Panic mode once again!

I am sitting here doing my breathing – breathe in and slowly out, wiggle toes and drop those shoulders.

Yes, it’s panic mode for me once again in the run down to the final day of college on 1^st June.  I have one piece of work to finish and a whole new piece to start so it will be head down all weekend.  I hope the weather is terrible so I am not tempted to go out and sit in the sunshine!

I have a real dilemma about my options for next year.  It will be my final year and option 1 is to do a full dissertation of 12-15,000 words alongside the usual case discussions, skills practice and clinical placement.  The problem for me is that I do not have anything that I passionately want to research.  We have to submit a research proposal by June 1^st as our final piece of work.  If I do not submit and pass it, I cannot proceed to year three.  I am feeling so tired I cannot think up anything that really interests me and I think that to be stuck doing ‘just anything’ for the whole of next year is a daunting prospect .

Option 2 is to take the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy module.  We have more teaching hours, with a visiting specialist lecturer, more sills practice, more essays to write but do not have the long research dissertation.  Instead we have an 8000 word personal development essay.  This option was offered for the first time this year so we are still waiting for the first batch of third years to complete it.  On this option we have to do 100 clinical hours - 50 pure CBT, and 50 integrative counselling instead of only 80 for the option 1.

I was dead set on doing option 2 but now I am starting to wobble again.  I feel like I need the whole summer to consolidate my learning from this year and to think freshly about what to do but if I have to begin the next academic year by writing a whole new research proposal, I may run out of time to get everything done because the proposal has to be submitted to the ethics committee for approval.

Anyway that all seems so minor compared to other things going on.  Him at home will be even more at home by the end of today.  Government cuts mean that he is being made redundant after more than 20 years working firstly as a teacher and then with the local council, providing e-learning assistance to schools, teachers and local government.  The whole e-learning resources centre is being shut down which seems pretty crazy when there is so much reliance on e-learning.  He’s threatening to wander around the streets in his dressing gown and slippers looking miserable so I shall have to occupy him as my assistant researcher and chief cook and bottle washer!