This semester will be the end of me.

Struggling, like whoa.

GIF of the Day x2

+

Well, look at that…

My Christmas money has found its home.

(AAAAAAHHHHH!! omgomgomgomgomgomg *heel kick*)

Vacation ends this weekend.

The art of the guilt trip

Open House For Butterflies

i still think this way..

Now that I’m a few months away from starting my SLP career (!!), I’m acutely aware that my own personal collection of materials is pretty dismal. I’ve caught up on crafts and treasure chest trinkets, but books and toys are still a large hole that needs to be filled. Most others would have those books stored away, ready to be rummaged through if/when those grandkids or whoever would need them again. My mom is more of the no-clutter and removal of needless items persuasion, as she quickly gave them away to my cousins once my siblings and I hit junior high. All I can say is thank God for ebay and the folks who sell 70+ book lots for trivial amounts ($30, boom. And it’s a damn good box of books too). I’d be weeping as I drove from one garage sale/public library book sale to the next, trying to recover some semblance of a decent collection.

I spent a few hours this morning sorting through the books to categorize them into therapy usefulness – pragmatics, plural nouns, concrete vs. abstract language, following directions, if certain phonemes are frequently stressed, reading level, etc. Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss was in the pile and it was the first time I’d read or even heard of it. There’s no plot, just the precocious thought process of children, with Maurice Sendak’s black and white illustrations thrown in to round out the charm. And it was printed in 1960. 1960. 50 years ago. I very much dig the fact that the content is not at all dated. bee are bee, buying the other 2 companion books.

Some more favorite bits:

Creativity!

(source)

Books + Music 2009

I look for any reason to spend time throwing together playlists, and pairing a song with some of my favorite books that I read in 2009 was an obvious idea to avoid doing actually relevant life things. Of course it’s all completely subjective – just music that, in my own head, compliments these 20 books through it’s lyrics and/or melodies.

Zip file!

1. Dinah Washington – “That’s All I Want from You”
(Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates)

2. Sanders Bohlke – “Bring Your Weary Soul to the Alter”
(The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

3. Yann Tiersen – “Sur Le Fil”
(The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro)

4. Danny Elfman – “Moon Dance”
(The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman)

5. Emily Loizeau – “Comment Dire”
(Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris)

6. Vetiver – “Rolling Sea”
(Cannery Row by John Steinbeck)

7. Sea Wolf – “The Traitor”
(A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz)

8. Jon Hopkins – “Small Memory”
(The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby)

9. Regina Spektor – “Time Is All Around”
(Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant by Jenni Ferrari-Adler)

10. Peter Gabriel – “We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)”
(The Hunger Games + Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins)

11. Castanets – “Lucky Old Moon”
(The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann)

12. David Berkeley – “Love’s the Only Thing That Shuts Me Up”
(An Abundance of Katherines by John Green)

13. Elliott Smith – “Angel in the Snow”
(Chilly Scenes of Winter by Anne Beattie)

14. Portland Cello Project & Justin Power – “Hungry Liars”
(Birds of America by Lorrie Moore)

15. Gregory Alan Isakov – “Crooked Muse”
(The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder)

16. Owen Pallett – “E Is for Estranged”
(Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier)

17. Brooke Waggoner – “Come Love, See My Hands”
(Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson)

18. Laura Veirs – “Little Deschutes”
(Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson)

19. James Yorkston & The Big Eyes Family Players – “Rufford Park Poachers”
(Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner)

20. Beach House – “Better Times”
(Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld)

*Flex*

Here’s the list of the (good and not so good) books I read in 2009. I set out to read 1 a week, found that I had much more time on my hands than I would admit to anyone, and barreled through about 80. Some were quick reads (YA genre and Sookie Stackhouse series – great for padding numbers), so I’m only slightly boastful. But if I can’t brag here, where can I, I ask you?

January:
1. The Inheritors by William Golding
2. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
6. Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer (forgive me)
7. No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
8. A Window Across the River by Brian Morton
9. Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
10. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

February:
11. A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
12. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
13. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
14. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
15. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
16. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
17. Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield

March:
18. Fragile Things  Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
19. Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond
20. All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding by Carol Wallace

April:
21. One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead
22. Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
23. The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer

May:
24. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky
25. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
26. Holes by Louis Sachar
27. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
28. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
29. Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

June:
30. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
31. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
32. Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
33. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson
34. Too Big to Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian
35. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
36. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

July:
37. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
38. The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham
39. Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
40. Now You See It … by Richard Matheson

August:
41. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
42. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
43. Disturbing the Peace by Richard Yates
44. Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
45. The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
46. Family Sentence: The Search for My Cuban-Revolutionary, Prison-Yard, Mythic-Hero, Deadbeat Dad by Jeanine Cornillot
47. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

September:
48. Rules by Cynthia Lord
49. Tomorrow by Graham Swift
50. Undercover by Beth Kephart
51. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
52. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

October:
53. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
54. Chilly Scenes of Winter by Anne Beattie
55. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
56. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
57. Heartburn by Nora Ephron
58. Like Life by Lorrie Moore
59. Birds of America: Stories by Lorrie Moore
60. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
61. Blankets by Craig Thompson

November:
62. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
63. I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
64. Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson
65. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Thompson
66. Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris
67. The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart by Alice Walker
68. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
69. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
70. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

December:
71. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
72. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
73. Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
74. Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
75. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
76. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
77. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
78. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
79. City of Thieves by David Benioff
80. Good Enough by Paula Yoo

Terrible Book Reviews IV

O Christmas Music

Some new(ish) Christmas tunes that I’m enjoying.

Trent Dabbs – Raise the Tree
Bob Schneider – Fairytale Of New York (Pogues cover)
Petracovich – The Magi
Sleeping At Last – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Mark Beasley – It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Clinic Wrap Up

I wrapped up my advanced clinic this past Thursday after 17 weeks of blood, sweat, and awkward moments to more than fill up my quota for the next few months. I’m grateful for the experience even though I kvetched for a good year about my (now ridiculous) fear/anxiety/hesitance and somewhat immature viewpoint of working with the adult population. I’m not an adult pop. convert yet, but I did lift my self-imposed ban on working with them, so progress and all that.

I was, on average, about 30 years younger than most of the clients so the respect issue was something I initially worried about. Compliments and keeping the conversation about them easily won them over (oh, kind of like with anyone!). Another minor issue that bugged me as the semester progressed was how lacking in the “life stories” department I was. I didn’t have this repertoire of amusing anecdotes to sprinkle throughout the session that my supervisor had and used to create rapport with the adults. I’ll get those as I age, but my impatience to have that (and to already be an experienced veteran clinician, dammit) right.now colored some of the experience. So instead food, sports, daily activities and anecdotes of people I know and secondary sourced stories became my specialty. Tip: Food is a winner. I can’t tell you how many of the language exercises revolved around it, it was such an easy and receptive topic.

An upside was that I was never nervous running the groups. Strange how I can switch on and off that ‘clinician in charge’ persona in front of 5o-year-olds, yet squirm, splutter and flail while presenting to my class of peers. Revelation: power, or at least feeling like you have it, kicks public speaking’s ass. I also dug that I got to refine my skills in cueing and rephrasing questions and answers in a moment’s notice if I saw that the client was struggling. I had many a moment of awkward delayed silence while I racked my brain for the best way to restate something in a simpler way or give really good cues to the answer without giving too much away and it being enough to for their brains to grind out the correct response. It’s an art, seriously.

What I’ll miss:

• That the group I genuinely enjoyed working with the most was ESL and required a translator. Those folks were always cheerful, cracking jokes in Spanish that I can only assume were funny, as far as I could gather from their rip-roaring laughter.
• The frightening(ly fun) answers given by some of the clients in response to my open-ended questions.
  • Me: “Name two things that are red” – Old guy: “Eyes after smoking marijuana… and a murder scene.”
  • Me: Okay, let’s work on our descriptive vocabulary. Pretend I’ve never seen or heard of a teddy bear before, how would you describe it to me?” Another client: “You can stab it with a knife and it won’t die.” Me: “….”.
• The awful questions some of the language stimulus books offered up for discussion.
  • “What questions would you need to ask before: buying a house, investing in a company, voluntary sterilization“.
  • Figurative language: “Are you having fun when you raise the roof?”
• The upper level language groups because I could use riddles and word play exercises and they ate that stuff up. I realize I’m terrible for having enjoyed saying “gotcha!” to them, but it was oh so fun.
  • “Does England have a fourth of July?” “No.” You bet your ass they do, they just don’t celebrate Independence Day.
• That I was called Pretty Lady in place of my name (they forgot it often). Does right by my ego.
• That it took only 5 minutes of prep time to do the sessions. For kids, it took me easily 1-2 hours to get the crafts and games ready.
• One of the clients was a musician who had toured with Yanni. I got pretty excited when I heard that, not going to lie.
• The old man who sat in his wheelchair on a sidewalk 15 minutes from the clinic. Day in and day out, waving down every car passing by. And bless him, he started wearing a Santa hat and foam finger in the last 2 weeks. The first time I drove by him I wasn’t too sure whether it was because he was in need of assistance or just being friendly. The slow waving of both hands muddles that greeting/signal for help line.
• The savory phyllo pastry aroma that was always in the senior center. Just a general stroll through the room was rewarding – their physical activity consisted of lifting water bottles up and down and then picking up their feet for a few seconds, the entertainment was History channel videos, singing along to Sinatra on karaoke, and this one elderly gentleman who played some mean ragtime on the center’s out-of-tune piano.

What I won’t miss:

• The waft of cafeteria-crafted lunchtime fish meals mixed with sweat that hits you while exiting your final daily sessions into the adult center.
• Guilt for occasionally forgetting to go and grab one of the seniors for therapy.
• How one particular client would fall asleep during therapy. Snoring and the dropping of the head would commence literally seconds after the turn was done. I would have been amused, but having to preface every question for them with “Wake up, ___” gets old.
• Improvement is rarely seen from this specific group. Degenerative disorders are just that, they progressively get worse. You’re trying to stave off as long as you can what it will eventually get to them. It’s just as unlikely to see change if it’s been years since their stroke or traumatic brain injury because the window for huge improvements is 6 months to a year immediately after their injury. You have to really love working with adults to be okay with not seeing changes (and in a lot of cases seeing their health decline over time) like you would more easily in a kid.

Next semester (my last!) I’ll be in a public school working with kiddos 4-5 days a week, on top of multicultural clinic 2 nights a week, and taking my last class, an autism seminar. Then after taking the PRAXIS, I can then officially add an M.A., CCC-SLP to my name (and I guess get a job too). Fancy!