this weekend i...

• watched the movie Red for free at a theater on campus.
• watched CU beat Oklahoma State live for $3, making their record in the conference 3-0! Two of those wins were against nationally ranked teams and one was against a team that has been getting votes in the polls. Man, am I going to miss Big 12 basketball after this year!
• baked bierocks.
• watched the film The Bridge for free on hulu. It was quite sad. Then I did some reading about suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge. More sad. Next up, I will read the follow-up study "Where Are They Now?" about 515 individuals who attempted suicide from the bridge but were restrained. I am hopeful that it will be less sad since I read elsewhere that the percentage of people who were stopped and later committed suicide somewhere else is low.
• wrote my first paper of the semester...at least the first draft.
• actually -- surprisingly -- already finished my reading for my first class this coming week.
• got free stuff at the grocery store: a clementine (one of our stores very often offers whole clementines as samples), a bottle of Kraft salad dressing with a coupon, two cans of Del Monte reduced sodium sweet peas with a coupon, and a nearly-free (50 cents) package of Dole salad greens.
• started our colony (?) of Triops [hopefully] hatching.
• went out with B's lab to a pub, where my Smithwick's was paid for and I ate delicious Guinness-and-Bass-battered onion rings, BBQ pork sliders, and pub chips.

And what's that you say? The weekend isn't even over yet?! I have tomorrow off? Thank goodness. I am so ready for a break from school. :)

Ph.DJ

If the epic event from last year's department holiday party was the "P.R. long pour," the epic event from this year's was one of our professors playing us music that he produced. I was pretty impressed. It was loud in there, but I believe he said he has produced three albums? And one of the songs he played for us tonight should be coming out on iTunes in the spring? Sweet.

Of course, others at the party might have different opinions about what the epic moment of the night was...like maybe playing Flip Cup with your professors or hearing the chair of your department chant "P-Ram! P-Ram! P-Ram!" over the microphone or watching your professors limbo.

Oh, SLHS, I do love you...when I'm not having to do work for you. Haha!

Sure, Wednesday evening may not have been the ideal time for a party, but honestly, it was really, really nice to have a break from all of the studying right in the midst of everything.

not good.

I believe our latest mouse has somehow managed to trap himself under the cabinets in our kitchen. How he got in and is not able to get out is a mystery. But we keep hearing him scratch about. Ug. That is a much worse problem than having to avoid a mouse dead in a trap. 1. I feel sorry for the guy if he is trapped and is going to starve to death. 2. It's going to smell awesome.

a good day.

It was hard to wake up this morning. Really hard. I'm not quite sure why since, prior to last night, I was getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Probably the short night and some general grumpiness about a certain assignment I stayed up late working on plus my long, packed day ahead made it difficult. Then, not 20 minutes after our first break in class, I was dragging. DRAGGING. The eyelids were getting heavy. Class ended early, which was a nice treat. I had a training session during my 30-minute lunch break that lasted into my first 30 minutes of work, so I missed out on that $5. 2.5 hours and it was quitting time! Off to another meeting. But. BUT. This is where the day got good. I had my first formal clinical evaluation with one of my supervisors, and it went so well! I was super pleased. It seriously put me in such a good mood. Then the second version of our clinic schedule (what clinic assignments / clients we'll have) for the spring went up and...luckily, none of the assignments I was really excited about changed! (and neither did any of the others) I actually left the building for the day feeling really good.

When I got home I saw a sweet, thoughtful note from Brian about how we have another mouse (boo) and he had reset the traps and wanted to warn me not to get tangled up in them (I am super notorious for kicking any random thing on the floor and I definitely tripped the traps last time they were out).

rocky mountain mcc relief sale

As mentioned previously, in October, we went to the Rocky Mountain MCC Relief Sale with our friends Emily and Adam. Emily grew up going to the sale, and we were stoked that they invited us to go. We were able to get a head start on the drive to Rocky Ford on Friday night by traveling to Colorado Springs and staying overnight at Emily's family's beautiful house there. We also got the privilege of seeing their newly-delivered wedding photos that night. Gorgeous!

Saturday morning after breakfast at Panera, we drove the rest of the way to Rocky Ford -- a town that reminded me a lot of towns in western KS. Once there, I immediately started honing in on KS-plated cars and wondering how many people we would see that we knew. We saw maybe 10 people we knew? Cool. The CO sale had many similar elements to the KS sale but on a smaller scale. I enjoyed looking at the silent auction items, the quilts, and the regular auction items. I believe this sale's signature item is its apple butter, made fresh there in the morning and canned right before your eyes before you buy it. I'm telling you, folks, this apple butter is crazy delicious.

Their big meal is a barbecued chicken meal with cole slaw, a dinner roll, and a brownie. Very yummy. The meal is in a building about six blocks away, and they offer a tractor-pulled wagon ride to it. Here we are on the wagon.


After we walked back from lunch, we browsed the Ten Thousand Villages shop and over by it I spotted for the first time a sign advertising New Year's Cookies! Unfortunately, there were no New Year's Cookies to be found. :( If we go back, I will know to check for these earlier in the day. Since we all know the food is the most important part of the MCC Sale, the other foods to be found at the CO one were: bierrocks, sausage sandwiches, pie, and ice cream.

Before we left, we joined everyone in attendance in singing 606 and watched part of the quilt auction. Then it was time to return home and after the 3-hour drive, Brian and I enjoyed some still-warm apple butter on whole wheat rolls. Mmm.

limbo-ing is scary. apparently.

at my friend's ABBA-themed birthday party

cool life moment

As terrible as I may find my hometown newspaper sometimes, it did give me one of the greatest gifts of my life: my chosen profession. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English (not intending to do anything degree-specific). I wished to find a helping profession that appealed to me. Many, many do not. Every now and then I would wonder about teaching (at some level in the public school system), but the fit did not feel right. And that is one profession I firmly believe that if the fit doesn't feel right, you probably shouldn't be doing it. It is one of my most admired professions, one of the most important professions, and I sure didn't want to screw up at it. Social work crossed my mind a few times too. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school...but certainly not in English. Anthropology or American Studies sounded fun, but again, I was uncertain about putting in the time and money for a degree I wasn't sure how I would use. I worked at a job I liked with co-workers I loved, but I knew it wasn't my career.

In May 2006, I read an article in my hometown newspaper about a speech-language pathologist in one of our local schools. She spoke about the connections she made with her students over the years. That plus my love of language plus a strong personal tenet that everyone should be able to tell his or her story led me to research this profession I was mostly unfamiliar with. It took a while to make the life change and some major things miraculously fell into place, but here I am nearly halfway through my speech-language pathology education. Kind of amazing, really.

Oh, yes, the cool life moment. So the slp interviewed in the article was not someone I knew. I knew who she was because her daughter and I were in the same graduating class in high school. I didn't know if I would ever have a chance to talk with this woman and let her know the huge impact she had on my life. This semester we were assigned to interview an slp for a project. I immediately thought that this was my chance. I was nervous because I generally prefer to stay in my comfort zone. I know several other slps, any of whom I could have had a comfortable conversation with, but I made myself not pass on this opportunity. I contacted her, she quickly and enthusiastically agreed, and we talked on the phone last night. So cool. I hope to be the kind of slp she is.