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.

Q-Bert and Jasper, together at last!

After reading K's blog I couldn't resist posting a side by side comparison of Jasper from Twilight and Q-Bert...the resemblance is uncanny! They both look perpetually shocked and a little psychotic.

Well, in other news... I actually participated in a piano recital on Wednesday which was super funny. Most of the participants were of course younger than I was... but my whole adult class participated which made it slightly less embarrassing. At least I'm not the oldest! Anyway, so I've decided that since I've been playing piano for almost a year that I'm going to step up my game. I'm planning on either dropping the group class or adding a private lesson to it so that I can develop my skill a bit quicker. I'm proud for sticking with it this long, and feel like I have a new talent to show for it! Yay! OMG... embarrassing link here... Apparantly there is a picture of me on their freaking website. They showed it to me and I just about flipped out.

So Billy is WoWing again... I stand by my decision to have dropped WoW in favor of piano. Help me be strong! I have a new talent instead of an extra talent point for WoW. Was that a ridiculously nerdy metaphor or what?