Blog Archives
AIDS
A co-worker of mine introduced to me a website called Coursera. She told me she had signed up for a free course on mental health using this website and that she gets a certificate of completion at the end. I thought she was mistaken and asked her to send me the link. I love learning and being out of school has been really lame. I always want to be learning so if this course was for real then I had to get involved.
I checked it out and sure enough this website offers free courses from notable universities such as:
- University of Toronto
- University of British Columbia
- Johns Hopkins University
- Princeton University
- Stanford University
There are a variety of subjects such as:
- Clinical Problem Solving
- Introduction to Music Production
- Internet History, Technology and Security
- The Ancient Greeks
- Community Change in Public Health
- Drugs and the Brain
With 33 universities and 221 courses there is something for everyone! You do not earn a credit but you earn a certificate of completion which demonstrates that you are taking the initiative to expand your learning which can of course be included on your resume!
“Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.”- About, Coursera
So, my blog title says AIDS. I have signed up for the AIDS course which is beginning in 13 days and is a 9 week course with a workload of 3-4 hours a week. The course is from Emory University and Kimberly Sessions Hagen is the professor teaching.
I want to take this course because it was not greatly discussed while I was in school. I know that I had classmates who had HIV/AIDS but we never got into the nitty gritty of the issue in ways that I feel like this course will. I work with youth who have addictions issues so AIDS is a very real thing for them and I want to know more. There is never harm in knowing more.
“This course will discuss HIV/AIDS in the US and around the world including its history, science, and culture as well as recent developments in prevention education, biomedical research, vaccine development, HIV testing, and current treatments. The course will also include a review of past, present, and potential future controversies surrounding HIV/AIDS”.
Weekend Away
I’m back in Toronto tomorrow which is where my laptop is. I’m in Whitby right now visiting friends and family and due to my busy Friday (work and job interview) I didn’t bring my laptop along cause it’s so heavy! I’m using my Daddy’s!
Today is Mother’s Day and also I’m celebrating my birthday with my family since this is the only time! I made my Mom, Nanny and Nana Mother’s Day cards and I think they’re pretty awesome! I’m not very visually artistic but I do my best and have fun with it!
I love my Mom a lot! She’s always been there for me and if she ever needs me like that I’ll be there too 
<3
Yesterday some pretty fun things happened! I need new underwear (full disclosure). Mine don’t fit and I can’t keep walking around with underwear that keeps digging into my legs! My girl friend, Hilary, and I went to La Senza (lingerie, p-jays, basic undergarments, that kind of store) and they were selling 8 pairs of underwear for $28! I took them up on the offer and when I went to buy them the coupon, they had given me earlier upon entering the store, I had gave me a free pair! So now I have 9 new pairs and I’m happy!
BUT WAIT!!! IT GETS BETTER!
Hilary and I had been given raffle tickets to win a free bra from one of their collections. Long story short, I won the free bra! Clearly it pays off to come back to the store when no one else could be bothered because my ticket was the 4th to be called because no one else was there! WOOT!
So enough about what I wear under my clothes….
I have my second counselling session on Thursday. I need to call it counselling, I need to call her “my social worker” because I feel like “therapy” and “therapist” makes me sound like I’m completely broken. Sorry to anyone who feels comfortable using this language but I do not. I need counsel only and since I am a social worker myself I know what they are about and they are different from therapists so I’m calling it like it is.
I think I stupidly went back into counselling thinking that I could learn better coping skills without talking about what makes me angry or makes me cut. I was clearly wrong but now I’m faced with J wanting me to talk about things I don’t want to talk about because to me they don’t matter. I am worried that her desire to “explore” them will lead me to believe (and I’m already talking myself out of thinking this) that I have in fact “dissociated” (which is a term she used) instead of actually genuinely deciding that a certain event doesn’t bother me or isn’t worth my time. I don’t want to be pathologized for being ok and accepting that bad that has happened in my life!
I’m going to try to tell her on Thursday that there are things that I don’t want to talk about. There is no point in talking about something that I have accepted. Well, I guess, there is if it’s looking at how I came to accept those situations and not accept others. I could always put that spin on it myself.
