Day 109
I’m in my last full semester of classes for my M.S. in speech-language pathology (before a year of clinical placements) and am having more and more of those “Why am I doing this?” and ”Do I really want to be doing this for the rest of my life?” moments. These usually occur after bombing out on a neuro test [...]
Archive for March, 2007
31 Mar
the good moments
30 Mar
home
Day 110
This is what the view from my hometown of Kijabe, Kenya looks like as I write this entry (thanks to the webcam that updates minute-ly):
I always loved watching storms move across the valley – there’s a fierce beauty in the sheets of rain and forboding clouds, a magnificient interplay between land and sky. It was truly a blessing to have [...]
29 Mar
While brushing my teeth this morning . . .
Day 111
I noticed my feet. I glanced down, and there they were, as they have been for the past 26+ years, sitting (standing?) unassumingly at the end of my ankles. I stopped brushing and just stared at them staring back at me against their background of gray linoleum.
I usually don’t notice my feet – they are packaged in socks [...]
28 Mar
“As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘If you are racist, I will attack you with the North.’”
Day 112
No, he really didn’t say that. Today’s Office (mis)quote by the venerable Mr. Scott is in honor of the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, which took place on 28 March 1862 in New Mexico.
Who knew the Civil War stretched all the way to New Mexico? Not me – you learn something new every day.
A [...]
27 Mar
appropriate ordinariness
Day 113
I’ve don’t think I’ve ever been the best at anything I’ve ever done. Not the best student, not the best actress, not the best poet, not the best clinician, not anybody’s best friend. I have done all right in school (going on 19 years of schooling now – I’m about ready to be done), I love [...]
26 Mar
sweet sweet summertime
Day 114
I love it – we’re barely into spring, and God decides to plunk a couple days of summer down for us. Yesterday was beautiful. Today’s even better. Tomorrow, we’re getting rain and a quick cool-down. But I don’t care.
Right now it’s sunny. It’s 66 degrees at 9 AM. It’s no-jacket weather. It’s a gift from [...]
25 Mar
appropriate smallness
Day 115
Feeling small is a good thing. I wish I recognized more often that I am merely “a hairy little biped on a speck of cosmic dust”. A speaker I heard at a conference described us that way, and it stuck with me as an excellent description of what humans are. It is humbling. I have a [...]
24 Mar
narrowing it down
Day 116
He calls up the info desk looking for a master’s thesis. Unsure of the title. Not certain how to spell author’s name. But it has something to do with a semiconductor.
“Couldn’t you just do a keyword search for ’semiconductor’ in the catalog?”
“Sure I can, but I’m just letting you know, sir, there’ll be a lot of results.”
“That’s [...]
23 Mar
“Video confirms cow eating chicken”
Day 117
Yes, somewhere in India this is taking place. So, if you ate the cow’s beef, what would that taste like? (The carnivorous cow is most likely safe from such a fate, considering the country in which it resides.)
Still, it could give a whole new meaning to “tastes like chicken”. . .
Onward.
Believers’ “Spiritual Vitamins” Part 3:
I am redeemed through [...]
22 Mar
I Heart UNLV!
Day 118
I’m not big into basketball, college or otherwise – I’ll go to a Bucks game and enjoy it thoroughly, but I don’t follow the sport like I do baseball or football. This is in spite of the fact that I attend basketball-crazed Marquette.
Then March Madness rolls around and it all changes. I find myself rooting as if my [...]
21 Mar
“borderline studying”
Day 119
This phrase was inadvertently coined by my co-studier late last night as we pored over our notes for an 8 AM fluency disorder test. She meant to say “borderline stuttering”, one of the stages in developmental stuttering, but it came out a little wrong.
Here is the official definition of this new term from Katie’s Inexhaustive Dictionary of the English [...]
20 Mar
vegetable ladies
Day 120
My professor from India was talking about his country and the people who go selling vegetables door-to-door (this anecdote was shared during our class on neuromuscular disorders - go figure). It reminded me of our vegetable ladies back home. They are some of the hardest-working people you’ll ever come across, making their living by carrying massive bags of potatoes [...]
19 Mar
My most favorite harbinger, herald, and/or precursor: baseball
Day 121
It’s spring tomorrow at 7:07 PM Central time, which brings up an interesting thought – why do Marquette and many other schools have spring break entirely in winter (i.e. last week)? Maybe it should be renamed “late winter break”. The terminology loses a little bit of it’s zing, but it’s also a little more accurate, especially since we in Wisconsin are predisposed to [...]
18 Mar
Once-in-a-lifetime
Day 122
Yesterday, two of my dear friends got engaged. It was an event that was very well planned out by the groom-to-be, starting with a mini-play acted out by believers from church with very fake British accents and crazy names. (I was Katie the Exuberant. Nah, that doesn’t fit at all . . .well . . . um . [...]
17 Mar
Wake-up call (literally)
Day 123
7:56 AM. Saturday morning. Don’t hafta to work today, so I’m in lala land when suddenly,
THUNK.
I sit up, dazed, wondering what fell off my wall. Then I see my phone buzzing on the floor. The vibrating had knocked it off my desk. I scramble out from under my covers and lunge for it, reading “Unknown” as the caller ID. [...]
16 Mar
“One word, two syllables: Demarcation.”
Day 124
Yes, Office fans, that’s a Dwight Shrute-ism. Good thing he’s not an accountant . . . the Scranton branch would go under faster than you could say that “two” syllable word.
A couple of days ago, my dear brother Pete sent, via e-mail, two heart-warming pictures from where he works in the heart of Africa. Well, one [...]
15 Mar
You say Mil-waukee, I say My-waukee
Day 125
Yesterday afternoon, I went to my pastor’s family’s house for a visit. While I was there, they got out a globe and I was showing their three kids (ages six and under) where I have lived in the world, finishing with, “And this is where we live now – Milwaukee.”
At which juncture, two and a half year old Hannah grabs [...]
14 Mar
Pi Day
Day 126
Yes, it is, so happy that.
I work two part-time jobs, as indicated by my two timecards. The fact that both places of employment are located in the same building is extremely convenient: I just switch timecards in and out all day long. My upstairs job is mundane and predictable – I go through the tax returns of private foundations [...]
13 Mar
brain-ly contemplations
Day 127
The weird thing about studying neuroscience (even at the basic level I have in the few classes I’ve taken on the subject) is the idea that your brain is actually considering itself. As you look at pictures of the eyeballs and the nerves that run from them to the vision center at the back of your brain, the process [...]
12 Mar
“break”
Day 128
Yes, spring break week is, in fact oh-good-now-I-can-work-40-hours-to-make-money-and-catch-up-on-the-several-hundred-pages-of-reading-I-have-put-off-during-the-first-half-of-the-semester-when-I-was-doing-a-zillion-other-things week. I don’t mind it really - in fact, I’d rather be doing what I’m doing this week than take time off to go on a vacation. I can get a jump on some of the second half of semester responsibilities this way. It’s a more relaxed pace and as long as I can get a [...]
11 Mar
shifting
Day 129
It’s 6:25 pm and it’s still light out. Ah yes, Daylight Saving Time, as all you who did remember to “spring ahead” one hour will know, has arrived. Actually, daylight is not saved. We do not gain an hour of light. We merely shift that hour of light from the morning to the evening. [...]
10 Mar
monolinguality
Day 130
I love language. I love listening to people speak in languages I can’t understand. I have a degree in linguistics. I’m studying to be a speech-language pathologist. I’ve studied Latin, Swahili, Greek (for three weeks . . . yeah, that didn’t go so well), Hebrew, Arabic, Kikuyu, and recently have begun dabbling in Spanish. Despite all this study, [...]
9 Mar
VERY good
Day 131
My friend had her appendix taken out on Monday. She made it to class this morning, walking somewhat gingerly and laughing about the fact that she actually wanted to come to our 8:00 class. (After the week she’s had, can’t say I blame her.) Being fascinated with all things medical, I peppered her with questions about the hospital, [...]
8 Mar
Apparently, it’s now double M, double R
Day 132
Yesterday I got my first royalty check from iUniverse for my book, Made for Eternity: Reflections on Time and Timelessness. A whopping $187 and change. I wanted to frame it, but, well, I have loans to pay. There is something special about getting paid, however small the amount, for something you’ve written.
The wonder of the ”wow, [...]
7 Mar
Dancing With the Squirrels
Day 133
I think they should film this new reality show on the MU campus. We have an overabundance of the little critters around here, the majority of whom have lost all sense of fear when it comes to humans. In fact, I have been chased by a squirrel. Twice. I’m serious. The rodents are taking over.
And yes, [...]
6 Mar
A thing of beauty
Day 134
Do you ever stop and pay attention to your hands moving, your fingers typing? I do. It’s a pretty awesome thing to watch them dance (in my case a little slower than most) across the keyboard as I type this. They are moving just as I want them to, – ’til I hit a wrong key, [...]
5 Mar
“catching up”
Day 135
Today I talked to my friend Amrah, who has just returned to southern California after a year in South Korea. We haven’t talked to each other that whole time. Funny how it is with people you haven’t talked to in a long while. There is so much to say but you don’t know where to begin. Suddenly [...]
4 Mar
Oh, the places you’ll go!
Day 136
I’ve been thinking about names recently, names of towns in particular. Where I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, there was a distinct Biblical bent – Nazareth, Bethlehem, Zionsville, Emmaus, and of course, Philadelphia. And then there was Bath. Bath was a weird one – some people may think that those other towns are named oddly, but Bath always seemed extra [...]
3 Mar
“How did the baby get out?”
Day 137
Nothing shakes up a session with a five year old client like this question:
“How did the baby get out?”
So, there I am, with . . . hmm. Let’s call him Charlie. Working on pronouns. Subjective pronouns. You know, like he and she. We have Richard Scarry’s book What Do People Do All Day? [...]
2 Mar
My favorite word
Day 138
Dysdiadochokinesia: an inability to perform rapid, alternating movements (eg: saying pa-ta-ka quickly). I love this word – it takes a little practice to say, but it’s kinda onamonapeiatic (paradoxically, since if you do suffer from dysdiadochokinesia, saying the word itself might be difficult). Once you get it down, your tongue is flying [...]
1 Mar
You inconsinderate (myoclonic) jerk!
Day 139
The title is a play on a note left on my mom’s car once when she left too little room for the guy who parked next to her. “Inconsinderate” sort of took some of the sting out of it. Of course myoclonic jerks are very inconsiderate. They can occur frequently and very intrusively in people [...]
