Figaro, figaro, figaro...tomorrow

The speech science final is the only thing I was able to cross off of my list on my mirror. Yes, I write my to do list on my bathroom mirror. Oh and it's written in phonetics. I am that cool! The reason why I could cross any of my clinic work (i.e.,SOAP notes, summary reports, treatment plan) off was because the server for the clinic was down until 7:30 pm. I had planned on staying to work on it all day, which obviously couldn't happen without the server working. It went down Wednesday morning. For 3 days, we could do absolutely nothing with our client information. No bueno! Now I'll have to go in the morning, which wouldn't be so bad except for the little fact that I have a neuro final Monday that I haven't even begun to study for. Ooops!

So the speech science final was ehhhh, I don't really want to talk about it. I will say we had to read spectrograms on the test, which let me tell you is no easy task. The second word I had t (blank) (blank) a r o (long o). I couldn't tell for the life of me what the two blanks were. I knew the second was a vowel, and I thought the third could be a nasal but then decided against that because I didn't see the antiresonance and because it was narrow. So after much thought I just decided to make the word "figaro" so I changed the "t" to an "f" and just plugged in the next two phonemes, even though I didn't really think there was a stop ("g") in the third position. For some odd reason, the only word I could think of that ends in "aro" was "figaro". Who even thinks of that word? Needless to say, it wasn't "figaro" but instead was "tomorrow". Yes, a normal word.

Just so you know spoonfuls of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips make a good snack for "not even pretending to study" time.

Where'd marker go?!

The last week of therapy and class has commenced. Now the real stress of the semester begins in the form of summary reports, final SOAPS, treatment plans, discharge forms, apparently testing summary forms, and finals. Oh and I should mention nothing could be done of the first three things the past two days due to the clinic's server being down. Yes, during the worst possible time for it be down. I REALLY REALLY hope everything is back up and working by tomorrow. All this needs to be finished by Monday, So in 4 days. Ahhhhhhh!!!

The second to last day of therapy something AMAZING happened. A client made a funny by doing what I had modeled all semester as an early developing question--show marker, put in lap, ask "Where'd marker go?" and gesture where with arms, pull from lap and say "in my lap" in response to the question. It was absolutely adorable and awesome to see!

Tomorrow morning will be the speech science final exam. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Who ever thought I would actually be able to read single word spectrograms?! Now I just hope I can do it on the exam... I'm oddly not really too worried about the test even though I should be! I think I'm just ready to get it over with. I've studied and just don't know what else to do. Only time will tell if I'm prepared...

What's that in the road a head?

I finished my last homework assignment EVER in speech science today! It consisted of noticing the duration, amplitude, and fundamental frequency changes during stressed and unstressed words/syllables. Two of the sentences we had to notice these changes was between "What's in the road ahead?" and "What's in the road a head?" Crazy how much prosody changes the meaning of a sentence. Or even a word for that matter like "record" the noun and "record" the verb. If the stress is on the first syllable, it is a noun. If the stress is on the second syllable, it is a verb.

Time keeps on truckin by. Yet, I would like for it to go a little faster. Just until I finish the semester. Then I want time to go very, very slowly in May! I have a lot of things to do...go to a Razorback baseball game, fly a kite, rollerblade on the bike trail, eat grasshopper crepes, go to Devil's Den, babysit an AWESOME almost one year old, hang with an AWESOME five month old, play golf, have an "elementary school food" picnic, help throw a bachelorette party, go to a first birthday party, go to a wedding, and of course hang with my besties and Zach.

What Nasal Sound Am I Making

Another week down! My final diagnostic report for the semester and my sign language final can be checked off my list. Only 10 more days...3 class days, 1 speech science homework, 3 finals, 2 therapy days, 4 finalized summary reports, 4 SOAPs...the end is near :)

It really can be hard to tell whether someone is making a "m" sound or a "n" sound if you can't see the lips. We practiced this in speech science class the other day. Oh and I've got a good joke for you. Why did the neuron go to the gym? To pump more ions. Haha!

This week is almost a blur already. I do know I baked 2 cakes for 2 birthdays of girls in my class. Oh and I went from Monday night at 10 pm until noon today (Friday) without sweets as a challenge from Zach. I win! Today I more than made up for it with the insane amount of sugar I consumed.

Tonight I got to dress up like the early '90s for the end of the semester party at a professor's house. There was a theme to wear what you wore the first day of school in elementary school. The outfit I put together included a Tinkerbell t-shirt with the side pulled together in a hair thing, hot pink capris, a side ponytail, and shoes that had ice cream pops on them. This is definitely not something my mom would have let me wear the first day of school, but it is something I would have probably put together back then.

Bilabial Blue, Velar Green

It's been another whirlwind of a week! Only 18 more days until May break!!!

You know you're in grad school for SLP when...

• in class multiple people say bibabial blue and velar green when the professor asks what color he should use to draw loci and transitions of consonants
• you love to write in phonetics
• you find it cool to see movement of the soft palate and faucial pillars
• you feel like a bag lady because you have to carry around so much stuff
• you tell people what you're getting your degree in and people have no clue what it is
• you say, "Sorry I have pragmatic issues" when you interrupt someone
• you go to concerts and think about what singers are doin to their vocal folds (you cringe just thinking about it)
• you wonder how anyone is "typical"

Don't Stop Believing

Fayetteville was a fabulous time as always. Should I expect anything less? Of course not! Dickson St, Wilson Park, cake baking, Mimi's Cafe, and Michelle's bridal shower...nothing could go wrong with a schedule like this!

My little weekend trip meant little was accomplished in the way of school...Of course I finished my SOAPs and teacher surveys before I left Friday. Saturday I read like 5 pages of Speech Science...Tonight I've been practicing "Don't Stop Believing" in sign language.

I tried to explain what all a SLP did to someone today. It's rather difficult to explain all the types of jobs covered under speech-language pathology. It made me realize I have SOOOO much to learn about that I really have no clue about.

The Cerebellum Is The First To Go...

It's very exciting to think about how it is the end of the semester. However, it is pretty terrifying to think about how much I have to do. Next week especially will be no fun! I have to do ending status probes and get language samples on 4 clients Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I'll have summary reports on them due Friday. Plus Thursday I'll have a diagnostic so I'll spend all Thursday afternoon writing the diagnostic report. Then in my Thursday evening class I'll present a song in sign langauge. Oh and I'll have speech science homework due Friday as well. What makes all this even more fun is I absolutely cannot do anything for any of this until I get all my data Wednesday. (I have clinic and then class until 5:30 Wednesday.) Well I can practice my lyrics for sign language after I finish writing my SOAPs for this week and making teacher surveys for my client's teachers. Oh and I'm driving to Fayetteville tomorrow for a bridal shower this weekend.

I'm sooo excited about going to Fayetteville. It's too bad the baseball team is out of town for the weekend. At least I'll get to catch them for their last home series in May.

Oh good news in Neuro. My professor thinks my class has done so well on our two tests that he is moving our third test to the final date and eliminating the comprehensive final. Hooray!!! Just so you know when you drink alcohol your cerebellum is the first to go. That's why sobriety tests are the same type of tests given to people with damage of the cerebellum.

"I just broke FERPA..."

Another week and a half has flown by, and here we are already in April.

That everdreaded speech test I was talking about took me on a hot air balloon ride. My professor handed back our grades on the test on little slips of paper with the points you made on the test and the total points you have in the class. The grade next to my name on the test was 10 percentage points higher than I had expected for the test, which is only like 3 more points considering the test is only out of 30 points. This is when I stepped unexpectedly onto a hot air balloon. I was elated! I thought Sweet. I had left the 3 answers that I kept changing the answers with the correct ones. Later that night I was talking on Facebook chat to a girl in my class with the same last name as me. She told me the grade she got on the test was 10 percentage points less than what she had thought she had made. I didn't think anything of this at first because I was too busy looking at the lineup for Memphis in May. The next morning I was driving to therapy and for whatever reason was thinking about the test and our grades. That's when I reached the halfway point of my hot air balloon ride. I thought He must have mixed up our grades because we have the same last name. When I got home from lunch after therapy, I sent him an email explaining this and that he may need to check our grades. He responded immediately saying he hoped he hadn't made such a mistake but wouldn't be in his clinic until the following day to check. Wednesday rolls around, and he has my classmate and me come into his office before class. That's when the hot air balloon for sure landed. He started off by telling us he broke FERPA. Some act about not showing other people students' grades. We told him we really didn't care that we obviously shared our grades with each other. Otherwise, we would never have known about this. Then, he turned to me and said Typically, I only have students tell me they thought they did better on a test and not worse. I tell him I couldn't take a grade that wasn't mine.

My overall grade for the class is now 5 percentage points less than what I had thought that Monday afternoon, but that's ok I know it's the grade I earned, and I can still pull it up with the final!

Time to get back to speech sciencing...
Yay for homework about spectrograms...