Absquatulate

Which do you choose?

Enjoy this amazing talk from TED from Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who describes her experiences when she suffers a hemmorage and how it changed her.

And quite frankly, it has changed me, and what it means to be treating adults with aphasia.

I missed Brain Awareness Week, having mistakenly thought it was THIS week. But rather than wait another 51 weeks to celebrate it again, I'll push it on into this week and feature a new brainy post each day for your amusement (or consternation :).

Update: Video link fixed.

Luddite!

I posted this on Twitter, but since I've made my feed private to ward off Google Spiders, there's no way you would know. But I thought you'd appreciate it:
"Electronic toys and animated elmos that dance 5 days a week == deep, unyielding desire to become Amish. Or an Amish SLP. Do they exist?"

Yeah yeah, another talk. Ho hum

I'm kind of ashamed that I haven't posted about this sooner. What, getting published is all ho-hum now Curro?

Found out that an extension of the presentation given at ASHA last year, wherein more data and a comparison of two kids' performance on various reading tasks are to be presented has been accepted for ASHA this year in Boston. Yay!

I think I needed the summer to be my summer, and not a paper's summer, or a presentation's summer. Just mine. Because now that it's almost over, I'm ready to get back to it. Let's get this sucker into a journal too. Bring it on.

Non-Non-Compete

After talking with a small business owner about some of the non-compete disclosures he's been forced to read, I was astounded by the fact that I no longer work in an industry where there are such things. As a matter of fact, transparency, open-source, and free movement of information is the rule, not the exception. And while it certainly can be used as one reason why there's no money in what I do (other reasons include that there are no pills to cure my clients and that you can't see what I work on) it is definitely refreshing and one of the many things I love about this field.

That isn't to say there aren't the business entrepreneurs out there (see any of the voice treatment protocols or even the oral-motor treatment plans, but don't get me started on O-M). They do exist and there are many companies who cater to our profession. But in the end it's the movement of information from one therapist to the next that makes us all better.

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.

Sweet Mother of...

Yesterday, at 5:45pm, my master's academic career ended.

The entire class was a little edgy. We sat, entertained the last two presenters who did a smashing job of educating us on Resonant Voice Therapy and plied us with cookies! Dr. A then D R E W O U T T H E S U S P E N S E regarding our exam grades... Oh that exam, the exam where she changed her tried and true format from multiple choice, short essay and case study, to ALL long essay. We were panicked. And after a 10 minute summary of what she was really looking for on question 9, she handed them back, and thank ye gods, she was kind.

We filled out the course evaluations, took a photo on the front steps of Arnold House to commemorate the place of our professional birth, and it was over. OVER! LET'S DRINK BEER!

Off to ABCs (for the third time this week!) for appetizers and a drink. We stayed out late, even though by 9am the yawning struck almost all of us. Today I slept in late (no trips to Worcester!), handed half of my paperwork, picked up a paycheck, picked up my regalia, and I have one more person to run for the experiment we're doing in the lab. I can hardly believe it. My life has returned. Start packing? Sure why not! Go for a nice long walk? Play a video game? Read for fun? I'll take Life for $1000, Alex.

Jobs will come, I have health insurance until July 31st, and meager savings to make it for a little while. I'm going to miss these ladies (and gent) with whom I've laughed, cried, fought, rolled eyes at, and hugged with for the last 2-3 years. I feel like I've been through a bit of a wringer, and I've made it through and am finally hanging out to dry in the glorious sun of success. Thank the universe for that.

ASHA Policy on Pay for Practicum

Huh! I didn't know you could you can get paid for your SLP practicum while you're in school..  Are there any SLP students who are currently lucky enough to have such an arrangement?  I wonder what the percentage is...

Panic! Not at the Disco

Holy %$&@!# ....  Panic is thinking you lost 9 hours of clinical hearing evaluation time because of a negligent secretary or a moving snafu where-in paperwork gets filed with the "to be shredded" papers.  Not at the disco high on E to escape the reality of begging an audiologist to let you do screenings is finding that precious little piece of paper with those precious 9 hours on it was tucked inbetween the pages of a stapled packet.

Curious?  Want more?  Read up on all the paperwork and stress-inducing standards I have to keep track of (and fill out paperwork for): Speech-Language Pathology Standards and Implementation Procedures For the Certificate of Clinical Competence.

UMass Libraries: Sucking at the Teat of Research

I had a horrible realization today:  When I graduate, I will no longer have access to all the research, journals, and books via the UMass Libraries.  I'll be lost!  How am I going to research therapy techniques, learn the new research, and educate myself if I can't get to the full articles on PubMed without paying an arm and a leg?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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?