A Musical Weekend

Well the three job lifestyle is coming to a close, with only one more class meeting left this semester. I've really enjoyed teaching, but will welcome the extra room in my brain to focus on my other two jobs more effectively. Having three jobs, with many huge projects in process at any one time has been veeeeeeery taxing on my sanity. Somehow I've pulled through, and even got the opportunity for some fun this weekend!

On Saturday night, my piano teacher held a concert at Fresno Piano. It was so motivating to see her play. I feel very fortunate to have a teacher who is so enthusiastic, paired with such amazing skill! She played some classics, including my favorite Clair de Lune by Debussy... I am so motivated to learn it now.

Then on Sunday night, Nanda's younger brother, had a concert at the Saroyan theater. It was the Fresno Youth Orchestra paired with members from the Fresno State symphony or something like that. Anyway, they played Mahler's Symphony #1 which is the "titan" theme. It has always sounded to me like a depressed Frere Jacques, but I really loved it. They were pretty incredible, especially considering how young some of them are.

My goal this week... to keep my sanity, practice piano, and continue enjoying the little things.

Can I take a breath?

Well judging from the weeks it's been since I updated this thing... life has been a little insane lately. Three jobs have been keeping me very busy. Making sure I continue to give 100% effort into each has been increasingly difficult. At least I love what I do... otherwise this would be misery.

I'm especially enjoying my teaching opportunity at Fresno State. It's been so different to be giving exams instead of taking them. I was just as nervous giving my first test as I think the students were taking it. It worked out just fine, with a nice even spread of grades... a lot of A's!

Then of course there's always Billy hovering about with his fertility calculator plotting on how he can make my life even crazier by introducing a mini me into the picture. I just don't know what to make of that just yet...

Livin' la vida... ummm busy?

So... obviously been busy. Haven't thought about blogging recently due to my near constant work schedule. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do... but everyone needs some time off. Sadly we can't afford it. We have too much house remodeling to do, and too many credit card bills to pay off.

Luckily I enjoy my work. The only problem is that it is starting to become a bit of a strain on Billy and I. When I get home from working 12 hours... I want to relax. Not have to do chores around the house. Unfortunately when you live with another person, their idea of tidy is usually not the same as yours. I've become a bit of a kitchen cleanliness Nazi as of late.

So... I suppose I'll just suck it up and continue working insane hours. I like being able to afford nice things, I just don't like the constant stress of it. At this point, I can't imagine fitting a child into this schedule, but I guess normal people don't plan all that out first. I suppose I could think of it like people used to... if I pop out some kids, that's more little people to force chores upon! Woot!

Ok... so that's my griping session for now.

Good luck bringing me down!

So I'm really excited about my real weekend! I got all of my patients out of the way on Friday and had all day Saturday and today to do... NOTHING! Well I guess that's not entirely true. I did do some gardening and cleaning which was much needed. I had time to indulge myself in my new favorite TV show... the ridiculously cheesy True Blood. Funniest show ever.

I'm just really happy with my life right now. I don't think I've ever been happy for so long on a stretch. I think the key for me is staying busy. I notice if I have too much free time I start to dwell on things that are less than positive. Oh poor me I work too much, oh poor me my mom is crazy, oh poor me Billy's going to be out of work soon. It's only through years of training myself in positive self talk that I can overcome all of these things. I now know that I am stronger than anything this world can throw at me. So good luck trying to bring me down... it ain't gonna happen! So in the meantime... back to some more vampire dramedy!

Santa Cruz

Have you ever been driving on the freeway and wished that you didn't have to stop driving? Have you wished that you could just keep going to the mountains or the beach? Well Saturday night coming home from Lowe's I thought... sure would be nice to drive to the beach. So, instead of driving I decided to stop at home and see if anyone else wanted a part of this madness. So I called hotels in Santa Cruz, found one right by the wharf that was 1/2 off for the night cuz it was so late. I asked Nanda, Billy, and Kristin if they wanted to go. Unfortunately Nanda couldn't, but everyone else was game... so I booked the hotel, packed, and off we went at around 9:30.

We arrived in less than 3 hours and checked into the hotel at 1:00 AM. Kristin and I walked on the beach before bed and got stalked by a weird man who somehow knew we were from Fresno. It was creepy since no one else was on the wharf. Near the hotel we got freaked out by a weird dummy on someone's roof... who puts a freaking dummy on the roof?

So that was scary... I am having the hardest time trying to post pictures on this blog. I can put the first one where I want it... but all the pictures after that keep going back up to the top of the post... what's up with that?

Anyway the next day we walked to breakfast, ate delicious seafoody omelettes, then walked the boardwalk. We were early so we only had to wait a few minutes to ride the big dipper. Let me tell you that thing was no joke. I was actually quite scared. A man on the ride said I should label myself with an "S" for screamer. I think that means it's been too long since I was on a roller coaster. I never used to get scared like that.

We then walked down the wharf, I got an incredibly awful sunburn on my neck. Good times. Then like an idiot I put on my sunblock but it was probably too late by then. We checked out of the hotel, then drove along Cliffside road I think it was called. It was gorgeous as this picture proves. Then we drove South to have lunch and found a less populated beach to relax on. It was really the perfect temperature for a beach day... at least on the beach that was farther south. I'm so glad I was impulsive Saturday night... cuz this weekend was so much fun! It just feels good to do something last minute... especially if it involves the beach!

So the plan for this week? Work. I am working after work every night this week... sigh. That does mean more money though. We were able to pay the installer to put in a special moisture barrier so we should have the floor in the dining room done in the next few weeks...whenever someone can be here for the install, so yay!

We're on TV!

There is going to be an upcoming episode of 0-5 on PBS, and David (the other speech pathologist where I work) and I are going to be in it talking about stuttering. Should be interesting to see how the segment turned out. Hopefully they didn't edit me to sound like a moron. One of my previous patients is on the show and we are demonstrating the response cost method of treatment for stuttering. It's on PBS on Thursday at 7:30 according to the website. Here's a link.

More Speech Pathology Ramblings...

I had a great moment with a patient that has aphasia. This patient... I'll call her Susie... has severe expressive aphasia with some receptive involvement, although not as severe. Here is a video of someone with Wernicke's Aphasia... which is a fluent aphasia like my patient's. It's black and white... but it was really the only good one I could find on the internet that really exhibits a fluent aphasia. Anyway... back to Susie. She had a stroke and damaged the part of the brain that controls language. With aphasia this damage occurs in Broca's area or Wernicke's area on the brain above. So imagine being very intelligent, having the same personality as before, being active, having perfect emotional responses and great problem solving ability... but not being able to communicate! This patient can't read or write either. Imagine feeling that isolated all day long from friends and family! The worst part is that people think these types of patients are just crazy... but they are far from it. Many of them can even understand speech but just can't use language expressively, or vice-versa. There was a moment today where this patient had a breakthrough and named 15-20 objects correctly and then counted objects from 1-4 correctly all in a row. It makes my existence on this earth worthwhile when a patient looks up with tears in their eyes with a look that screams "I did it... thank you" without having to say (and being unable to say) a single word.