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...

Funiculus and Ipsilateral...Just a few of my favorite words

Another week has flown by, and there are just 5 weeks left of the semester. No complaints here for how fast it's going by. I'm ready for summer break and by summer break I mean the month of May. This will be my last somewhat of a summer off before I grow up and get a big girl job. Haha. That is unless I work in schools, which I'm not thinking I will.

The peak of the week (aka hump day aka Wednesday) included a Speech Science test, which equals no buono. And what did I do on it that I always have a tendency to do--changed 3 answers I had correct to wrong ones. This is why I should not go over my test after I finish! At least it's over with, but this means I need to do well on the final. I probably should start studying now! Or well really after my neuro test on Monday. My two hardest classes always have the tests less than a week from each other.

The night before the everdreaded Speech Science. I woke up a little after 4 am, and my brain was just thinking stop plosive--1) stop gap: oropharynx closed + velopharyngeal port closed + glottis open; high tracheal and oropharyngeal pressures; no flow 2) plosive: oropharynx open; pressures=0; transient turbulent flow 3) aspiration: glottis partially abducted; low tracheal pressure; sustained turbulent flow. The same was happening for frication, vowels, and nasals. [side note:Just so you know if you were trying to say Mom but didn't open your velopharyngeal port you would actually say Bob.] I just kept telling my brain to stop, and eventually it did and let me fall back to sleep for a little bit before 6:07 am rolled around.

Last night I began looking over neuro. The first step was getting out my stack of powerpoints and checking with my roommate that I wasn't missing any. This is a step because I do not have binders. Haha. I, however, was not missing anything he handed out in class. There were a few powerpoints he put on the computers that I had to print this morning. The next step was to start typing out information on the powerpoints.

That step isn't very exciting. Well I suppose none of the steps to studying are exciting... At least I came across the word ipsilateral--one of my favorite words. Try saying it 10 times fast. Haha. Same with funiculus. Oh and I prefer semilunar ganglion over calling it trigeminal ganglion. I've gotta find some amusement in the words for neuro, or I don't know how I'd make it through.

Speaking of which...I better get started on neuro for the day...

Oh I forgot to mention my favorite activities I planned for therapy this week. My older ones (kindergardners) made video cameras using posterboard, cheezit/vanilla wafer/sandwich bag boxes, and construction paper. Then they "filmed" each other making the "news" holding microphones. They LOVED it! I just love coming up with creative activities for them.

Ok, protopathic and epicritic somasthesia pathways here I come...

SB 2010 F&LR

So my blog has turned into my countless attempts at keeping a journal...not consistent.

Life the past two and a half weeks has been full of ups and downs, but there's no need to focus on the downs.

SB 2010 F&LR= Spring Break 2010 Fayetteville and Little Rock. I figured since people label trips to Panama City Beach as SB 2010 PCB I could do the same with my destinations...

I had a fabulous spring break in Hog Country. There's something about driving into a town and seeing Razorbacks on every car, hills, and even Lindsay apartments everywhere that makes me smile. I mean I don't know how anyone wouldn't love Fayetteville. I spent my first night in town at two of my favorite places--Hugo's and Willy D's/Fix with my SLP Hogs. We danced our booties off, and we totally started that dance party. Haha! My second day was spent out to lunch with 2 of my favorite girls and then off to the Arkansas-Ole Miss game, which wasn't pretty but at least the company was amazing! My company was 2 more of my favorite girls and they're significant others plus their beautiful offspring! I got to hold the cutest cheerleader and the cutest Hog fan throughout the game. Then it was off to another one of my favorite Faytown locations, Jose's, with more of my favorite peeps. Then we hit up Sideways per request of the boys since they would not go to Speak Easy for old times sake. I can't imagine why! Abby and I could only handle so much fun at Sideways before we decided it was time to leave, and we could not all agree on another bar so we ended up playing Wii bowling. Haha.

Sunday I headed down to Rock town where I had an extremely lazy day. Then Monday I had to attend a funeral of a wonderful lady I'd known pretty much my whole life--Ashley's grandmother. I went over to the neighbor's to see the nursery for the soon to be born baby boy. Monday night was spent with George at Purple Cow and Barnes and Noble. He had never been to Purple Cow! I don't know how that is possible when you are a native Rocker. I'm glad I was able to fix that and show him the best milkshakes! Tuesday was spent walking the base trail at Pinnacle Mountain with Leah. I LOVE Pinnacle! Then we had lunch at our favorite lunch location, Jason's Deli. Then I ran some errands and got dressed up for a night at Cajun's. Wednesday was a pretty lazy day as far as I can remember. I went over to the neighbor's house in the afternoon and to dinner at Cheer's with my parents. The tornado sirens went off for an hour. Thursday was spent at the doctor checking what were swollen lymphnodes in 2006! Yes, almost 4 years ago. I'm switching insurance so he had to resolve what he had written back in May 2006 since I had not gone back... Then it was back up to Faytown.

Thursday night was a nice, quiet night spent having dinner, watching the Razorback basketball team, and playing Skipbo at Abby and Josh's. Friday we had lunch at Rick's Bakery. I just love the free desserts that come with lunches. This time it was chocolate mousse pie. Then I went to Hog Heaven to look for a baby present with no luck but did end up buying myself a hoodie for $8 from the little boy's section. Don't judge. Haha. I also got a $6 baseball shirt. Then I wandered over to the library and had a nice chat with some of the people I used to work with. I had dinner in the Union. I couldn't tell ya the last time I did that...maybe late night junior year? Then it was off to the Gymbacks meet. Then it was time for peppermint patty hot chocolate at Common Grounds. The plans for Saturday had to change because we were not going to sit in the cold, windy, dreary weather to watch the baseball team. Instead Abby and I went to lunch with her mother-in-law and ran errands. We eventually made it to Hugo's for my all time favorite dessert--grasshopper crepes. Then I went over to Kate and Todd's to see them and Logan. Then it was time for game night at Michelle and Josh's. Maggie had on the outfit I gave her. She looked absolutely precious! Game night consisted of Apples to Apples and trivial pursuit. Oh and eating lots of chips and dip and cookies. I left early Sunday morning to get back to reality...

Before I totally came back to reality, I stopped in Little Rock for lunch and to take over a baby present for my neighbor born the Thursday before. Then it was back to Memphis with a night of reality of doing Speech Science homework since I had neglected to do so all week...

Monday came and reality really hit with class from 8:30 to 5:30. Then came clinic Tuesday morning, and I was back in the swing of things feeling like I never even had a break.

Just enJoy your aGe

It's pretty sad when you see or hear words and think that is the phoneme I probed today in therapy. That's what happened to me all day yesterday. I probed the the phoneme for the "j" sound. (This won't let me copy and paste phonemes just like photobooks, and I don't appreciate it one bit!) All day long I kept hearing words with the "j" sound and kept thinking initial, medial, and final. Budget, grudge, jar, edge, pajamas, jelly...It was like the words were surrounding me. *That's why the title of the blog is written emphasizing the "j" sound.

I constantly think about school/clinic related things. For instance, Saturday night when I was at the basketball game I was telling Kelly that the mascots are like a minimal pair because their names are Pouncer and Bouncer. The only difference is voiced and voiceless. Yes, I really am that cool!

Spring break is so close that I can taste it! Our spring break comes earlier than I am accustomed to, but I could not be more happy about the timing! I am ready for a break. Plus this way spring break falls exactly halfway through the semester. This year I'm not going to Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, or Las Vegas for spring break like I have in the past. This time instead I'm going to the Natural State (aka Hog Country), and I cannot wait! I'll venture by way of the lovely I-40W to I-540N stopping in the one and only Faytown this weekend! Then for the week I'll find my way back on I-540 this time going South and then onto I-40E taking an exit to Rocktown. Then it'll be back on I-40W to I-540N for another weekend in my second hometown. I'll stop there. No need to think about what will come next...

The only thing that stands between me and crossing over the mighty Mississippi is finishing my SOAPs and sign language class. Not a bad deal at all. Oh and of course there's the laundry, room cleaning, and packing. Boy, am I glad my clinical supervisor had jury duty this week. Well I mean not because she had jury duty but because that meant no diagnostic today giving me a chance to get ready for this little adventure I will begin tomorrow.