It's only been 24 days!

Really! It's only been 24 days since my last post. I'm certain I've gone longer than that before... and yet my silent stalker has raised her voice and asked for more! Makes me feel kinda special, actually *tear*.

So, more! Hmm. More... More what? Not a whole lot happens in my life these days that is terribly bloggable, some of that due to confidentiality (no client stories here) and sheer uninterestingness (I think it's sad that Jason managed to cut my toe the other day when he stepped on me, I'm not so sure anyone else cares). But I shall endeavour to tell you... more!

Thesis. I successfully defended my thesis proposal on 29 February. Since then, I've been working on my ethics application. It's currently a completed draft, sitting with my supervisors. Once they give it the thumbs-up, it will be sent in to the Health Research Ethics Board. Once approved, I can actually commence my focus groups and such. Sadly, until they give it the thumbs-up, my thesis is on hiatus. Not much happening there. Not that it stops hovering at the back of my mind and nagging me, or anything. There's just not a whole lot I can do about it. :)

Clinic. It's our last week of clinic at Corbett. This means tying up loose ends: writing reports, evaluating the experience, evaluating our supervisor, etc. We're going to have a princess party on Thursday, which will be fun. There will be balloons and bubbles and an obstacle course. Woot! I am also required to be evaluated, but happily for me, I got that out of the way last week. My final evaluation went really well, and my supervisor's and my opinions about my strengths and challenges were nicely parallel. She's an excellent clinician as well as an excellent supervisor - I think that I will miss her.

My next clinic experience starts on Monday, 31 March - which is not so very far away. I'm feeling a little nervous about the change, to be honest! It's in Wetaskiwin, which means that I'll spend M-F there, living with my parents, and the weekends here in Edmonton. I'm not too excited about the driving, but I think living with my folks will be pretty mellow. They're pretty cool, when it comes down to it, and hey, who can say no to free food? :D The neat thing about this placement is that the only treatment I'll actually do in Wetaskiwin will be with pre-schoolers at the health unit. Other than that, I'll be working at schools in Millet and Hobbema.

Hobbema presents an interesting challenge, because traditional language tests normed on white children are often inaccurate for Aboriginal children. English is used differently in the Aboriginal community. For example, longer pauses in between people speaking is considered normal in thier community, where in ours it likely would create awkward silence. Also, the Aboriginal culture tends to give more credit to the listener's intelligence - so the speaker might talk around his/her point, expecting the listener to be smart enough to figure out what the point is for him/herself. In our culture, talking around the point means that the speaker is unable to get to it, and is considered a bad thing.

Given these challenges, I was feeling a little worried about this portion of the placement. I want to provide good quality treatment to all the kids I see, and that means knowing how to conduct a good assessment. But we don't learn very much about assessing minority cultures in our program. What was I to do?

Go to work, of course! My research assistantship has NOTHING to do with speech-language pathology. It's not affiliated in any way, and the work that I do for them is not speech related either. Nevertheless, sitting at my cubicle one day, I overhead co-workers talking about 'culturally sensitive language assessment in the Aboriginal community.' I was out of my desk like a shot! I flew through the maze of cubicles, stuck my head 'round the corner, and said "Hi, I was eavesdropping. Tell me more?" Turns out that several of my co-workers (who are on a different project than I am) have been working on this issue for a while and had quite a few resources to offer me. How awesome is that? I'm feeling a lot better about things now, and I am really actually looking forward to next Monday.

Work. I'm wrapping up work at CUP this week, too. Tomorrow is preparing for a workshop and tying up the loose ends for where I'm at on the article I'm writing, and then Friday is the workshop, and I'm presenting part of it. I'm going to be sad to leave this job - the work was interesting and the people were wonderful.

So wonderful, in fact, that my supervisor has invited me back to work there full-time for July and August! This is such a sweet deal. Financially, I knew it would be best if I were to work during the two months in between my two placements. Logically, I knew it might be tricky to find a job that paid reasonably well that would be willing to take me for only 60 days. I'm never sure how to handle that situation - it seems best to me to say up front that I'm only available for two months, but then many people don't want to hire you. CUP hiring me back for that time allows me to finish working on some projects, as well as to have an income. Yay!

Life. Other than that, life has been pretty quiet. Jason and I had beer and wings with some friends last Wednesday, which turned into playing SuperSmash Brother till midnight, and that was very fun. I had Easter dinner with my folks in Wetaskiwin on Saturday, and that was lovely. I especially liked the part where my dad filled an Easter basket for me! :D And last night Jason and I had dinner with his mum and some of her friends. She has the most interesting group of friends ever. You just never know who you'll meet at her house, you just know that the conversation will be jumping!

Oh, and I got to go and see a premiere of Run Fatboy Run. I loved it! It was much sweeter than Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, yet managed to be just as funny. It helps immensely that Dylan Moran has a bigger role in this one - I just love him to bits. I give this movie three thumbs up and recommend you see it!

Cheers all!
Elizabeth

A quote to tell you where I'm at...

Ah, Winston. You had a way with words. Having completed the proposal defence:

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Couple stuff

Hi guys!

Big day today - I defended my thesis proposal (NOT my thesis... this is just the beginning of the process, not the end!) this morning, and it went really well. I have some edits to make to my proposal, and then it will be off to ethics!

Elizabeth

Baby it's cold outside...

Yuck. The weather has been so yucky lately. I know that I live in Edmonton, and I know that comes with some chilliness, but -47*C (-53*F) with the windchill is a little much. "My" car (as in Jason's car that I drive) won't start and doesn't have a blockheater, so I'm carless again. Oh, ETS - how I didn't miss you. At all. On the other hand, I'd forgotten how fun it is to wear ski pants (*vwip vwip, vwip vwip* all the way to school), and how neat it feels when your eyelashes freeze together. Luckily, it's warming up, so I don't have to worry about freezing any exposed skin in less than a minute!

In other news, everything else is going really well. Clinic continues to be both fun and challenging, work is interesting and enjoyable, and I'm getting work done on my thesis (ethics application and presentation for my proposal defence). These things are what the majoirty of my life is based around right now, and that's Ok by me. I'm finding this term to be just the right amount of work, and I'm feeling pretty balanced. (A little more exercise is needed, but once it warms up a bit more I'll get back to the gym with B.).

Jason and I have been hanging out with our couple friends lately, which is fun. We played Settlers of Catan with Al and her husband two weeks ago, and then we went to Kathie and Brandon's this weekend for dinner and a game of Zombies!!! As gross as it is, I kind of like this game. :D Jason and I also hung out with Jake on Tuesday, which was lots of fun. We played some video games, a round of Zombies!!! (I won!), and then some WoW. Good times were had by all (thank you Minnie Johnson of the Wetaskiwin Times Advertiser). Tish and Larissa have been trying to catch us to go out for wings with them, but we haven't managed to line our schedules up yet. And B. and her boyfriend want togo out for dinner and then learn how to play Settlers, so that's going to happen sometime in the near future too, I think.

It's kind of weird to be in a place in my life where I have couple friends. This weirdness obviously needs to be counteracted with individual friend time! And so, I had breakfast withTegan (whose real name I will use from now on, as she no longer has the same schedule as me, and you cannot stalk her via my blog) last weekend, dinner with Robin and Caitlin the week before that, and dinner with Rachel (the newest friend in my life) last night. All in all, very satisfying.

So that's where things are at right now. Hope you're all keeping warm and drinking loads of cocoa with those little mini-marshmallows.

Love,
Ela

Happy New Year!

Hello friends!

A happy 2008 to you all - it's been good to me so far, and I hope it continues that way.

New Year's Eve in Jasper was a really fun getaway. Our first day, the four of us (Jason, Aaron, and Megs) sat in the hotel room and played the Wii's Big Brain Academy. It was sooo addictive. And it was really funny - As long as the teams were 1 boy and 1 girl (didn't matter which), we were evenly matched. However, girls against the boys meant that the girls lost. :) My one criticism of the game would be the lack of language tests - I think a big brain is one with a good vocabulary! Some definitions, synonym/antonym pairs... things like that would have made it better.

Our second day was the day on the hill... and let's just say I didn't do too well. My inability to carve really bit me in the arse... or more acurately, my quads. Trying to heelside my way down the whole mountain didn't work out so well. The time has come for me to learn to carve, and this will require me to get over my fear. Think I could find a psychological snowboarding coach? :) If it isn't too cold tomorrow, maybe I'll hit the hill again.

Our third day, the boys hit the hill, while we girls lazed about, wandered the town, and relaxed. As it was New Year's Eve, we went out for dinner at the Fiddle River, and it was lovely. I had lobster for the first time - wonderful! We then crashed back at the hotel and watched Hot Fuzz. An excellent film. We had a champagne toast at midnight, and it was such a nice way to ring in 2008 - sitting with good friends, watching a good film, and drinking champagne.

We drove back the next day and attempted to find somewhere to eat some lunch. Not much was open, so I suggested the truck stop in Hinton. Jason says "are you sure they even serve food there?"

"Um yes - see the giant knife and fork on the sign?"

"Well, I've never really eaten at a truck stop. You're such a small town girl!"

Hard to argue with that, really. :)

My semester has been going incredibly well so far. Mondays and Wednesdays I'm at CUP, where I'm working on various projects and am developing an idea for a possible publication. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm in clinic, where I'm working with 3 little girls (all under 4) who have language delays. This is different from my client this summer who had speech difficulties, but intact language (can't remember the difference? Look here.) These little girls are darling, and I'm already enjoying working with them. Fridays are free for thesis work.

Some extra nice things? (1) My clinic partner, B, is fabulous. I just love her. She's hard working and efficient, and a complete pleasure to work with. (2) B and I are going to the gym together Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, which is lovely. (3) My proposal draft is completed, and is under final edits. I'm hoping to defend it by early February, and then get cracking on my actual research. Whee!

One sad thing is that Jason agreed to take social dance classes with me once a week (waltz, foxtrot, etc.)... but the class was full. :( There's only one class a week offerred late in the evening, the only time that Jason is certain to be free... and the wait-list is 6 couples long. Oh well... maybe next semester!

That's my update for now - have a lovely weekend!

Elizabeth

So it's a little more 'bumpy' than 'gentle'

Hi friends,

I thought the wind up to the term would go a little more smoothly than it has, which was highly optimistic of me. :) I'm still in four classes, my thesis still needs work, and I'm still putting in at least 15 hours a week at work. I managed to go head to head with some sort of flu-thing this week, and that's got me a bit behind.

But Fridays - lovely Fridays - are now a semi-free day for me. I'm going into school at 11 to practice using the PERCI-SAR system (which used to be called PERCI-SARS... at least, until the SARS outbreak!) and to figure out where the protocol for using it came from. (You always get clients to say 'pee pee pee' and I need to know why!) Then I've got a hair appointment this afternoon, which I'm really looking forward to. I always find them so relaxing, and I like having fancy hair. It's time to do something about 67 different colors that in there, so I'm thinking I might be a slightly darker brunette come this afternoon at about 4 o'clock.

Tonight we're going to pick up Jason's new car, which is tres exciting. I am especially excited because he is allowing me to drive his old car. We've made the switch on the insurance (I'm now the primary driver), and we're going to look for a new bumper and hood for it this weekend (it's a little beat up, but a perfect about-town car for me).

I'm feeling a little behind in my schoolwork these days, given how much time I've given to my thesis recently, but I'm hanging on to the fact that I usually wind up feeling this way at the end of every semester, and I've always made it through before! I'm really enjoying resonance (a class that is the 2nd half of "Voice and Resonance"), and since it's the topic of my thesis, I'm feeling slightly ahead of the game.

The rest of this month is looking a little hectic. There's still lots to be done on my thesis, my workplace is holding another workshop, and this time I will be one of the presenters, there are school projects and such.... And then there are the social things! It was Jake's birthday on the sixth, so we're going to his house for some cake and celebration tomorrow. Then it's Jason's and my six-month anniversary on the 17, so I think we'll probably go out for dinner. Jason's good friend Tish is getting married on the 20, so that should be a fun evening... all in all, I think the next three or four weeks are going to fly by!

Well, I should go and get cleaned up and head into school. Corks up my nostrils*, here I come!

Love you,
E.

*It's how you use the PERCI-SAR, I swear. And if I were you, I wouldn't ask too many questions unless you want to come and try it out. ;)

A sort of spare moment

Clearly, life's been a little crazy recently. I often think about getting a blog post up, but there aren't a lot of free moments around to do so! I'm stealing this one on the grounds that I just wrote a midterm and I therefore deserve a short break... even though I do need to do an aug. com. assignment and a fluency lab tonight. :)

So here's the nutshell version of "Things in the Life of Elizabeth."

Work. I've been doing 3 hours a week at COMPRU, and really enjoying it. I'm splitting my time between digitizing casette tapes and analyzing the cookie swallow portion of modified barium studies. This is great, because I'm gaining familiarity both with speech software (Computerized Speech Lab) and with swallowing studies. I've also been fortunate in that my supervisor has granted me access to her lab's database of research articles, giving me the opportunity to look at articles that aren't available on-line without having to go to the library. (I hate going to the library to get articles. It's a total gong show, given that you can't safely leave your things ANYWHERE, and the photocopiers are always far away from the journals that I need, and there's never anyone around to show me how to doubleside.) I now have a stack of articles on nasopharyngoscopy that I can work into my thesis!

I really like my new position at CUP as well. I'm there 12 hours a week, and I've been getting some great experience in academic writing as well as with the ethics process for research. Both of these are skills that are applicable to my thesis, so yay! I like the people that I work with, the work that I do, and the theoretical premise behind the existence of the organization. Could it really get any better?

School. I officially wrote the final midterm of my Master's program today, and that's feeling pretty good. I did very well on the first midterm I wrote (Adult Language Disorders II), and am feeling good about today's as well (Fluency). It's a busy term, and I have lots to get done yet today... including writing the goals for our Augmentative/Alternative Communication class and completing the second lab for Fluency (it's a lot of counting stutters and determining severity, etc.). My goal of doing all the reading this term has completely bitten the dust, and I'm mostly just reading for Adult Language and Fluency, since those seem to be the two classes where it actually matters. Things are quite stressful right now, but will be much, much better at 12 on Friday, so it's manageable.

I met with my thesis peeps today to discuss my prospectus. Dr. B feels that I'm getting close enough to completing it that I should incorporate the details into my current draft (e.g., table of contents, reference list) and submit it for a final read by the end of the month or so. She and Dr. H will read and edit it twice, and then it will go to Dr. R (my committee member) for another read. Given all of this, it's coming close to the time for me to pick a date to defend my prospectus. This is a mini-defense; only Drs. B, H and R will be there. We sign the formal contract delineating our roles and responsibilities, and then I go to ethics. This is feeling stressful and worrisome, given how much work I still see needing to be done, but if my peeps think I'm getting close, then I'm getting close, and I'll get through this somehow.

Life. Life has also been busy. I've been attempting to attend church, Tegan's Bible study and Knox's Bible study, and doing so with limited success. I'm kind of now aiming for 2 out of 3 in a week, but have settled for just one a couple of times. :) Jason and I have also been spending some time with his friend Tish and Tish's fiancee Larissa, which has been very nice. We went bowling last weekend, and that wound up being a lot of fun. We also try to hang out with Kathie and Brandon and Al and Scott every couple weeks or so, mostly to play board games, which is excellent. It's really nice to spend a Sunday afternoon just playing games and hanging out.

All in all, life is hectic but good. I'm stressed and a bit frazzled (my English skills are going down the tubes, which is always a sign that I'm tired), but enjoying my classes, my work, my friends, and my boyfriend. Plus, my wonderful sister has taken the burden on of finding me something to wear to Tish and Larissa's wedding as well as to my grad celebration in December. I tried, but my dress shopping attempts mostly resulted in tears and a dress that I loved but both Kathie and Jason thought looked cheap. Yay for Kathie finding me something nice!!

Love y'all,
Elizabeth

Thesis = Paper

Hi again!

I've been at it for about 9 hours now, and I thought I deserved another little break. This time, I thought I'd show you a bit of what I'm doing.

This is what my bed currently looks like:
I don't have enough desk space to spread out all of these papers to read them, so my bed is sufficing. Notice that many of them are made up of several sheets lovingly folded and scotch-taped together. I always knew those origami lessons would pay off someday.

This is a close up of the bottom 3 pages:
Those are important. All of those are supposed to fall into neat and tidy groups, preferably the 6 neat and tidy groups that I predicted they'd fall into. Guess what? That's right. They're not. I'm a little hung up over what to do with them. I sense I'm spending tonight in SPSS doing an additional rotation to see if I can convince them to be sweet and behave themselves.

And those 341 sheets of paper? Well, they're kind of filed now:
I have 4 research questions in my presentation, and each folder holds the printouts of the analyses that should answer those questions. Note how the first folder is HUGE. I printed out all of this factor analysis stuff, then realized I didn't need all of it. *headdesk* However, to quote my dad: "It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." Amen to that, brother! Ahem, Amen to that, Dad!

Ok, I'm off to try to and graph the medians of my randomly selected variables in order to demonstrate what the Kruskal-Wallis scores mean... If you don't get that, don't worry. Neither do I, and I'm presenting it to 3 of my instructors, one of their wives, and 4 of my peers in just over 24 hours. Sweet!!

Love,
Elizabeth

ETA: I tried an additonal rotation - SPSS can't do anything more with my data. What I've got is as good as it gets. *sigh*

E.

Isak Dinesen is a wise woman

A woman writing under a man's pseudonym, Isak Dinesen (author of Out of Africa and Babette's Feast) commented that "the cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea."

I'm sitting in a lull right now - the calm before the storm, really. This week (and perhaps next week, too) are quiet, schoolwise. Completely full up, socially speaking, but that's a whole 'nother story. But it's a week into March now, and after this brief respite, all hell is going to break loose: assignments (I've got 3 lined up to work on already, with more on their way), papers (one lined up, another on the way), thesis things (I've got some ridiculous deadlines headed my way), projects (one major one for my thesis class that has me pre-terrified) and finals (6 of them!). Tied in with all of this is the fact that we're expected to be making some long-term decisions about our practica right now, and I'm not in my "long-term planning" mode these days. I'm really more into the "let's take this one hour at a time, shall we?" mode. *sigh* This, friends, is the work whose only cure is sweat. Lots of metaphorical, academic sweat.

It will be complimented with tears, guaranteed - winter term is always harder than fall, given that you're more tired and have fewer emotional resources to work with. I imagine that there may also be tears of relief when some of the sweaty things are done. I believe that the tears will be the cure for the sweat.

And then the ocean. I'm not a huge ocean fan, never have been. But lately it's come up more and more for me as a symbol of persevering and ultimately triumphing. And if I can make it out to Campbell River in August, then the ocean shall indeed by the cure for my tears.

On October 24, 2006, I emailed this to one of my thesis supervisors:

Hi Dr. H.,

I could meet you today or Thursday at 2.20, or Wednesday at 3.50. I'm sorry, but I won't be able to get my next draft of my program of study until Friday morning, because I'm right in the middle of 3 midterms. But I will get another draft done Thursday night!

Thanks for your patience in helping get through these starting stages! The Jewish midrash says "all beginnings are hard," and I couldn't possibly agree more. :)

Cheers,
Ela.

His response was this:

Ela,

I have you in my calendar at 4:00 pm tomorrow. See you then.

- P.

P.S. - It also says in the midrash that "...there seems to be a covenant made with the waters that whenever the heat is excessive and there is scarcely a breath of air moving on land, there is always some breeze, however slight, on the waters." Perhaps right now you are on land and the heat is excessive, but get this application in the mail, and you will be on the waters.

I think that's the first time that I saw the 'waters' as my seal for my Masters. My sign to myself that I can do this, I can complete this, I can excel at this.

I'm stranded on the land right now and the breeze is dying. But soon - just a few more months - and I'll be in the waters.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a rubber ducky to buy.

Love,
elizabeth

Gloriously Tolerable

Ah, funny quotes from The Onion. Life right now feels wonderful and stressful. Gloriously tolerable, indeed! There is so much to do this semester, and it feels like I go to school for most of the day, come home, eat supper, and then get right back into the books. I'm working very hard at being more disciplined, but it's tough. And then I worry about falling behind, which is really not the best use of my time.

But I'm getting better!! I've got my term very nicely organized, and I'm doing Ok at keeping on top of things. I'm a bit behind in my readings, but not much, and I plan to spend Saturday morning getting caught up. I've also been good about keeping up with my New Year's Resolutions. On the whole, I'm pretty proud of myself. :)

I had a thesis meeting today. I always dread them, I think because it's all so new to me. I go in there feeling very uncertain of whether or not I've actually accomplished anything that I was meant to have. You can all imagine just how well that works for me. *eye roll* Anyhoo. Today I went in there armed with some re-worked research questions and a new idea for my main objective. One of my research questions came out of our 598 class' study of an article on cheap red wine!! Know what's awesome? That's the research question my peeps were most impressed with! Go me! We spent about 45 minutes making revisions, Dr. B provided me the context for an epiphany (I finally have a way to deal with my lit review! It suddenly has a very concrete purpose!), and then it was time for me to go. As I packed up my stuff, Dr. B told me that I'm right on track, and that I deserved an 'atta-girl!' I earned an atta-girl!! Me! A blurb, a badge and an atta-girl. Life is gloriously tolerable.

There's this other new thing that I'm up to. It's new. And I wasn't going to share it, because I don't really trust myself to keep up with it. But I've done it four times now, and I've got a support network going, so maybe I'll tell y'all about it, and you can silently cheer for me. :) A while ago I was on the net, looking for some information about my health coverage through ASEBP. I'll confess, I was procrastinating. As I mosied through the website, I found a survey all about how healthy one's lifestyle is. Nothing says procrastination like a survey!

I started filling it out, and there was a box you could tick that said something like "if this survey suggests that you are at risk, would you be interested in having one of our Mayo Clinic counsellors contact you?" I clicked yes, a) because I didn't think I'd be eligible, and b) because it sounded research based, and I want to put good vibes out into the research world. You know - I'll do their survey, and then hopefully I'll get enough clinicians to do mine!! :D When I finished the survey, it blithely informed me that I was at risk for weight management and stress management. At risk enough to warrant being enrolled in their program for improving one's health. Crazy.

So Monday was my first "appointment." My counsellor phoned me at a pre-arranged time, and we went through the initial background information. Then I had to choose which program I wanted: weight or stress. I feel pretty confident about my ability to handle stress - I survived last semester! However, given that I'm still pretty...'curvy,' I'm less certain about my weight management skills. So I picked weight. She gave me some very good information about lifestyle diet changes (all well grounded in valid and reliable research!), and then we worked together to set some goals. My job is to drink at least one bottle of water a day, eat way more fruits and veggies, and to... um... well... *coughcoughrunthreetimesaweekcoughcough*

Are you done laughing yet? I know. I know! I am not a runner. But right now... well, it's what fits my schedule and my budget. I could go to the UofA gym after class, but that's at around 4, and that's when it's super busy. I don't like waiting half an hour to get 20 minutes on the elliptical machine. Plus (and I know this is dumb, but I'm allowed to have hang ups!) I feel intimidated by the gym bunnies. *blush* So running it is. And like I said, I've gone 4 times. Not in a row! It's not so bad. I go for 20-30 minutes, alternating 2 minutes of running with one minute of walking. The walking sometimes gets a little longer. ;) And it's Ok. Megs is my accountability partner. My counsellor asked me to schedule my runs in like appointments, so that I'm less likely to miss them. I tell Megan when I'm supposed to go, and then she 'encourages' me to go and do it!! And, of course, guilt trips me if I don't. *lol* Kidding, kidding.

Tomorrow Megan and I are having Christmas, and exchanging our gifts. Friday, Allan's coming over. I think we're going to Marble Slab for ice cream!! And then I'm planning on challenging him to a Scrabble game... *rubs hands evilly*... he's going down! And that's all you get to hear about that. Saturday night I'm hosting a breakfast-for-dinner party that's going to be wicked cool. And Sunday will be a day of church and rest. Oh life! So busy! So gloriously tolerable!

Ooh - I had a confrontation today! The guys who live downstairs really love their bass. And really, who doesn't love them some good bass? But bass that's very loud in my apartment makes me sad. And grouchy. So I got dressed (yes, I was in my PJs at 7. Don't ask). I trundled down the stairs, turned on my winningest smile, and knocked at the door. I think running earlier today may have peaked my endorphins a bit. I was, dare I say it, downright perky. A guy around my age answers the door...

"Hi! I'm Ela! I live upstairs! I'm a full-time grad student, and I'm trying to study! Your bass is really loud in my place! Could you just turn the bass down? The volume's fine, it's just the bass!" *big winning grin!*

The poor guy was blindsided. What are you going to say to the gloriously perky girl at your door, grinning like you're fabulous (or she's nuts), and burblingly requesting that you turn down, not the volume, but just the bass?

"I'm sorry, of course I'll turn it down" he said warily. I think he was worried I was going to burst into a cheer... (I'm sexy! I'm cute! I'm popular to boot! I'm bitchin'! Great hair! The boys all love to stare! I'm wanted! I'm hot! I'm everything you're not! Don't hate us 'cuz we're beautiful, 'cuz we don't like you either! We're cheerleaders!) or maybe blind him with Julia-Roberts-wattage smile.

"Thanks!" I chirped, reaching out my hand to shake his (why? Why did I do that? I don't know. It was the endorphins. I think I was drunk on them).

"Uh, I'm Jimmy..." he awkwardly said as we shook hands, me smiling all the while. "And uh, I'm really sorry about the bass...."

"No worries!" I grinned. "Have a great night!" And I smiled one last time, and headed back up the stairs. And it's been quiet all evening now....

Kill 'em with kindness, Uncle Dave. Kill 'em with kindness.

Love your gloriously tolerable Ela

The Essence of a Sound

Ahoj!

Today was a very special day. One of my thesis peeps had her lab gifted with $135 000 from the Edmonton Oilers' Community Foundation, the single largest donation that the Faculty of Rehab Med has ever received. Dr. B has 14 of us grad students (she's a VERY busy lady!!), and we all showed up to support her. :) The money is going to be used for research on the effects of intensive voice therapy for children with cerebral palsy, and little boy with CP was there. So was ALL of Edmonton's media - so check the news tonight, or the papers tomorrow. I doubt I'm in any of the pictures, but that's my lab!! I also met Ethan Moreau (and got his autograph *grin*), and Kevin Lowe touched me on the shoulder and said "excuse me." Oh the excitement. ;)

The best bit was afterwards, when Dr B. pulled all of her students back into the lab (after everyone had left) and thanked us for supporting her. She pointed to the little boy with CP who was out in the hallway, and said "when you hate your exams, when you hate me, when you hate that you have to write another draft - remember this. Remember him. Remember that your research will change his life. No matter what population you work with, remember this." And then she got a little teary-eyed, and so did most of us students as well, and then we hugged. It was amazing.

And remember my blurb? http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/carolboliek/gradstudents.htm I'm on there!! It's very exciting. I have a blurb.

Other exciting things? I have a new English student who wants 4hrs of lessons a week. This is great! I think it's just about the right amount of time for me, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm also duly nervous, since - hello! - it's 4 hrs a week. I need to do some serious lesson planning sometime soon, and as finals will soon be upon me, it'd better be sooner rather than later. I'm still excited, despite the fear, since this is a real answer to prayer.

Oh, and the blog title? Dr. P used to work with a professor who loved to talk about the "essence of a sound." You know, a /k/ has "k-ness," an /l/ has "l-ness," and a /p/ has... well, sound it out. ;) (If you don't get it, email me.)

Love,
ela