Semester's End

The semester is winding down.  I have three therapy sessions, one family conference, one take home final, one presentation, a final exam, and two weeks of weekly paperwork left between me and my Christmas break.  I probably shouldn't even be writing. 

Here's what I've learned this semester:

1. Therapy is hard.  Experienced SLPs make it look so easy!  But when you combine collecting an accurate amount of trials and data, maximizing the client response, responding with feedback, and scaffolding up in the session to work at the correct level of difficulty, I forget where I am sometimes!  Multitasking has always been difficult for me, so I've learned to take a deep breath, pause if I need to, and to keep practicing. 

2. Actually taking a few minutes to write out a priority list and plan my day/week saves time in the long run.  I feel more organized this semester than any other, because I had to be. 

3. Humility is endless. Every person I meet can teach me something. My classmates are brilliant resources, and my clinical educator is resiliently patient with me while I learn.  Even if I don't like something, it's still an opportunity to learn that I don't like that thing. 

4. There's no "finish line" in speech-language pathology.  I will never know everything.  But that's what's great about the science of language.

5. Data is important. 

6. The world goes on outside of my clinical practicum, and it's important to poke my head out regularly to maintain a healthy perspective.  This is one of the areas that my classmates with children don't need much help with.  They go home to real life every day.  But I can get glued to my chair in the study room of the clinic all day if I'm not careful. 

This is not nearly representative of everything I've learned this semester, but it's what I'm able to articulate right now.  I'm very grateful for this experience, and can't wait to get into Clinic 2 with everything I know now.  

Much has happened since my last post.  I established my goals for my client and have been working the very best I can each session to pick the best stimuli, collect accurate data, and get the maximal response from my client.  I am so grateful that I've made it this far, and that I've been able to learn so much.  I think back to my semester of student teaching (which you can read about if you like, in my 2008 archives).  I did not have the maturity back then that I have now, and I wasn't willing and able to change myself to accomplish what I needed to accomplish.

This time around, I'm able.  Thank goodness for life experience and lessons so valuable that led me to where I am today.  I'm not so hard on myself anymore.  I am now able to look at a situation for what it can teach me.  Turns out this is an important skill to have in my chosen profession.

Other recent happenings:

I visited Steve in Mississippi:

My new baby cousin is growing fast!

Kelly and Chris got married!

I cut my hair!  

Holy clinic!

My first semester of clinical practicum as a SLP student has been underway for about a month now.  I would have posted sooner, but I haven't been able to make the time!  My brain has been working in overdrive; my Clinical Educator, at the end of our clinic class, likes to ask, "Are your brains saturated?".  What an accurate summary of the past month.

This has by far been the hardest semester of my educational experience thus far.  (I can't actually be sure because I like to block out my memories of student teaching).  But it's been a huge period of growth.  I'm trying very hard to keep my stress to a minimum, which can be tricky at times because, as a cohort, my classmates and I have varying instances of difficulty with our clients, and we all individually handle stress in different ways.  Top that off with a heaping truckload of paperwork.  Deep breaths have been my saving grace.  

Today, instead of hanging out in the clinic, I decided to pack up and so the rest of my work at home.  It gives me a chance to do a couple loads of laundry and be able to work with some daylight streaming onto my work area.  

Now, back to work on SOAP notes...

Diet Woes

This article about glycemic index got me thinking about about my life long battle of the bulge and how it sometimes seems like a battle not worth fighting.  Maintaining weight loss has been hard for me.  I have watched the scale slowly creep back up by tenths of a pound.  I tell myself every day that I will plan my meals the next day and stick to it!  But alas, it's so much more fun to eat boneless fried chicken chunks slathered in buffalo sauce.

I met a young guy this weekend from Italy.  I mentioned that I had done a spinning class that morning, and he asked how many times a week I go to the gym.  I told him I aim for 5, and he seemed surprised.  "Why do you go so much?"  "Because I love to eat," I said.  "Why don't you just eat less?"  Exactly.

I think part of my issue is that I eat when I'm overwhelmed.  I don't know how to start my to-do list, so I just eat instead.  I also hoard calories--as if I don't know where my next meal is going to happen, so I am pre-programmed to eat until I'm full.  Sounds nuts, right?

I don't want to examine how or why I developed an abusive relationship with food.  All I know is that I want to change it.  Tomorrow's meals are planned; let's see if I can stick to it just for tomorrow.  When tomorrow is over, I can worry about Wednesday.  I need to start taking one bite at a time, living in the present and having faith that I will get the nourishment I need when I need it.

Time Management for the Student Clinician

Hello again, my long lost blog!  What have I been doing?  I've been working, exercising, enjoying the last of the warm weather, nourishing my long-distance relationship, and preparing for my first semester of Clinical Practicum.

I'm anxious and excited to meet my client.  I'm also interested in seeing how my time management skills hold up with this new kind of schedule.  Perhaps I should dust off my copy of Time Management for the Creative Person to refresh and reevaluate some of my priorities.  I've already started keeping a to-do list on the front of my binder to keep everything I need to do in one place.  

Saying no has historically been the hardest part of time management for me, but I've been getting better.  I worry a lot about what I'll be missing out on if I say no to a last-minute dinner with friends or to a family gathering.  I also worry that people will hear "No" once and think I don't want to hang out ever again.  Then I remind myself that, frankly, I'm not that important.  My loved ones will not give up on me after one "no".  And trusting that choosing to follow through on something I committed to doing, such as homework or exercise, will result in good things.  I won't be missing out on life when I'm making a mature, responsible choice.  Rather, I'll be investing in my own livelihood.  I still have to make time for myself and for my loved ones, but it doesn't have to get in the way of my goals. 

I love the start of a new semester.  It's a new beginning.  

You know what else I love?  Flower deliveries!  

Recent Happenings

Celebrated Andrea's last days of freedom at Put-In-Bay

Took a lovely walk at Parker Mill Park

Discovered mango sorbet.

Went to Cedar Point.  Felt officially old the next day.

Watched Ryland leave for his first national tour with his band, Citizen.

Andrea's wedding!  (Left:  Jeremy, her brother who flew in from Portland with his new fiance).  

And here's me.  

Summer Dreams, Ripped at the Seams

I'm spending the beautiful Sunday evening inside catching up on homework.  I won't say classes are ruining my summer, but I will say that they put a damper on the things I'd like to do.  And with that tiny complaint out of the way...

Life has been pretty good.  I have lost 20 lbs since my birthday in January.  I feel great, and I'm only about 10-15 lbs away from my goal weight.  

I have a lot of fun plans for the summer despite how busy I will be.  Bachelorette parties, camping trips, baseball games, and hopefully running a 5K somewhere in there.  

Spring [Work] Break

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph."  Theodore Roosevelt


Leading a strenuous life is exactly what I've been doing lately.  It's nice to know that ol' Teddy would approve though.  I will be spending most of my break working on multiple assignments and non-academic tasks and projects.  But this is what graduate school is all about, right?


A couple small toots of my horn:


-I joined Weight Watchers in January and have lost 10lbs so far.  I am very proud of myself and also very thankful that this program is working to help me transform my eating habits.  I've been going to the gym an average of 5 days a week, and I finally bought some new running shoes.  I'm starting out on the treadmill for a while because I'm injury-prone, and hopefully, I will be able to venture out into some local trails soon.


[my pumped up kicks]





-I completed my first Diagnostic Evaluation and received my first couple of clinical practicum hours.  Even though it felt like being thrown in the deep end of the pool without floaties, it was a great experience and a great way to learn a LOT about our campus clinic in a short amount of time.  


It's insane how, between my studies and my grad assistantship, how much time I spend in my cerebral cortex-area of high level brain functions.  My roommate was thanking me for doing the dishes so often and I replied, "I honestly enjoy doing the dishes.  It's one of the few mundane, thoughtless tasks that I look forward to."  As the semester trudges on, I'm trying to keep things simple and enjoy the ride.  

Dx Factor (Get it?)

My first diagnostic evaluation is tomorrow eeeeeeeeek!  Thank goodness for all the love from the fellow speechies in my program.  My partner and I are the first pair scheduled, foraging the frontier for our fellow phonteticists!!

All silliness aside, this assignment is the first assignment in the program's clinic with a real life client.  Thinking about diagnosis gets serious when there's a real human being right in front of us.  I'm excited to meet the client and even more excited to hear feedback about how we did.  I've been prepping some of the test materials for the past couple of hours.

I somehow have found time to make it to the gym on all of my regular days and I even studied for an aphasia final a little bit here and there.  Oh, and I did an observation at a local aphasia program last week!  As far as my decision to become a SLP?  Let's just say it was one of the best ideas I ever had.

Okay, I need to get back to my date with the CASL (Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language).