My Union Debut

So I'm at Waterstreet (surprise!) working on my thesis (surprise!).  Well, I guess I'm literally taking a break from working on my thesis.  While on my thesis break I figured I would blog about my night last night.  It was a good night.  Some friends from church and I went out to the Union (for those of you are not from Kalamazoo, the Union is a semi-fancy restaurant that occasionally has live music from WMU students and other area musicians).  Anyway, last night Cliff was performing.  Cliff lives over on the east side of the state and regularly performs in restaurants and bars.  One of his trademarks is to get people up onstage singing.  So, fun fact - approximately 6 people got up on stage with him - and 3 of them were from my table (perhaps that's because 84.3% of were are on the worship band team).  

Anyway, Cliff asks for a guy (no, a 'stud') to go on stage.  My friends Jessica and Rachel point to me and tell Cliff to make me do it.  Instead he calls Jessica on stage to sing a song (I should tell you that Jessica and Rachel both know Cliff).  Jessica sings beautifully.  Cliff does some other stuff and then again asks for a 'stud'.  Again, Jessica and Rachel point to me.  This time I cave in and go up onstage.  I sing Blackbird by the Beatles.  It was great.  But weird - the monitor system was so bizarre that at first I didn't recognize my voice as my voice.  It was weird.  I thought that person is singing the same thing I am but that's not me ... oh, wait, it is.  So yeah.  Then to be fair Rachel got up and sang a song.  

After the set Cliff came over to our table and thanked us for participating, and told me that he was surprised and impressed by my voice ... it looks like, even though I'm not singing as much, I still haven't lost it.  It was fun ... my Union Debut.

That's about it.  Nothing else much.  Oh, I have an unofficial thesis defense date: May 28th.  As long as the 3rd member of my committee is available then it will be on the 28th.  Scary.  But that means that once the thesis is done we can go back through and fix the mistakes and then get it ready to submit to publication.  I'm going to be a published author (assuming it gets accepted).

Anyway ... back to the grind

Canada Goose Aggression

So, while walking into the building today and yesterday mornings I have seen spectacular displays of goose aggression. On both days I have seen two large geese chase away a smaller goose. Trumpeting their cries, craning their necks in anger, spreading their wings and beating at the air to display their power. Geese are weird creatures. Of course, when I was watching this large goose run towards me (before realizing he was attacking his rival) one thought ran through my head: he could break my legs with those wings ... where is the best place to run to and what can I throw at it. So, I guess that is really three thoughts. This morning was less eventful - there were no air-beating-wing-displays, just honking, chasing and pecking each other, with the victor returning to the gaggle triumphantly. It must be mating season. I thought it would be a bit late for mating, and they aren't near any water. hmm. I may never know.

In other, non-zoological news, I don't think the job in San Francisco is going to pan out. I've been emailing the director this week, and if I understood correctly, they have offered the position to another person, and she is just figuring out if she can accept. Honestly, I'm not that disappointed. It would have been a great job, but I'm not certain it was the perfect job for me. Also, I have two new prospects. A fairly large private practice in Seattle, and St. Lukes Hospital in San Mateo, CA (San Francisco Bay area). I have not heard back from either yet (it's only been three days) ... well, I have not finished the application for St. Lukes yet. It's an incredibly monotonous application process - very similar to the application process for grad school. There is also a hospital outside Boston that I am interested in ... but they do not want a fresh grad. grrr. And seeing as though it is 30 minutes outside of Boston and not IN Boston, I am less inclined to take it.

Other than a purposefully slow going job search, not much is happening here. I'm working on my thesis full time ... well, when I'm not blogging about my life. I bought some new shoes yesterday ... $7. I was pleased. They are a blue/green/tan plaid slip on shoe. I think my feet are shrinking. These are a 9 1/2 and they are big. Maybe these shoes just run big, but I want to cause a fuss and say that the sky is falling and that my feet are shrinking. What else is going on in life ... I'll be watching my professor's dog over Memorial Day. That makes three professors I have animal sat for. Interesting facts (or not-so-interesting facts).

Ok, back to the grind ..............

and the job search begins

Just to keep everyone informed, I have a phone interview with a private practice out in San Francisco in about 9 minutes, so this is going to be brief.

Anyway, I 'graduated' last Saturday.  I'm not officially finished, but I working on it.  I just sent off the rough draft of my results section to my advisor today, so I'll get his edits back in the late morning and then keep on trucking through.

In other news, there's not that much happening here in Kalamazoo.  Most of my friends have gone home, or to their new lives as speech-language pathologists.  I'm still doing the school thing.  Well, the thesis thing - it's a little different.

So, I will let you all know how my interview goes (t minus 6 minutes and counting). I've already outlined answers to questions I think she'll ask (one of the beauties of phone interviews - the interviewer cannot see you - I could interview in my underwear - I'm not going to, don't worry).  So, you know.  Anyway, I'm going to go get a glass of water and prepare to sell myself.

Another Day

I wrote this at Waterstreet when the internet was down - so it's copied and pasted in from word.

so, I’m at waterstreet, on this rainy Saturday.  I’m listening to a conversation by a literal knitting circle (5 women sitting around in a near circle form, knitting and talking – oh, I suppose one of them is crocheting).  Anyway, they were discussing a movie called, Idiocracy.  From their conversation I gathered that the basic premise of the film is that due to the phenomena that more intelligent people have fewer children than “less” intelligent people eventually the world will be filled with morons …  essentially the evolution of intelligence to a less intelligent average than today.  Interesting.  And I don’t demean them for having the conversation, and the film (I’m guessing) is satirical, however, it ignores the fact that there are multiple intelligences.  There is a book smart, street smart, outdoors-y smart, political smart, horticultural-y smart, animal smart – this list could go on and on.  I consider myself book smart – I’ve got a college degree, I’m fairly well read, I’ve traveled a little bit.  So, for the purposes of this argument let’s say that I’m one of the intelligent ones that doesn’t have enough kids and so mankind becomes dumb because I didn’t have lots of kids.  Well, I hate to burst their bubble, but I cannot survive today without the “unintelligent masses” right now.  They have an intelligence that goes behind the scenes.  They would be more equipped to survive without me than I without them – I could not work a press to make the car that I drive everyday, I could not operate the assembly line that gets my food to me.  Heck, I couldn’t even drive the truck to get the gas to the gas station so I could put gas in my car.  I can read books and help people become better communicators and swallow better.  Not incredibly amazing, or useful without the under pinnings of culture that we often take for granted.

anyway, enough philosophy.  

 

I’ve been thinking more about jobs.  At first, I really liked the idea of being a traveling speech pathologist.  However, I would be starting a new job every three months.  And that would be difficult.  I would be in a constant state of catch-up and readjust.  And the recruiters for the traveling speech pathologist positions have not been real forthcoming with information.  So, it’s not looking good.  On top of that there are not a lot of medical positions available for a CF (clinical fellow – I need supervision for 9 months before I am a certified speech-language pathologist).  It is directly because of that supervision that medical positions are hard to come by for a CF. Medical sites do not have the man power to supervise a CF.  (with that in mind, the schools really don’t have it either, but we have to begin working somewhere).  Anyway, back to the point: there is a private school in Hillsborough, California specifically for children with severe physical and communication impairments.  Most of these kids use high-tech communication devices (basically a computer that talks for them).  I think I might begin looking into gaining employment there.  It’s in the San Francisco area, so the cost of living is astronomical, and my pending employment there would be dependent upon substantial financial compensation.  We’ll see what happens.

 

Other than that there is not much exciting happening here. 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That basically sums up how I feel: AHHHHHHHHHHH!  My graduation is in 26 days (wow), and I'M NOT READY FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have an online class where ump-teen posting are required each week, I have a giant test to take, I have to go to my internship everyday, and on top of all of that I have a thesis to finish.  To make a long story short I'm emotionally ready to start crossing things off of my to-do list, yet I am not ready to do any of it.  Granted, I should not be worrying about the job or the giant test.  I'm taking the test in June, and the job search can hold off until after graduation (I was calling April 1 my day to begin my job search ... I have a feeling that April 1 [which will begin in 11 minutes] will come and go without me looking for jobs.)  I was talking to my friend Meghan to day, and she gave me permission to freak out a little bit and then not worry about the test or the job search.  Yet - I'm still thinking about them (obviously, or I would not be blogging about them).

Anyway, in other news I just submitted a proposal to present my thesis at the national speech pathology convention in November.  My proposal was not great, so I don't have high hopes, but you never know.  But, if it does get accepted I'll be in Chicago in the middle of November ... I think the weekend before Thanksgiving.  So, that could be quite fortuitous timing.  Anyway, that's all I really wanted to say.  I was going to call someone, but then realized that everyone who would care (or pretend to care) was already asleep, like I should be.  

So, that's what I'm going to do: go  to sleep.

Goal: Accomplished

So, I have reached a new level in my seasoned career of negative 30 days, a thesis, a giant test and a 9 month internship from being a certified speech-language pathologist: for the first time a patient has requested not to receive therapy from me because of my stutter.  One might say that this is an odd thing to call a goal to be accomplished.  Yet, I a logical and rational human being, realized there was a ticking bomb related to this. Ultimately, I knew, one day I would have a patient request not to work with me because I have a more difficult time speaking in a fluid stream of words than the rest of you "neuro-typicals" (I got that phrase from my friend Peter - awesome).  Honestly, I was quite pleased with the manner in which the situation was handled.  I was never offended and was not made to feel incompetent.  My supervisor reassured me that I am doing good work and none of our other patients had taken issue with it.  I assume the family spoke with my supervisor after hours.  My supervisor then came and spoke to me (this was last week, mind you) and she said that I have three options: 1) the other slp could treat the patient, 2) my supervisor could treat the patient and I could observe or 3) I could treat the patient if I were certain that I could use the therapy techniques and "control" my stuttering.

Anyway, all of this made the come to this realization: while I have dealt with my stuttering - the emotions (anxiety, fear) that accompany the social pressure to "talk good" that easily overwhelms even fluent speakers (let alone stutterers).  And while I have dealt with the physical aspects (not to say that I don't stutter, but that I have eliminated (most of) the secondary behaviors that accompany it, and for for the most part, my stutter does not interrupt or dictate my life).  I have given stuttering therapy, provided counseling (advice) for other stutterers.  Even through all of that there is still a little bit of me that considers my stuttering to be synonymous with an unsightly mole or character flaw that my friends/family must over look.  That somehow they (you) are doing me a favor by liking me.  Now, intellectually, I know this to be erroneous.  But "knowing" something and "believing" something are entirely different animals.  I think that I will carry the scar of "my unsightly stutter" forever.  I think that I will always beat back the feelings of insecurity that can accompany an awkward situation or a failed attempt at speaking fluently.  Nevertheless, life goes on, and I "know" that I will be a better speech-language pathologist because of my own struggle with communicating myself.  Eh, such is life - right?!?!?!?!?!?!

one midnight gone (well, a little more than one)

props to anyone who caught the Into the Woods reference.

Anyway, I got out of my internship a little early today (4:30), so I decided to pop into a coffee shop in downtown Battle Creek to do some homework, and what not.  So, here I am at Brownstone Coffee at 18.5 Michigan Ave in battle creek.  I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into the shop.  Initially, I did not expect to be impressed.  It's in Battle Creek, which doesn't bode well (Battle Creek, in general, just doesn't appeal to me).  Anyway.  I walked into the dimly lit, narrow, but exceedingly long shop, heard the soft blues/jazz music playing overhead and ordered my Americano from the barista, who was quite warm and friendly.  I found my way to one of the tables lining the left side of the shop, each individually lit by a light, alternating between mini torch lamps and "lawyer-style" desk lamps.  Across from me there are three circular glass tables with chairs that match the table support.  the chair backs all have steaming cups of coffee etched out of them.  - it adds a nice little bit.  Anyway, on the right wall there is a series of three murals, one of a Hindu god (with 8 arms - can't remember the name), another of a guy with a yellow trench coat (reminding me of Dick Tracey) hanging out of a train to grab a cappuccino from a cappuccino machine, and the third of a finely painted coffee cup with a barista floating out of the steam rising from the cup.  and then there are pictures and paintings for sale hung all throughout the the shop.  my favorite part, however, is the ceiling.  it consists of finely detailed tin ceiling tiles, painted a creme color, the duct work is exposed, track lighting at 45 degree angles to the walls, and then, above the coffee bar is an A-frame skylight.  So, in a word the coffee shop has character.  and the coffee wasn't bad either.

anyway, the internship is going well.   I'm learning lots.  there is quite a steep learning curve - I'm doing virtually all cognitive therapy (stuff I haven't done).  my patients are, for the most part, good to work with.  We did an evaluation of one guy yesterday - he was motivated and congenial.  Today, that was not the same story.  He was agitated and uncooperative.  and refused services.  we returned later in the day, no change.  we found out that he was upset about the status of his pills (crushed in applesauce) and was attributing that change to us.  but we never saw him for swallowing eval, so we didn't order that.  Anyway - that's the life of an SLP when you work with brain injury - ups and downs, and - WOW, where did that come from.

Anyway, the coffee shop is about to close (that's a downer - they close early, then again it's in BC, and they probably don't have the customer base to stay open past 6).  Anyway, I will write later.