Sneaky Stress

Hi guys,

Ever notice how stress can sneak up on a girl? Y'know - you trundle along, thinking everything's all good, you're on your month off, life is sweet... then you send a cover letter with two colours of font in it (d'Oh), lose your wallet (find it again, thank goodness), stick the wrong stickers on the new tokens for Settlers of Catan, Cities and Knights (cry in the bathroom), and burn your finger on a PopTart. That's when you realize that, despite your month off's best efforts, you're stressed anyway.

Guess where I'm at? Yeah. Stressed. Worried about school starting, finding a part-time job, writing my prospectus, fitting everything into a new schedule.... It's kind of been eating away at me over the last week or so, and I didn't really realize it til today. I guess that I need to get organized, even though it's my time off. Tomorrow afternoon I plan to sit down and map out a schedule for this week, in order to feel that I'm making productive use of my time. I'm hoping to accomplish two things with this: 1) actually get stuff done (e.g., going into the lab, writing my thesis), and 2) actually relax during my time off. We'll see. :)

Today was a pleasant day, even if I DID cry over putting the wrong stickers on the Settlers' tokens. ;) Jason and I met up with Kathie and Brandon at an auction house, to check out the goodies. Katie and Jason got bored before the auctioneer made it around to the stuff Brandon was semi-interested in, so we picked up what we'd purchased (K&B: ramen noodles, Cheezies and apple juice - a well rounded meal!; Jason: 3 pots for $12.50!) and headed out. J. and I went to West Ed to pick up Cities and Knights, and spent close to an hour just trying to find a parking spot. The mall was stupid busy! I guess that's what happens when it's back-to-school time and the weather is awful. :) We finally got our game, and headed of to play with K. and B. The game was pretty frustrating for me at first, because I didn't understand any of its subtleties. About 2/3 of the way through it started making sense, and I really started to enjoy it. It's more complex than Settlers, and also longer, both of which combine to mean that it's easier to catch up if you fall behind. I'm excited to play again - I think that I can do a lot better next time.

Tomorrow I'm teaching Jr. Church - it's all about Noah, so I think we're going to build an ark out of chairs and pretend to be animals, and then I think it might be a lazy afternoon. Jason's encouraging me to explore sculpting, since I enjoy baking bread so much (I love manipulating the dough!), so maybe I'll give that a shot. His flat is lacking a backgammon board, so he said that if I made the pieces, he would make the board. I think it's a nice idea for a first attempt for me - something simple, and fairly craft-like (as opposed to art-like). We'll see how it goes.

And to end this post, a semi-funny, semi-painful story. (The best kind, really!)

Those Bloody WingDings

Wednesday evening, about 7 o'clock, Jason and I are hungry.

"The Stonehouse does Wing Wednesday, hun," I say. "Why don't we go there?"

Jason readily agrees, and we head off to the pub. Once there, we take a couple stools at the bar, as the tables are all full, order a couple of pints, and start chatting with the bar staff. After glancing over the wing section on the menu, we place our order.

"We'd like an order of the Greek wings, an order of the Cajun Salt and Pepper, and an order of your WingDing hot wings," Jason says.

The bartender raises an eyebrow. "The WingDing hot wings?" he asks. "You sure about that? They're REALLY hot."

"That's fine," Jason shrugs. He eats hot foods all the time, and is rarely phased by anything a restaurant refers to as being 'really spicy.'

Grinning, the waiter replies "Alright then, I'll bring you the waiver to sign."

Jason and I both laugh, but it's cut short when the waiter lays a two-page waiver form on the bar in front of us. It turns out that if a person can eat all 12 hot wings in a reasonable amount of time they'll win free wings the next time, and a chance at winning a hundred bucks.

"Might as well give it a shot," Jason says as he signs his name. I mostly ignore him as I read the warnings about death, doom, and diarrhea at the foot of page one.

The waiter hustles off to shout in our order, and the two regulars on the stools next to us begin throwing their two cents in.

"They are REALLY hot," the first man says. "I only made it through two before I had to give up."

"Whatever you do, DON'T touch your eyes after eating 'em" chimes in the second man.

"Yeah! That's fer damn sure," the first one replies. He pauses, then adds "And wash yer hands BEFORE you take a leak. Learned that one the hard way." He nods sagely, then takes another swig of his beer.

Not too much later, our wings appear. Jason grabs his first WingDing, and chows down.

"How is it," I ask.

"Not bad," he says. "All heat and no flavor - just like I suspected."

"Can you finish them all?" the bartender asks.

"Yeah, no problem."

Two more wings in and the tears are running down Jason's face. I've seen him eat a lot of spicy food before, but I've never seen him cry doing it.

"You Ok, hun?" I ask.

"Yeah, but these are THE spiciest wings I've ever had. They don't taste like anything though - they're just HOT. I wonder if they're seasoned with something synthetic."

I keep eating my wings (the more ordinary ones), and am disappointed with how flavorless they are. I glance over again at Jason, tears streaming now, looking somewhat ashen.

"Jason?" I ask. "You Ok?"

"I can't eat anymore," he says, pushing the plate away. "I'm feeling really sick."

He gets up and heads for the washroom. The bartender clears the plate away, and returns to ask "Do you think he'd like a glass of milk?"

"He's lactose intolerant," I reply. "A glass of milk would only make things worse."

Jason returns, looking a bit better, but still not so good. "The heat didn't get to me," he says. "It's just that whatever's in them is really making my stomach rise."

We finished up our regular wings and headed for the door. About a block into our 4 block walk, Jason suddenly stops, grabbing his stomach.

"I thought I was feeling better," he gasped, "but suddenly I feel awful. How far to your place?"

"Just a few more blocks," I say, worried.

We hurry on. Another block into the walk, and Jason drops to his alongside the grass. "I think I'm going to be sick," he says, turning an awful shade of puce. He kneels there, heaving, for a moment or two, before he staggers to his feet.

"I can't do it. I feel awful, but I can't be sick."

We hurry along for another block, when Jason suddenly stops again. "How much further to your place?" he asks.

"Just another block, sweetie. C'mon, let's hurry."

Halfway through the last block, Jason suddenly gasps out, "Ela, will you still love me if I s**t my pants?"

I pause, think about it for a moment, and say "Yes, Jason. I will still love you, EVEN if you s**t your pants. But there's only 1/2 a block left - you can make it!"

In the end, we DID make it back to the condo in time, and poor Jason spent a very agonizing evening being unable to either throw up or to be tormented by Montezuma's Revenge. Instead, he got to lay perfectly still and drink nothing. The slightest movement or the smallest beverage made his stomach explode into agonies of pain. Eventually able to sleep, he awoke the next morning feeling much better, if not 100%.

Watch out for the WingDings.

Ela

Job Love

Hi guys!

I thought that it was high time for some lighter fare, so this evening I'm going to share some stories from current research assistantship with you.

Right now I'm working a few hours a week in the lab digitizing audio clips from old VHS tapes. This involves finding the right child on the tape, and going through about 20 minutes of a session to 'cut out' about 20 individual words. These words are then being analyzed by a post doc student down in Texas; she's looking at vowel errors in children with southern accents. (Interesting aside: for a long time it was assumed that children with speech impediments only had problems with consonants. This is patently untrue, but there were no measures available to assess vowel errors. A woman in our department [who at that time was working down in Texas] developed one of the first tests for vowel errors. Very cool!)

So I sit in front of a computer, with a TV off to my right, and watch cute little kids with southern accents name pictures of objects (e.g., 'hat' 'boy' 'couch'). And while I sit there, I giggle madly. It's just too darn cute. Examples to follow!

The clinician and the child were looking at a picture with a bowl of popcorn and a bowl of peanuts in it.

"What's this?" asked the clinician.
"Popcorn," replied the child.
"And this?"
"Peanuts."
"Very good!" the clinician responded.
"I said 'penis'!" the child giggled.
The clinician was momentarily stunned, then turned the page and pointed to a cake, asking "what's this?"

Another clinician and another child were looking at a picture of a toy airplane together.

"What's this?" asked the clinician.
"A plane," the child answered.
"Can you tell me the big name for it?" the clinician queried.
"A PLANE," the child yelled.

Yet another clinician and another child were looking at a picture of a barn surrounded by common farm animals (a horse, a cow, and a pig). The clinician was trying to get the child to name the cow.

"What's this?" the clinician questioned.
"Ummm..." hemmed the child.
"We get milk from it," prompted the clinician.
"Umm..." the little girl hawed.
"It goes 'moo...'"
"It's a MOOSE!" bellowed the girl.

Now, for this last one, you must picture an adorable little black girl, about four years old. She's a non-rhotic speaker: she drops her 'r's. She sounds a little bit like she's from Boston ('pahk the cah in the garahge') but more southern. She was looking at a picture of a birthday cake with the clinician, and was excitedly telling the adult all about her own birthday the week before:

"I had a bethday pahty at Chuckeh Cheese!"

Hope you enjoyed a peek into my RAship!

Love,
Ela

Selective Eaters...

"Oh look, a picture of peas! Oh you looked at it! You looked at it and you didn't throw up! High five. "

"Look at this bowl of peas. You don't have to eat them. Just look at them. Hm. They're green. And round. I bet they'd roll if you put them on the table. Good job! You touched them without vomiting! High five."

"Look at this bowl of peas. You don't have to eat them, just look. I wonder what they feel like. Hey you touched them! Good work. Can you squish them? Can you put those squished ones on your cheeks? Ooh, good work. Here's a kleenex and a glass of water. Can you kiss those peas? You can wipe them off if you're feeling sick. You kissed the peas! High give."

And people wonder why speech pathologists are a little quirky. You would be to if the above conversation was a part of your daily life, as it is for the guest lecturer we had yesterday. :)

There's a month left in clinic, and as much as I've enjoyed it, I'm ready to be done. I'm at the point of tired now where I fall asleep on the LRT, I spill slurpees on my laptop (luckily Dexter is Ok), and I break glasses (fortunately I was holding it in a tea towel, so I didn't cut myself). Luckily this weekend is going to be very relaxing. We're definitely going out to the cabin (Robert, Aaron, Megs and myself) to be lazy and play games for most of the weekend. On Monday we're going to go to the Stampede finals, which should be very fun. Chris might meet us there, which would also be cool. I like it when my worlds collide a bit, and friends meet family meet boyfriends, etc. :)

I'm doing my solo adult session today, which means that I'm the only person in the room with my client. I'm feeling pretty good about what I've got planned, if a teensy bit nervous because I'm trying a trivia activity that we've never done before. However, if it doesn't go well, we can always just do some more oral-motor exercises instead. Back up plans are very comforting. :)

That's all that's new, friends.

Love,
Ela

Super Secret Sacks!

This week we're working on the /s/ sound, and so today we're having super secret sacks! These are paper bags filled with paper, and a small /s/ object (e.g., sock, sun, etc.). I was hoping to use shredded paper from the office, but they actually ship their shredding out. So I got creative, and stuffed the bags with toilet paper. :) Our client gets to dig through, find the object, name it, and place it in its spot on a sheet of paper. Some of the objects are extra fun. There's a sucker, a soother (the sour candy kind!), and a sour coke bottle candy. Once she's found all of the objects, and put them in their places, she gets to tell me "silly sentences," and I'll act them out. For example, "put Sam in the sock!" I think it's going to be fun.

I can't quite believe that it's Monday morning already. Friday afternoon, I went to Megs' for dinner, and on the bus there I commented that it felt like the weekend was already going by too quickly. Boy was I ever right. Megs' and I ate dinner (curry - so good!), baked brownies, and watched the rest of Firefly. Then on Saturday, Robert and I went out to his grandparents' cabin at the lake to help them get it ready for the summer. Robert was fixing a bunch of the plumbing, so I mopped up after him. :) Sadly, the plumbing wasn't totally finished by the time we left. We met up with Robert's good friend Aaron (who knows my good friend Elly, weird...), and spent the evening playing random word games and laughing hysterically. :) Sunday morning I taught Jr. Church, then Robert, Megs and I went out for lunch together. The waiter at Julio's was very concerned about Robert's choice of "nuclear" salsa... After lunch, Robert and I headed back out to the cabin, where he finished up the plumbing, and I cleaned the bejeebus out of the bathroom. We also got to spend some time visiting with his grandparents, whom I already love. :) We stopped in at my folks' place on our way back to the city, and he got to meet my grandparents. Highlight of the evening? My grandpa informing Robert that I am very precious to him. :)

And then the weekend was over! I can't believe how quickly it went by, and I also can't believe how ready I am for another. Like right now. Fortunately it's the long weekend this time around, and we've got a lazy one planned. Robert, Megs, possibly Aaron and I are all going out to the cabin, and then to the Ponoka Stampede finals. I think it's going to be a little bit more relaxed than this weekend was!! :D

Ooh, funny story. So, we all know that Shakespeare looooooooves Robert. (Apparently, he even likes him more than I do!). Well, Shakespeare has taken to trying to seduce Robert. The other evening, Robert and I were sitting on the living room floor playing crib. Shakes tried to get Robert's attention, but he was in the middle of playing a hand, so he ignored the cat. Shakes then sat down just out of reach. When Robert reached back to pet him finally, Shakes slid just a little further away. He pointedly looked off into the distance, then glance sultrily over his shoulder at Robert, and THEN he stretched out all luxuriously and sensuously. I think it's a good thing Shakes is going back to Al tomorrow... otherwise I think I'd have to fear for my life. After all, I wouldn't put it past a black cat to kill for love. :P

Ela

More Singing!

My friends are all feeling a titch irritated right now. It seems that somehow, someone got the song "I was made for lovin' you" stuck in their heads. WHO would do a thing like that? WHO would hear a random comment made in the grad lab about lovin' a certain activity, and suddenly belt out:

I was made for lovin' you baby/you were made for lovin' me.

WHO?

Me. Of course. Who else? I think that, in general, there should be more singing. And lately I've been in this wonderful, fantastic mood that leads to much singing. Also happy dancing. And my happy dancing is a sight to behold. Imagine a penguin... bold in her tuxedo, flippered and slightly awkward.
Now imagine that this penguin has some severe hemorrhoids, and an ingrown toenail. But she is joyful! Nevertheless, she is happy and she wishes to DANCE. That's me. Happy dancing! Fantastic. I imagine that the producers of "Canada's Got Talent" will beating my door down any day. I will be the next William Hung!

Anyhoo, that's all that's new. Have happy day!

Cheers,
Elizabeth

You know Elizabeth's tired when...

Yesterday I was hanging out with Robert (no, that's not really his name), and I was noticing that Shakespeare (my ex-kitty that I'm cat-sitting while while Al is on vacation) prefers to be with Robert than with me. That's right - my darling cat likes my boyfriend, whom he's only just met, better than he likes me, the woman who fills the food bowl and scoops out the kitty litter.

I stifled a yawn, turned to Robert and said"Hmmm, Shakespeare likes you better than I do.

There was a long silence, nigh unto a pregnant pause, then Robert replied "Maybe I should just go home now."


I sure hope that it wasn't a Freudian slip, or that Shakes REALLY likes Robert!!

Elizabeth

Woah-oh, we're halfway there...

So, I made the deal with myself that if I ran 3 times/week and strength trained 2 times/week for six weeks, I could pierce my naval. Today is the half-way point, and I'd like to show you something:


It's a bit hard to see, I know. But all those little purple circles? They are enclosing the letter S, R and/or B. S = strength training, R = running, B = biking. And those purple circles say that I am right on track! Whee!

I haven't seen any change in my weight in these last 3 weeks, but I am seeing changes in muscle definition in my arms and legs, which is very cool. I motivate myself to strength train by looking at my cute little muscles that I haven't had since the height of my ice cream scooping career last summer. :) And get this: I'm ready to upgrade from the 3lb. weights that I do my 4o minute workouts with to 5lb. ones. Go me!

I've been biking to and from school and church as much as possible, although the rain held me up one day, and my hair did another. My helmet doesn't fit when my hair's in two buns, and I was too tired to problem solve that morning. :D

I've been seeing quite a bit of my friends lately, and in doing so, have come across a couple funny stories for you. We went out for dinner at Padmanadi's (I hope I spelled that right), and it's over kind of in Cromdale. As I was walking from the bus stop to the restaurant, I passed the "Mildly Chinese Herbal Centre." Next time I apply for my passport, I think I'll put down that I'm mildly caucasian.

On Thursday I went to MEC to get a bell for my bike, and I noticed a little placard in an apartment building's flower bed. It said "Thank you for not peeing your pet on our grass." Owch! I feel terrible for these people who are peeing their pets - how excruciatingly painful to have to pass a small mammal through one's urinary tract! And I know that this is what they meant, because three steps down the road there was a SECOND placard, with exactly the same admonition on it. Does PETA know that this is happening??

Bed time - fresh sheets and a good book await!

E.