First week...and then some!

Well, today is Friday and the last day of my first week of work. I had a day of orientation which went over the basics like HIPPA, history of the hospital, etc and the rest of the week I spent in the schools. I also met all of the teachers, counselors, students, etc who I will be working with. Next week I have my trip into the bush (Akhiok) where I will spend the night and meet the students and teachers there. Each therapist has a village that they are assigned to and visit once a month during the school year. Pretty exciting! I volunteered myself to re-do the play therapy room and am going to focus my efforts on ordering and organizing toys, cleaning it out, etc this summer while school is out. I also took my first call today. The counselors here are on call one week a month and I volunteered myself to shadow the on call therapist so I can see some scenarios, figure out the paperwork, etc. It actually was really interesting. I learned how to do suicide assessments and the assessments for chemical dependency and mental health.

Jonathan found out he starts his job June 2nd. He's pretty excited to have an official date and all of the preliminary paperwork completed. He found a gym to work out in and has met alot of the people in the department and in the community. He volunteered us to do the Alaska Law Enforcement Torch Run tomorrow so we and other officers and their families will be participating in the run. Should be fun if we don't get rained out!

That's all that has been going on up here. We still don't have our furniture and are waiting on that but now we finally have a table and chairs. We were eating on the living room floor and finally broke down and bought a cheap table and chairs (Thank God for Walmart). Also, it stays light here for a long time! It's been light (bright too!) till about 11 most nights. At 8:00 at night it looks like it is 3 in the afternoon. It's SO weird! It's hard to get used to but we slowly are adjusting. Also, Jonathan and I learned that the fashionable footwear of Kodiak are Extra Toughs, these waterproof boots that are called the "Alaskan tennis shoe". We will be getting some suitable rain gear soon. I will put up pictures of the run and various other pics this weekend. Write more soon!

Love,
Jessica, Jonathan, & kitties