My New Hair

So, my new hair has been getting a great host of reactions.  Honestly, I've loved the attention.  The reactions have ranged from "it's terrible" to "you look like Sting" to "just add some red and you'll be all ready for Christmas" to "Bryan, what did you do?!?"

Virtually all of the blue has washed out, so now I have blond hair with a little bit of green tint to the fo-hawk.  My original hair color has begun to grow, adding some depth to the blond.  Soon enough my hair will look like I frosted it - like how having frosted hair was really really cool in high school.  You know, all be guys bleached their hair a month before spring break so they could get a hair cut just before and then go down to Florida and cruise the beaches with "frosted" or "tipped" hair.  I never went anywhere for spring break, so I never dyed my hair.  

In other news, school is done for the semester.  So, during the break I am reading fiction and working on my thesis.  So far I have read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khalid Husseini - great book. I highly suggest it.  And I have begun a new science fiction/fantasy series - A song of Ice and Fire.  I'm 3/4 of the way through book 1 - A Game of Thrones.  And I've written a little bit more than a page on the methods of my thesis.  I'm in a break from that right now.  I just can't think that hard for that long.  Besides, I've got a meeting with Dr. Tasko in 40 minutes.  

Anyway, I should begin the process of getting ready to go to school. 

The Long Awaited ...

So, it's been a while.  Since last blogging I, rode the train to Chicago, "slept" in an airport (by sleep I mean walk around the terminal for 5 hours waiting for check in to begin), flew to Denver, flew back, got stuck in Chicago (missed my train), went to classes, oh and had 19 calls about possible jobs in 48 hours - 19 (not including the one phone interview I had)!

So.  This is the last week of classes in this fall semester.  Which means that I now have to attend six more class periods (excluding finals) in my entire masters degree!  I am virtually done taking classes.  (That, my friends, is what they call a good feeling).  One week from tomorrow only an (online) class, internship, and thesis will stand in the way of my name becoming Bryan T. Brown, MA, CF-SLP.

In my spare time (so about 15 -30 minutes a day) I am researching different metropolitan areas around the country in search of the place I want to live.  The world is open to me (well the country is easiest, although I really want to live and work in New Zealand).  So, on my monster.com account I have selected several metropolitan areas as my favorite.  Among them (an in no particular order): Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Chicago, IL; Boston, MA; Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA.  You'll notice that all of them are large cities with public transportation systems.  What's more, is that all of them have been included in the top 25 of the country's most "walkable" cities.  More to the point: I am sick of driving.  I want to walk and use public transportation to get around.  But, this is based on me finding a position in one of those cities.  Here, I am faced with a conundrum.  Hospitals and clinics in large cities are quite reputable, and therefore, can afford to have expectations of experience.  I, as a new grad, have little experience.  Roughly, this means that it is unlikely I would find a job in a reputable hospital or rehab clinic within a large city.  Ah, but hope is not entirely lost.  There are HUGE staffing companies that have contracts with smaller rehab clinics and schools in large cities.  The only draw back is that I would not necessarily have the direct supervision I would like (as a clinical fellow, and not a full fledged speech-language pathologist).  So, I have some thinking to do.

On that note, the phone interview I had was with a smaller (but still large) staffing company for a rehab center in Tacoma, WA.  The building sounds quite interesting.  It is specifically for patients who have been trachotomized and some of which are on ventilators and patients who have sustained severe neurological insults from motor vehicle accidents, strokes and other traumatic brain injuries.  It is technically a long-term care facility (boo) but the patients do not stay long - the recover quickly (yay).  I would work with occupational and physical therapists (yay) but I would be the only SLP (boo).  I would get to design a whole new augmentative and alternative communication system (yay) but, I have to design a whole new augmentative and alternative communication system (boo).  My supervisor would be there about three days a week (yay/boo).  It is near Seattle (yay), but it is in Tacoma (boo).  I would have public transportation access to Seattle (yay) but Tacoma does not have a reliable public transportation system - or so my research has revealed (boo).  So all in all, I like the job, but I'm not sure about the area.  I said no to a job in Texas because of the area, so wouldn't it make sense I do the same for this - I think I might fly out there and interview, see the area and then make a decision.

Anyway, I still have some homework to finish, and thesis methods to work on (I'm on the methods section - a new section - something new and different!  Here is where I realize how big it is going to be, yesterday I realized that I might be biting off more than I can chew, so, I've come up with a solution.  Work work work until the end of February/beginning of March.  Whatever I have finished then, tie that off for the thesis, but continue working on analyzing the remainder of the data, and then once I have the whole problem analyzed submit it to a journal for publication.  I think it's a good plan, we'll see what Dr. Tasko says tomorrow).

So, for now I bid you adieu.  Good night and good luck.