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 ;-)

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!

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!