my career don't you think? Poor Zac, I knew this was going to be the pic that was chose... I turned to him right after and called it. If you look really close you can even see my gum, classy!

Other than that, stood in line for wayyyyy too long to get groceries tonight in between needing to go back to school for 3 hours tonight after already spending 10 hours there. Why? Oh because there's 30 centimetres of snow coming in the next 24 hours and more on the weekend. Yup, I'm coming home people, this is ridiculous! Guess it makes all you happy to not hear "oh it's warm and sunny down here" huh? You've all been praying for this haven't you? I knew it :)

I'll keep you updated because something tells me I'm going to be in the house for a few days :(

Few and far between.....

Sorry to all my loyal blog readers.... Being both sick and emotionally exhausted has put me a bit behind in a few areas. So because of that I haven't been maintaining this sucker.

Few quick updates:

Had another storm here on Saturday, got 30 centimetres of snow. Seriously what the heck is going on? I came 19 hours south of my home, this shouldn't be happening. If I hear one person say "this is so weird, we never have winters like this", I'm going to start to think it's because I'm living here. Oh and as I type this....there's another 15 centimetres falling right now. Oh and it gets better....more coming this weekend. At least the Honda is happy, I think it misses the winter driving and it's owner of the past 10 years. So honey feel free to trade me cars whenever k?

Been getting lots of recognition with the ethics win. I'm having a hard time with this, I just want it to be done. Okay we won, but look at how great everyone else is doing too! They had a pizza and ice cream cake party for us last week. One of my profs decided to make us hats and give us compasses for "leading the way in ethics". Here are a couple blurry pictures of that event:

(left to right top pic: Prof Linda Leitch-Alford...she teaches the ethics class...Zac...my second year buddy, we're off to celebrate his birthday this weekend and I'll be bringing my camera let me tell you because Zac and Trev together=hilarious....Tara, Tom, and yours truly)

I'm, as I've said a few times now, emotionally done and I'm only 3 weeks in to the semester. Besides the normal draining classes, missing Jason and home, and doing my personal weekly counseling sessions this semester has added a lot more goodies. So on top of all that I just mentioned, I also have a weekly one hour group counseling session with half of my class (the shit is going to hit the fan let me tell you....drama, drama, drama, and I can't wait), one hour mini counseling session where we are in small groups of three and we work on "light" personal things, and a three hour weekly practicing group of 4 where we again work on "light" things. Do you know how hard it is to pick something that isn't going to be heavy, that isn't connected to your current process in counseling, and that is something you want your counseling peers to know about you (because I'm not in groups with Erica, Christian, or April)? It's quite hard let me tell you. Last week for my 3 hour meeting I picked what I thought was a "light" issue and it turned into a complete emotional mess by the time I was done. The poor girl who got stuck to be my counselor (basically we rotate through where one is the counselor, one the client, and two observers), handled it beautifully but it was out of her experience level. I realized halfway through and didn't know what to do because I was already in it. Sheesh....I should start making stuff up or working on stuff I already know I've dealt with :)

Hmmmm I think that's all I've got for you right now. Got a huge sexual assault presentation coming up in a week that I haven't even begun so that will be my world next weekend. How fun.. ha ha ha. Thankfully I've got two nights of fun planned as well to offset all the intensity. Life is good, but it will be even better in 31 days because I'll be home with my boys!