nope

the speech pathology director at henry ford called yesterday to inform me they offered the position to two other people and they've accepted, but i was a very strong candidate and it was a difficult decision, blah blah blah. so i didn't get it. oh well, i'm really not devastated. it just means there are other plans for me. there's still plenty of time to look for another job since i don't finish my program until august.

new topic: i'm coming home this weekend and i'm bringing one or two people from detroit with me. if anyone's free friday night around 9 or 10, let me know. i'm thinking bubble tea at pacific mall.

from student to practitioner

i have a job interview this thursday. an interview as a professional, not a student anymore. scary and exciting at the same time.

this job is a one year contract position (clinical fellowship) designed specifically for new graduates. in that year you complete all the requirements to become fully certified as a speech-language pathologist in the u.s. it's at henry ford hospital, which is a great facility with an excellent reputation in michigan. the slp department at this hospital gets a really wide range of clients because they see inpatients, outpatients, voice clients, pediatrics. they are consulted for/during brain surgeries, they evaluate and dispense auditory feedback devices for people who stutter. there are tons of opportunities for continuing education. so this is a fantastic position (despite the salary...), and it is also very competitive, as you might imagine.

the fact that i was even offered an interview was a pleasant surprise for multiple reasons. first off, i just barely got my application together in time. with less than a week to the deadline, i somehow managed to get three reference letters, get transcripts, tweak my resume and write a decent cover letter. i was so stressed and i felt so bad about giving my references so little time to write for me. but it all came together on the last day and i submitted the application. even after i got the application in, i didn't really expect to be contacted because the program starts in june of each year and i don't graduate until august. so they'd really have to like my application a lot in order to offer me an interview and consider hiring me with a start date in september. but they did.

i have a friend who interviewed at henry ford last year. she said they interviewed 7 or 8 people and hired 3, none of whom were wayne state students. so that doesn't bode well for me, but i'm hopeful. it's the only job i've applied for so far, since it had a specific deadline. and i always knew i wanted to be at henry ford at one point or another, if not as an intern then as a clinical fellow. but like i said, it's competitive and i've been praying!

anyway, the interview is this thursday, april 10th. from 9am to 1:30pm. i'm expecting to be exhausted by the end of it! 4.5 hours is a long time to be perky and putting up your best front. the whole process will include interviews with multiple clinicians, a tour of the facility and lunch. my main fear is getting questions that i'm not prepared for and having to make stuff up. i'm not good at making stuff up, i always feel like the other person can tell and then that makes me even more nervous. but i'm preparing as best i can and the rest is up to the Lord.

LPR

Mmm...laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). Apparently, I have it.

I've been learning about it in my voice disorders class. It's when gastroesophageal reflux/acid that causes "heart burn" gets up to the level of the vocal folds and causes irritation. It can cause your voice to go hoarse, it can make you clear your throat a lot, etc. If it's really bad, there are medications that can help control the reflux, but I haven't really been symptomatic, although looking back I can see very subtle symptoms of it (e.g. coughing in the middle of the night, as gastric acid is most likely to go up the esophagus as I'm lying down).

How did I find out that I have LPR?

Earlier this week I decided to calculate my s/z ratio just for fun. This ratio is a test that SLPs can do to screen for a possible vocal fold pathology. The client takes a deep breath and produces the /s/ sound for as long as possible and then does the same thing for /z/. The sounds are the same except that /s/ is voiceless, meaning the vocal folds are apart during production and /z/ is voiced, meaning the vocal folds are together and vibrating. Normal ratios are 1:1. If it's greater than 1.4 it means that /z/ is shorter than /s/ and too much air is escaping between the vocal folds as a result of nodules or polyps or some other pathology. I was shocked to find that my s/z ratio was 1.5. I thought "No way, I don't have nodules or anything, this s/z ratio is bogus". And I kind of dismissed the whole thing.

Then a few days later it my last day at my clinical placement and I finally got a chance to be videostrobed. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to get a picture of my vocal folds. But my supervisor had a hard time getting a clear picture because 1) I was drooling a lot and it was making the picture foggy and blurry, 2) My oropharynx is small so by the time the strobe got past my tongue and epiglottis to see into my airway it was already up against the back of my throat and 3) My vocal folds are pretty far down my airway. Well, anyway, she was still able to get some images and as she was watching them on the monitor she goes "I hate to tell you this, but you have reflux!" What?! Not possible! Reflux is what old people get when they eat spicy food!

So I have LPR. It explains the s/z ratio. When your vocal folds are irritated by the acid they get inflamed and swollen and they may not fully come together during phonation, thereby allowing air to escape. I've had no other symptoms, no "heart burn", no hoarsenes, nothing other than a bit of coughing in the middle of the night, which I have always attributed to dry air.

Here are the pictures. Don't get grossed out. I'm really proud of them : )

Okay, back to studying. I just spent the last hour and a half posting when I should have been spending my limited supply of energy on exam prep and paper writing. Bah.

Haaaaaallelujah

This past weekend was symphonyful. On Friday I used the free tickets I had to go to a Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) performance of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. The seats were on the main floor and worth $68 each. I didn't care much for the view. We could only see the musicians at the edge of the stage. It was fantastic music, though. I think my favourite seasons/concertos are Spring and Fall.

On Saturday I went to Handel's Messiah by the DSO and Michigan State's Chorale. It was long, but definitely worth hearing in its entirety. The soprano soloist was the best, as she was the only one who didn't use vibrato excessively, and I think I heard her sing a really high D. The conductor was cool--at times he was conducting and playing harpsichord simultaneously! During the Hallelujah chorus everyone in the audience stood up. It's traditional to do that because apparently King George II stood up at that point during a performance, so everyone else in attendance stood as well. Theories as to why he was standing: he was late and walked into the hall at that point in the performance, he needed to stretch or he needed to go to the bathroom. I also found out that the text/libretto is based mostly on Isaiah, Matthew and 1 Corinthians. I just finished reading 1 Corinthians, so it was neat to hear it put to music.

Go to http://www.tsoundcheck.com/ for cheap student tickets to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Live classical music is fantastic! I've gotta say, I'm not usually a big fan of it, but when it's live it can be pretty thrilling.

American Thanksgiving

A couple of weekends ago I had my second Thanksgiving of the year. I spent the American holiday with Dawn (a friend from church) and her family. I told her it would be my first ever white people Thanksgiving. Little did I know that white people are the minority in her family! The story is that her parents adopted a bunch of kids, all of whom are ethnic minorities (Korean, African American, Hispanic). Out of 12 kids in the family only 4 are biological. Several years ago Dawn's dad passed away and her mom ended up remarrying a man who also adopted a bunch of kids. Altogether there are 22 kids in the family now! Absolute insanity. But such amazing people. Anyway, it was a fun day...I ate way too much, but that's expected.

The next day I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts for its grand re-opening. Free admission :) My goal is to go to all the museums in the area for free before I graduate. I've already hit up 4 of them on various free admission days, but at least one of them I have to revisit at some point b/c I didn't really get to see everything I wanted to see. Grad school has made me so stingy (let's say...frugal) it's not funny. Not having any income whatsoever after 7 years of holding down multiple part-time and full-time jobs simultaneously will do that to you.

Saturday morning my family came to visit. We went outlet shopping, of course, but we were disappointed that we didn't find any major deals. After Birch Run we went to Chicago Uno Bar and Grill, which is becoming a bit of a tradition now. We always go there for steak after a day of shopping. The next day, after some more shopping, I finally got to take my family to Citadel. The past several times they've come to visit they weren't able to stick around for the service, which is in the afternoon. This time they stayed and I think overall they at least thought it was interesting, but then I didn't feel like the service was representative of Citadel. My parents were also really shocked at the testimonies of youth in the church who had just come back from a purity retreat. A bunch of them stood at the front of the sanctuary and said stuff like "I learned that masturbation is a sin...not that I do it" (haha!) and "After this retreat I've decided not to have sex anymore until I get married" (nearly causing the girl's grandma to have a heart attack at the news that the girl had been having sex at all).

Christmas is three weeks tomorrow! Definitely putting up the tree as soon as I get home. I don't care that it will only get put up a couple of days before the 25th or that it'll probably be ugly since there is no rhyme nor reason to our random collection of decorations. The past three years we've been away during the holidays, but this year we're home and we are having Christmas.

long time no blog

the past couple of months have been busy and eventful. this has been the craziest semester yet, with four academic courses and clinical placement all day mondays and wednesdays. i like my placement at st. john hospital. it's a mix of acute care and outpatient. in acute care, slps usually get consulted for swallow assessments, whether it's at the bedside or via x-ray. after a stroke, many patients have trouble coordinating all the muscles necessary for a safe swallow, so we assess them and determine if they need to be put on a modified diet that's easier to swallow or if they need to receive nutrition through alternative means. there's also the odd communication eval here and here. in outpatient i've been seeing a lot of videostroboscopies, where a camera is put into a client's mouth to view the vocal folds. it's pretty cool. i'm hoping to get strobed sometime before the end of my placement. in terms of coursework i'm taking language disorders of school age children, motor speech disorders, voice+cleft palate and acoustics of speech. i love the material that i'm learning but i've been complaining a lot about a couple of my professors, and i should stop. ah, pride. last year i read this prayer that was really helpful in showing me what my attitude should be.

so highlights of the past 10 weeks:

egypt! i had a great time. saw the pyramids, swam in the nile, climbed mount sinai and snorkelled in the red sea. i met a girl from arizona who is applying to med school at wayne state so if she comes for an interview i'll definitely see her again. anyway, the trip was awesome and i think i really like being in arab countries. pictures can be seen here.

my car broke down. i was driving home from church and suddenly the stereo went out and wouldn't turn back on. then i had my window down to swipe into the parking lot and i could hear the engine was pretty loud. then, as i pulled into a parking spot and put the car into park the engine just shut off on its own and wouldn't restart. it was actually the perfect way for my car to break down--in a parking spot in the lot outside my building, not out on the road somewhere. totally blessed. so i called josh, my engineer friend who knows a ton about cars, and he figured it was either a problem with the battery or the alternator. i bought both parts and he came over to look under the hood and ended up putting in a new alternator for me.

i gave a presentation in my acoustics class. half an hour before class started i was eating lunch and going over the powerpoint slides with my group members. as i was having a drink of water from my nalgene, some of it splashed onto my pants. wonderful. turns out it saved me from a worser fate than wet pants. i looked down at my lap and saw that there was a huge hole in the crotch! the stitching running down the centre of my pants just below the zipper had come undone and there was a gaping hole through which you could see my underwear. thankfully, i live on campus and i had time to go home and change. on my walk back to the apartment i had my roommate's jacket tied around my waist with one of the sleeves hanging down just so in order to cover the hole.

had a fantastic thanksgiving at home. lunch with the girls on friday, family dinner later that night, dim sum with grandma, dinner at uncle jody's, community service at jaffray, hiking with the family. during the hike coco got lost but then was found. crazy dog running around like a maniac. pictures: here.

saw regina spektor in concert at state theatre downtown. she sang even though she had a cold, which is bad for your voice, but i guess it's an occupational hazard that you can't really avoid when you're on tour. anyway, she is super talented. it was just her and a piano, then just her and a guitar. she has great control of her voice and her music is delightfully quirky.

i'm a CRush member for the detroit symphony orchestra, which enables me to buy student tickets 48 hours in advance for $15. it's a little steeper than the tso $10 student rate. anyway, since i'm on their email list, i got a notification of this free simulcast they were showing of verdi's requiem last friday. basically the orchestra was playing in the main hall, and there was live video feed in a separate hall with food and an open bar. it's this new thing they're promoting to try and bridge the gap between the symphony and people under the age of 40. anyhow, me and a friend ross from citadel went and watched for a bit, but then decided to get late tickets which i had read online were $10. however, the box office people had no idea what we were talking about, so we couldn't get the tickets and went back into the free simulcast, which was still fine, but not nearly as good as being in the main hall. anyway, towards the end of the night, this dso public relations guy came up to us and started asking us what we thought, etc. etc. and we told him what we liked/didn't like. the main thing that came up was that we would rather be in the main hall, but even $15 was a little more than we were willing to pay. i told him that in toronto tickets were only $10 and he was like "i know, i work for the tso as well". his name was tom allen and he has a radio broadcast too, or something. anyway, he said he would let his people know that the $5 difference was significant. two days later, i got another email from the dso and tickets for several shows in the next couple of weeks are only $10! haha, i like to think that we were the direct cause of that, but who knows? back to friday night. after tom allen spoke to us, a manager of some sort came up to us and handed us his business card. he said "i heard you were trying to get late passes to the performance but weren't able to, so here are two free tickets to any other subscription show for the rest of the season". woohoo! so in december we have $68 tickets for a performance of the four seasons.

okay, those are all the updates for now. blogging takes too much time! anyway, things to look forward to in the next little while: missions conference happening at citadel this weekend, visiting london in a few weeks, going to boston for an slp convention mid-november.

not just for the china man...

on the weekend i went to the grand opening of a laundromat around the corner. they were offering unlimited free laundry so i went with my three loads, which would have cost me $6 to wash and dry in the laundry room of my building. as soon as i walked in i realized i was in for a wait. the place was packed with people and their 50 loads of laundry each. but i figured i could just use the waiting time to study and i would save some money while i was at it.

i signed in (we were all given call numbers), sat down on a window ledge and took out my pediatric dysphagia text. as i was reading i saw out of the corner of my eye a familiar looking red white and blue bag. i looked up and saw a huge pile of maybe 15 hung bak lam bags full of laundry! all of them belonged to this african american lady sitting next to me and we struck up a conversation. i told her i'm chinese and that in hong kong and china we use those bags all the time and then i asked her what they're called in english. she said "you speak english real good--how long you been here?" and then "they're just laundry bags from the dollar store". and today i definitely saw a homeless man with a hung bak lam, too. so apparently they're common here, which i find hilarious :D (on a somewhat related note, what's with little black girls and hello kitty? when i see non-asians with sanrio stuff, it just blows my mind)

well in the end i waited at the laundromat two whole hours and then managed to do two wash cycles before i couldn't take the waiting anymore and just took my wet clothes and dried them in my building. so i saved two dollars. woohoo.

hugs

i've been told that my love language is physical touch. i love hugs. great big bear hugs are the best kind. when i touch other people i'm expressing affection and when others touch me i see it as a sign of their affection.

growing up at jaffray we were always so careful about boundaries and we made sure guys and girls never hugged. i definitely saw the value in that because when it comes to teenage boys and girls and hormones...well, you know. but i also wondered at the back of my mind whether this was just a hyperactive sense of propriety. here at citadel everyone hugs everyone--guys and girls, young people and old people. so over the past year (it's been almost a year!) i've been consciously adjusting my jaffray mentality so that when a guy hugs me i don't automatically interpret it as romantic interest on his part.

this shift in mindset has also led me to initiate hugs with guys every so often. it's not something i'm entirely comfortable with, but i have done it when i've felt the situation called for it. recently, my classmate's best friend died and my classmate was kind of a mess so i gave him a big hug on a few occasions. also, i hung out with a couple of friends this past weekend and at the end i gave this one guy a hug. these situations had seemed relatively innocuous to me, but it has come to light that in both situations my actions were misinterpreted as romantic interest by either an observer or the hug recipient. awkward...

so what's come out of this is that i'm going back to my old practice of hugging only women, family and someone i might be in a relationship with. of course, if there are extenuating circumstances, such as a male friend needing to be comforted, showing genuine care will take precedence and i may waive this "rule". also, if a guy initiated a hug i would not refuse because that would just be rude. but i think i need to be a little more cautious when it comes to these things, not because i'm worried about what third parties might think, but because being respectful of members of the opposite sex (especially brothers and sisters in Christ) includes being clear about intentions and not cloudying up the water with actions that are easily and often misinterpreted.

if you have any thoughts, drop me a line :)

how old do i look? + summer with citadel

my parents came to visit this weekend. we went to birch run prime outlet yesterday and found a fantastic sale at the gap clearance store (75% off the lowest ticketed price! best deals: a dress and a dress shirt for $1.75 each). but the most shocking thing of the day aside from some of the bargains was getting hit on twice by 13-year-old boys in completely separate incidents.

the first time i was just walking between stores at birch run, minding my own business. then along came three teenage boys on bikes. they were 13 or 14 years old at the most. one started riding alongside me on the walkway and said hi while his friends rode on the pavement. i glanced over at him, gave him a half smile and kept right on walking. he fell back for a bit and then he pulled ahead and started doing tricks on his bike. after awhile he and his friends just rode off and i was like "what just happened?"

then later in the evening i was at walmart alone in the toy section, looking at transportation themed puzzles. again, i was minding my own business when out of nowhere these two teenage boys show up. they could not have been more than 14 (maybe 15) years old. as they approached they cleared their throats loudly and while they walked by one guy introduced himself. i stared at him for a second, debating whether or not to ask him how old he was, but then thought better of it and just said "i'm sharon" and let him walk on by.

what is going on? do i seriously look like i'm 12? ridiculous. maybe a haircut will make me look older. my parents thought the whole thing was funny when i told them and i actually find it rather amusing myself.

anyway, mom and dad left this morning. i was disappointed they couldn't stay for citadel service but they had to be back in toronto by mid afternoon. today was the start of revival. there's a vacant lot a couple of blocks from the church and we set up a huge tent, chairs and sound equipment and had outdoor service. pastor carey's preaching is loud and he made sure people in the neighbourhood could hear him. we will hold evening services for the next three days beginning at 7:14 in reference to the same chapter and verse from 2 chronicles: "if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then i will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land".

other citadel ministries this summer include "urban camping" every other week which involves setting up tents in lots near known drug houses in the community. the men of the church camp out overnight, barbecue, sing and pray in efforts to shut down the drug trafficking. the first one of the summer was this past friday. next saturday night the women are doing a prostitute outreach. we're walking down one of the main streets in detroit doing a prayer walk, distributing water to women on the street, talking with them and letting them know about citadel. back to school rally is near the end of august. it's kinda like jaffray's carnival with games, music and food, but they also give out several hundred backpacks containing school supplies, they sell school uniforms at a fraction of their actual cost and they set up a health clinic (thanks to the many med students at citadel). they also have a job fair, which i have been put in charge of this summer. haven't done anything like this in a couple of years, so i'm nervous. much prayer is going into this!

it's the weekend!

i never have class on fridays and it's wonderful! i actually have 4 days off this weekend b/c i don't have my usual outpatient clinic on monday. the next clinician has taken over my caseload and i have a small break before my preschool practicum begins.

the next few days will be all about the detroit festival of the arts. it's happening right where i live--in the cultural district, midtown detroit. there will be tons of live music, visual arts displays and street theatre all over campus. i have been looking forward to this for several weeks so i probably won't be doing much studying =S never mind that i have upcoming exams in aural rehabilitation and stuttering. i just wrote an exam in dysphagia (swallowing disorders) and i'm going to enjoy my weekend!

citadel update

so i've been trying to get more involved at church here, and from week to week that has meant going to service early and staying later to help set up and tear down a/v stuff. i'm starting to pick up on what plugs into what, what it does and why we do it. it's a lot of fun, due in part to the awesome people on the set up team. yesterday we went to a set up/tech training and had dinner and i got to know some of the people in the group.

one girl, maggie, volunteered in thailand for a year after she finished her undergrad. she was actually there when the tsunami hit. now she's living and working in detroit. yesterday she bought an old bmw for $600 and plans to fix it up with the help of josh. unfortunately, she had some car trouble so we helped her push start the car in the church parking lot. it was hilarious.

josh is an engineer who loves to flip cars and houses. he bought a house last year that needed a lot of fixing up and has been working on it since. unfortunately, construction sites are targets for theft, and that has been the case with his house. it's been broken into 7 times since he's had it, once while he was actually home.

most of the people in this group live within one or two blocks of each other and the church. it's amazing. it's totally what arthur envisions for jaffray. it can be done and it's so cool. josh tells me on the weekends he just walks over to someone's house for breakfast. doesn't even have to call beforehand. if they're not home, he'll just head over to someone else's house. any night of the week they'll just sporadically hang out, have dinner, whatever. it's awesome.

aside from tech stuff, i've been pulled into playing trombone for a revival that's happening in july. it'll be a duet or a trio with one or two trumpet players. i haven't played in a long time. it'll be interesting, to say the least...!

it's all booked

since char is in jordan until august on an archaeological dig and i happen to have the entire month of august off, we had the brilliant idea of travelling together. not that either of us has a ton of money to spare, but when else will an opportunity like this come along? we had to take it :)

so we will be in egypt for two and a half weeks in august touring with g.a.p. adventures, a toronto based tour company specializing in small group travel. char and i originally thought about going it alone b/c we didn't want to be part of a big group on a tour bus, but this is a happy medium. safety in the group (10-15 people max) but lots of choice and flexibility in the schedule, i.e. once we're in a given city we can decide for ourselves which sites we want to visit. it'll be a grass roots style of travel, via train, local bus, sail boat--very rustic conditions. we'll be staying on an overnight train twice and spending two nights on a felucca ship which involves sleeping on the deck in the open.

i have a friend at wayne state named ereeny who is also from toronto. she's egyptian and she might go to egypt with her family this summer. if she does we'll meet up in cairo for a couple of days at the end of the tour. another friend, kevin, lent me his book on arabic so i can try to learn a bit before i go. the Egypt travel guide Let's Go has also been helpful. i've learned that "la, shukran" means "no, thank you". the book has also told me how to avoid water-borne diseases in risk areas: "don't rinse your toothbrush under the faucet, and keep your mouth closed in the shower". sage advice.

eventful week

i had church's chicken for lunch last sunday, as it marked the end of my lent. it was sooo good you have no idea. then later that evening nicole and i went over to our classmate abby's house to celebrate her birthday. we had cake and played euchre. it was funny b/c i had just learned how to play earlier that day...at church. we had finished setting up for service really early and this guy happened to have a deck of cards on him so he taught me and kelly how to play euchre. it was weird playing cards at church, but i don't think citadel is legalistic about stuff like that.

then on tuesday it was free cone day at ben and jerry's so nicole, abby and i went downtown for it. i had to parallel park, but it wasn't awful, thankfully. we saw the long lineup and put an hour on the parking meter but we got our ice cream in under 15 minutes! so with 45 minutes still left on the meter, we lined up again...and again. so i had three ice cream cones for dinner that day. it was awesome.

wednesday one of the girls (well, women) on the setup team at citadel invited me and kelly over for dinner so we went and had good food and played rook and skip-bo. i brought carrot cake. over the past week i made two carrot cakes and 3 batches of banana chocolate chip muffins. i was definitely on a baking spree. plus i had to use up all the carrots and bananas we had.

thursday i had a meeting at church for the dance ministry. for easter service i joined the liturgical dance group thinking it was a one time thing, but now i think they expect me to keep doing it long term...i don't know how to break it to them that i only wanted to do it once! it was fun and i met some great people. the women are all really nice, but the best part was that i was this one little chinese girl in the midst of 8 or 9 african american women. i fit in surprisingly well; they're all really sweet.

friday i went to comerica park and saw the tigers play the white sox. the tigers lost, but it was a good day b/c we got free stuff: a replica championship ring (for the first 30,000 fans) and a tigers fleece blanket (for a credit card "application" that i know will get declined anyway).

today i stopped by london on the way back to toronto to see doreen :) i hadn't seen her for 8 whole months! we had a delicious barbecue and a good time catching up. now i'm home for two weeks before school starts again.

beatboxing flute player

i was searching for sesame street pictures to use in therapy and look what came up:



random side note: i made carrot cake yesterday and while i was grating the carrots i grated my finger :( but the cake was delicious, so it was worth it.

gypped

every saturday i go to detroit's eastern market, which is a farmer's market where you can buy fresh produce, meat, plants, etc. everything's much cheaper there than in local supermarkets and today i bought three boxes of huge beautiful strawberries for $1 each. but afterwards i felt gypped. how could i feel ripped off when the same box costs 3-4 dollars at the store? elsewhere at the market i saw them 2 for $1!! and another vendor was selling a case (8 boxes) for $3! grrr...not that i could eat a whole case...but you know you're a cheapskate when you complain about paying $1 for a box of strawberries.

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

Attr. to Bernard of Clairvaux
Eng. trans. by James W. Alexander

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down;
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How art Thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn;
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!

O Lord of life and glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
I read the wondrous story; I joy to call Thee mine.
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners' gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever; and, should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

Be near when I am dying, O show Thy cross to me;
And for my succour flying, come Lord, to set me free;
These eyes, new faith receiving, from Thee shall not remove,
For he who dies believing dies safely thro' Thy love.

cheering for toronto

last night kelly and i took our friendship to another level: we watched her beloved penguins play the maple leafs on cbc. there were some intense moments, but our friendship passed the test and now we are level 3 buddies. *snicker* oh the drama of hockey... : D in kickboxing a couple of weeks ago we were using boxing gloves, so we totally had a mock hockey fight, throwing off our gloves, pretending to jersey each other, etc. we're nerds.

and the tigers are hosting the blue jays at comerica park all this week, but wouldn't you know it, the games are at 1pm and i can't make any of them. what a bummer.

odds and ends

the weather in detroit right now is absolutely gorgeous. i walked back to the apartment from a friend's house and i smiled the whole way--the sun is out, the temperature is just right for a very light jacket, there's a nice breeze...it's perfect. everything feels so peaceful and beautiful. i suddenly feel like taking coco for a walk.

update on my adult client: over spring break she set up an appointment to meet with me and both of my supervisors. she wanted to make her concerns known again to everyone at the same time. so we did that yesterday and my supervisors were awesome. they countered all of her complaints and fully supported me on every issue. they feel like she's overreacting to everything, and actually suspect that she's racist and projecting her feelings onto me. anyway, they're assigning her to a white clinician now and the whole fiasco is over and done with. but this was an interesting learning experience. in the future i'll have a better idea of how to deal with difficult clients!

i played wii for the first time over spring break. my dad bought one a couple of months ago and he loves it and plays it all the time for exercise. whenever i call home and he answers the phone, he's always out of breath b/c he's been playing. hilarious.

my parents and i visited family friends in new jersey last weekend. this family's amazing--they've been through a lot and have so much faith. the mom has been battling lupus for many many years and she was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. she's physically frail but her faith is so strong. although she is the one who is ill, she is constantly encouraging others, praising God, even thanking Him for what she's going through. she exudes Godliness and she's such an inspiration. the day before we left she got the results of her latest PET scan and almost all the cancer sites were gone after four rounds of chemo. she had tears in her eyes as she showed us the report and praised God with every fibre of her being.

Dumped

My adult client left me. She’s an older African American woman who has an amazing life story, but somehow things didn’t work out between us.

It all started in January when I gave her a standardized language test as part of a diagnostic evaluation. She felt it was an intelligence test and she said she was insulted despite my many assurances that it was not in any way an intelligence test. She continued to come to therapy and things were okay for awhile. However, other issues came up, such as her bringing her schoolwork for me to edit rather than doing actual therapy for her articulation disorder. And one day she was confrontational, going back to the language test and then she also suggested that I was racist. I was pretty much in tears, lips quivering and everything. Last week we had a conference that included my supervisor and we resolved everything. We revealed the results of the standardized testing and she also agreed to do therapy activities instead of her homework. She apologized for being “harsh” about the testing. Everything was great.

Then this week, she didn’t show up for our Monday session and when my supervisor called her she said she wanted a new therapist. ??? She had a long conversation with my supervisor and apparently she feels that I look down on her because she doesn’t have a college degree. She also feels that there’s a power struggle between us and that she’s going to lose so she wants a new clinician. ????? My supervisor is fully supporting me and is hoping that the client will be switched to a different day of the week so that she doesn’t have to deal with her.

I am a student clinician. My clinical skills are still developing, but I haven’t done anything to justify her accusations. Honestly, I think she is just very sensitive to issues of race and is hyperaware that her speech isn’t perfect. She is paranoid that people think she isn’t intelligent because she speaks African American English and because she has articulation issues.

Anyway, now I only have two clients to think about.

And this weekend is the start of Spring Break (yay!), although I’ll be at the annual conference held by the Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Friday seminars I’m attending:

- Outcomes That Count in Aphasia Intervention: Ideas and Applications
The speaker is Aura Kagan, from the Aphasia Institute in Toronto!

- Differential Diagnosis of Speech and Language Disorder vs. Linguistic Difference

Saturday seminars:

- Medical Speech-Language Pathology Forum

- Self-Rehabilitation Following a Supra-Cricoid Laryngectomy: A Case Study

- Developing the Role of Speech-Language Pathology Services in Palliative Care

The best part is going for free as a student volunteer. And of course, free stuff from the booths : D

uh...

edit: i realize this is somewhat contrary to fasting in secret (matthew 6:16-18) but i had to share this.

citadel is doing a corporate fast for lent. it starts tomorrow and goes until april 6. what we are fasting for: 1) the church leadership nominating committee, 2) purity and 3) wisdom as it pertains to church growth. plus personal issues, like direction post-graduation, among other things.

we're doing a modified daniel fast (daniel 1:8-14) where we will refrain from meat products and eat only fruits and vegetables. thankfully, we get to ease into it slowly. during week 1 we can still eat chicken and fish; during week 2 we can eat fish; but from week 3 on, we will only eat the following:

- whole grains
- legumes
- fruits
- vegetables
- natural sweeteners (i.e. honey)
- seeds
- water or 100% natural fruit/vegetable juice

foods we are to avoid: meat, white rice, fried foods, caffeine, carbonated beverages, foods containing any preservatives or additives, sugar, sugar substitutes, white flour and all products using it (including bread and pasta), butter/margarine, shortening, high fat products and dairy products.

this is going to be so hard. the worst part initially will be going without my morning tea. also, no soy sauce. no instant noodles. and i haven't even begun to think about what to do at home during spring break, what with eating out and mom's cooking and such. for now, i get to spend lots of money on natural peanut butter, sea salt, olive oil, honey, brown rice and other organic foods. and kelly and i totally stuffed ourselves with greasy pizza tonight since it is our fat sunday.