Relaxing day at home!

Despite the early morning wake up call to get to the morning clinic meeting, I am having a pretty good day. My time on campus today allotted to a full hour and then I headed home. We had our last clinic meeting of the semester and I did my presentation. It went well, really didn’t have to do anything except read off the chart like I explained before. And since it was one of the first year’s birthday today (Katie), she brought in donuts and then two of the second years brought in donuts as well. It was nice and relaxing and then… I came home. I was home before Jay left for class which NEVER happens. I was home when Ayden was just starting his school day… that NEVER happens either. So, I’ve been enjoying my relaxing day at home so far.

I’ve gotten the laundry done, three loads… one load needs to go in the dryer yet. I’ve started copying some notes from my computer to my printed out power points. Yes, I know that I could print them and it would be easier, but in order to print the notes version of slides, you need to print the slide big and when you have over 100 slides to a presentation, that is WAY too much paper and ink. Easier to print the slides 6 to a page and just hand write the notes. Plus, I get to reread it and hopefully retain the information a little better.

Speaking of working on homework… we’ve still been doing good with Ayden’s homework box. He is working his way through some work books at lightening speed and it is amazing to see the skills he is learning every day. OOOHHH and guess what?!?! I know that this isn’t going to be exciting to the majority of the few that actually read this blog… but Ayden came home from school yesterday producing the sounds /k/ and /g/ (the /   / symbols stand for the sound the letter makes and not the letter itself) in… ISOLATION! He’s been working on those sounds in speech for the entire year so far. He has speech therapy twice a week at school for about a half hour to 45 minutes and goes with two other kids so that really isn’t a lot of one on one time.

Anyways, he substitutes /t/ for /k/ and /d/ for /g/ and ‘back sounds’ the /k/ and /g/ are some of the hardest sounds to teach because they are not easy to see someone produce. I might have mentioned it before, but he was able to say the sounds at the end of words, but not in the beginning, nor in isolation, so when he was able to do that for me at home it was amazing! This is one step closer to generalization of the sound to words and all the time usage. How awesome! Maybe it is because I spent the majority of my undergrad classes learning about speech and language development that I am so excited about it, but really I just think it is awesome! So proud of my little big guy!See that look of concentration on his face! He really wants that Bakugan card he knows he gets for working so hard! And the last few nights he has just been flying through those workbooks! It’s amazing!

Not only am I having a pretty good week, but one of my professors just made it better by emailing us and letting us know that we will not be having a final exam in his class. We just got done with an exam last week and he told us yesterday in class that he was going back and forth on whether or not he wanted to give us a final exam and was leaning more towards no. We were all excited of course at the prospect of not having another final to worry about. If we would have had one, it would have been a take home final which isn’t the worst, but just something extra to worry about. In any case, he emailed us this morning and informed us that our presentations/papers will be considered our final grade and that was awesome to hear. He also let us know that our papers wouldn’t be due until the final date which isn’t until December 16th, when we all thought they would be due next Wednesday when we are presenting. At least I think that that is what he meant. Just might have to clarify that on Monday. Most likely we will finish our paper this weekend and have everything in order then.

Plan for the rest of the semester…

-Finish revisions on last patient report and summary

-Get report and summary signed off on for two patients

-Cumulate hour totals and get those signed off on

-Turn in completed hours sheet

-Non-organic hearing loss lab tomorrow

-Turn in two completed labs tomorrow

-Hearing aid duty Monday and Thursday next week

-Hearing Assessment presentation Monday

-Hearing Science presentation Wednesday

-Meeting on Tuesday for final clinic grade

-Final on Wednesday for Instrumentation

-Lab on Friday (don’t know topic yet)

-Turn in non-organic hearing loss lab

-Final following Monday for Hearing Assessment

-Turn in final Hearing Assessment lab in needed

-Enjoy a week and a half before Christmas with no class and only work!

That’s quite the list when you sit and look at it, but really it’s all a matter of actually just doing the things and not having to prep for them, well besides studying of course. Well, maybe what I mean to say is that although it looks like a lot, I really won’t be stressing too much, hopefully! However, when your professor tells you that your final is one and half times longer than the other two tests and those test took you at least an hour to do… that means a two hour long final… lots of writing! I’ve had one of those before, definitely not fun and definitely leave with a cramp in your hand, but if I can leave that test and not have to return to campus until January, that would be great!

Bring on December 14th!!!

For now… I’m going to sit back and be depressed as the white stuff that currently covers our grass continues to accumulate and ponder going to get our Christmas tree this afternoon once Ayden gets home from school and then dread the fact that I have to decorate the darn thing at some point before Christmas is actually here. Oh bugger!

CIAO! LOVE ME!