Anxiously Awaiting the Student Clinic

After nearly 100 hours of Swedish Massage classes and three hands on evaluations, I have just one more evaluation to pass before I can start in the student clinic at school. The last evaluation will consist of us doing a massage intake, massage and evaluation with a graduate of the school. Everything we've done in class so far has been on our fellow classmates, with the exception of when we've had an odd number and got a chance to work on our teachers assistant, who is extremely sweet, patient and kind. I think we're all a little nervous for our final evaluation, which takes place this Tuesday, July 31st. Once we pass this evaluation, we get the okay to start in the student clinic, so, if all goes well, I will start next weekend!

I am nervous and excited all at the same time. While I feel like I have the basics of Swedish down, I am still working on my hand skills and getting to where I can feel knots and tight areas on the body. Some seem more able to do this than I am at this point but I try to remind myself that it takes practice and focus and the more bodies I get my hands on, the easier it'll be. I just have to trust that I'll get there and continue to tune in. We had our Clinic Orientation a few weeks back and learned that we have two mandatory hours a week in the clinic, the rest we can sign ourselves up for as we please. We have to get 145 clinic hours before we can graduate. My mandatory hours are going to be on Sunday afternoons. As I write this, I am appreciating probably the last "free" Sunday I'll have in a while (not counting school breaks) by lounging about the house, reading magazines, watching movies and enjoying a day of nothingness.


I've already decided I want to knock out as many clinic hours as I can early on, so that I'm not stressing getting them in before I graduate. Plus, with Dominic heading out to New York for six months, I figure what better time to focus on school. I'm struggling with the idea of long distance and could use the distraction. However, I am looking forward to going out for a visit over my Labor Day break and exploring the city with him. We haven't had the opportunity to take many solo trips together and I'm going to relish it. 


We did recently take an amazing friends trip up to Moab though. For my non-facebook friends (ahem Courtney and Kari) here are a few pictures from the trip. I could have spent three weeks exploring the area, it was so beautiful. A five and a half hour drive from Albuquerque, I highly recommend it if you haven't been there.