group dynamics

I think of myself as a lone wolf.  I'm not being romantic or a tough guy.  I just think that I work better when I don't have to rely on anyone else and I can go about my day knowing that nobody else is really relying on me, obviously except for my clients and Dean.  Being on my own is something that I have grown accustomed to and fond of.  Therefore, when I started this quarter and saw that there would be group assignments in each class, I cringed.

I have PTSD from elementary school gym class when it comes to splitting into groups.  I always fear that I'm going to be left without a group and I'll have to partner with the teacher or something like that.  In my class yesterday, it worked out nicely though because the teacher split us up according to fields of interest.  I'm the only person in my classes who is interested in working with adults with DD but there were two other people interested in working with adults with mental health issues so we got partnered up.

In today's class, I sat by Allyn (from my culture class last quarter) and we agreed that we would be in a group together but the teacher was splitting the class of 26 people into six groups.  She didn't want more than five to any one group.  It turns out that we waited until everyone else had split up into groups of four and we were going to have to get split up ourselves.  We must have looked pathetic because everyone let out a collective, "Awwww," when Allyn asked if we had to be in different groups then.  However, she ended up letting us work in together in a group with four other people so yay.  Even though the process of breaking into groups was upsetting, we still got what we wanted.

The story doesn't translate well into written form but it was actually a nice moment, especially for a 'dividing up' moment.  It was cool that Allyn wanted to work with me, even though we had no idea what we wanted to work on.  Also, it's cool that we found a group with a handful of other people from our culture class.  I like these people and I think that, ultimately, we will be stronger as a group than I could be alone.  I can work with that.

What else?
Hypochondria set in with Victory getting pneumonia.  I ran to the bus this morning and I realized my lungs felt like they were full of crud.  I was worried about the onset of pneumonia so I went to a new doctor (my new thing).  She said that I was healing and there was really nothing she could do for me...besides give me codeine.  Yay, I love the Kaiser Drug Dispensary.  I'm gonna sleep well tonight.