As I rummage and review the days that made up my first semester, the idea and the process of change dominates and undergirds all the memories and the madness. It was not so much the learning that filled and colored the bags beneath my eyes. However, I think it was the weight, work, and force of being transformed, of being changed and a change agent.

Social workers rely on, among many other skills, theories, and practices, the conscious use of self. Through your time in the Master’s program, you refine, critique, study, embolden, and inform this conscious use of self. Like the transition from crawling to walking to driving, you fall and bruise your knees and bang into all sorts of things before you become competent, confident, reliable, stable, and precise. The process of changing, of growing, of applying can cause you to need, like a fussy and irritated two-year old, a nap and a break from it all.

As I anticipate the upcoming semester, I list all the improvements I will make, the spices I will add to intensify, ignite, and unify the many flavors. Naturally, in life there are some experiences in which you should be, as much as possible, organized and prepared for. Then, there are others that you embark on or get pulled into that you live out—wildly, bravely, and full of mistakes—until you have reached… My time, since the very beginning, has encompassed both.

All the adventures and assignments, friends and foes of the second semester are afoot. So I am off like Sherlock Holmes, like Jane Addams to engage in the struggle and it is not, by any means, elementary my dear friends…