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!!!