So almost 3 months later...

Wow! Time sure does fly when you're in grad school. So much has happened since my last post back in June. I won't bore you with all those details. A new semester has begun. I am now really a second year. Crazy. I'll sum up what I learned over my summer semester for you:
1) I really do prefer to work with children over adults
2) Accent reduction instruction is not really what I'm interested in
3) More than I ever knew about word stress, idioms, American culture/holidays/icons
4) I have an awesome time in Little Rock
5) I really really do enjoy making cakes
6) Rope swinging from a cliff can be dangerous
7) Five to jive is the best game
8) Charleston is amazing
9) Partying like it's 1985 is rad
10)West Memphis doesn't even have a coffee shop

This semester I know I'll learn lots more, especially clinic related. I'll have my first hospital placement and my first school placement. I'm excited and nervous. Hopefully, I'll be starting those next week...

I also am excited about my dysphasia (swallowing disorders) class and my autism spectrum disorders class! I'm also taking a public schools clinic class and a neuromotor speech disorders class. I have so much to learn!

I had to sit up front in class...WEIRD

My third semester as a grad student is underway. This evening in class I had to sit in the very front row...GASP! I typically sit in the back of the classroom. It may not be conducive to my learning, but I like it. I walked in class two minutes before it started (I would have been there earlier, but I was finishing icing the butterfly cake for Maggie's birthday) to find my "typical" seat taken and the only seats still available in the FRONT row. I made my way up front and sat down in a chair that was on the left side of the room. I usually sit on the right side so this seat was completely opposite from my normal. It felt awkward!

My first two days have gone well. I actually have binders for the semester (with cupcakes on them). Score! My binders now have two syllabi and some clinic stuff in them. My goal is to continue actually putting things in the ring part of the binder. Think I can keep this up?

My aural rehab class seems like it'll be interesting but very LONG (4 hours and 10 minutes every Monday). We went through 90 slides yesterday (that's right ninety). I actually typed up an outline for these slides and even read 25 pages of a book we have to write a paper on. This paper isn't even due until August 2nd so I'm proud of myself for this early start. Eager beaver.

My langugage disorders in adults clas seems like it'll be interesting. It's only 2 hours because it's split up into two evenings a week (T TH).

Clinic this morning was interesting. I'll definitely have quite a challenge, but it should be fun! I'll get to learn about assistive technology at my assistantship tomorrow. I'm excited! I'll typically have it MWF, but my supervisor is out of town.

June is here, which means my return to grad school

I had to leave my little dream world June 1st. May FLEW by! It didn't listen to me when I told it to slow down. Upon my arrival back, I felt like I had only been gone for 4 days instead of 4 weeks.

My May break was FABULOUS! This would not have been so if it wasn't for my amazing boyfriend and friends. I just LOVE NWA!!!

Yesterday was orientation. We have to go to orienation at the beginning of every semester because we have to get our clinic placements and meet with our supervisors. I am excited about my placements even if one of them is going to give me more than 3 times the number of hours in child language therapy required (I already have more than double what I need). I'll get adult clients for the first time, which kind of makes me nervous. ..

May Never Needs To End...

I haven't written since I started by May break. I figured I don't really have much to write about grad schoolwise. I did get a graduate assistantship though! This is very exciting!!! It cuts my tuition from out-of-state to just half of in-state, which is about $9000 off! Wahoo!!!

I am thoroughly enjoying May. I would be just fine if it never ends! I've gotten to spend lots of time with most of my favorites (minus Danielle and Katherine of course) and know more amazing times are to come in the next two weeks. Some of the things we've done are eaten at some of my favorite places, played rockband, gone to a baseball game, gone to a casino, and had a bachelorette party. The bachelorette party was this past Saturday, and it was fabulous! We hadn't had a girls' night in FOREVER!!!

Zach and I are getting to cross stuff off our to-do list. So far we've been able to cross off grasshopper crepes, flying a kite, baseball game, golf, and casino. Last night we tried to beat the blue team on the computerized shuffleboard game at one of the bars. This shuffleboard game is actually where we met each other a little over 5 weeks ago. More things on our to-do list include Devil's Den, a waterfall, an elementary school lunch, the castle, putt-putt, bowling, and I think a couple more things.

A few things I've learned so far on break:
1) I truly am blessed
2) Don't go to a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo unless you want to have a 3 hour meal
3) Group meals will probably last around 2 and a half hours no matter what
4) Slot machines don't always cost the amount they say (i.e., they require more than 1 credit to play)
5) I really miss clinic but not class

Something I already knew:
1) I have the most AWESOME friends!!!

I WILL SURVIVE...and we DID survive

I am officially 2/5ths of the way finished with graduate school. This time next year I'll be finished with school FOREVER...FOR--EVER (insert "Sandlot" voice here). We (as in first year speechies) survived speech science, neuro, language disorders,and another clinic class. A few of us even survived a particular clinic placement!

The neuro exam had a few surprise questions on it, but all that matters now is that it is over! And you have no idea how amazing it felt to put all my clients' working folders into my supervisor's box to show her I was completely finished with them! I had a supervisor meeting, which went fine. Then my group met to do this final project for language disorders class. She gave us this assignment last week! Not cool considering finals and all the final clinic paperwork.

When I got to go home, the first thing I did was scratch off all my to-do list items on my bathroom mirror. Yes, I write in phonetics on my mirror...

I don't think I've ever mentioned by obsession with baking cakes on here. Well I do have one. In the past month, I've made 7 cakes and a set of mini-cakes. Yesterday I made an ice skate cake to honor my roomie's birthday. I just winged it, and I must say I think it turned out quite well.

Then last night a group of us speechies were going to go bowling. Unfortunately, the bowling alley is closed on Mondays! What's up with that?! So we instead just chilled on the roof of a bar on Beale street. It was fun! It's so weird to think I'm not going to see those girls and boy for a month!

Today I will begin my adventure of a May spent in the natural state with a majority of the time being in Fayetteville. I suppose I need to get to some more laundry and packing...

May Day May Day May Day...

Wow! It's really May now, and let me tell you it came in with a BANG literally! From around 3 am to a little before 9 am Saturday (May 1st) Memphis got about 10 inches of rain. It was storming like crazy!!! I was awake from 4 to 5:30 due to thunder and ligtening that literally kept the sky illuminated the whole time. Then it woke me again at 7. I thought I would try to be very productive and go to the clinic to get work on my clients finished because I couldn't from Wednesday to Friday due to the server being down. (Yes, it was down at the absolute worst time of year.) The roads were completely flooded so I could not get to the clinic. Instead I had to settle with starting to study neuro.

The bang of Saturday continued through out the day. The morning continued with storms and tornado warnings that caused the sirens to go off twice. Then mid-afternoon the sun tried to peak its head out from the clouds. Luckily, the road floodings subsided, and I was able to spend 3 hours at the clinic. Wahoo! Then it was back to attempting to study neuro. I was all settled in on my bed with my lovely notes and then the sirens went off again! This time it was for an hour, and this time they were thinking it was coming across the river. Considering how I live on Mud Island I figured I would take cover this time. So I spent an hour of my life Saturday night in my roommate's bathtub. (Her bathroom is the only room without windows in our apartmen.) I chose a few items to accompany me. They were my photobooks (I've spent too much money and time to let those be ruined!), pearls, chocolate, my laptop, my phone, and my granddaddy's Navy wings. Oh and I took one neuor powerpoint in there with me.

Sunday began with a few hours at the clinic. I have pretty much finished all my client stuff (i.e., summary reports, SOAP notes, treatment plan, language sample). You have no idea how good this felt! All I have to do today is add who is to get copies of the sumamry report (the cc) and fill out these summary test forms. Sunday continued with neuro. Of course knowing me I took about a million breaks.

I have two hours left until I'll be leaving to take my last final of the semester! I should be studying right now, especially considering how my body decided to wake me up at 5. I truly am terrible at getting sleep! All this talk about spinal tracts, sodium potassium pumps, neurons, ahhhhhhhh!!! I guess I really better look over my notes again...

Oh and what stinks is that I won't be finished after my final. I'll have my supervisor evaluation meeting. Then I'll have to work on my final group project assignment for language disorders, which she only assigned in our Tuesday night class last week! Not cool

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.