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!!!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
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!
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