Hi everyone!
Wow, it's been forever since I've posted here. But being as the umpteen life changes are currently past (moved to Cleveland, finished my CFY, found an awesome roommate, in the process of building a social network here, etc.), I finally actually have a summer and can actually post again!
First thing: fellow August grads, was it not awesome to send that paperwork off?! :) We're gonna be CCC's! Finally! A long and crazy road it's been to this point...but we're here and from now on we're even more awesome. Congrats to all EMU speech path grads who are reading this - we did it!!!! Let me know what you're up to, leave comments or whatever - I know several of you have traversed back to MI after moving away, so what are you doing now? happy to be back? :)
For my part, I'll be here in Cleveland for a year or two or three more, then who knows where - that's where the Scrabble tourism comes in (see scrabblecouple.blogspot.com if you have no clue what I'm talking about and are actually curious). I want a warm big city. I'm so over the season of winter. :-P lol I do not plan to move back to Michigan - visit, yes (I'll be in town next week for a bit to see people! leave comments or email me if you wanna meet up) - but nothing permanent. I like Ann Arbor, but I'm done there.
Cleveland is a very neat city. I've met a lot of neat people and I thoroughly adore my apartment. I'm right next door to a cleaners, a grocery store, a hair salon, and a coffee shop - what more could you want in life?! Oh, yes - Scrabble clubs. We have a ton of those, too. Michael and I have counted four in the area - which means that three to four nights per week, we could be playing Scrabble if we so chose. Rocky River and Independence are our favorites even just for sheer turn-out, but the other two are cool too.
A lot of my life lately has been hanging out with Michael and studying or playing Scrabble. I won't go into Scrabble babble here - we'll save that for my blog post on the other blog - but it's been incredibly fun. We have a tourney tomorrow in Rocky River, a tourney next weekend in Toronto, and then it's time for NATIONALS in Dayton where the top prize for my division (D3) is looking like $2,500 - not a bad chunk of change for playing an awesome game!!! Studying is therefore necessary, and on-going, and will continue. I'm hoping I can seriously kick some butt these next couple weeks on the studying front. ADEILRST - DILATERS, REDTAILS, LARDIEST.....come on, brain, you need to retain this stuff!
Cooking has also become another big thing for Michael and me. Anyone have any really good recipes you want to share, especially those of the healthy variety? We totally have several that have become staples for us...beer cheese soup, pesto pasta with goat cheese, goat cheese stuffed chicken in white wine sauce, cedar plank salmon, olive-orange chicken scallopine...etc.
Also have been visiting people and having people visit! Went to see Cassandra in May and she's coming here in August, went to Snu & Greg's wedding a few weeks ago, Soumya came to visit Cleveland, Apryl's coming at the end of July....good times!
We're also in the very early stages of planning for a 30th birthday party for Michael in December - he's a Christmas baby, of course, so this is gonna be a little bit of a tough one to schedule. We're thinking it'll be in Toledo, since that's a good sort of halfway point for everyone from Ann Arbor, Port Clinton, and Cleveland. On the lookout for cool things in Toledo to do...chill bars and whatnot...and always trying to think of more ideas for what to do!
Okay, back to studying, but I'll be posting here more often now that it's truly summer for me! Hope everyone is doing well and I'll talk to you all sometime soon!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Character in and Characters of Toronto
What a great past week it's been! All this past week was spent studying for the Praxis, which is the qualifying test for SLPs. I wasn't terribly worried about the outcome, since I figure I've had speech path info drilled into me enough to get 60% (what you need in order to pass) on any test of SLP knowledge....but still. My main areas of study were voice, anatomy, and audiology, because those were the three areas I felt I had little to no clue about. Class notes for voice and anatomy and a good internet site for audiology made me feel basically up-to-speed...but still, you never know what standardized tests will bring! Fortunately, the test seemed to go quite well, and I finished half an hour before the end time, so I was able to check a good number of my answers over.
Question for either those who took the test or those who just have crazily extensive SLP knowledge: what the crap was the deal with that last question, about the critical period for development of the hard palate in the womb?!!? Does anybody know the answer or even why that would be important to know?! I completely guessed, rationalizing that something like the hard palate would develop late since babies have to develop things like limbs and organs first....so I picked E, which was the latest of the choices. I was totally cool with all the questions....and then there was THAT one :-P
So after the Praxis came walking in EMU graduation! The "moment on stage" we all had when our names were called one-by-one was pretty cool, and it was really neat to have Mom, Dad, and Michael there to see it :-D I can't believe I'm two and a half months from graduating! My last day at the next internship will be something like July 11, and after that I have no classes or anything. There's not even a summer graduation ceremony - so after July 11, that's it for me! Which will bring me into job-land....somewhere....oh, sheesh. :-O Scary thought right now! I've applied to some interesting places over the past couple days, though, and would honestly be happy with any of the jobs I've put in my app for. We'll see what happens....
My reward for extensive Praxis-ness came on Tuesday, when Michael and I went to Toronto for a Lifehouse concert!!! Normally we would not have ended up needing to go all the way to Toronto, but there was a snowstorm the day of the Pontiac conccert and so it was too dangerous to go....which made me incredibly sad, but then Mom surprised me on my birthday with second row tickets to the Toronto concert!!!
Toronto is a funny place. As I noted to Michael, they can't have any "State Street"s like nearly every city in the US does, cuz they don't have states, they have provinces! :-P To compensate for this lack-of-a-US-relevant-street-name, though, they have about a million "Queen Street"s. Including one called "Queen Elizabeth Way," also known as "The QEW." Which I think is supposed to be pronounced "The Q." But really - can you look at "QEW" and pronounce it simply as "Q" in good conscience?! There is so much going on with that spelling - QEW is not a valid Scrabble word, even! As a result of the supremely bizarre spelling and my own slap-happy-ness at being in the car for four hours and counting at that point, I took to calling this highway "The Ky-oo" with the "oo" pronounced like the "oo" in "book." SLPs, you know the phonetic symbol I'm talking about, lol. The Ky-oo is a very cool highway, though, and you can see a good bit of Toronto from it!
We made it into Toronto (with the help of my GPS, which is rather affectionately known to us as "Bitch" but that is a completely separate story) and to the Danforth Music Hall in the middle of the first opening band, which was not terribly stellar so that was okay. I bought a Lifehouse tour shirt before we went in, figuring that would be my awesome souvenir of the concert! The second opening act was a guy named Matt Nathanson, who was remarkable not for his not-bad-just-music, but for his on-stage performance and side comments. The guy was hilarious!! He should open for Lifehouse more often, cuz usually Lifehouse's opening acts are rather amazing.....-ly horrendous. :-P
After a little bit of shifting with the seats - okay, so when there is an "18" on the arm of a seat and a triangle pointing right, wouldn't you think the seat on the right is #18? Apparently that triangle was just decorative, lol, but whatever....the people we needed to move over one seat for were very nice :) - we settled in and ended up standing during the show. My coat and purse were on the seat, my camera was in the shirt pocket of my jogging suit, and I was dancing around in front of my seat like the obsessive fan I am...lol I was also committing serious vocal abuse by screaming/cheering my head off (apologies to Prof. Haxer for that one, lol) I am such a speech path nerd...but anyway, as long as Lifehouse doesn't come in concert every week (***which I would not mind in the slightest - just sayin'!!!!) I should not be in danger of nodules or anything, lol. I got a ton of pictures, which aren't the clearest because of the lighting in the theater, but they're on Facebook anyway :)
Lifehouse always puts on the absolute greatest show!!!!!!!! :-D :-D Though the sound system was not the absolute best I've ever heard them have, it was still quite good and the guys were awesome!!!!! They were throwing towels they'd used into the audience at the beginning of the show, and I was thinking "Okay, what would I or anyone do with a towel, seriously?!?!?!" Everything they were throwing was going to the people in the first row, which I expected...second row was gonna be way too far for them to throw, right?!
So after a stellar show, which included - my favorites - "Spin", "Hanging by a Moment", "You and Me", "First Time", "Broken", all FABULOUS live - I was deleting pictures off my camera for a brief second so that I could take one last picture of the guys, thinking they were just standing on stage and not doing anything while people applauded. Michael was thinking how much it would hurt to get hit by one of the drumsticks that they had just started throwing into the crowd. All of a sudden, something bumps my right arm and falls, and I figure someone's purse was on the back of my chair and it would be good if I picked it up and gave it back to them. Reach down - pick up something - OMG it's a drumstick!!!!!!! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT.
Had the guys, perhaps, seen me dancing around and screaming, and decided to toss something at the rabidly fanatic girl in the second row?! Had they remembered me somehow from a few years ago at Ann Arbor Borders, when I got a CD and picture signed by them, talked to Bryce for a couple minutes, and actually had a picture taken by the radio station of me talking to them posted on Ann Arbor's 107.1 website?! Or had someone just had a desire to show off their really good throwing arm and completely random aim?!
Didn't have much time to contemplate this, cuz all of a sudden a girl a few seats down was really vehemently trying to get me to sell her the drumstick.
"I'm sorry - I'm a huge fan, and I'm keeping this."
"BUT I'M A DRUMMER!!!"
Look, I get why you want it, I'd want it too if I were you, but you don't understand what a die-hard fan you're dealing with. IT'S MINE. I'M KEEPING IT! ;-) lol Sure, I'll hold it between us so you can have your picture taken with it, but I don't trust you enough to let you take it AND GIVE IT BACK TO ME after your picture's taken with it alone. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean you're not out to run off with it, lol. :-P
After escaping with drumstick and boyfriend in tow, we headed over to a pub down the street to eat. Beer sounded very good - but since we'd eaten (a very small amount) for the first time all day at like 2:45 and it was now 11:00, we were ravenous and slightly light-headed and slightly wired and made kinda tipsy off, like, one cider. :-P
If you think Ann Arbor's parking is bad - Toronto's is INTRINSICALLY EVIL. $20 to park here, $3o to park there, and sparsely available at even these exorbitant prices! :-P A Holiday Inn wanted $249 for one night of sleep, and we were so not paying that...back in the car for the tired and confused Americans at 1am. Finally ended up staying at a Holiday Inn Express in what we discovered to be a slightly ghetto area for a much lesser but still steep price. The confused Americans were slight novelties in this vacant sleeper of a land, but at least our money was not. We made our way out of the strangeness of Canada the next day after lunch, thanking our lucky stars and Bitch that we'd succeeded in our endeavors and been able to escape back to the US after a truly awesome concert and time :-D Time she flies when spending five hours in the car....or any time anywhere, really...with Michael :)
Two days left in my last week of freedom before my adult internship starts on Monday!!! I can't believe my month off has FLOWN like it has. I feel like I've barely had a week off - but yet I've done so much, from traveling all over God's green earth to school stuff to job stuff and everything in between...so it's time to start this next internship soon and see what it's like treating adults with aphasia! Fun times ahead, as ever :) Congrats to all recent grads - keep in touch!!!
Question for either those who took the test or those who just have crazily extensive SLP knowledge: what the crap was the deal with that last question, about the critical period for development of the hard palate in the womb?!!? Does anybody know the answer or even why that would be important to know?! I completely guessed, rationalizing that something like the hard palate would develop late since babies have to develop things like limbs and organs first....so I picked E, which was the latest of the choices. I was totally cool with all the questions....and then there was THAT one :-P
So after the Praxis came walking in EMU graduation! The "moment on stage" we all had when our names were called one-by-one was pretty cool, and it was really neat to have Mom, Dad, and Michael there to see it :-D I can't believe I'm two and a half months from graduating! My last day at the next internship will be something like July 11, and after that I have no classes or anything. There's not even a summer graduation ceremony - so after July 11, that's it for me! Which will bring me into job-land....somewhere....oh, sheesh. :-O Scary thought right now! I've applied to some interesting places over the past couple days, though, and would honestly be happy with any of the jobs I've put in my app for. We'll see what happens....
My reward for extensive Praxis-ness came on Tuesday, when Michael and I went to Toronto for a Lifehouse concert!!! Normally we would not have ended up needing to go all the way to Toronto, but there was a snowstorm the day of the Pontiac conccert and so it was too dangerous to go....which made me incredibly sad, but then Mom surprised me on my birthday with second row tickets to the Toronto concert!!!
Toronto is a funny place. As I noted to Michael, they can't have any "State Street"s like nearly every city in the US does, cuz they don't have states, they have provinces! :-P To compensate for this lack-of-a-US-relevant-street-name, though, they have about a million "Queen Street"s. Including one called "Queen Elizabeth Way," also known as "The QEW." Which I think is supposed to be pronounced "The Q." But really - can you look at "QEW" and pronounce it simply as "Q" in good conscience?! There is so much going on with that spelling - QEW is not a valid Scrabble word, even! As a result of the supremely bizarre spelling and my own slap-happy-ness at being in the car for four hours and counting at that point, I took to calling this highway "The Ky-oo" with the "oo" pronounced like the "oo" in "book." SLPs, you know the phonetic symbol I'm talking about, lol. The Ky-oo is a very cool highway, though, and you can see a good bit of Toronto from it!
We made it into Toronto (with the help of my GPS, which is rather affectionately known to us as "Bitch" but that is a completely separate story) and to the Danforth Music Hall in the middle of the first opening band, which was not terribly stellar so that was okay. I bought a Lifehouse tour shirt before we went in, figuring that would be my awesome souvenir of the concert! The second opening act was a guy named Matt Nathanson, who was remarkable not for his not-bad-just-music, but for his on-stage performance and side comments. The guy was hilarious!! He should open for Lifehouse more often, cuz usually Lifehouse's opening acts are rather amazing.....-ly horrendous. :-P
After a little bit of shifting with the seats - okay, so when there is an "18" on the arm of a seat and a triangle pointing right, wouldn't you think the seat on the right is #18? Apparently that triangle was just decorative, lol, but whatever....the people we needed to move over one seat for were very nice :) - we settled in and ended up standing during the show. My coat and purse were on the seat, my camera was in the shirt pocket of my jogging suit, and I was dancing around in front of my seat like the obsessive fan I am...lol I was also committing serious vocal abuse by screaming/cheering my head off (apologies to Prof. Haxer for that one, lol) I am such a speech path nerd...but anyway, as long as Lifehouse doesn't come in concert every week (***which I would not mind in the slightest - just sayin'!!!!) I should not be in danger of nodules or anything, lol. I got a ton of pictures, which aren't the clearest because of the lighting in the theater, but they're on Facebook anyway :)
Lifehouse always puts on the absolute greatest show!!!!!!!! :-D :-D Though the sound system was not the absolute best I've ever heard them have, it was still quite good and the guys were awesome!!!!! They were throwing towels they'd used into the audience at the beginning of the show, and I was thinking "Okay, what would I or anyone do with a towel, seriously?!?!?!" Everything they were throwing was going to the people in the first row, which I expected...second row was gonna be way too far for them to throw, right?!
So after a stellar show, which included - my favorites - "Spin", "Hanging by a Moment", "You and Me", "First Time", "Broken", all FABULOUS live - I was deleting pictures off my camera for a brief second so that I could take one last picture of the guys, thinking they were just standing on stage and not doing anything while people applauded. Michael was thinking how much it would hurt to get hit by one of the drumsticks that they had just started throwing into the crowd. All of a sudden, something bumps my right arm and falls, and I figure someone's purse was on the back of my chair and it would be good if I picked it up and gave it back to them. Reach down - pick up something - OMG it's a drumstick!!!!!!! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT.
Had the guys, perhaps, seen me dancing around and screaming, and decided to toss something at the rabidly fanatic girl in the second row?! Had they remembered me somehow from a few years ago at Ann Arbor Borders, when I got a CD and picture signed by them, talked to Bryce for a couple minutes, and actually had a picture taken by the radio station of me talking to them posted on Ann Arbor's 107.1 website?! Or had someone just had a desire to show off their really good throwing arm and completely random aim?!
Didn't have much time to contemplate this, cuz all of a sudden a girl a few seats down was really vehemently trying to get me to sell her the drumstick.
"I'm sorry - I'm a huge fan, and I'm keeping this."
"BUT I'M A DRUMMER!!!"
Look, I get why you want it, I'd want it too if I were you, but you don't understand what a die-hard fan you're dealing with. IT'S MINE. I'M KEEPING IT! ;-) lol Sure, I'll hold it between us so you can have your picture taken with it, but I don't trust you enough to let you take it AND GIVE IT BACK TO ME after your picture's taken with it alone. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean you're not out to run off with it, lol. :-P
After escaping with drumstick and boyfriend in tow, we headed over to a pub down the street to eat. Beer sounded very good - but since we'd eaten (a very small amount) for the first time all day at like 2:45 and it was now 11:00, we were ravenous and slightly light-headed and slightly wired and made kinda tipsy off, like, one cider. :-P
If you think Ann Arbor's parking is bad - Toronto's is INTRINSICALLY EVIL. $20 to park here, $3o to park there, and sparsely available at even these exorbitant prices! :-P A Holiday Inn wanted $249 for one night of sleep, and we were so not paying that...back in the car for the tired and confused Americans at 1am. Finally ended up staying at a Holiday Inn Express in what we discovered to be a slightly ghetto area for a much lesser but still steep price. The confused Americans were slight novelties in this vacant sleeper of a land, but at least our money was not. We made our way out of the strangeness of Canada the next day after lunch, thanking our lucky stars and Bitch that we'd succeeded in our endeavors and been able to escape back to the US after a truly awesome concert and time :-D Time she flies when spending five hours in the car....or any time anywhere, really...with Michael :)
Two days left in my last week of freedom before my adult internship starts on Monday!!! I can't believe my month off has FLOWN like it has. I feel like I've barely had a week off - but yet I've done so much, from traveling all over God's green earth to school stuff to job stuff and everything in between...so it's time to start this next internship soon and see what it's like treating adults with aphasia! Fun times ahead, as ever :) Congrats to all recent grads - keep in touch!!!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
DC awesomeness!!! :)
Charleston, WV: ....THAT'S a place to visit?!?! wouldn't want to live there.
Washington, DC: very cool place to visit!!!! no one would ever see me again if I lived there!!!! because I'd get lost and die!!!!!! :-P
Philadelphia, PA: go to Damon's Seafood Grill if you visit, cuz that's about everything cool we found to do. um, I think I'd die if I lived there, too. Like, from getting shot.
Michael and I have caught a bit of the travel bug of late. Weekend before last we went to Charleston, WV for a Scrabble tournament, and were somewhat disappointed by the city. Lesson learned: we are not meant to be West Virginians!!! :-P lol Found one pretty cool restaurant - and - well - nothing cool to DO in the city, except a mall which advertised via many signs its methods to try to get rid of its gang problems. Er.....right.
Washington, DC was next for us! Just got back last night from a truly awesome trip. I honestly do not believe I could ever live in a city where "we're on Connecticut Avenue! except --- now Connecticut's over there! keep walking straight...and now you're on 28th Street! There's 1799 right there, there's 1801, there's 1802...but WHERE THE CRAP is 1800?!?!!?"
To visit, though, DC was wonderful! We got in on Friday and hung out with Soumya, which was fun - haha, always amusing to cross paths with a friend in a place that is native to neither one of you ;-) We saw Michael's favorite political singing-comedy group, the Capitol Steps, in a completely random fortunate alignment of events. (Michael, I just realized we never ended up getting you that sandwich you wanted from Quick Pita :-P)
Saturday involved walking, walking, more walking, seeing monuments, hanging out with Michael's friend from undergrad, visiting American University (where Michael went to undergrad), and having a very good and very humorous pizza dinner at a place on campus. It was so much fun finally meeting Patricia! After a day of walks-that-were-two-miles-longer-than-necessary-because-DC-is-confusing-and-even-people-who've-lived-there-for-four-years-get-confused-which-reinforces-the-fact-that-I-WOULD-DIE-if-I-were-to, my feet were about to fall off, and we completely conked out when we got back to our hotel (the Renaissance Mayflower). Felt a tad irreverent earlier in the day noting that one of the Vietnam War veterans had a full name consisting of two valid but unusual Scrabble words. Ah, well, the brain of a Scrabble nerd never quite does turn off... ;-)
Sunday I got to see where Michael lived during his senior year in college - Friendship Heights: hokey name for cute little random suburb of DC. Had lunch with his landlady, who apparently felt it her duty to inform me what a nice person Michael is (really?!?!?! okay, good, cuz after dating him for nearly two years I hadn't figured that one out yet)....lol lol j/k We saw the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and had dinner with Patricia at Cheesecake Factory (LOVELOVELOVELOVECHEESECAKEFACTORY :) Then Michael and I went around to the Lincoln and WWII monuments at night - so pretty!!!
Monday was definitely up there in favorite days of them all, though. Michael and I went over to Mt. Rainier, MD and saw Nate! It was an intricate maneuver of bus and Metro to get there, one that I am forever grateful to Michael for figuring out :) We took Nate to lunch at Maggiano's in Friendship Heights, and ordered family style so that once we'd eaten we could send Nate back to his novitiate house with a ton of leftovers. Four-plus hours flew by for us all - it was just great hanging out with Nate, seeing that he was okay and liking what he was doing, etc.
I must admit I had been worried - I know he followed his calling, but hearing that my friend was going off to a place where they beg for food on the streets of DC and that some priests get sent off to Africa missionary work kinda freaked me out. I've never had siblings but have always felt kind of big-sister-protective when it comes to Nate, so it was just good to see that my "little brother" is doing okay. Same old Nate, same sense of humor. :-D He looks healthy and actually said that his inability to eat sugar somehow corrected itself over this past summer, which is good - so it's not like he's at a place where he can't eat the food that they obtain through donations and begging! He feels like he's really where he's been called to be, too, which is important.
Got back from DC last night - but the events and busy-ness do not stop! The EMU Spring Party for April and August graduates is this Friday, as is Grand Rounds, and I take my Praxis the weekend after next. Really have to start studying for that, lol!!! Not terribly worried - but I know I do actually need to refresh my memory on things like voice and anatomy.
And with that - time to keep going on this week's busy-ness! Hope all is well for everyone!
Washington, DC: very cool place to visit!!!! no one would ever see me again if I lived there!!!! because I'd get lost and die!!!!!! :-P
Philadelphia, PA: go to Damon's Seafood Grill if you visit, cuz that's about everything cool we found to do. um, I think I'd die if I lived there, too. Like, from getting shot.
Michael and I have caught a bit of the travel bug of late. Weekend before last we went to Charleston, WV for a Scrabble tournament, and were somewhat disappointed by the city. Lesson learned: we are not meant to be West Virginians!!! :-P lol Found one pretty cool restaurant - and - well - nothing cool to DO in the city, except a mall which advertised via many signs its methods to try to get rid of its gang problems. Er.....right.
Washington, DC was next for us! Just got back last night from a truly awesome trip. I honestly do not believe I could ever live in a city where "we're on Connecticut Avenue! except --- now Connecticut's over there! keep walking straight...and now you're on 28th Street! There's 1799 right there, there's 1801, there's 1802...but WHERE THE CRAP is 1800?!?!!?"
To visit, though, DC was wonderful! We got in on Friday and hung out with Soumya, which was fun - haha, always amusing to cross paths with a friend in a place that is native to neither one of you ;-) We saw Michael's favorite political singing-comedy group, the Capitol Steps, in a completely random fortunate alignment of events. (Michael, I just realized we never ended up getting you that sandwich you wanted from Quick Pita :-P)
Saturday involved walking, walking, more walking, seeing monuments, hanging out with Michael's friend from undergrad, visiting American University (where Michael went to undergrad), and having a very good and very humorous pizza dinner at a place on campus. It was so much fun finally meeting Patricia! After a day of walks-that-were-two-miles-longer-than-necessary-because-DC-is-confusing-and-even-people-who've-lived-there-for-four-years-get-confused-which-reinforces-the-fact-that-I-WOULD-DIE-if-I-were-to, my feet were about to fall off, and we completely conked out when we got back to our hotel (the Renaissance Mayflower). Felt a tad irreverent earlier in the day noting that one of the Vietnam War veterans had a full name consisting of two valid but unusual Scrabble words. Ah, well, the brain of a Scrabble nerd never quite does turn off... ;-)
Sunday I got to see where Michael lived during his senior year in college - Friendship Heights: hokey name for cute little random suburb of DC. Had lunch with his landlady, who apparently felt it her duty to inform me what a nice person Michael is (really?!?!?! okay, good, cuz after dating him for nearly two years I hadn't figured that one out yet)....lol lol j/k We saw the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and had dinner with Patricia at Cheesecake Factory (LOVELOVELOVELOVECHEESECAKEFACTORY :) Then Michael and I went around to the Lincoln and WWII monuments at night - so pretty!!!
Monday was definitely up there in favorite days of them all, though. Michael and I went over to Mt. Rainier, MD and saw Nate! It was an intricate maneuver of bus and Metro to get there, one that I am forever grateful to Michael for figuring out :) We took Nate to lunch at Maggiano's in Friendship Heights, and ordered family style so that once we'd eaten we could send Nate back to his novitiate house with a ton of leftovers. Four-plus hours flew by for us all - it was just great hanging out with Nate, seeing that he was okay and liking what he was doing, etc.
I must admit I had been worried - I know he followed his calling, but hearing that my friend was going off to a place where they beg for food on the streets of DC and that some priests get sent off to Africa missionary work kinda freaked me out. I've never had siblings but have always felt kind of big-sister-protective when it comes to Nate, so it was just good to see that my "little brother" is doing okay. Same old Nate, same sense of humor. :-D He looks healthy and actually said that his inability to eat sugar somehow corrected itself over this past summer, which is good - so it's not like he's at a place where he can't eat the food that they obtain through donations and begging! He feels like he's really where he's been called to be, too, which is important.
Got back from DC last night - but the events and busy-ness do not stop! The EMU Spring Party for April and August graduates is this Friday, as is Grand Rounds, and I take my Praxis the weekend after next. Really have to start studying for that, lol!!! Not terribly worried - but I know I do actually need to refresh my memory on things like voice and anatomy.
And with that - time to keep going on this week's busy-ness! Hope all is well for everyone!
Friday, February 1, 2008
"Now tell me that in a good sentence....."
....I say, attempting to get one of my clients to communicate non-telegraphically or with good grammar. One little guy knows the cues I give him so well that I only need to look at him skeptically for him to realize he needs to fix his sentence.
Another little guy will randomly hop up on my lap while I'm trying to get him to produce "baba" or "teetee."
There's the girl who told me a story that helped me figure out why her impairments are the way they are...and she's moved on to talking about why it is the teachers perceive her as antisocial with her peers, when I think she's one of the sweetest girls ever.
And the boy who's motivated by getting a hug every time he gets an answer correct.
And the girl whose way of communicating "yes" is to suddenly light up with the hugest, cutest smile.
And the rowdy boys who have the craziest, funniest facial expressions in the world.
And the adorable little girl who looked absolutely horrified when, concentrating on her "sh" sound, she very determinedly said "sh - SHIT!" instead of "shirt."
I LOVE MY JOB. :-D :-D :-D
How could you not love a job during which you're talking to a kid and after you say "Wow, you're lucky, I didn't get an iPod for my birthday when I was your age!" they say "Well....that's because the iPod wasn't really invented in YOUR time." :-D
Seriously...getting up at 7 still feels early to me. (Which is surprising, because as you just read, I'm SO incredibly OLD! ;-) But I don't really care because the kids, the school, the people are all awesome and I really, really do love my job.
I've even found a new possible area of interest for my PhD if I do end up getting it: word-finding deficits in children. My hopefully-future-mentor at UI deals with this, and I have a client who displays this and a myriad of other impairments...she fascinated me, she continues to do so, and through that I've found that the area itself is really intriguing to me. :) I'm so excited to learn more!
I've started throwing applications out into the wild blue yonder of speech path employers, too. That is kind of scary - sometimes I feel I'm not quite adult enough to BE an adult yet and to have a job and be off on my own. I've been a student all my life, and this change will be - strange, although expected and normal. :) And others have done it before me, survived even ---- so, then, shall I. Change has just always been, for me, exciting but also quite scary at the same time.
Anyone have any stories to share with me about finally making the break with the world of academia for good? Was it seriously odd for a while? Did you feel up to the job expectations? Was it a welcome, unwelcome, or just different change after everything was said and done?
I'm really excited - Michael and I will be heading out to Washington, DC in April, so I'll get to see Nate (hopefully, if he's free!) and meet Michael's friend from undergrad and see where he went to school and have some new memories of DC as opposed to those weird hormonal-and-cranky-eighth-grade-girls-on-a-bus-at-6-am ones, hurray! lol I'll also be going out to Iowa again in the summer and to New Jersey in late July for the Moebius Syndrome Conference.
There's also a Lifehouse concert the weekend of Easter, on that Friday! That's right before my birthday - and that's another thing I'm super-excited about. In my book, there is seriously no better concert than Lifehouse, lol, and I hope they come to Ann Arbor Borders too. My internship will end right after the Easter break, on April 1, and I know I'll really miss the kids.
But I'll have to buckle down and get other parts of life going - cuz I'll take the Praxis test, which is the qualifying test to be an SLP, on April 26! Eek. I hope that goes well! I know I need to study voice and anatomy more especially. Ask me anything about the cranial nerves, please, please - but do NOT try to get me to regurgitate what the cricothyroid muscle does. At least not right now. I vow to be golden on all that come late April.
Heading to the Gandy Dancer tonight for dinner with Michael - oh my goodness, I don't think I've been there since high school. Should be fun...can't wait to see Michael, as it's been like five days and that is a long time for us :-P lol Am very excited that he's definitely coming to visit me on Valentine's Day this year! Last year was our first Valentine's Day, but there was an evil snowstorm and he had a meeting anyway and it was just a non-convenient day...this one, though, is a for-sure and we have dinner reservations at a cute nice restaurant we haven't been to and I was just online-shopping for presents for him and I'm all happy. :)
Gotta run, but hope all is well with everyone :) Bye!
Another little guy will randomly hop up on my lap while I'm trying to get him to produce "baba" or "teetee."
There's the girl who told me a story that helped me figure out why her impairments are the way they are...and she's moved on to talking about why it is the teachers perceive her as antisocial with her peers, when I think she's one of the sweetest girls ever.
And the boy who's motivated by getting a hug every time he gets an answer correct.
And the girl whose way of communicating "yes" is to suddenly light up with the hugest, cutest smile.
And the rowdy boys who have the craziest, funniest facial expressions in the world.
And the adorable little girl who looked absolutely horrified when, concentrating on her "sh" sound, she very determinedly said "sh - SHIT!" instead of "shirt."
I LOVE MY JOB. :-D :-D :-D
How could you not love a job during which you're talking to a kid and after you say "Wow, you're lucky, I didn't get an iPod for my birthday when I was your age!" they say "Well....that's because the iPod wasn't really invented in YOUR time." :-D
Seriously...getting up at 7 still feels early to me. (Which is surprising, because as you just read, I'm SO incredibly OLD! ;-) But I don't really care because the kids, the school, the people are all awesome and I really, really do love my job.
I've even found a new possible area of interest for my PhD if I do end up getting it: word-finding deficits in children. My hopefully-future-mentor at UI deals with this, and I have a client who displays this and a myriad of other impairments...she fascinated me, she continues to do so, and through that I've found that the area itself is really intriguing to me. :) I'm so excited to learn more!
I've started throwing applications out into the wild blue yonder of speech path employers, too. That is kind of scary - sometimes I feel I'm not quite adult enough to BE an adult yet and to have a job and be off on my own. I've been a student all my life, and this change will be - strange, although expected and normal. :) And others have done it before me, survived even ---- so, then, shall I. Change has just always been, for me, exciting but also quite scary at the same time.
Anyone have any stories to share with me about finally making the break with the world of academia for good? Was it seriously odd for a while? Did you feel up to the job expectations? Was it a welcome, unwelcome, or just different change after everything was said and done?
I'm really excited - Michael and I will be heading out to Washington, DC in April, so I'll get to see Nate (hopefully, if he's free!) and meet Michael's friend from undergrad and see where he went to school and have some new memories of DC as opposed to those weird hormonal-and-cranky-eighth-grade-girls-on-a-bus-at-6-am ones, hurray! lol I'll also be going out to Iowa again in the summer and to New Jersey in late July for the Moebius Syndrome Conference.
There's also a Lifehouse concert the weekend of Easter, on that Friday! That's right before my birthday - and that's another thing I'm super-excited about. In my book, there is seriously no better concert than Lifehouse, lol, and I hope they come to Ann Arbor Borders too. My internship will end right after the Easter break, on April 1, and I know I'll really miss the kids.
But I'll have to buckle down and get other parts of life going - cuz I'll take the Praxis test, which is the qualifying test to be an SLP, on April 26! Eek. I hope that goes well! I know I need to study voice and anatomy more especially. Ask me anything about the cranial nerves, please, please - but do NOT try to get me to regurgitate what the cricothyroid muscle does. At least not right now. I vow to be golden on all that come late April.
Heading to the Gandy Dancer tonight for dinner with Michael - oh my goodness, I don't think I've been there since high school. Should be fun...can't wait to see Michael, as it's been like five days and that is a long time for us :-P lol Am very excited that he's definitely coming to visit me on Valentine's Day this year! Last year was our first Valentine's Day, but there was an evil snowstorm and he had a meeting anyway and it was just a non-convenient day...this one, though, is a for-sure and we have dinner reservations at a cute nice restaurant we haven't been to and I was just online-shopping for presents for him and I'm all happy. :)
Gotta run, but hope all is well with everyone :) Bye!
Friday, December 21, 2007
Scrabble babble
By now, if you read my blog, you know the nerdy habit I am extremely proud of and will boast to the world if not stopped: I play competitive Scrabble. Michael does too. This is a crazily fun pastime, both because it unleashes the competitive bug in me that hasn't seen the light of day since middle school spelling bees, and because I'm actually okay at it. Middle-of-last-division okay, but the people in the last division and a few from the one above it know who I am. Some even think I'm pretty cool - the grad student who just got into Scrabble and is sort of slowly rising through the standings at the pace of a snail who accidentally digested half a dose of speed.
This is okay with me. I like being known. I like name notoriety. I like knowing that I'm the young kid - often among the three or four youngest at a tournament - who is doing comparatively well with some of these middle-aged men and women who have been playing Scrabble competitively for years. I like when my rating slowly, steadily rises so that I see happy numbers every time but also I'm not expected to do THAT well because my rating still is not stellar. The last tournament wasn't my greatest - I won half my games but my rating dropped by 2 points - but that's okay; I've risen by 45 and 23 points after my second and third tournaments, respectively, so I'm not terribly sad.
The problem is this: some tournaments are big. Yay, more players! I like having a big field of nice people who actually become acquaintances and sometimes friends, at least in the Scrabble world. I enjoyed talking to a 15-year old I met in a past tournament. A woman I met last time who'd been to tournaments before but who had this one as her first in many years was incredibly friendly to me. Others are smiley, happy, and welcoming (with the occasional one who's not terribly pleased after you unexpectedly beat them, but you'll have that...)
But in any case: some tournaments are big. This means that there are a lot of players; this also means that there are numerous divisions. Say you have twenty players signed up for a tournament. There might be three divisions: top six players in Division 1, next seven in Division 2, next seven in Division 3. If you have thirty two players, there might need to be another division - so there'd be eight players each in Divisions 1-4.
But the Farmington tournament tomorrow?! That, my readers (whoever and how many ever you may be), has 40 registered players. Which means there are FIVE divisions - eight people per division. Because I have risen somewhat in ranking over the course of four tournaments, that puts me - the rookie, the newbie, the wouldn't-know-a-strategy-if-it-ran-me-over-with-a-semi one, as fourth seed in the last division.
On one hand: I'm fourth from the bottom, ranked 36 out of 40 here. What sort of pressure does that put on me for ANYTHING in the least?! On the other hand: I'm competing against only the other seven in Division 5, and against that field, I am expected to win four games out of my seven. I have never gone 4-3 (four wins, 3 losses) at a tournament in my life. But I have to tomorrow, to keep my rating where it is. I know I can beat a lot of the people here - because I HAVE beaten three, have never played two, and have narrowly lost to two - but there are two I'm especially nervous about. One woman I have never beat although I've played her twice, and one woman who will certainly be out for my blood tomorrow since I unexpectedly pulled one out against her at the last tournament (she had no losses up until that point - I was kind of proud of myself, lol)
Granted, that puts me still hypothetically at 5-2 even if I do lose to those two. Which would place me quite happily somewhere near the top of this division and would ensure my rating would go up. But I'd only have a grace of one game of the remaining five that I could unexpectedly falter on and still have a good performance at the tournament.
This puts me in study mode today. When in doubt today, I am studying my Scrabble words. There is so much I don't know, and so much I am determined to learn before tomorrow, so that I can take the field by storm and maybe, maybe, maybe, even win it all?! It's possible, but only if I severely buckle down today. So - I shall.
I do, however, understand that my life does not depend on this Scrabble tournament. I am not irrationally stressed about it, nor am I obsessing about the different outcomes possible for tomorrow. I am just a competitive little bugger who will wake up at 7 to spend her Saturday looking at tiles with people mostly 20-40 years older than she is....but who also thrives on these sort of within-my-reach stakes! And I shall put my best effort forth at this tournament tomorrow. Wish me luck!
To make use of some of my newfound vocabulary:
PAX (Latin form of the word peace) and XU (Vietnamese money) to all in this holiday season ;-)
This is okay with me. I like being known. I like name notoriety. I like knowing that I'm the young kid - often among the three or four youngest at a tournament - who is doing comparatively well with some of these middle-aged men and women who have been playing Scrabble competitively for years. I like when my rating slowly, steadily rises so that I see happy numbers every time but also I'm not expected to do THAT well because my rating still is not stellar. The last tournament wasn't my greatest - I won half my games but my rating dropped by 2 points - but that's okay; I've risen by 45 and 23 points after my second and third tournaments, respectively, so I'm not terribly sad.
The problem is this: some tournaments are big. Yay, more players! I like having a big field of nice people who actually become acquaintances and sometimes friends, at least in the Scrabble world. I enjoyed talking to a 15-year old I met in a past tournament. A woman I met last time who'd been to tournaments before but who had this one as her first in many years was incredibly friendly to me. Others are smiley, happy, and welcoming (with the occasional one who's not terribly pleased after you unexpectedly beat them, but you'll have that...)
But in any case: some tournaments are big. This means that there are a lot of players; this also means that there are numerous divisions. Say you have twenty players signed up for a tournament. There might be three divisions: top six players in Division 1, next seven in Division 2, next seven in Division 3. If you have thirty two players, there might need to be another division - so there'd be eight players each in Divisions 1-4.
But the Farmington tournament tomorrow?! That, my readers (whoever and how many ever you may be), has 40 registered players. Which means there are FIVE divisions - eight people per division. Because I have risen somewhat in ranking over the course of four tournaments, that puts me - the rookie, the newbie, the wouldn't-know-a-strategy-if-it-ran-me-over-with-a-semi one, as fourth seed in the last division.
On one hand: I'm fourth from the bottom, ranked 36 out of 40 here. What sort of pressure does that put on me for ANYTHING in the least?! On the other hand: I'm competing against only the other seven in Division 5, and against that field, I am expected to win four games out of my seven. I have never gone 4-3 (four wins, 3 losses) at a tournament in my life. But I have to tomorrow, to keep my rating where it is. I know I can beat a lot of the people here - because I HAVE beaten three, have never played two, and have narrowly lost to two - but there are two I'm especially nervous about. One woman I have never beat although I've played her twice, and one woman who will certainly be out for my blood tomorrow since I unexpectedly pulled one out against her at the last tournament (she had no losses up until that point - I was kind of proud of myself, lol)
Granted, that puts me still hypothetically at 5-2 even if I do lose to those two. Which would place me quite happily somewhere near the top of this division and would ensure my rating would go up. But I'd only have a grace of one game of the remaining five that I could unexpectedly falter on and still have a good performance at the tournament.
This puts me in study mode today. When in doubt today, I am studying my Scrabble words. There is so much I don't know, and so much I am determined to learn before tomorrow, so that I can take the field by storm and maybe, maybe, maybe, even win it all?! It's possible, but only if I severely buckle down today. So - I shall.
I do, however, understand that my life does not depend on this Scrabble tournament. I am not irrationally stressed about it, nor am I obsessing about the different outcomes possible for tomorrow. I am just a competitive little bugger who will wake up at 7 to spend her Saturday looking at tiles with people mostly 20-40 years older than she is....but who also thrives on these sort of within-my-reach stakes! And I shall put my best effort forth at this tournament tomorrow. Wish me luck!
To make use of some of my newfound vocabulary:
PAX (Latin form of the word peace) and XU (Vietnamese money) to all in this holiday season ;-)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...
The last few weeks have been insane - a fitting end to the semester of madness! But I am finally done with everything!!! Friday was my last Clinic supervisor final meeting and my Neurogenics final, Friday night through Monday night (the extra day as the result of the snowstorm) were spent in Ohio with Michael, Tuesday all day was spent studying for my Aphasia final, Tuesday night was the actual final, and now I'm DONE with it all!!!!! It feels absolutely, unquestionably, extraordinarily INCREDIBLE to be done with it all.
I'll be extremely busy over Christmas break - as ever - but it will be wonderful because nothing I do will be tied to schoolwork! Tonight I'm going out with Liz, Thomas, and possibly Jeeyoung and/or others, then tomorrow will be going to the gym followed by out with Apryl, and Friday Michael will be here for the weekend in A2....and a Scrabble tournament in Farmington on Saturday....and we have to go shopping for presents for his family...then we start the Christmas fun stuff! Back and forth between Port Clinton and A2 from the 24th to the 27th or so, Soumya's birthday party on the 29th, possible New Year's festivities at/around the apartment on New Year's Eve, getting out to Troy to see Tanya and possibly Rohin somewhere in there, then Cassandra visits and I start my public school internship. Woo hoo - fun stuff! ;-D When do I actually get to do stuff like researching CFY jobs and planning study for the Praxis and looking around at PhD options?! We shall see - I am targeting tomorrow before the gym as a likely candidate, perhaps the only likely candidate before New Year's, even! lol
The wonderful thing is that I now feel as if I have my life back. I can actually do what I want when I want to, without worrying about schoolwork or needing to be here or there or check the clinic for paperwork revisions....I don't even need to set foot on EMU's campus next semester if I don't want to! :-D I can update this blog without feeling like I am seriously slacking - I can keep in touch with people and meet up with
What's everyone up to over Christmas?! Would love to get together with anyone who will be in or around A2....so drop me a comment or something if you wanna meet up!!!
As a closing note: Did anyone ever wonder what Cassandra, Apryl, Michael, or I would ever look like as elves? http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1469125973
(the link brought to you by my mother, who created this on a whim....and caused all four of us who've seen it so far to DIE laughing....)
Hope all is well with everyone! Off to the gym now, but have a great day!
I'll be extremely busy over Christmas break - as ever - but it will be wonderful because nothing I do will be tied to schoolwork! Tonight I'm going out with Liz, Thomas, and possibly Jeeyoung and/or others, then tomorrow will be going to the gym followed by out with Apryl, and Friday Michael will be here for the weekend in A2....and a Scrabble tournament in Farmington on Saturday....and we have to go shopping for presents for his family...then we start the Christmas fun stuff! Back and forth between Port Clinton and A2 from the 24th to the 27th or so, Soumya's birthday party on the 29th, possible New Year's festivities at/around the apartment on New Year's Eve, getting out to Troy to see Tanya and possibly Rohin somewhere in there, then Cassandra visits and I start my public school internship. Woo hoo - fun stuff! ;-D When do I actually get to do stuff like researching CFY jobs and planning study for the Praxis and looking around at PhD options?! We shall see - I am targeting tomorrow before the gym as a likely candidate, perhaps the only likely candidate before New Year's, even! lol
The wonderful thing is that I now feel as if I have my life back. I can actually do what I want when I want to, without worrying about schoolwork or needing to be here or there or check the clinic for paperwork revisions....I don't even need to set foot on EMU's campus next semester if I don't want to! :-D I can update this blog without feeling like I am seriously slacking - I can keep in touch with people and meet up with
What's everyone up to over Christmas?! Would love to get together with anyone who will be in or around A2....so drop me a comment or something if you wanna meet up!!!
As a closing note: Did anyone ever wonder what Cassandra, Apryl, Michael, or I would ever look like as elves? http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1469125973
(the link brought to you by my mother, who created this on a whim....and caused all four of us who've seen it so far to DIE laughing....)
Hope all is well with everyone! Off to the gym now, but have a great day!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A mid-finals update on life (AKA, The Monster that Ate My Weekend)
Okay, I haven't updated this thing in forever! Time to return to our previously scheduled programming after a month-long interlude of commercials featuring "third draft", "let's discuss", "think about ___", "check file", and "now WHY haven't you all started that aphasia project yet?!!?" Yes - the end of clinic turned into the end of life as we Clinic 2's knew it for a month or so there. Treatment outcomes, SOAP notes, graphs, and end-of-semester self-evals were just about killin' us.
And then, of course, there was the ever-present Aphasia project and oral presentation. Oh, but you all are just doing Clinic 2 and a few classes...of course you have time to put together a 25+ page project!!! Sure, we all just have free time out the wazoo....
Well, several crazy-mad weeks later and after a weekend of constant work on what turned out to be a 50+ page Aphasia MONSTER that ate my weekend (preventing me from seeing Michael AT ALL but I'M. NOT. BITTER!!!!) I am finally feeling like things are calmer!
(Side note: the weekend was actually really fun in the times I wasn't working; got to hang out with Apryl a lot and go to the bar with her and hang out with Liz at the bar and go to Erin's really fun Christmas party....but I DESERVED all that after working so hard each day from morning to night! I suppose you could say the weekend was a mental health weekend...not that I needed to restore any, just that I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD ANY if I hadn't taken the mornings, afternoons and evenings to work and then gone out afterwards!!! hahaha)
Anyway, yeah, things are calmer. Never mind that I have a family conference and a final meeting with one supervisor both today, a final meeting with a supervisor and an exam both tomorrow, and an exam on Tuesday still left to go....it all feels like cake compared to what I just went through to finish up the Clinic paperwork and the Aphasia project. (And that's when you know you've been busy - when THAT schedule feels like nothing! lol)
And I am super, super, super-excited because I get to see Michael tomorrow!!! It will have been eleven days, which completely feels like eons. I am meeting him in Toledo at Franklin Park so that I can get some final Christmas shopping done if I have any time before he gets there (NO looking in my shopping bags if I have any when you get to me, hon! lol lol lol) and then we can go to the Beirut, which is possibly Michael's favorite restaurant on the face of the earth and is a place we have not been in eons! We'll decorate his tree over the weekend (yayyyyy Christmas trees!!!) and go out Saturday night to a new restaurant in Sandusky for 18 months wow...it so does not feel like we've been together that long!!!! we both keep mistakenly calling it six months, hahaha....
/end gush-fest
----brief interlude to give everyone reading this who's not Michael time to go throw up----
I am really excited about being done for good, though. That'll happen Tuesday after the Aphasia exam, and then all of us will go out somewhere to celebrate (I am SO taping the Biggest Loser finale and watching it the next day, hahaha) and I will feel like I actually have free time!!!
To do what, you ask?!
Let's see:
-figure out when to take the Praxis exam - I think the next available time is March??
-start studying for the Praxis
-figure out what jobs are out there that I could apply for starting in May so I have a job when I'm out in August
-work on research stuff
-get stuff settled for my public school internship (wherever that happens to be - I still don't know yet!!!)
-try to see if I can come up with a cool PhD area of interest so that I sound more together when talking to Karla and anyone else I might try to email as a backup plan
-talk to a few of these people who have clinical/research jobs to see if the PhD is even something that benefitted them/that I would want
-plan New Year's Eve party at my place and see who would want to come (any interest? email me!)
etc. etc. Some break, huh?! But at least I'll have TIME to do all this crap!!! lol
Gotta run off to EMU, but I will talk to you all later :) Have a great end of the semester!
And then, of course, there was the ever-present Aphasia project and oral presentation. Oh, but you all are just doing Clinic 2 and a few classes...of course you have time to put together a 25+ page project!!! Sure, we all just have free time out the wazoo....
Well, several crazy-mad weeks later and after a weekend of constant work on what turned out to be a 50+ page Aphasia MONSTER that ate my weekend (preventing me from seeing Michael AT ALL but I'M. NOT. BITTER!!!!) I am finally feeling like things are calmer!
(Side note: the weekend was actually really fun in the times I wasn't working; got to hang out with Apryl a lot and go to the bar with her and hang out with Liz at the bar and go to Erin's really fun Christmas party....but I DESERVED all that after working so hard each day from morning to night! I suppose you could say the weekend was a mental health weekend...not that I needed to restore any, just that I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD ANY if I hadn't taken the mornings, afternoons and evenings to work and then gone out afterwards!!! hahaha)
Anyway, yeah, things are calmer. Never mind that I have a family conference and a final meeting with one supervisor both today, a final meeting with a supervisor and an exam both tomorrow, and an exam on Tuesday still left to go....it all feels like cake compared to what I just went through to finish up the Clinic paperwork and the Aphasia project. (And that's when you know you've been busy - when THAT schedule feels like nothing! lol)
And I am super, super, super-excited because I get to see Michael tomorrow!!! It will have been eleven days, which completely feels like eons. I am meeting him in Toledo at Franklin Park so that I can get some final Christmas shopping done if I have any time before he gets there (NO looking in my shopping bags if I have any when you get to me, hon! lol lol lol) and then we can go to the Beirut, which is possibly Michael's favorite restaurant on the face of the earth and is a place we have not been in eons! We'll decorate his tree over the weekend (yayyyyy Christmas trees!!!) and go out Saturday night to a new restaurant in Sandusky for
/end gush-fest
----brief interlude to give everyone reading this who's not Michael time to go throw up----
I am really excited about being done for good, though. That'll happen Tuesday after the Aphasia exam, and then all of us will go out somewhere to celebrate (I am SO taping the Biggest Loser finale and watching it the next day, hahaha) and I will feel like I actually have free time!!!
To do what, you ask?!
Let's see:
-figure out when to take the Praxis exam - I think the next available time is March??
-start studying for the Praxis
-figure out what jobs are out there that I could apply for starting in May so I have a job when I'm out in August
-work on research stuff
-get stuff settled for my public school internship (wherever that happens to be - I still don't know yet!!!)
-try to see if I can come up with a cool PhD area of interest so that I sound more together when talking to Karla and anyone else I might try to email as a backup plan
-talk to a few of these people who have clinical/research jobs to see if the PhD is even something that benefitted them/that I would want
-plan New Year's Eve party at my place and see who would want to come (any interest? email me!)
etc. etc. Some break, huh?! But at least I'll have TIME to do all this crap!!! lol
Gotta run off to EMU, but I will talk to you all later :) Have a great end of the semester!
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