a "severe thunderstorm warning" turned out to be a beautiful evening of sunshine and clear skies. i was disappointed that softball practice got postponed (i'm getting pretty pathetic :) but i ended up going out for the evening with my family and it was nice. then we happened to drive by chief dan george p.s. and the diamond was empty! argh! normally when we practice on a weeknight we get stuck with a little diamond b/c the good ones are booked. it would've been a perfect night for softball, if it weren't for the weather forecast.
anyway, my family and i started off looking for a tennis court to play on b/c my dad got some new tennis racquets from hong kong. we couldn't find one that was open to the public so we decided to go to rouge beach park for a walk instead. i hadn't been there in years. it's pretty ghetto and there's lots of garbage, but i liked being there on the lake. the sun was setting and people were fishing and playing in the sand and there was a small area for beach volleyball. it would've been awesome to have a bonfire going. mel and i had considered this beach for our grad thing last year but had settled on morningside park instead. oh well, maybe some other time.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
two more weeks
this week is my last with one of my kids. i've been phased out of the team and a new therapist has taken my place. over the next couple of weeks new therapists will be coming in for my other two kids as well and then my days as an instructional therapist will be over. *sigh* i'm going to miss these kids. and it's been an amazing learning experience working with them, despite the issues of the company as a whole.
anyway, i kept asking him for hugs and kisses yesterday. he's such a sweetheart. i said his name a few times in a row with a deep sigh "oh d___, d___, d___" and he said it back to me: "sharon, sharon, sharon". he's not at a level yet where he can understand that i'm leaving, but i know our paths will cross again, and i can't wait to see how much he'll have progressed two or three years down the road.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
a hole in my bubble
i've never been one with strong powers of self reflection. i do what i do and i think what i think, but i'm not overly concerned with why i do or think things, especially as they pertain to my personality. if i were asked to describe myself in detail, i might not be able to do it, or it would take me a very long time and even then i might not be certain that it's an accurate depiction.
lately i've found myself thinking a little more about who i am and who i would like to be. offhand comments from different people as well as more pointed observations about a particular trait have been occupying my thoughts.
a couple of weeks ago a good friend told me that i need stability and safety. at first i resisted the idea and denied it, but as i continued to ponder it, i realized that it is true. 2005 was tough for me, never really knowing what lay just a couple of months ahead, whether i'd be in school or working or neither.
along a similar vein, someone else told me that we each see the world through a filter and that we have the choice of expanding the filter, thereby enriching our view of the world. it made me uncomfortable when i first heard it b/c it was in the context of me turning down an opportunity out of timidity, but i was uncomfortable in a good way. i felt challenged to break out of my bubble, to step out of normalcy and routine and predictability. my thoughts on all this aren't fully formed, but anyhow, i think going to detroit is a move in that direction.
speaking of detroit, i'm getting ready to move in to my apartment on august 5th. it's an on-campus residence and i'll be sharing a 2-bedroom 2-bath with a girl in the same SLP program as me. we met a few months ago at the graduate info session at wayne state and when i later heard she was looking for a roommate, i contacted her and everything has since fallen into place. God has really provided : P
lately i've found myself thinking a little more about who i am and who i would like to be. offhand comments from different people as well as more pointed observations about a particular trait have been occupying my thoughts.
a couple of weeks ago a good friend told me that i need stability and safety. at first i resisted the idea and denied it, but as i continued to ponder it, i realized that it is true. 2005 was tough for me, never really knowing what lay just a couple of months ahead, whether i'd be in school or working or neither.
along a similar vein, someone else told me that we each see the world through a filter and that we have the choice of expanding the filter, thereby enriching our view of the world. it made me uncomfortable when i first heard it b/c it was in the context of me turning down an opportunity out of timidity, but i was uncomfortable in a good way. i felt challenged to break out of my bubble, to step out of normalcy and routine and predictability. my thoughts on all this aren't fully formed, but anyhow, i think going to detroit is a move in that direction.
speaking of detroit, i'm getting ready to move in to my apartment on august 5th. it's an on-campus residence and i'll be sharing a 2-bedroom 2-bath with a girl in the same SLP program as me. we met a few months ago at the graduate info session at wayne state and when i later heard she was looking for a roommate, i contacted her and everything has since fallen into place. God has really provided : P
Thursday, June 29, 2006
bits and bites
1) i was at loblaw's today buying cherries b/c they're on sale for $1.99 a pound. my mom and i circled the fruit section several times but couldn't find the cherries. finally someone directed us toward the back of the store and there we saw a crowd of people standing shoulder to shoulder around a table and picking carefully through the fruit. as we approached, we saw that all but one of the cluster of people were chinese. we joined them happily. they're good cherries.
2) congratulations are in order: the long awaited pride and prejudice (BBC miniseries) is now in my possession for one whole week. when i placed a hold on the DVD at the public library, it was early january of this year and i was around 350th on the waiting list. almost 6 months later i finally get to watch it and have the satisfaction of knowing i saved the rental money.
3) proverbs 10:9 says "whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out." the longer i work for this company, the more i realize how unethical, deceitful and manipulative my boss is. i won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that she's essentially stealing from families that can barely scrape together the funds to pay for therapy services. i've said it before and i'll say it again: you'd think people who devote their lives to kids who have disabilities are good people, but not all are. there are people out there who take advantage of these kids. i read psalm 10 yesterday and it pretty much describes the most evil person imaginable. unfortunately, it also describes my boss perfectly. it ends by calling on God's justice:
12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. 13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, "You will not call to account"? 14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The LORD is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. 17 O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear 18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
2) congratulations are in order: the long awaited pride and prejudice (BBC miniseries) is now in my possession for one whole week. when i placed a hold on the DVD at the public library, it was early january of this year and i was around 350th on the waiting list. almost 6 months later i finally get to watch it and have the satisfaction of knowing i saved the rental money.
3) proverbs 10:9 says "whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out." the longer i work for this company, the more i realize how unethical, deceitful and manipulative my boss is. i won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that she's essentially stealing from families that can barely scrape together the funds to pay for therapy services. i've said it before and i'll say it again: you'd think people who devote their lives to kids who have disabilities are good people, but not all are. there are people out there who take advantage of these kids. i read psalm 10 yesterday and it pretty much describes the most evil person imaginable. unfortunately, it also describes my boss perfectly. it ends by calling on God's justice:
12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. 13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, "You will not call to account"? 14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The LORD is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. 17 O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear 18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
Monday, June 26, 2006
eureka!
the other day i was talking to my mom about potty training and she reminded me how difficult it had been for me to become nighttime toilet trained. i was fully trained during the day, but i was wetting my bed until i was about 8 years old. i would go in my sleep one or two times per night and i wouldn't even know it unless my mom checked on me and woke me up to change the sheets. my parents tried everything to fix this problem, from drinking chinese herbal medicine to a metal thing taped to my leg that would beep when wet : P i even underwent anesthetic at the hospital for the doctors to make sure everything in my system was in working order, all to no avail. eventually i just grew out of it, i guess. sorry if this is all too much information.
anyhow, then i remembered a recurring dream i had as a child. i would dream that i'm waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. i get out of bed and start walking down the hallway. the whole house is dark except for some moonlight coming in from the window. as i approach the bathroom, i see ronald mcdonald watching me from the shadows on the other side of the bathroom door. again, my deepest apologies if you're creeped out by this! but that's just it--i've never been afraid of ronald mcdonald as far as i can remember, unless there was something going on in my subconscious. and i didn't put these two childhood experiences together and realize that there there is likely a connection between them until a couple of days ago (14 years after the fact)!
in other news, the awakening won their first softball game of the season yesterday! 3 more and we have a good chance of making the playoffs : P
anyhow, then i remembered a recurring dream i had as a child. i would dream that i'm waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. i get out of bed and start walking down the hallway. the whole house is dark except for some moonlight coming in from the window. as i approach the bathroom, i see ronald mcdonald watching me from the shadows on the other side of the bathroom door. again, my deepest apologies if you're creeped out by this! but that's just it--i've never been afraid of ronald mcdonald as far as i can remember, unless there was something going on in my subconscious. and i didn't put these two childhood experiences together and realize that there there is likely a connection between them until a couple of days ago (14 years after the fact)!
in other news, the awakening won their first softball game of the season yesterday! 3 more and we have a good chance of making the playoffs : P
Saturday, June 10, 2006
my father's daughter
that's who i am. i've always been told that i look just like him--a "beng yun". but i take after him personality wise, too, and i see his influence in my life daily. from him i inherited and/or learned many values and philosophies, my love of music, my grass allergies, my contempt for poor driving (i'm trying to extinguish this one), and so on. he taught me not to be too wussy, how to use a saw, how to drive a humongous car. i love my dad!
i was thinking a lot about my dad today since father's day is fast approaching and he and i got to hang out a bit this afternoon. he helped me get a bike ready for tomorrow's rick hansen wheels in motion fundraiser. we spent almost two hours in the garage fiddling with the bike, adjusting the seat and handlebars, pumping the tires, and i just thought "i have a great dad". i love my mom, too, of course (by the way, for mother's day, char and i made a scrapbook using some old family pictures that can be seen here), but today my appreciation for my dad was particularly salient. i have the utmost respect for him and i hope one day to have that same respect for my husband : P
Monday, May 29, 2006
Strangely Enough
Today was a bad day at work. It started off with nasty traffic, thanks to the TTC strike. Pedestrians were going WAY faster than motor vehicles on Yonge. I ended up being half an hour late for my morning home session, but it was okay; I just stayed an extra half an hour and the family was understanding. Anyway, session was a kind of rough throughout and for the final 35 minutes my kid was in full-blown tantrum mode. There wasn't much to do except put him on the sofa and wait until he quieted down, but every time he started to calm down and I approached him he started screaming and headslapping again. Eventually the mom came down and ended the session since time was up, anyway, but it was just bad all around. Onto my afternoon session with another kid. Normally this kid is really easy to work with; he's very high functioning and most people wouldn't even notice that he has autism. But he'd had an off morning and it carried over to the afternoon, so when I arrived at his school he was already teary and complaining of a headache. When we went home he had a major meltdown flopping himself on the floor and crying really hard and screaming "I hate session". After awhile I managed to calm him down, but later on he ran to the washroom and threw up.
That about sums up the work day. But as bad as it was, I didn't feel crappy on the way home. I had a very nice evening, in fact. Much of it was spent in the backyard putting yard waste into paper bags and carrying it to the curb. Char and I should have just carried the big paper bags to the front one at a time, but they were heavy and we didn't want to exert the effort. So we tried to place two of them on a large plank of wood-ish material and lift the plank instead. But it was too flimsy and the bags kept falling off. Finally we got a platform with wheels that my dad uses to transport sound equipment. We placed two bags on it, strung a rope behind the front two wheels and pulled it to the curb. I'm sure we looked like idiots (or geniuses!) to the neighbours. It would have been much faster and easier to have just carried the bags to the curb, but it was more fun our way. Of course, it escalated into us pulling each other around the backyard at super high speeds and even giving Coco a ride.
That about sums up the work day. But as bad as it was, I didn't feel crappy on the way home. I had a very nice evening, in fact. Much of it was spent in the backyard putting yard waste into paper bags and carrying it to the curb. Char and I should have just carried the big paper bags to the front one at a time, but they were heavy and we didn't want to exert the effort. So we tried to place two of them on a large plank of wood-ish material and lift the plank instead. But it was too flimsy and the bags kept falling off. Finally we got a platform with wheels that my dad uses to transport sound equipment. We placed two bags on it, strung a rope behind the front two wheels and pulled it to the curb. I'm sure we looked like idiots (or geniuses!) to the neighbours. It would have been much faster and easier to have just carried the bags to the curb, but it was more fun our way. Of course, it escalated into us pulling each other around the backyard at super high speeds and even giving Coco a ride.
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