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!
Showing posts with label speech path. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speech path. Show all posts
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!!!
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!
Friday, November 2, 2007
Where has this semester gone?!!?!?
Sitting here at ERC-State Street, drinking cinnamon cider and hoping all the work I have to do will somehow complete itself!?!? I'm slightly tired and don't feel like working. But if I want to get anything done this weekend, it has to happen this morning or afternoon, or it won't happen. So I thought maybe making a blog entry - goofing off but still - sort of? - being productive? (forgive me if I delude myself) would get enough unwillingness to work out of my system that I'll be able to dive right into everything after I do this. That is the hope at least....
So it's November 2, surprisingly and scarily enough. The semester's almost over, and there's only about two more weeks till Thanksgiving break!!!! :) (wow - I so cannot wait!!!!!) Clinic is making me feel overworked and underpaid, despite the fact that, A) all the horrific paperwork-crunch-ness is over, and B) I'm not SUPPOSED to get paid! Except I sort of just was - in the middle of all that crazy applying-for-grad-assistantship-ness, I threw in my app for free money from EMU, and just got notified that I got a $500 scholarship! yay :)
Anyway. Clinic is going well. I'm not as attached to my clients this semester as I was to the little guy I had last semester, but the clients are interesting and since one of them is canceling sessions for two weeks soon to go on vacation, I'm gonna have time to go and observe my little guy from last sem! I am super-excited. :)))))
Super-curious to meet a certain miss A.'s new main man this weekend. ;-) Michael and I will have dinner with them at some point either Saturday or Sunday, then I'll get together with Jessica Saturday evening, and Michael and I will probably cook together tonight. Michael wasn't supposed to be here till Saturday night and I wasn't supposed to NEED to get work done right now, but he decided to skip going to the OSU game to come hang out with me, which I think is one of the sweetest things ever :))))) so of course I am re-arranging things a bit and making myself do more work sooner.
On November 16 I head off to Chicago!!!!!!! Two weeks!!!!!!!! I am so unbelievably excited to see Cassandra. :)
I need to do a lot of work on the PhD thing (what am I interested in now that autism's out?!!?) In some parallel universe could I ever see myself going the motor speech PhD route and doing Moebius???!! But then I wouldn't get to go to Iowa - which I kind of have my heart set on at this point if I do the PhD, although I'll apply elsewhere too - and I wouldn't get to work with Karla, who's awesome, and I wouldn't have a PhD topic that's terribly fundable and generalizable to a lot of other disorders. I think?
and where-the-cwap-am-I-gonna-get-my-C's? I wanna be in Chicago, but what kind of jobs are out there? Would I be better off somewhere else where there's a job more suited to what I want? I have less than a year now to decide this. Perhaps I will work on that all next weekend, after the Scrabble tournament in South Lyon.
Well, speaking of work, I'd better get back to mine. Hope everyone's as excited about the weekend as I am!!!!
So it's November 2, surprisingly and scarily enough. The semester's almost over, and there's only about two more weeks till Thanksgiving break!!!! :) (wow - I so cannot wait!!!!!) Clinic is making me feel overworked and underpaid, despite the fact that, A) all the horrific paperwork-crunch-ness is over, and B) I'm not SUPPOSED to get paid! Except I sort of just was - in the middle of all that crazy applying-for-grad-assistantship-ness, I threw in my app for free money from EMU, and just got notified that I got a $500 scholarship! yay :)
Anyway. Clinic is going well. I'm not as attached to my clients this semester as I was to the little guy I had last semester, but the clients are interesting and since one of them is canceling sessions for two weeks soon to go on vacation, I'm gonna have time to go and observe my little guy from last sem! I am super-excited. :)))))
Super-curious to meet a certain miss A.'s new main man this weekend. ;-) Michael and I will have dinner with them at some point either Saturday or Sunday, then I'll get together with Jessica Saturday evening, and Michael and I will probably cook together tonight. Michael wasn't supposed to be here till Saturday night and I wasn't supposed to NEED to get work done right now, but he decided to skip going to the OSU game to come hang out with me, which I think is one of the sweetest things ever :))))) so of course I am re-arranging things a bit and making myself do more work sooner.
On November 16 I head off to Chicago!!!!!!! Two weeks!!!!!!!! I am so unbelievably excited to see Cassandra. :)
I need to do a lot of work on the PhD thing (what am I interested in now that autism's out?!!?) In some parallel universe could I ever see myself going the motor speech PhD route and doing Moebius???!! But then I wouldn't get to go to Iowa - which I kind of have my heart set on at this point if I do the PhD, although I'll apply elsewhere too - and I wouldn't get to work with Karla, who's awesome, and I wouldn't have a PhD topic that's terribly fundable and generalizable to a lot of other disorders. I think?
and where-the-cwap-am-I-gonna-get-my-C's? I wanna be in Chicago, but what kind of jobs are out there? Would I be better off somewhere else where there's a job more suited to what I want? I have less than a year now to decide this. Perhaps I will work on that all next weekend, after the Scrabble tournament in South Lyon.
Well, speaking of work, I'd better get back to mine. Hope everyone's as excited about the weekend as I am!!!!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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!
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!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
And it begins....
Well, the craziness of a new semester has begun. Fun times have been had - I started Clinic 2, in which I get two clients, and have two other classes besides. The two classes' times and days were messed around with to no end when the new professors took over classes for the former prof after he seems to have disappeared. But luckily I was able to keep both classes because my schedule was open - others weren't so fortunate. There's not been much to do for either class thus far, but of course that's made up for by the mountains of paperwork that are Clinic. It doesn't quite feel like Clinic One times two because I'm way faster at everything now that Clinic 1 taught me more or less how to structure my paperwork...but it's a hoppin' party of wild and craziness nonetheless. :-P
I was correct in my suspicion of who one of my new clients would be, which makes me happy. Both my new clients are really interesting cases and it will be so much fun doing therapy with them this semester! I'm still figuring them both out, but hopefully I'll be up and running with solid therapy sessions soon, and for sure sooner than the about-a-month it took me last semester to get everything solidified with my then-client.
Got to see my little former client in the hall of the Clinic today. That seriously made my day! I had hoped to get that client back for this semester, but if I can't, at least I know now that I can go observe whenever I want because the session time is extraordinarily convenient. :))))))) And we're encouraged to observe other clinicians, anyway!
I'm kind of excited because I just structured some stuff with a professor of mine so that I can meet with her on a regular basis and really get going on some research stuff when the approval comes back from the necessary committee. There's apparently also another girl at EMU, who I haven't met yet, who my prof knows wants to do some research. If I could get in on that, I'd be thrilled! The more research projects I've got, the better - and since a few I thought I was going to be involved in haven't happened due to other people's time constraints, I'm excited to do stuff on my own - where only I am holding myself back in terms of time - and with people who also have the same idea of wanting to do a lot of research. Possible coolness there! I'm also doing a presentation in my professor's class (which I took a year ago and which spawned the paper from which my current research emerged) in mid-October. I'm excited about that too - my research topic is very close to my heart and I welcome a chance to share what I know with other people. I could talk forever on this topic, but I have a feeling I'll be kept to a half hour or so - boo! lol but I shall deal.
Today I get to see Apryl! I am very very excited. I have not seen her in forever!!!! Much to tell her, and I can't wait to hear her stories. I also need to go to the gym, do a lot of Clinic work, study my 3-letter-words if miracles happen and I have time (yeah, right - I have two hours or less as it is, probably :-P), and then Michael comes tonight. Fun times! But it's amusing how no day turns into an entirely-work day where I can just crank Clinic stuff out. I'm having way too much fun now to back out on any social thing, but I can't say I won't relish an entire day to work, if I ever get one, hahaha. A few days in November look like the most likely and soonest candidates for that. By that time, maybe I won't need a work day! lol But there's always stuff to do.
On that note - better get going so I can get some of that "stuff to do" done! But hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Saturday is Michael's and my first competitive Scrabble tournament in Battle Creek - wish us luck!!!
I was correct in my suspicion of who one of my new clients would be, which makes me happy. Both my new clients are really interesting cases and it will be so much fun doing therapy with them this semester! I'm still figuring them both out, but hopefully I'll be up and running with solid therapy sessions soon, and for sure sooner than the about-a-month it took me last semester to get everything solidified with my then-client.
Got to see my little former client in the hall of the Clinic today. That seriously made my day! I had hoped to get that client back for this semester, but if I can't, at least I know now that I can go observe whenever I want because the session time is extraordinarily convenient. :))))))) And we're encouraged to observe other clinicians, anyway!
I'm kind of excited because I just structured some stuff with a professor of mine so that I can meet with her on a regular basis and really get going on some research stuff when the approval comes back from the necessary committee. There's apparently also another girl at EMU, who I haven't met yet, who my prof knows wants to do some research. If I could get in on that, I'd be thrilled! The more research projects I've got, the better - and since a few I thought I was going to be involved in haven't happened due to other people's time constraints, I'm excited to do stuff on my own - where only I am holding myself back in terms of time - and with people who also have the same idea of wanting to do a lot of research. Possible coolness there! I'm also doing a presentation in my professor's class (which I took a year ago and which spawned the paper from which my current research emerged) in mid-October. I'm excited about that too - my research topic is very close to my heart and I welcome a chance to share what I know with other people. I could talk forever on this topic, but I have a feeling I'll be kept to a half hour or so - boo! lol but I shall deal.
Today I get to see Apryl! I am very very excited. I have not seen her in forever!!!! Much to tell her, and I can't wait to hear her stories. I also need to go to the gym, do a lot of Clinic work, study my 3-letter-words if miracles happen and I have time (yeah, right - I have two hours or less as it is, probably :-P), and then Michael comes tonight. Fun times! But it's amusing how no day turns into an entirely-work day where I can just crank Clinic stuff out. I'm having way too much fun now to back out on any social thing, but I can't say I won't relish an entire day to work, if I ever get one, hahaha. A few days in November look like the most likely and soonest candidates for that. By that time, maybe I won't need a work day! lol But there's always stuff to do.
On that note - better get going so I can get some of that "stuff to do" done! But hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Saturday is Michael's and my first competitive Scrabble tournament in Battle Creek - wish us luck!!!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Only about 24 hours of freedom remain....
...and I have enjoyed this freedom way too much to see it go! :( Life has been crazy and busy, but intensely fun. Among the more interesting parts have been the job-that-lasted-a-week,-thankfully, continuing driver's training which is fortunately going well, having two fabulous new roommates move in, and generally getting life in order for the new semester.
Michael spent a week here while I had no roommates, which was awesome :) He's now back in Port Clinton, though :( But I'll see him again on Friday, which is happy! And we'll go with Soumya to the Recent Grad Reunion casino night and all that. While he was here we went to a wedding in Ohio, which was really pretty but which they held outside (not sure why anyone would get married outside - hello, rain? hello, wind and messy hair? dirt to mess up outfits? I could go on and on....hahaha) and at which they played Disney songs...not my cup of tea, but cool if that's what floats your boat! :-P
We also played lots of Scrabble, so much that I literally had to start a Scrabble file in my file cabinet to keep all the score sheets!! hahaha sooooo much fun. I rule the short words and the overlapping/stacking plays that get 25-40 points with just a few letters...Michael's better than me at the 7-letter word (bingo) plays, though. Which probably means he's in better shape than I am to do well at Scrabble tournaments, since you can more easily study a sheet of three-letter words than you can study the millions of seven, eight, and nine letter words that comprise bingos. But I win more games than he does nowadays....so we'll see. :)
Our first tournament is September 22 in Battle Creek. It's one full day and seven games - we've been trying to play several seven-game days over at Starbucks so that we can prepare for not just one or two games like living-room Scrabble, but actually seven full and challenging games against players who have rankings and who may be more prepared than we are (we're studying, but having not been to tournaments yet, we have no idea what we're up against!) I'm just hoping to finish respectably, seriously. I refuse to finish dead last! But anything better than, like, middle-of-the-pack will thrill me. I will make goals for future tournaments after this first one...but I can't say "I want to finish first! or in the top five!" or whatever until I know from one tournament if that sort of goal (even in the bottom division, where we'll be playing) is feasible or if it's just a pipe dream. Again, we shall see :)
We also went to the Lifehouse/Goo Goo Dolls concert at Freedom Hill on August 26. It was so completely awesome!!!! Although I'm biased - Lifehouse is, like, my favorite band EVER EVER EVER - I do think Lifehouse was objectively better than the Goo Goo Dolls because you could actually hear the lyrics Jason Wade was singing, the background beat/accompaniment wasn't so overpowering, Lifehouse had a better set list, and Jason Wade just has a better voice than Johnny Rzeznik (Jason is like my height though - he's really short and it's slightly disturbing!) But don't get me wrong - both were great, and the entire concert was amazing!
Classes start tomorrow for me, meaning that soon I'll find out what this new professor who's taking over the original professor's classes is like...and I'll also find out who my new Clinic 2 clients are! I'm sooooo excited about that. I have a suspicion I know who one of them is...if I'm correct, that'll be really interesting and quite a challenge but an exciting one!!! I love being a speech therapist :-DDDD
In the coming time, Soumya and Tasia will both be visiting me, Soumya this week and Tasia at the end of October. Can't wait to see both girls - haven't seen them in forever!!!
I'd better run so that I can get a few emails done to important people and then start my Scrabble studying - today's free, but after today who knows how much time I'll have, so I should tackle it full throttle when I can!! Hope everyone's having a great summer end/fall beginning!
Michael spent a week here while I had no roommates, which was awesome :) He's now back in Port Clinton, though :( But I'll see him again on Friday, which is happy! And we'll go with Soumya to the Recent Grad Reunion casino night and all that. While he was here we went to a wedding in Ohio, which was really pretty but which they held outside (not sure why anyone would get married outside - hello, rain? hello, wind and messy hair? dirt to mess up outfits? I could go on and on....hahaha) and at which they played Disney songs...not my cup of tea, but cool if that's what floats your boat! :-P
We also played lots of Scrabble, so much that I literally had to start a Scrabble file in my file cabinet to keep all the score sheets!! hahaha sooooo much fun. I rule the short words and the overlapping/stacking plays that get 25-40 points with just a few letters...Michael's better than me at the 7-letter word (bingo) plays, though. Which probably means he's in better shape than I am to do well at Scrabble tournaments, since you can more easily study a sheet of three-letter words than you can study the millions of seven, eight, and nine letter words that comprise bingos. But I win more games than he does nowadays....so we'll see. :)
Our first tournament is September 22 in Battle Creek. It's one full day and seven games - we've been trying to play several seven-game days over at Starbucks so that we can prepare for not just one or two games like living-room Scrabble, but actually seven full and challenging games against players who have rankings and who may be more prepared than we are (we're studying, but having not been to tournaments yet, we have no idea what we're up against!) I'm just hoping to finish respectably, seriously. I refuse to finish dead last! But anything better than, like, middle-of-the-pack will thrill me. I will make goals for future tournaments after this first one...but I can't say "I want to finish first! or in the top five!" or whatever until I know from one tournament if that sort of goal (even in the bottom division, where we'll be playing) is feasible or if it's just a pipe dream. Again, we shall see :)
We also went to the Lifehouse/Goo Goo Dolls concert at Freedom Hill on August 26. It was so completely awesome!!!! Although I'm biased - Lifehouse is, like, my favorite band EVER EVER EVER - I do think Lifehouse was objectively better than the Goo Goo Dolls because you could actually hear the lyrics Jason Wade was singing, the background beat/accompaniment wasn't so overpowering, Lifehouse had a better set list, and Jason Wade just has a better voice than Johnny Rzeznik (Jason is like my height though - he's really short and it's slightly disturbing!) But don't get me wrong - both were great, and the entire concert was amazing!
Classes start tomorrow for me, meaning that soon I'll find out what this new professor who's taking over the original professor's classes is like...and I'll also find out who my new Clinic 2 clients are! I'm sooooo excited about that. I have a suspicion I know who one of them is...if I'm correct, that'll be really interesting and quite a challenge but an exciting one!!! I love being a speech therapist :-DDDD
In the coming time, Soumya and Tasia will both be visiting me, Soumya this week and Tasia at the end of October. Can't wait to see both girls - haven't seen them in forever!!!
I'd better run so that I can get a few emails done to important people and then start my Scrabble studying - today's free, but after today who knows how much time I'll have, so I should tackle it full throttle when I can!! Hope everyone's having a great summer end/fall beginning!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
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!
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!
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