Life's Insanity, and Other Musings

Turns out there is very little time that goes by without things going on. Not that this is bad - I really enjoy having a busy and eventful life!! - but it's just interesting to see the different times where I start thinking "Well, this week should be really calm!" and then find out that things still hop along and there are still not enough hours in the day during even those times.

Recently saw Chaim and Sunali when they came into town - coincidentally on the same day, but they didn't end up seeing each other, although I saw both of them. That was lots of fun! Went to Ashley's with Sunali and Michael, and met Chaim at the South U Starbucks.

Am headed to Chicago during the November 16 weekend, and have been invited by Nate to go to DC on the November 10 weekend when he and his fellow novices at the IVEs get their habits - I doubt I'll be able to go, but am going to run it by the Parental Forces That Be and just see if there's a shot I could make it.

Seven to eight more Tuesdays left in the semester - that is unbelievably exciting. I am NOT a huge fan of Tuesdays - and that's not a reflection of any one particular thing I do on Tuesdays, it's just a reflection of the fact that it seems that EVERYTHING I DO IS ON TUESDAYS. Literally, I'm at EMU from 8:30am-8:30pm. I am so ready to not have a 12-hr day anymore! One client's session may change from 9:30-10:30am to 10:30-11:30am, though, so that could give me - well, just an 11-hr day, lol - but I think it would be better. We will see what happens with that - client's family must talk to supervisor and arrange and then I will get the word as to if that will officially be changed.

Other than that - Michael and I went to our second ever Scrabble tournament this past weekend in Elyria, OH. It was two full days of Scrabble - fifteen games total - and was a total blast! I won five of the fifteen against a pretty darn good field (there were only four players, including Michael and me, whose ratings were under 900 - my rating was 740), so since my rating only put me in line to win 3 of the 15, my rating will go up by about 43 points. Yay! Michael saw one of the competitors I lost to some days later (who finished, like, third in the competition) and the guy said I'd really scared him; he thought I was going to win! I didn't, but I kept it really close, so I was proud. Another game that I lost was only by 4 points, and I kept it really really close against the guy who eventually won the tournament, too. Very proud of my performance - but I know I still have a ton of work to do on my game! I can do all the two-letter words in my sleep, but I need to be slightly more solid on the threes, and my fours and bingos need a bunch of solidifying, too. It'll be a fun process learning all these new words, though.

And we went to Cheesecake Factory after the tournament was over! I had Kahlua Cocoa Coffee cheesecake - it was reeeeeeeeeally good. :-D I loooooove Cheesecake Factory.

This weekend should be a lot of fun, too. I'm meeting Apryl for coffee tomorrow night, then on Friday Michael's coming and we're going grocery shopping and cooking together. We're hopefully meeting David for lunch on Saturday. For dinner Saturday night Michael and I are going to Gratzi because that's where we go every 10 weeks - and it has been 70 weeks since we met :-D Wow, how time flies! Saturday's also Sweetest Day - so it'll be cute and I'm excited. I wonder if there's anyone good at the comedy club below Seva on Saturday? We went to the comedy club and Gratzi on our first date, and we keep talking about re-creating that sometime..... Then on Sunday Michael and I are going to Wiard's Orchard to do the pumpkin picking, cider mill, hayride, corn maze, other-cool-stuff-to-do-right-before-Halloween thing. I'm excited about that too because I haven't been to Wiard's in eons!!!

I have a new background on my computer: an adorable picture of Lucy, the auction puppy most of you have heard me rave about, as a little teeny puppy! The family that won her sent Mom the picture, and Mom forwarded it on to me. Lucy is toooooo cuuuuute....makes me want a Golden Retriever puppy when I get older and into an apartment complex or something that will let me have a pet. But of course, who knows what life will hold for me - I can't start planning for a dog yet. :-P

Lord knows I can't even plan past the next year....who knows where I'll get a CF job?! The hope is Chicago, but life will plant me where it wants me to be. It's kinda scary knowing that I don't know where I'll be - that a little over two years from now I might be far far away in IOWA of all places - lol but Iowa City's awesome - but that's what life is; you can't always plan for it and you don't know what the future's going to hold when transition times like graduations and going into the work force are ahead. We shall see - but I'm going to try to make my life post-master's-program as conducive to making me happy as possible, in whatever form that ends up taking. How on earth did I get to be 23 and on the cusp of making major life decisions?! Time she flies.

In any case, I'm so totally putting off serious work that it's not even funny. I gotta get going - there's so much I have on my to-do list for today, and I haven't even crossed off one thing on it even though I've been doing stuff since 9:30am! lol

/end procrastination

Bye, everybody - have a great week!

Clarity in Columbus

As those who have Facebook know, I'm currently in Columbus, OH for the 2007 NATTAP/OCALI Conference, funded kindly by those wonderful people who give out the ASHA SPARC award (for those who don't understand the abbreviations: I'm at an autism conference funded by the money from a research award I got recently.)

The conference has truly been a fascinating experience. I came here wanting to find out more about autism, thinking I might do something related to it or to Asperger's or hyperlexia for a PhD topic over at Iowa when I (hopefully, if I decide to go for the PhD!) go there. I wasn't sure what exactly the conference would do for me.

Two days into it, I've gone to:
"intro to Asperger's"
"how to get typically developing preschoolers to interact with preschoolers who have autism"
"understanding the social framework of kids with autism"
"autism spectrum disorders and slp's: what asd training is needed for undergrads, grads, and professionals"
"autism and AAC"
"autism and ADHD: the connection and differences between the two"

and have learned loads that might help me in looking at past, present, and any potential future clients. But I won't bore anyone with random autism factoids. The major thing I learned from this conference is that I will not be doing an autism-related topic for my PhD. I know now from what I learned that what I had envisioned as a possible group of kids to work with for the rest of my life is not a group that exists under the spectrum, and the work that people do with kids who have autism - while eminently noble, laudable, and impressive - is not work I'd want to be doing for the rest of my life. A few clients, sure, but I'm not sure I'd want a full caseload of kids with autism.

This conclusion was somewhat surprising to me. I really expected to love the conference and be all fired up about autism and this and that. And while what I've learned is fascinating and invaluable - you won't find me specializing in ASD's in ten years.

In other news, despite a harrowing day this past Tuesday (the day I left for this conference - I've rarely been so stressed in my life as I was that day, but IT'S OVER!!!) life is going quite well. Things are moving forward, I'm getting some clarity and some leads as to where my life might go in the future, and I'm just very happy with everything :)

Well, time for me to run off - I've felt like I might be getting sick (stupid lack of sleep from 7am construction every morning!!!) lately and have been sleeping an absolute ton, so it's time for me to take advantage of my last night having absolutely nothing to wake me up at any point, and head to bed! 'Night, all!

I'm new, snazzy, and re-located!

So Blogspot is, I decided, just...cooler. The actual website is more fun-looking, and since I hadn't posted on my livejournal for about a month due to craziness in schedule and trying to do a million things at once, I decided this might be a good time to switch.

So.....reeeeeeead meeeeeeee!!! :) lol

New excitements in life include something that I just got home from: my visit to the speech pathology PhD program at the University of Iowa. I will post more about that later - there is so much to say! - but Michael is just about to arrive here, so I will have to depart quickly :)

Other than that, I am planning a visit to Chicago the last weekend of July, Thurs-Sun, to visit Cassandra and hopefully Sunali too :) I love Chicago! Next weekend is Art Fair and I am super-psyched to walk around.

My foot is still not entirely healed from twisting it on the Fourth - ouch! I can walk normally and everything, but occasionally there is minor pain which prevents me from thinking I'd be safe venturing over to the gym. This does not please me. I miss the gym and want desperately to return - yet if I will further injure myself, it's not a good idea! Sigh.

That's it for now - way more to come as I experiment with this funky new blog format. :) But hope everyone is having a great day - talk to you all later!