Day 7: Person-Centred Rain

Entry for 5 Sept 2006:

It rains nearly every day, a fine misty sort of rain that the natives call "smirr", which eventually can make you "dreich" (wet & miserable). This makes is nearly impossible to dry one’s clothes outside, which would be nice, since most people, including us, don’t have clothes driers. Actually, I like the stuff, it sort of gentle, not like the pounding rain you get in California or Ohio. It feels fresh, even refreshing, especially during the course of a vigorous walk, mostly uphill, to the Jordanhill campus of the University of Strathclyde where I work. It would be even more enjoyable if I hadn’t mislaid my Nike windbreaker and my umbrella somewhere on campus on my first day of work!

So today it rained, a little bit at time, sometimes more, sometimes less, practically all day. As Mick Cooper, my fellow professor, noted, this is the kind of weather that makes you want to work because it’s not nice enough outside to do much. This was OK with us, because Diane and I holed up in my office and did internet-based work most of the day. Mick did come by and drag us over the faculty restaurant to have lunch with him (I suspect he doesn’t like to eat alone...). The nice thing about the faculty restaurant is that other folk from the Counselling Unit tend to come in also, and that provides opportunities to get to know them better and to learn about more what they do.

Yesterday it was Mike H, who has been very nice to us; today Alan, Sheila and Sandra came, who are in the middle of the one-week initial intensive training session with the new Counselling Certificate class. (This is one of the four Person-Centred Counselling courses they run. It is an introductory, “get-your feet wet” course for folks who are considering going further, or who feel that a basic helping skills training could help them be more effective in their current work, e.g., as managers.) This course alone has 28 students in it! Compare the Clinical Program at UT, which takes 5 or 6 students per year, or my Process-Experiential therapy training workshop, which has between 6 and 15 students in it at any one time.