In case you were wondering...

I have a new blog for my sophomore year....it's right here at this link:

http://tkwootwo.blogspot.com/

Packing...this is repetitive

I go back to Wooster in 4 days! I'm really excited, I get to set up my room, see all of my friends, and of course, get to see Gordon. It's been 3 looooong months, but it will all be such a relief. The only bad thing about leaving is that I'm leaving Ryan and Nick. Ryan is going off to college and I'm sort of worried about him. He seems kind of out of it lately, and I'm just hoping he'll adjust well. I'll see if he wants to talk to me when we hang out this week. Nick's getting his liscense next month, so maybe he can come out and visit me!

I need to hang out with Andrew this week as well. I don't know when, but it better be fun. I don't need to ask for it to be fun, because it always is.

So, I have this problem with packing, because I've been organzing what goes inside each box. This sucks if you're trying to condense things. Packing also sucks, because I hate having to pack the things that I use everyday, because I think that I'm going to forget something. I'm apprehensive to start packing these things that I use, because I don't want to have to keep getting them out.

I have to go shopping for some of the essentials as well. And I have to go through my food boxes. I'm going to try to condense THAT to one box as well. We'll see how that goes.

I printed out all of my pictures that I wanted, and I went through my older ones, and decided which ones to not take with me. I just realized, that we're not going to be able to finish watching "The OC". Katie and my goal was to watch the whole first season this summer. We'll probably be able to fit in a couple more episodes today. Hopefully!

Ladies Indians game tonight! It's me, Katie, my mom, Alyse, and Samantha. It should be fun, even though they traded every good player they had under the sun.

Okay, back to packing. I feel like everything is sitting in the living room and if I'm not constantly packing, then it's not going to get done. Therefore....sucks!

:)

I'm such a bad summer blogger

Ok, so 19 days until I go back to Wooster. I'm excited to see everyone, but I've gotten so much closer to my friends here at home (Ryan, Nick, Andrew, Alyse, Sarah), that I'm also sad to go back. I'm definitely more excited than sad though!

I'm trying to get my last 8 hours of observation in for this summer before I go back, since I don't want to do them during school.

We went to the beach yesterday for my moms birthday, and it was awesome. My butt got sunburned, but it was still really fun anyway and I enjoyed myself so much.

I have a lot of pictures to print out.

I've decided I'm bad at blogging in the summer because nothing ever happens lol.

Ok, that's all.

Jam sessions reveal love

I've realized today how much I truly love Nick and Ryan. They mean so much to me, and I think it's gonna be harder for me to leave for college this time. Ryan's going to college too, in Akron, so not too far away, and of course Nicks' gonna be in Parma. My summer would not have been as much fun without them and I wouldn't be able to replace my memories with them. It's kind of odd, since Ryan and I are exes, you'd think we would hate each other. Complete opposite. We are like two peas in a pod. Someone even asked if we were siblings. We might as well be. And Nick is just as much of a brother to me. I want them to teach me guitar, so I can join in on the jam sessions of love, and it shall be joyous. I just can't get over those two. That's really all this is about, how much I love my boys. I definitely need a picture with all three of us before I go back.

Burnin' up, burnin' up.....for you baby.

Got back from Tennessee on Sunday. It was a pretty good trip, not quite relaxing since we did so much, but good nonetheless. We went on a hike, and we went to Dollywood and the waterpark, and went shopping in Gatlinburg which is a cute place. The weather was pretty hot, but it was only really humid the first day we were there which was cool. The first morning we were there, we woke up and looked out the window and it looked like we were floating in the clouds. The fog was as thick as ever, we couldn't see anything in front of us. It was pretty awesome. All in all, the cousins became a little bit closer, and the adults grew sick of each other haha.
I also came home with quite a horrid sunburn on my back. Whenever I sit back, it feels like I'm leaning on a cactus. It's getting better though.


Yesterday my mom told me that someone that lives by my Uncle Dave is selling a car for about $3000 and she thinks I should think about it since I need a car, and that's pretty cheap. Plus it's only got 12,000 miles which is hard to believe. It's a 1994 Chevy Lumina. It's silver. It's not really my type of car, but I could always get a paint job, or new sound system if it needs it. I still haven't gone to look at it yet, but I'm keeping an open mind. Here's what I think it will probably look like.

I'm not too keen on it, but we'll see.

I need to finish up my observation hours. I think I need about 8 more ish. I need to set that up soon. I also need to make an appointment to get my wisdom teeth out. I'm not too psyhched about that either.

I've decided I want to learn how to speak Italian. I doubt it will ever happen, but if it did, I would love it. Haha.

Oh! We went to a flea market in Tennessee, and I found a set of 6 swing music records for only $5! I was so excited :)

I think that's all. I haven't blogged in so long, but my life has been quite the bore. Now it's time to get back on that work out train.

Olive Brackets?

Sunday, Katie and I had a video chat with our friend Adam from Wooster, but originally from Kentucky. He was at his condo in San Diego (woo Mr. Moneybags j/k). It was just fun to see him and talk to him. Plus there were some misunderstandings, and he took "I love records" as "Olive Brackets?"

Today was my second day of observations, and I'm still really happy with my choice of major and job. I'm not going to go over everyone today, since it's usually the same, but I did get to see an evaluation, and I observed an SLP working with a child on the Autism Spectrum. Boy do you need patience to work with those kids. So far I have 7.5 hours. I'm sure I'll get them all done by the end of this week. I'm happy!

My super expensive, but totally worth it bathing suit came today!! It's so cute! But I can't completely try it on until basically next week lol, if you know what I mean. It's so cute, I can't wait to wear it!


Gordon's calling me tonight, yay! And I"m watching the Redwings!! Hopefully they win the Stanley Cup! Just to spite Andrew lol Ok, I'm outtie!

Barium...yummy!

My sister called me her BFF in a Myspace survey! She loves me! It makes me happy, but I don't understand then, why she doesn't listen to my advice! Geeezus! Oh well, at least she thinks of me that way :)

I started my 25 clinical observation hours today. It was super duper fun! I had to dress "business casual", but everyone else was in maroon scrubs. I felt kind of out of place, but I can't wait till I get to wear my own scrubs :) I also have to wear a neon pink name tage. But I put it on my Wooster lanyard, so it's cooler ;) I saw five kids today. 3 of them were actual language and getting speech therapy, and the other two were both around 2 months old and were getting a sort of swallowing analysis. I learned that today too, that SLP's work with swallowing as well as speech. I guess it's because it all involves some of the same parts of the mouth or something.

So the kids who were getting speech therapy, one was a cute little boy who had problems with his "wh-" questions. The SLP would ask "What do you use a spoon for?" and he'd answer "At my dad's house." He was shy at first, but then they pulled out the huge lego blocks, and he warmed up. The second boy had cerebral palsy, but only on his left side which I've never seen before. He was so hyperactive! Oh my gosh. He was a little unintelligible, but I figured out most of what he said. He also said something about going to jail...I don't know what that's all about. The last one had speech therapy at the same time that he was having occupational therapy. He was in a wheelchair, and was asleep when he first came in. When he woke up though, he was a hoot! I'm not sure what he had, but he had ankle braces on, and his occupational therapy goal was to be able to go up and down steps. They have little step stools for him to step up onto and off of, and I felt so happy when he got it done. He was also working on the "wh-" questions, and they incorporated me by having him ask me "What do you want to build?" "What do you like?".

The other two kids were very young (both around 2 months) and maybe had swallowing difficulties. The first one was a little girl in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). She was abused by her parents, she was a sad case. It broke my heart to see her, and she was so cute. The SLP and the OT (occupational therapist) checked to see how her sucking and latching on were, and also how her swallowing was. They ordered for her to have a barium modify. The second child also had a barium modify. He was a premie, so he was bound to have some type of problem. His parents were both hispanic, and only his father spoke english. This showed me that minoring in spanish might not be that bad of an idea after all. I just need to study harder. Anyway, the SLP's fill a bottle with a barium liquid, which shows up on an x-ray. They make a bottle of thick mixture, and one of a more thin mixture. Then they set the baby up next to the x-ray and start feeding him. The x-ray makes a video of how the baby is swallowing and it shows if he's aspirating the liquid or not. That means that the liquid or food is going into the airpipes. This baby was apspirating the thinner liquid, but not the thicker one, so the SLP's reccommended that they feed him thicker things for now. Since his mom only spoke spanish, they found a doctor who is Cuban, and was bilingual. It was really cool to watch him talk with her. It was also really cool to watch the barium and see where it goes down. Your eye kind of needs to be trained to see it, but I found myself being able to do it.

This is a Modified Barium Swallow x-ray, but it's in an adult. In a child, that long bone going down the throat isnt' able to be seen since it hasn't developed yet.

I liked the therapy clinic. There is a jungle room that the kids really like and then there are about three or four smaller rooms that they do their speech therapy in. The SLP's desks are small and cubby-like. I'll compare them to IS carrels. But I think I could really get used to it there. I also found an SLP, Kristen, who graduated from Wooster! She started asking me questions about Lowry, it was funny.

I don't think I'll write about every single day that I'm there, I'm not sure if I should, kind of patient confidentiality thingy, and I don't know if I'm violating that.....but I just feel like talking about it. Oh yeah, I need 25 hours, and the sessions usually only last a half hour, so right now, I have 2 hours and 45 minutes. I have the feeling I'm going to be going back for another week after this one.

I went over Katie's this weekend and we started planning our room. I'm sooooo excited! I just want to go back!! I've also started reading "My Sister's Keeper" since the movie is coming out. It's really good. I don't think I really have much else to talk about. I'm sure I'll update kind of frequently this week.

Much Love!!