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Showing posts from 2016

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Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students

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  Happy start of the school year! Perusing social media, I came across a NASW blog article called “Guide for the First Year Social Work Student”. This post provided lots of great information tailored for new undergraduate students interested in studying social work. I wanted to take that NASW post a bit farther and compile a list of tips specific to graduate students pursuing a masters in social work (MSW). In my opinion, graduate school is a completely different experience from undergraduate, so my hope is that these tips will serve to be beneficial. Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students -Don’t worry about grades so much When I was in graduate school, one of my professors told a story about a straight A student who committed suicide several years after graduation. His point was that given the people we need to work with, we social workers need to focus less on being perfectionists (as demonstrated by obsessing over grades and test scores) and work on being empathetic and co
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My (not so) Cheap Wedding

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When I turned 18, my parents threw me a Debut Party , which is essentially the Philippine version of a quincinera. It was a lavish event held in a local hotel ballroom and attended by 200 of my closest family and friends. While I am thankful for the experience, I've known since then that if I were to get married, I'd want a smaller, simpler, and less costly wedding. What I didn't realize was the amount of work it would take to accomplish that. According to costofweddings.com , the average wedding in the United States costs $26,645, with couples in my area spending between $31,112 and $51,853. While not enough for a house down payment in the Bay Area these days, this is money that could easily be spent on vacations, house renovation, and college tuition for any future children. My husband, who still isn't a fan of the pageantry and societal expectations surrounding marriage, preferred to elope or have a courthouse ceremony.  Coming from a culture that places extrem
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A Return to Blogging 2016

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Wow, it's been over a year since my last post! I'm still here, but had to take a blogging hiatus due to my time being consumed by other things. Here's a brief synopsis of my past year: Got Married. After seven years, my now husband popped the question that would result in one of the most whirlwind years of our lives. I'll be blogging about our wedding in subsequent posts, but in short, all of our free time was consumed by wedding planning and other related wedding events for most of 2016. In other news, I've finally moved out of my parents' house and am adjusting to living with my husband. Job-wise, I'm still working as a medical social worker, but am looking into part-time income streams such as blogging and even crafting (thanks to skills acquired while wedding planning). I have no idea what direction I want to take this blog, but right now the most important thing is that I start writing again. We'll see where this goes!
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