done come.

Sometimes the reminders of home are just...baffling. Again from The Kansan.

first snow

It kind of sleeted/snowed a couple of weeks ago, but last weekend it snowed quite a bit and it was cold enough that some of it stayed around for about a day or so. It did leave a lasting impression because the snow was all it took to completely strip some trees of their leaves. So there are still some green trees, some trees with dead leaves, and some with no leaves at all. We didn't really have the "pretty leaves" fall. I am thankful that the last half of this week has been beautiful weather! I definitely am not ready for cold and snow for a long period of time (I don't know that I ever will be). I like to see the snow-covered high peaks, though.

Here you can see the level of the snow and also a lot of leaves taken down by it.

whirlwind weekend

The first weekend in October, we went home! People are always telling us how great it is that we moved into mountain country, but I love Kansas! I was excited for the flat, open spaces and familiar sites...home.

Our time was unfortunately very limited, but it was good to be there even for the short amount of time that it was. We felt like we were constantly telling people sorry that we didn't have more time to spend with them. Thanksgiving will be good. Due to schedules, we couldn't leave for KS until about 5pm, which put us in Moundridge at about 2am.

We packed a lot in -- breakfast in Moundridge, a haircut, one hour at Fall Fest, lunch with my family, a visit to Dave, Shelley, and Rhett's where we admired their newly finished basement, and then it was off to the main event. :) The reason we chose that weekend to go home was so I could attend my 10-year high school reunion. We had dinner, drinks, a slide show, some prizes, and a lot of time for chatting. I saw a lot of people I wanted to see. It was a good time. The only picture of people I have from the weekend is below. All other pictures are of my cat, who I got to see for the first time in two months!

We got to chat a bit more with my parents after the reunion and have breakfast with everyone Sunday. Then it was back to Moundridge for lunch and we had to take off. The drive back was ok, but unfortunately we ran into some bad fog, which slowed us down some.


























Alison, me, and Hai

school hearing screenings

This week I got to have my first real world experience in my new field. For the class Audiological Evaluation, we all signed up to volunteer with school hearing screenings in the public schools. I know I am not going to be an audiologist, but since speech/language is so connected to hearing, they are good skills to have, and an SLP has to rule out hearing loss as the cause of speech/language impairments or know if it is a contributing factor. Anyway. I was both excited and nervous because I did not want to make any mistakes. I was glad it worked in my schedule to sign up for an elementary school because the kids are so cute and they care about wanting to do a good job. It was fun, and I performed my task well. It was interesting to go over audiograms with the audiologist and ask her questions. I identified one hearing loss that was not previously know to the school district. It may not have been a new loss (and I hope, for the kid's sake, that it is not) because he was new to the district and was previously at a private school that apparently didn't do hearing screenings because they didn't have a case history for him. When I screened him, I wasn't positive my results were correct because it really was just one frequency in the middle of others where he did not respond. When a kid doesn't pass, he eventually is given a diagnostic test by the audiologist to find thresholds. I got to see his audiogram, and he truly has a notch of hearing loss only at one frequency. Exciting for me that I found something, but sad for the kid.

Another fun part of the day is that we got to eat school lunch. It's funny that I was so excited about it because I stopped eating regular school lunch somewhere around 4th or 5th grade because I didn't really like it. I guess it is novel again. This school lunch was incredibly "Boulder": offerings included tofu hot dogs on whole wheat, an amazing salad bar (how many elementary-aged kids do you know who eat salad bar?) with all kinds of toppings including chicken breast and vegetables grown at the school by the kids (so awesome), and individual soy milks. Loved it.

hoo boy.

I almost forgot about these screenshots I took for blogging. A real winner of a poll from my hometown newspaper. Of course, there are many design flaws with a poll like this, and the answers...oh, my. And I mean the percentages of the answers, of course, and also Brian pointed out several problems with the wording of the answers supplied by the newspaper.

walk across campus? meh, i'm a bus rider now

Well, maybe. I decided after having to walk 30 minutes in the rain this morning -- on my way to a test, no less -- that I had to bite the bullet and make myself believe I could master public transportation. Because who wants to sit through another test with soaking wet feet? And I guarantee you I am going to be cranky and whiny when it is cold/there is snow on the ground. Already we didn't make it out of the 40s today. Summer is going out with a bang, eh? Mostly, I didn't know how exactly to use my ID bus pass, what pick-ups/drop-offs are the most efficient, how much before a stop do you pull the cord? You can laugh, but up until now, I have lived in a town with a population around 20,000. I asked someone about the bus pass. Check. I've looked at route planners a number of times, but it never recognizes addresses I put in, only intersections, and I have not yet figured out how to get it to recognize a bus stop I KNOW is there and is the one closest to my building. I still didn't know about signaling for a stop, but I just went for it. And I made it home. And I made it back to campus. Given that it is supposed to be rainy and cold the rest of the week, I will probably do it again. I'm glad I finally just went for it.

In other news: a good supper. Nothing fancy or likely original (but I didn't get it from a recipe).
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. ground beef
- half of a medium onion, diced
- one garlic clove, minced
- small can of diced green chiles, drained
- 8 tortillas
- 6 oz tomato juice
- 3 oz tomato sauce
- however much cheese you want

Brown the beef and sautee the onion and garlic in the same pan at the same time. When beef is done and onions are translucent, mix in the green chiles. Divide mixture among the tortillas, roll up burrito or enchilada style (is there a difference?), and place in a lightly greased baking pan. Mix together tomato juice and tomato sauce. Pour over the top. Cover with foil and bake at 350* for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake another 10-12 minutes. I also salted a few things in the process (mixture in pan, tomato mixture).

apparently i should walk across campus more often

Although walking across campus is long-ish and sweaty (didn't you want to know?), it does make one's day more interesting. For example, today...

...I saw an undergrad wearing an Odyssey of the Mind 1995 t-shirt. Given that he is probably 10 years younger than I am, I assume it was a sibling's or was a sweet find in a thrift store. I refrained from informing him that I had participated in that event...in that actual year...that 1995 was the year we went to the World Competition!!

...I got to watch many skateboarders. I love to watch skaters' bodies move -- I think it is awesome and beautiful. I have long wanted to be a skater (and a break dancer, by the way). I think I got my skateboard for my 8th birthday, but I was never good. Maybe someone here would like to teach me.

...For the first time I saw someone on campus I know! That is, outside of my program and away from my building. It was Dan of Dan & Sara, our family housing "friends" (as in, we have met them and talked two other times...but they seem so cool, I wish we were real, true friends). He is probably the only other CU student I would even know on campus, so my odds were really quite low: 1/29,000.

...I saw a dude attempt to ride his bike UP concrete steps. And he was probably in his late thirties, not an undergrad trying to be awesome. It was pretty much a fail.

...Walking across campus gives me multiple opportunities to see the most awkward man on campus: the construction worker whose only apparent job is to stand on the sidewalk by an opening in the construction fence, presumably to keep those wily students from entering the construction zone. Seriously, he just stands there on the sidewalk while tons of students pass him. I got to see him three times today: at 7:45 am, 10:55 am, and 2:05 pm. I guess he was off by the time I went by again at 3:55 pm.