Out West Extravaganza - Recap

Ok, so it's about 7:20 on Thursday morning.  I figured I would recap what I have been doing thus far.

Firstly - the multiple train systems are interesting - confusing, but interesting.  

Secondly - the weather - amazing.  I love it.  It may have reached a high of 85 (with no humidity - ahh, beautiful)

Thirdly - I have had two interviews (have a third scheduled in a little bit), make that three interviews and one job offer. Yes!  A private practice, Peninsula Associates, offered me a position working at the Morgan Autism Center in San Jose, CA.  (this is of course, with the condition that my references provide strong recommendations of me, but barring awful reviews, I have at least one job offer).

Fourthly - I don't really like being on Michigan time while staying in California.  I get tired early and then I wake up early.  The waking up early part doesn't bother me so much, but I feel bad when I start yawning and the people I'm hanging out with feel obligated to go home.  Oh well.

Fifthly - the traffic is awful.  But it's kinda fun.  I'm a more aggressive driver than most Californians.  (Granted I'm more aggressive than most Michigan drivers as well).  But they don't speed like we do in Michigan.  Interesting.  They allow U-turns all over the place - kinda fun.  

Sixthly - I have discovered the other side of of the uber liberal San Francisco Politics - uber conservative politics down on the peninsula.  Interesting.

Finally - I'm finally going to head up to the city today.  I get to walk around San Francisco and do that whole thing.  So excited.

Anyway - that's a basic summary of my Out West Extravaganza.  Now, I'm going to go get ready for my interview.

Out West Extravaganza Day 2

So I'm in Panera (I know, I know - I flew all the way out here only to get something I can get at home ... but Panera was the first place I saw that was certain to have one think I desperately needed: wifi.  Had I not needed to access the internet I would have been much more adventurous and gone somewhere in downtown San Jose.  Anyway, I just got done visiting the Morgan Autism Center.  This place was the one place in all of my travels in the San Francisco Bay area that wasn't easily accessible by public transportation.  So my friend Joel allowed me to borrow his car - I really like his car.  It makes me hate my car that much more.  Anyway.  I didn't even mind the stereotypic California traffic.  I was cruising up "the 101" to a mix of Sheryl Crow and Hootie and the Blowfish ... very 1990s I know, it's just what I felt like listening too.  There is just somehting picturesque about driving up a California expressway while listening to "Soak up the Sun".  

Anyway, I liked the Morgan Autism Center; however, I wonder if I should start at a job that is this specialized.  I'll bring that up in my actual interview - in about 90 minutes.  So, I'm going to finish my sandwich and then to to Target to purchase the one thing I forgot to bring: deodorant.

Out West Extravaganza Day 1 ... continued

So ... my interview went really well.  It lasted two and a half hours.  An hour with their rehab director and 90 minutes with 4 of their 15 (yes, fifteen) speech-pathologists.  It was a LONG day.  I'm glad it's over.  After making my way to San Jose, my friend Joel, his friend Drew and I went out for cajun food.  I had oysters.  I wouldn't have these kind again.  

Anyway - who has two thumbs and is exhausted - this guy. 

Out West Extravaganza Day 1

This is a chronicle of June 17, 2008

 

So I’m in Chicago’s Midway Airport – at 6:42 central standard time.  My flight leaves at 8:50 … so I’m here with time to spare.  However, I am a little annoyed because the airport has decided to taunt me with the promise of internet access – so excitedly I open up my computer only to find that they have chosen to go with a pay-for-use WIFI, which I respect and can appreciate.  However, you get a WHOLE 24 HOURS OF SERVICE for the reasonable price of $6.95.  Now, if I were spending all day in the airport I might think about purchasing that AMAZINGLY GOOD DEAL (especially considering how a month of home internet access costs approximately $30).  Needless to say, I am actually not writing this online right now.  Instead I have decided to write the prologue to my Out West Extravaganza in a word document to be transferred to my blog later tonight.

 

So, here I am sitting in the nice seats at gate A18, even though my gate is actually A9.  Why should I sit in those hard plastic seats that are going to make my back ache and my butt sore when there is an excellent collection leather covered arm chairs down the concourse that will cradle my toush in comfort (and it happens to have an electrical outlet so I can charge my laptop to boot!  So, I’m mooching off the pleasant patrons of AirTran.

 

Anyway, my adventure here was uneventful.  I could have easily slept for another 30 minutes, but I suppose it was better to be safe than sorry.  Had I slept that extra half hour, invariably, there would have been an accident on the freeway, or I would have gotten a flat tire or some unfortunate event would occur to delay my arrival to Michigan City, which would have resulted in me missing my train to Chicago, and then I would have been late for my flight and my whole trip would have been initiated in a rocky and unpleasant fashion.  So, instead I’m slightly sleep deprived and have read up a bit in the book I am reading (Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert).  Oh, and I have decided that I love not checking baggage.  I got off the ‘el’ (‘L’)? and walked right to security.  It was beautiful.  No waiting in line, just sitting on the train, walking to the concourse, maneuvering through security and now sitting again (at the wrong gate).  I am going to be sick of sitting by the end of the day.  I should go for a walk around the airport.

 

I am viewing this trip as the end of the massively extended period of time between adolescence and adulthood commonly dubbed ‘college’.  My experience was longer than most due to the requirement that I have a Masters degree to practice.  Nevertheless, it comes to a close.  Today, I officially enter the “real world.”  I have my first “real” interview, for a “real” job – versus to fake interviews I did at ASHA or interviews for internships.  Those don’t count because, in the end, they didn’t really matter.  I wasn’t going to accept any jobs offered me at ASHA, and I was guaranteed an internship so, it really didn’t matter where I was placed – the point was to gain experience.  Here and now I will be examined by professionals with experience, sized up, figuratively poked and prodded in their attempt to see if I make the cut.  To see if, when push comes to shove, they think I will be able to use this knowledge I have spend a great deal of time, effort and money obtaining.  So – I’m at the cusp.  I’m standing at the edge of the diving board staring down at the water, seemingly a mile below me.  And I’ve got to jump.  This moment (approaching in 6.5 hours) is what the past couple weeks have been about.  I’m beginning to get excited.  The irony of it all – is that this will, most likely, be posted after the fact. Anyway … I think I need a breakfast sandwich.

 

 … later that morning …

 

The breakfast sandwich was good, expensive, but good.  What are you to expect when purchasing food inside of an airport, similar to buying food in an amusement park.  They have a monopoly on food (for those of us who didn’t bring food).  Anyway, now I’m sitting nearer to my gate (gate 11).  The seating at my gate is quite full, so I opted for the comfy chairs that are spaced further apart rather than the hard ones with little “wiggle room.”  I’m going to be cramped for a while as it is, there’s no need to start now.

 

Anyway, I have had a fascination with flying since I was young.  In high school (maybe even middle school) I anxiously awaited my first flying experience (which occurred my sophomore year of college).  From that first take of from Dallas, TX I was addicted.  My favorite part is take-off.  Feeling the brute force of the airplane forcing your chair to grip you tightly as the collective makes its assent to cruising altitude.  My plane has just arrived, I should probably stop typing, visit the restroom once more and then finally make my way to the appropriate gate. So, until next time (probably on the 4.5 hour flight to the San Francisco International Airport).

 

… again, later that morning …

 

So I’m currently flying over the Midwest proper (Illinois, Iowa etc … in my opinion, Michigan really isn’t part of the Midwest – it’s a Great Lakes State).  And I think we just flew over the Mississippi River (placing us somewhere over Iowa).  Anyway, I was able to see the flooding of the region first hand.  Watching the gray lines that are roads disappear underneath brown expanses of unencumbered rivers is truly astonishing.  Right now I’m looking out my window and the river we’re following winds and bends along and then suddenly, out of nowhere the river quadruples in width.  Trees roads, expressways and occasionally cities drowned by a river overflowing its banks.  Up at cruising altitude you loose all perspective pertaining to distance along the earth, but the river has had a too wide a girth for a long time.

 

So, for those of you who don’t know about one of the best things about my stutter let me explain.  It is an instant “friend-o-meter.”  Based on someone’s reaction to my stutter I can tell if they are a cool person or not.  My flight attendant: not cool.  She doesn’t overtly show distain or dislike (her job is to make me feel comfortable so I will fly again – she can’t make a face at my stutter) but over time a stutterer can become quite attune to picking up very slight adjustments in facial expression and body language that gives the biases of my conversation partner away.  This is neither here nor there, just a fact of life saying that of flight attendant and I met somewhere else other than her place of employment I would not go out of my way to interact with her. 

 

… later …

 

we’re somewhere over the plains – lots of farm land striped green and brown.  And there is a ridge lined with, what I can only imagine being, wind turbines.  Interesting.  The patchwork land sprawls beneath me.  Even this high up these fields look larger that those in Illinois.  It reminds me of the plaid patchwork shorts that have recently become popular.  Alternating horizontal and vertical stripes of two-toned plaid; kind of fun to examine.  There are more wind turbines – I can actually see some of the blades turning they appear to be moving slowly.  However, this is deceptive based on their relative miniscule size.  If the blades are as large as I imagine they are the outer edge of each blade is moving very fast.  The wind farm is absolutely huge, spanning many miles across a ridge.  There are at least three rows of turbines, sometimes four.  I wonder how much power is generated by that wind farm.  There is free energy everywhere in the world – it is up to us to envision new ways to harness and store that energy and then we can be mostly independent of foreign oil and simultaneously saving the environment.

 

We’ve been in fight for a little over 2 hours now.  The land has a lot more vertical contour that it did even 15 minutes ago.  I find myself wondering what state we are currently flying over.  But these are undoubtedly the Rocky Mountains.  Snow caped peaks with valleys intermingling.  It is a beautiful sight.  My guess is that we are over Colorado.  There is a river cutting a gorge through the earth, it’s cool to see.  There are cirrus clouds between the mountain peaks and our plan they look like a painter’s brush stroke on an enormous canvas.  I am now past what I assume to be the front range of the Rockies: I am now further west than I have ever been.

Anyway - now, here I am in a lovely little coffee shop (called the Rendez Vous Cafe) around the corner from the hospital I'm about to interview in, enjoying a delicious iced latte.  I'll take a picture later, but right now I'm just settling down to get ready for my interview.

We'll blog on the rest of this day later.

For lack of a witty title

So, I was going to blog about my week later, but I just had an experience and I had to blog about it right now.  So, here I go.

I'm at Waterstreet (who's surprised? No one? Good.) Anyway, I was sitting outside enjoying the sunshine while studying for the praxis (that really awful test I have to take in 8 days), and this woman leans over and asks me what the current colloquial term for 'cool' was.  (she didn't use those terms, but that's what she meant).  She and I brainstormed and didn't come up with anything more appropriate than 'cool'.  So cool could still be cool - who knows.  Anyway, not the point.  The point is, that we had a wonderful conversation following that. I asked her if she was an author - she said yes, she's currently writing a book about her life after she found and adopted a chicken - that's right the mostly flightless bird that most people eat for dinner on Sunday - she has one as a pet.  Her (the chicken) name is Liberty, her name (the lady) is Lisa.  So, Lisa and I got on this euphorically tangential conversation.  Tangent after tangent.  Eventually we found ourselves talking about my life and what I'm doing with it - speech pathology, moving away yadda yadda yadda. 

Anyway, she also has had some experience with speech therapy as well (incidentally at the Unified Clinics).  (she speaks with a harsh, breathy tone and I was going to ask her - but she beat me to the punch).  She was recounting the time after her vocal folds were burnt in a fire.  From what she said it was very traumatic, she almost died, thought her face was going to be riddled with scars etc.  Anyway, once again not the point.  She then recounted the time when walking into the clinic and overhearing a gentleman saying some nonsense phrase over and over again (recurrent utterance).  

So here I am with this ethical dilemma - it is quite possible that I know / have interacted with this individual during my experiences in the aphasia group, and she brought him up and I can't say - "Oh yeah, that's Harry Potter (or whomever)"  So instead I talked about what I "thought" he had (knowing full well, based on her repetition of the recurrent utterance, who she was referring to).  This was, obviously, aphasia.  She had thought he was presenting with symptoms characteristic of a right sided stroke (again she didn't say that but she did say inappropriate social skills, difficulty regulating appropriate emotions etc). 

So, I got to explain to her that this gentleman is not displaying a difficulty with social aspects of communication or emotions, he is experiencing difficulty with language in and of itself.  So, he is still there, but now he is trapped inside his head without a reliable way to express himself.   

The tangents continued and we began talking about stuttering, and my experiences and what I hope to do with my professional life.  And that was great fun.  We had this deep philosophical discussion about the way we view the world and our perceptions of society and society's perceptions of people who are different.  

Anyway, I'm not sure this blog turned out the way I was imagining it would.  I can't already tell it's not mind blowing.  I think I used a lot of speech path jargon - sorry.  If you don't know what a word / phrase / whole paragraph means just leave a comment and I'll explain it in real-person language.  In fact after looking back on it - I think the post it a lot like our conversation - sporadic.  

Anyway the conversation ended when she looked at her watch and realized that we had been talking for an hour and she had to go help her aunt out.    Fun times in the life of Bryan.

In other news, my housing for Seattle just fell through, so I have to find a new place to stay or else stay in a hostel.  The hostel would be fun - I'm looking at one that is right across the street from Pike's Market - SO EXCITED about that.  I wonder if the hostel has a kitchen - I'd love to get some fresh crab legs and fresh vegetables and gorge myself on deliciousness, we'll see.  Other than that - there is not much exciting happening in my life.  Two guys in scrubs just walked in - kind of odd - there's not a hospital near here, I don't think anyway.  hmmm.  I guess that's about as exciting as it gets around here - displaced medical personnel.  Simply astounding.  Ok - i'm going to stop typing now.  I think the "Iced Coffee With a Bang" I just had (four or five shots of espresso in 6oz of coffee  ... mmmm caffeine) has just caught up with me.   I'm feeling ... jittery.  Do I drink too much coffee?  Blasphemy.  No such thing as too much coffee.  Ok, I'm really done now.

Interviewing: Commence

So I bought my tickets for my "Out West Extravaganza" today - just now in fact.  The cost of the ticket from Chicago to San Francisco jumped $50 from yesterday to today, but the ticket from Seattle to Chicago dropped $70 - imagine that.  And I was able to save about $100 by flying out of Chicago rather than Detroit (even with the cost of gas to Michigan City, IN and the commuter rail into the city).  Anyway - I have dates!  I fly to San Francisco on June 17, then on the 20th (or so) I'll take the train to Sacramento, spend with weekend with my brother and sister-in-law, then on the 23rd fly to Seattle, and then fly back to Chicago on the 26th.  It should be a grand adventure.  A mad dash across the west coast.  Can't wait.

In other blog worthy news, I was at O'Duffy's last night with Scott, and a couple interesting things happened.  (1) I saw my old band director from high school (Mr. Jordan).  That was odd.  He's doing well, teaching in Portage (I think) and will finish his masters in organ performance this summer.  and then (2) when Scott and I were bidding adieu, we saw this guy ride by on a bicycle that was literally 6 feet tall.  The bike was taller than I am.  And he was riding down the street - looking just a little bit ridiculous, if I say so myself.  But what was absolutely hilarious was watching a guy on a regular sized bike ride past him.  The mere mortal was dwarfed by the monstrosity riding along side him.  That made my night.  What made it even more queer was that the bicycle entered the street from my friend Theresa's driveway (or at least I think it was her drive) T - do you know anyone with a 6 feet tall bike?

Anyway, I should get back to studying for the praxis.  4736 'Cool Points' for anyone who can guess where I am!

ME: A look at my life subsequent to the completion of grad school

All I have to say is: ahh.  Life is good, no great, now that grad school is done.  And what's more I have made great use of my time since being done with school.  I was able to hang out with another guy who stutters.  That was lots of fun.  We were able to swap stories, frustrating moments, pet peeves, and we got to eat sushi.  delicious.  I LOVE sushi.  Anyway, a lot more happened and I don't feel like blogging about right now, so on to the next thing.  I was able to hang out with Justin this weekend.  A fun time was had by all.   Finally, I spent the day at Cedar Point yesterday.  SO MUCH FUN!  I loved Cedar Point.  I got to go with a couple speech path friends (Meghan and Colleen) and then Colleen's friend Vunner.  Lots of going fast, and twisting and turning, and up and down, and dodging vomit plastering the walkways, and waiting in line.  lots and lots of fun.  However, somethings have not changed - here I sit at waterstreet (SURPRISE!) and I'm simply elated because I'm done with my thesis. 

Anyway, sorry for the lack of paragraph structure in this blog ... i'm feeling unorganized.  

Speaking of unorganized I almost forgot the life-update that was the purpose for this blog.  I've moved from working on my thesis to working on a couple things: (1) a giant, miserable, grotesque test I've got to take on June 14, (2) job hunting, and (3) figuring if/when I'm moving out of Kalamazoo.  Lots of stuff to figure out. Lots of thinking to do.