Absquatulate

It fits.

It fits.
Originally uploaded by absquatulate.

Time to get my graduatin' on.

It's gonna be on hell of a day kids. Expect lots of insane photos of people you don't know.

Graduation is a solemn occasion

Oh man, next week is going to be awesome.  Thanks UMass, for agreeing to award an honorary phd to Andrew Card, thereby ruining my graduation: Threat Level - Wired Blogs.

Everyone, please go the f*ck away

I have precious few things in my life that could be considered leisurely.  This is also the first time in almost three years that I've had any leisure time at all to speak of.  I guard it with precious ferocity, schedule it along with homework sessions and my drive to Worcester, and plan on doing karate even when everything else seems to be going to pot (mostly because I am tired of living, breathing, and sleeping speech-language pathology.)  So the precious two hours a week I put aside for the karate classes at the UMass gym are jealously guarded.

I pay lots of money in fees to this univeristy, fees that I can't get waived or get financial aid to think about because well they're FEES not TUITION, to have access to some of the clubs on campus.  Mind you, I've had NO TIME during my tenure here up until this semester to even take advantage of them, and so I feel an extra sort of snootiness about it: UMass has made alot of money off my student activities fee that I never used for three semesters (and I don't even know what the money goes towards.  Grad students still have to PAY to get into sporting events. Wha??)  And with an indignant huff I feel entitled.

When I come home from a long day in Worcester where I pay for the privledge to work in a hospital, or a long day working in the lab then sitting through classes, I want to be able to drive to the gym on the other side of campus, park, and take the fucking karate class.  End of story.  And when I have to spend 15 minutes driving circles through campus trying to find parking I tend to get a little testy.

Usually parking isn't a problem, that is, until there's a basketball game.  Or a hockey game.  And when there's a sporting event going on, a sporting event taking place at a Division I school, everyone turns out.  Freshman, seniors, alumni, and the general public, and it drives me batshit.  Absolute batshit.  I spit at the sight of Lexii SUVs driving around the parking lots with a 60-something couple squinting at the last spot in the lot.  I fume at the tailgaters (!) chugging beer as they make their way to the gym.  I think horrible obscene thoughts as I see them, these visitors, taking away any and all hope of getting any parking anywhere within a half-mile radius of my stupid, little karate class; one of the few things that is keeping me sane until I graduate.

All of you, all of you people taking away parking from those of us who pay to go to this university to study something: go away.  I pay for this goddammed campus and I want to use it.

It's Fate, Baby.

So Sunday was shaping up to be a nice ending to a very nice weekend. On the one hand I was bummed because it seemed like New Zealand may not be in the cards for me after all, at least not for working as a CFY because the pay is not so great and I have $20k+ in loans to pay back to the U.S. Government. Bummer. No matter, I'll just have to take a holiday sometime in the future to get down to NZ, or maybe think about doctoral work down there. So I'm settling into March of the Penguins to revel in the mating and chick rearing habits of the Emperor penguins and I check my email. To my delight I find out that an abstract submitted by a professor I've done some work with to the SSSR for review has been accepted for their international conference in July.

In Prague.

Can you say Travel Grant?

What?

Last night I "volunteered" at the department Open House for five hours. The Audiologists were there and one of them offered to check my hearing for me. I'd noticed that when I was doing a hearing screening at a local school I couldn't hear 6000 Hz in my left ear at typical levels (about 20 dB). It wasn't the audiometer so I figured it was me. A "real" check by a real audiologist later and sure enough, I have a 30 dB dip at 6000 Hz. 4k and 8k were more or less fine though, and it was only in the left ear, which was a little puzzling. While it's not unusual to have hearing loss at the higher frequencies having it only at 6k and only with the left ear, with 8k and 4k within normal limits and my right ear being fine, is. So the only explanation I could come up with was that I played clarinet for 10 years in various concert bands and orchestras, and as I sat on the right side of the group, my left ear got all the sound from the entire band. Maybe that was it? It was also the ear that I last had a significant ear infection in (1996, oh god did that suck) but that wouldn't cause such a precise hearing loss as this.

Either way, I was told to keep an eye on it since my grandmother had some significant presbycusis. On the one hand, it's cool be able to get this done on the fly, but on the other it makes you hyperviligant (much like med students, all us ComDis students think we have everything at least once. Rather than the dog eating our homework, we claim "anomia", working memory deficits, and auditory processing difficulties. :^)

Hindsight being 20/20 and all...

I really wish I had found indexed when I was sitting in class hearing* the professor talk about our previous exam and replay video clips of modified barium swallows from said exam during our last class of the semester when we were all itching to write our damned evaluations.

*Not listening because I was tracking a UPS package online instead.

Whew, home!

School, once again, has sucked up a good week of my time before I knew it. I just returned from the ASHA Converence in Miami. I know, you are all rolling your eyes saying, "Oh BooHoo, little miss academia had to go to Miami for a conference." Well friends, it wasn't all pleasure. I was presenting on Friday and that certainly ate into the "play" time as the presentation needed some work before Jose and I could launch into our 15 minute foray into adulthood.

I was also hoping to blog the experience of being at a national conference with a gazillion other women and a smattering of men (Jose being one of them) but the South Beach Miami Convention Center does not believe in free wireless access apparently. I was appalled, and then very irritated, as I had brought my gorgeous laptop with me to post about talks and observations because, come on, you were ALL clamoring for updates; I know you were. Alas, unless I wanted to wait in line with thirty other folks at a kiosk, it was not to be. Even at the HoJo I stayed in there was free wireless. Come on people.

So unfortunately there is only a smattering of things to tell:

• South Beach is a BITCH to get around. Also: taxis are very expensive.
• South Beach is awesome. I was primarily on Lincoln and Collins (alas, I didn't make it to Ocean Drive) and the Art Deco... My heart lept with all that sleek neon!
• Food was surprisingly reasonable in South Beach. Not only reasonable, but also very good and the mixed drinks superb...
• ... Except for the ">HoJos where we all stayed; while the drinks there were okay, the food and the service were horrible. North Beach HoJo employees were the most unhelpful lot I'd ever had the pleasure of doing business with.
• The Melia Royal Palms was a gorgeous hotel of class and antiquity. I liked it even better than the Loews.
• Thanks to Sarah for the room to share :^)
• And thanks to Nerissa's mom for letting SIX of us stay at her house the night before our 6am flight!
• Lupa di Roma is a fabulous, friendly, and, er, good looking restaurant on Lincoln that is worth the trip. Of particular enjoyment was how the manager/owner singled out Jose as the only male at a table of 14 women. Any manager/owner who will openly suggest that we not get the chicken breast because "it is boring" is a-ok in my book. The waiters were... ah, superb, the food fabulous, the house wine palatable... well, there's a reason why it was house, but it wasn't vinegar... and the al fresco dining was fabulous. If you need a cocktail before (as the restaurant doesn't have a full bar) head next door to the sushi restaurant and have a "Sultry Sake"- a mix of sochu, sake, and mango and lychee puree.
• Drs. Shelly Velleman and Elena Zaretsky are fun to have dinner with. If you have the chance, you really ought to hang with them every once in a while.
• The talk went well even though I screwed up and turned on my 30 minute talk timer when in reality we only had 15. I owe Jose a big, big apology for taking 10 minutes on my half of the presentation. Otherwise, the talk was great and I got the chance to strut my stuff in front of the professors from my school as well as other professionals from around the country. It was great and although I wish I could have done a few things differently, I wouldn't change it for the world. Thank you Dr. Elena Zaretsky, Dr. James Hodgson, and Jose A. Ortiz!

I wish I had more time to write more about the conference, but I have an exam and a project due this week before Thanksgiving, so I think this will have to suffice. All in all, ASHA was a good experience; not life changing, not amazing, but informative and interesting and that's pretty good when you get all those SLPs into one place for three days.

(As a side note, I must admit I'm used to going to technical conferences that have more, er, panache so I wasn't overly impressed with the flash at this conference, but the content was very, very good.)

So. Very. Ready.

I think I am to the point where I really need to start having a regular paycheck again. And I don't mean the pittance that I get from my Research Assistanceship (not that I'm complaining really, because it pays for my tuition on top of the stipend.) I'm tired of paying to work 50+ hours/week. *sigh*

Eight months. Just have to make it to June. Assuming I pass the Praxis of course.

How not to get a good night's sleep

1. Spend all day writing literature reviews
2. fall asleep around midnight
3. Spend the next 7 hours writing MORE literature reviews in your dream. Include in said dreams mild anxiety about the flow of the paper, proper vocabulary selection, citations, and punctuation
4. Wake up

Message to the Future

Imagine my surprise when I opened a file to start working on my lesson plan only to see that I had apparently already completed sometime in the last week! Goes to show you how nuts things have been lately.

My Life

"It's like one big SPHINCTER!" - a teacher during lecture.

Taking a Chance

While the ESPN coverage is a little trite in that Olympics kind of way, the heart of the story is what's important. This is but a small reflection of what I believe is possible for kids like this, of what I hope to accomplish some day for someone who needs a little extra help to realize their own potential. If I can help someone have this kind of moment in their life, whether it's through sports, drama, math, art, or even the simple act of reading a sentence and understanding what it means, then it's all been worth it.

Here's an unadulterated video of the raw footage if ESPN is making you gag.

Feelgood Moment of the Day

Being offered a position for a CFY even though I am only in my first year of school and have one more to go.

Half Way

I am officially half-way done with my degree work. I finished up my last bit of paperwork for the clinic today at 12:30. I'm still running on high-octane; I'm plowing through some Christmas cards and got all my shopping done this afternoon as if I had to get it all done before heading home to study. I then realized I didn't *have* to study. My mind still doesn't know what to do with this new information. So I enjoyed a delicious, if tardy, lunch at Chez Albert. Review forthcoming.

Old. Cranky. Elitist.

You know what I hate?

No wait okay, lemme start over. You know what I am so fucking tired of hearing? So tired that every time I hear it while at school, each and every time that someone rolls their eyes and sighs and starts squawking about it that every time that starts I could just about barely keep my hands off of the throat of the person currently squawking? You know what that phrase is, the one that will forever become indellibly marked on my psyche as registering a visceral, knee-jerk reaction that will have to be tempered with a deep sigh, a closing of the eyes, and then 30 minutes of gentle lecture?

It's this:
"Why do we have to learn this? It's not like it'll help us in the clinic. It's just theory, how the hell will this help me write a progress report?"

*deep sigh.* *close eyes* *lecture:*

Because, and I can't believe I have to say this, being in a college institution and all, but the reason why having even a tenuous grasp of theory, the slightest idea of what people think and WHY they think that way, is because eventually, someday, someone will read your progress reports, your recommendations, and look at how much your therapy will cost and they will ask you, "WHY?"

I can't believe this, but in two separate classes professors have put up the following quote (in earnest, and with sincerity):
"Nothing is as practical as a good theory to enable you to make choices confidently and consistently, and to explain or defend why you are making the choices you make." Larson, V. L., & McKinley, N. (1995).

It astounds me how people in a professional field that relies so closely on theory to justify their very existence are so fearful and disdainful of "theory". "It's impractical! It doesn't apply! It doesn't matter! It's hard to learn!" they cry. And I can't even muster a good retort, because this rant in my head is still 30 minutes, rather than 30 seconds.

It is my goal that somehow inbetween the SOAP notes and the papers and the lesson plans to come up with a 30 second reply. If we can't justify our existence as a professional field, who will?

Fin. For now.

Done. Whew. Now to focus my attention on a lack of income.

Well THAT explains it.

This explains why I am frustrated with multiple choice tests: Getting smarter can be bad for some types of memory.

*snort*

Choices

Choices choices choices. They are good to have particularly after waiting so long to have them. I'm grad school bound kids. Wish me luck.

Avoid Sweets Before Exams

At lunch: "Hm, my stomach feels funny and I can't tell if it's pudding or panic."

One hour later, after exam:"It was panic, not pudding."

100% Done

Done.

And two pints of Guinness to celebrate.

50%

Two down, two to go.