Concentration!

I’m frustrated at this present moment… but looking at that silly face makes me just want to forget everything that I’m frustrated about and smile. I love the look of concentration Ayden gets on his face when he is hard at work. It is simply the cutest thing in the word if you ask me! He’s always stuck his tongue out a little bit when he is concentrating really hard. I’d love to see if he does the same thing at school as well! Maybe I’ll ask his teacher at our conference this week. That’s right… parent teacher conferences this week. Although it won’t be our first one since we met with Ayden’s pre-k teacher for conferences as well. I also have been meaning to email Ayden’s speech teacher to see how he is doing with that this semester as well, however it really hasn’t been on the top of my list.

So, back to my frustration! The first year grad students (the three of us) have to do hearing evaluations on 35 undergrad students. Fine… dandy, however we were not told about this until last week and have to do them in the next three weeks. I love the fact that we will be getting this extra practice because it will most undoubtedly add to our experience which I think is definitely beneficial, but these evals take about an hour a piece. So thats about 12 extra hours of stuff I need to fit into my schedule and it definitely sucks! And then to top it off, apparently the clinic supervisor got the impression that we thought it was too much for us and then asked the second years if they could help. Like that didn’t make it seem worse. Its not as if they don’t already have enough on their plates that they now have to help the incompetent first years finish these evals. Ugh! I’ve decided that unless they practically take them out of my hands, they don’t need to help. I don’t want to inconvenience them anymore.

And then to top it off… I brought Jay and Ayden to the clinic tonight so I could use Jay once again as a guinea pig for my lab. He is so gracious about letting me use him and its definitely great, however Ayden does not behave well while I am trying to do the testing and it just frustrates me because I’m supposed to be concentrating on something and then I have to make sure my son isn’t touching something he shouldn’t be all while trying to get the testing done at a decent pace so Jay doesn’t have to be subject to it for very long. Well to top it off, I was going through the test and the method that we were taught in class was just not working with him and I wasn’t getting the results that I should have been. It wasn’t his fault by any means as he can only hear what we can hear, but I didn’t know what to do and Ayden wasn’t behaving and it was definitely not going the way that I had anticipated. Ugh! It just irked me! I’m getting worked up again just thinking about it!

On a brighter note, I finished my book today. It was Summer by Karen Kingsbury. My cousin recommended the author to me and told me that she cried during a lot of her books. Oh great, just what I needed, a sappy book that was going to make me cry. And… it did just that! But it was a really good book and I’m glad that I read it and might even read more by that same author… after of course the newest Stephen King book that comes out tomorrow. I’m so stoked and am headed to the store to buy it as soon as I can tomorrow which probably won’t be until after Ayden gets off the bus because I don’t have much other free time during clinic days. Oh, but I’m so excited! I haven’t read any of his books in a good long time so bring on a good Stephen King novel, even if it is over 100 pages long!

And guess what! Tomorrow marks 10 days until the New Moon premiere! Yes… I am a Twilight lover at heart! If you’ve read the books you’d understand, ha! Although I don’t think I’ll be out for the midnight showing, I’m sure to see it sometime soon after its release… I mean it is supposed to be pretty good, but I don’t think that Jay will be accompanying me. Oh well, haha! That way I can oogle over Edward without worrying about making Jay jealous, hehe!

Today I was a guinea pig for the second years. They were running some sort of test… calorics, which is some sort of eye test and then put cold water and then hot water in your ears and make you dizzy and then ask you questions about all sorts of junk. It was weird, but interesting at the same time, if that makes any sense. I know that it is something that I will have to do next year so it was cool to kind of get a sneak peak at how it all works and such and actually experience it.

Oh and probably the BEST news of today! We (first years) found out that we will NOT have to take one class next semester that the second years and pretty much every year before us did. I’m super stoked. That means instead of being in class from 9am-12:20pm on Mondays… we will only have class from 9am-11:20! That cuts out a whole hour of class! Okay, I know what you might be thinking… an hour really isn’t that much, but yes for us it is! We couldn’t be happier! Ah, it was a great moment when we found that out!

Okay, off to have some ice cream and watch some TV before turning in for the night. Clinic in the morning… should be an interesting day, I think! I won’t have to do anything eval wise because it is all hearing aid and ABR stuff so I’m kind of excited about that prospect and then only having to write up two summaries. Hopefully Thursday goes that well too… need to write pre-reports up tomorrow sometime as well too! Oh the glories of being a first year grad student! Wouldn’t change it for the world though as after getting some writing out my frustration level has definitely decreased because I know in time all things will be fine again. They always are and always will be. I have faith. You get knocked down… but you need to get right back up again. Hey… remember that line from a song, hehe!

CIAO! LOVE ME!