Hearing Evaluations

I’m sitting here… on campus… in the grad room… on a SATURDAY! Never before have I come to campus on a Saturday and actually stayed for more than a half hour of my own free volition! I had one Saturday final my first year here at Point, but that has been it. I’ve come in on occasion this semester for a quick thing on a Saturday or Sunday, but never have I actually stayed for more than that! And yet, here I am, in the grad room… on a SATURDAY! Aren’t the weekends for lounging around the house in pajamas having fun?!

But alas, school comes first, well when the little dude is gone, as he is the weekend. At first, I thought that since we were going to be home this weekend, it would be a good time to schedule these hearing evaluations that I have been talking your ear off about. No worries about fitting them in during the week, just do them this weekend when we have nothing else going on and Jay is available to watch Ayden. As it turned out, Jay wanted to go home for hunting and that he did… and he took the little dude with him. Well, he didn’t really have a choice. So with Ayden gone, I can work on everything school related, right?! If only I were so inclined.

I really didn’t have a choice but to come in for the hearing evaluations, but I’ve decided that that is the extent of school related stuff that I am going to do today. We were emailed our second hearing science exam yesterday afternoon and although I think it should be a little easier than the first one, I am in no mood to actually start looking for/typing up the answers. And I am meeting with Amy and Katie tonight to study for our exam on Monday so that is more school related stuff.

After I am done with these hearing evaluations, which won’t be for at least another two and a half hours because I have one coming in at noon and the one not coming in until 2pm, I am going to hit up a redbox and see if they have any good movies out and possibly get one or two to watch this afternoon while I wait for my study group to commence. Sound like a good idea to you? Because it sounds like a great idea to me! A super idea to lay on the couch and relax! Oh and have some left over manicotti for lunch (a late lunch/early supper) at that.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Success Story

I’ve been a bad blogger… I know. I want to write more, but I’ve been busy playing with the little guy and catching up on my sleep. It has been a LONG week and all I wanted to do every night after Ayden was in bed was to unwind with a little bit of TV and then crash! I’ve been asleep by 9pm almost every night this week and for me that is early. Although I am not a night owl staying up until midnight every night, I do consistently stay up until 10pm or later… just not this week. Oh well, I haven’t been overly stressed either that I’ve needed to sit down and just a lot off my chest. So although it has been a LONG week, it hasn’t been overly stressful like some long weeks can get and for that I am grateful!

I had clinic on both Tuesday and Thursday this week and both days went rather well I think. I did all of the speech audiometry on Thursday and I think it went well. It definitely wasn’t perfect by any means, but it wasn’t horrible horrible either and for doing all of it knowing that the supervisor that I like the least of the three was watching through the camera I think I was rather successful. In any case, I won’t have to do it again for another two weeks because we don’t have any evals until then. Well that isn’t necessarily true. I won’t have to do it again for clinic until that time, but I will have to do it seven times this weekend when I am doing hearing evals for the undergrad students. But for them I am not getting nervous at all for those.

Today I am ‘stuck’ on campus for the majority of the day because my second year has hearing aid duty. I thought I might as well finally take the day and stay here (in the grad room at this moment) with her in case something does come in and although I could be at home doing laundry, I’d probably also be sitting on the couch watching TV and not getting any studying done. Not that I’m getting a whole lot of studying done while I am blogging and on facebook either, but well I probably wouldn’t be blogging while I was at home either. So yeah…

I had an hour and a half study session this morning with the other first years with one of our professors for our test on Monday. I am feeling very confident about it. We only have three topics to know for the test… acoustic reflexes, speech audiometry, and masking. Don’t be fooled though because within those topics is a lot to know and it is getting it all straight that is the hard part. I think I finally have the masking stuff done, only after almost two weeks… but it feels good to know and understand something and then put it into effect for clinic as well! Our professor started asking us some stuff about reflexes and for a minute I had no idea what she was talking about. I had been concentrating so hard on masking that I pretty much lost all of the reflex stuff that I knew… but after a minute of quick review it all came back and I was answering the questions pretty confidently, lol… for the most part. I’m going with… lets stay positive and confident for this upcoming test. I’m not hoping for another 100% like the last test, but at least a 90% or better and I have no worries that I should be able to pull at least that off.

I got a call from my BFF today regarding an internship that she interviewed for this morning. She is hoping to work at a home for teenage mothers next semester as part of her schooling. This is something that she is really passionate about and I really hope that she gets the internship because I think that she could be a positive influence on these girls. Somehow during her interview the fact that she had a best friend who was pregnant in high school came up and that she is a ‘success’ story. Like you had to guess that that friend was me. Anyways, the lady she was interviewing with wondered if I might ever consider coming to speak with the girls at the home. When my friend asked me, of course I agreed to. I think it is a great idea.

After I got off the phone with my friend I was thinking about it a little more. I’m still more than willing to go and talk to these young women and share ‘my story’ with them if only to let them know that they can make it as well, but what kind of hit a nerve per say was the fact that I’m considered a success story. The fact is that teenage pregnancy is one of those things that people look at and think that the girl is screwed for life… there really is no way around it, but then the ones who do continue on with life in a ‘normal’ way are considered a success. It’s normal for any other teenager to graduate from high school and then go to college, but when you are talking about a teenage mother… well all of that is no longer normal, but a success. Why are these girls held to a different standard?

Maybe I don’t know what I’m saying or I’m not getting what I’m truly feeling out in the way that I want to or maybe I’m just not normal. But when I became pregnant, of course I thought that my life was ruined for a while, but then I became to realize that it only would be if I let it. So I did what everyone else in my senior class was doing, I went to class and graduated. And then I went to college. I had a baby, but I also didn’t let that interfere with how I wanted my life to play out. Obviously things are different with a child, but that stigma of being a teen parent is who you have to become. I don’t consider myself a success because I did what I had planned to do either way, go to college, graduate, and well then continue with college (maybe that second round of college wasn’t planned from the beginning, hehe), and continue on with my life. I didn’t end up pregnant and think, well should I follow the norm of what society says these girls end up like or be a ‘success’ and continue on with life. I won’t say everything was as easy as it would have been without a child, but for me, I didn’t know it any other way and did what I needed to in order to get the grades I wanted, to get where I wanted to be. I don’t know…

In any case, I’m excited to go some place and offer some teenage mothers some support and let them know that they don’t have to be the norm, that if they set their mind to it, they can achieve anything that they want to, their desires before they got pregnant. But they have to believe in themselves because if you don’t believe in yourself then you won’t get anywhere. Have faith in yourself!

Okay, enough about that… getting too serious for me and it’s Friday… Friday the 13th and a time for fun, not seriousness, hehe! I’m so ready for Ghost Whisperer tonight and Jay is making manicotti for supper and I cannot wait. Ayden probably won’t eat a whole lot of it because for some reason he doesn’t really like lasagna or manicotti, but that just means more for me! But just because I  know that he would prefer not to eat it doesn’t mean that he will have to eat at least some of it. I’m not a short order cook (most of the time) at our house and so if he doesn’t like what is made then he doesn’t get supper. Although most nights he is allowed to pick what the whole family eats.

Off to study some (maybe)!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

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!

Retail Therapy

It’s been a few days since I last blogged, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve thought about doing it here and there, but then I get sidetracked with reading other blogs or facebook or looking at photography stuff and then when I am done with that, I don’t feel like I want to write anything and then instead go to bed. That and a whole lot of nothing interesting is going on right now. Well, I take that back… a few things have been going on, but they are too personal and I don’t feel like I want to put them on here. If this was something that no one was going to read I would pour my heart out because I just feel like it needs to be written, but by doing that I’d need to put a background story and everything because it is all just really confusing and ugly and who wants that anyways. So… I just won’t write about that.

But anyways… today is Thursday and I don’t have class OR clinic on Thursdays so after a short morning meeting and a bit of work, I went and did what most girls do best… retail therapy! It’s not like I needed any therapy today, but I figured since I had a 15% Kohls coupon, I might have well make use of it (seeing the last one I had was for 30% and I didn’t make use of that). And make use of it I did!

My goal was to find one or two sweaters that I could wear when it is cold in the clinic or the classrooms (which is like always). Sweaters that button up the front and are easy to slip over just about anything and I was lucky and found two that I liked and for a really good price as well!

I also had a pair of jeans in my hands and was considering a pair of shoes, but alas purchased neither. I didn’t really like any of the shoes that they happened to have in my size. Okay, so I liked them, but couldn’t justify buying them because I do own quite a few pair of shoes already. I’m no shoe-a-holic, but have enough I’d say. And I so would have bought the jeans, but then I found a necklace and bracelet that I really liked and wanted those more. The necklace is very similar to a locket in that you can put a picture in it, but it also has a cute design on the back that you can wear showing. The bracelet is simple and has the words love, hope, live, and believe on it (I think) and it just really called my name. So, I exited the store spending not too much which was nice!

I’m definitely not a fashionista by any means. The stores I frequent the most are Kohls, JCPenney’s, and ShopKo. I don’t by high end… in fact I have a hard time paying more than $40 for a pair of jeans! I don’t consider myself knowledgable on fashion what so ever, but don’t exactly veer off course with crazy purchases either. I buy what I like and mostly comfy. I love me some jeans a sweatshirt, but also don’t mind dressing up once a week for clinic either. That being said, I wouldn’t call my ‘dressy’ attire all that dressy either. It follows the guidelines, but once again, not high end stuff.

Now this really got me thinking… I’d say most of the time I only dress up completely when I have to for clinic or a special occasion like a wedding. I’ve started wearing more dressier shirts/sweaters with jeans, but that’s about it. And so… I was thinking about the holidays that I dress up for. Usually for Thanksgiving I’m a little dressier, Christmas, and maybe Easter… that’s about it. What makes these days ‘dress-up’ days? Other than the fact that my parents made me do it since I’ve been young? To me, nothing really. Why should my family that I get together with on those days love me any less or more if I’m dressed up or not. And really, it is not like everyone dresses up on these days as well. I’d say the one that most of my family dresses up on is Christmas. I’ve even ‘made’ Ayden dress up the last couple of years. I mean coordinating outfits look nice in the annual Christmas photo, right?! Sure, but does it really matter? Not to me!

So, this year I’ve decided that maybe I just won’t ‘dress up’ for the holidays. Just maybe I’ll let Ayden pick out his own clothes… even if they don’t match. Just maybe I’ll visit family in a hoody and jeans… because to me, its not the outfit I’m wearing that makes the day, its the family, the memories, the fun! Or just maybe I’ll find something really cute that I want to wear and do that. I haven’t decided yet because despite the fact that I don’t think its necessary in the least to dress up for things like that, sometimes I do feel nice doing it. So, we’ll see… in the mean time, I’ll stick to just having to dress up once a week for clinic, sounds good to me!

As far as how this week has been going… pretty good! We haven’t done a whole lot though. The weather has been pretty decent so we should have gotten out of the house a little more, but it gets dark so early now (really not like that… I mean REALLY not liking it) and enjoyed it, but oh well. I’m thinking about taking Ayden to the park today after he gets off the bus because today has probably been the best day so far this week weather wise. And then we might go to the library because I’m itching for another good book and I’ve been reading more and more to Ayden each night as well. We’ve started mini chapter books. The first one we read was…

and it has some pictures every few pages. It was about 60 pages long and took us two nights to read. Not bad at all I thought. I would stop every so often and ask Ayden questions about what was happening to see if he was paying attention and to my surprise he was listening really closely. I wasn’t sure if we should start these kind of books yet or stick to the shorter ones with more pictures, but he really liked it. I think it might have helped that it was about dinosaurs too. I have three more books about the Dinosaur Cove and then its off to find something else. I love curling up on the couch with a good book and love it even more when I can share my love of reading with Ayden!

Tomorrow I have a lab from 9-11 and then work and then… who really knows. No hearing aid duty, thats for sure though! The lab will probably run long since we will want to get most of it done which is fine with me so I might not have as much free time as I did today, but honestly I think I’d rather be busy that not busy if that makes any sense.

I had advising today for my classes next semester. We really don’t get to chose any classes since everything is pretty much laid out for us, but it is nice to be able to see what we are taking. One of our classes might get dropped and worked into the material of other classes which would be a total life saver. Okay, not really, but it would take out a two hour class on Mondays for us which would be really nice! If that happens, there is an online class that I am considering taking. Both Amy and Katie (the other first years) have already taken this course (it is educational psychology) thru the university. It is not something that I HAVE to take, but it is something that I HAVE to take if I want to be licensed to work in the schools. Since there are only THREE extra classes that I NEED to take to be able to work in the schools I thought it might be a good idea. I don’t really want to work in the schools, but it will give me the option to if I ever get in a pinch where those are the only jobs available. You know?!

Anyways, in order to take that class through our university you need to apply to the school of education and all that jazz and that is not something that I want to go through. So, this class is also available to take online through LSU for just under $300 including book prices. You can start it at anytime and are allowed 9 months to finish the work. From the webpage describing the class, there are 14 lessons that you have to complete which are basically chapter reviews, a midterm, and a final. No more than three lessons can be turned in during a seven day period, so obviously you can do everything the first week if you want, but you have to space out the submitting it portion. I have taken online courses before and have done well in them so I am thinking this will be the best option for me. I will most likely start it around Spring Break and finish by the end of the summer… hopefully! At least that is the plan now. One of the other two classes we all have completed already and the third one is worked into our course scheduling for the next three years so that is no problem.

I’m excited to get next semester started already! Don’t hold me to that though because I might just be wishing I hadn’t said that when it actually does start. And now, I don’t want to wish the next couple of months away, time goes too fast to begin with, ha!

Off to finish some laundry that I’ve been procrastinating on!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Sooner than thought?!

So, within the last couple of months I’ve had some friends have babies, become pregnant, get married, family get married, get pregnant, and/or have babies… it feels like I’m surrounded by it. And now I get why my one friend is so anxious for it all… because now I’m starting to get anxious for it.

When Jay and I got engaged I didn’t really see it as something big. We’ve been together for so long what did a ring on my finger really have to do with anything. Its not like we even went around announcing it… to me it really didn’t matter. It still really doesn’t. Per usual, we got (and still get) the almost seeming mandatory question of when the big day is. The norm is to usually decide this rather quickly after getting engaged… not the case for Jay and myself. We still don’t know, but sort of figured it would come after I am done with school. And at least for sure after Jay graduates and starts a stable job.

But the more I see my friends and family moving on with their lives and getting married and starting families, the more I want to do that. Okay, so obviously we have started our family already… see our lovely wonderful son Ayden, but oh how I want to add to it. How I want to give him brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters he is already asking about. Oh how I want to marry his father, a marriage that Ayden is already asking to happen.

My dear readers, I have the baby itch and I have it bad! And it sucks because as much as I want to have another child, I know it is something we will not try for or allow to happen anytime soon. TMI… sorry, you’ll deal. And I sit hear with one beautiful child already and my heart hurts for those who cannot have children, those who are trying/have been trying for so long and still haven’t gotten pregnant, and those who have been, but have lost the baby before getting to meet them. Those who can readily afford to have a child, but cannot… I feel like I shouldn’t even be wanting one because I’m not married, still in college, in large amounts of student debt, and already screwed up by getting pregnant in high school. Oh, please know that I have no regrets about having Ayden, but also know that you probably have a stigma against teenage pregnancies as well. Maybe I shouldn’t make assumptions about my readers opinions, but we all know that the truth is, there is and always will be that stigma out there and although I don’t advocate for girls to get pregnant in high school, having been through it, I can feel for them.

Yes, probably more cases are worse than others, in by that means many girls probably don’t continue on with their education, etc… but I don’t think the girls that do get enough credit for it. Okay, I’ve totally gone off topic here… I didn’t mean to head into that topic… back on track…

So… Jay and I have talked about getting married when I graduate, but now I’m wanting to sooner rather than later. Not like within the next year sooner, but maybe within the next two years?! I don’t know…

I think more than anything, I want to be done with this school thing and be able to concentrate on our family. Add to our family… share the love that I have for Ayden with other children. I already know I’m not stay at home mom material, at least not at this point, and thus I’ll always have my career, but I want to live the real life experience now, ha! Despite being on our own… we still aren’t living the real life thing because both Jay and I are in school still.

Ugh, so anyways, I just needed to get a few thoughts off my head. I went out and bought a ‘wedding planning’ book today and some of the stuff in it so funny. I must be one of those very nontraditional brides because my wedding won’t have half of the stuff it mentions. Ah, good ole crazy Ashley!

Oh, and then to top it off… somehow the whole name changing thing was brought up today and I told Jay that I was unsure if I wanted to change my name when we got married. I don’t have anything against his last name, and it sounds fine with my first name, but I sort of would like to be called Dr. my last name after going to school for so long versus Jay’s last name if we are married. Maybe by the time we get married I will want to change it, maybe he won’t care about whether I do or not, maybe I will do some sort of hyphen thing, or maybe who knows. But from his subtle reaction today, I got the distinct impression that he would like me to change it. Who knows…

Okay, off to eat supper!

CIAO! LOVE ME!