Guys. I’ve been lazy. Lazy, but also busy with the craziness of a summer semester. I’ve put crafting on hold for Revenge, Criminal Minds, Scandal, and Doctor Who and am now back in the land outside of TV (maybe!). Summer was still pretty awesome if you ignore the whole 12 hour school day part. Here’s a photo recap of the greatness.
How was your summer?
~S
The warnings about summer semester were all true – incredibly busy and incredibly fast. I can’t believe how much class and clinic was crammed into about 10 weeks. But hey, I survived! And I had an awesome experience at my offsite. I spent two days a week at a developmental center that provides OT, PT, SLP, and mental health services for kids aged birth to six. They have a day treatment program that allows the kiddos to gain invaluable social interaction with peers in a classroom setting while receiving pull-out therapy services. I was mostly involved with treatment, which was generally a thirty minute individual session. All of these children were diagnosed as developmentally delayed or with autism spectrum disorders. Some were complicated cases with very limited means of communication and absolutely no verbal output. Others were strictly working on articulation. Some of my clients made incredible progress during those 10 weeks. The first time I saw one little boy, not quite 2 yet, he barely made a sound while playing with me. During the last session I had with him, he said a complete sentence (“I get it!”). Many of my other kids will probably continue to need services as they get older, but this particular little boy seemed well on his way to catching up with his peers. This was an incredible opportunity to see a wide range of abilities and work closely with other therapists to determine the best way to treat these little ones. I really loved this placement, and it was awesome when my supervisor stated that I was CF-ready regarding kids by the end of it. I miss the kids there, but I’m excited to see what my fall clinic placements will teach me.
It’s Monday morning. Start the day off gently with a morning yoga video to wake up slowly.
~S
I haven’t been doing so well documenting my restaurant experiences lately. Two weeks ago, we decided to try a Mediterranean restaurant in Midtown called Kwik Chek. It’s fairly tiny, and one of those deals where you go the back counter, order your food, then pick your seat. We went around a pretty typical lunch time, but it wasn’t crowded. I stuck with a really safe pick: the Hey Zeus wrap. It had turkey, roast beef, cheese, veggies, and the usual wrap ingredients, plus some spices. It might have been a safe choice, but it was definitely delicious. I’m assuming the falafel was equally as delicious, since it vanished. Anyway, I want to go back! But there are a million other restaurants on the list before I should start doing repeats.
-L
Lindsay and I bought annual passes to the Memphis Zoo. They’ve already paid for themselves and provide countless hours of entertainment when we’re bored or need our cuddle animal fix.
Do you zoo?
~S
About a month ago in the midst of finals a couple friends and I attended to Friday night concert of the Beale Street Music Festival. To say it was awesome was an understatement. We’re already planning to pre-study and attend the entire weekend next year.
We saw:
GROUPLOVE
Third Eye Blind
Fitz and the Tantrums
Foster the People (which was so awesome it deserves 2 photos!)
I’m already stoked for next year!
~S
Now that I’ve had about a week off from school, I can safely say that I survived the spring semester. This was by far the most emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting semester of my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get more chaotic. Thankfully, I had fantastic clinic placements. Like I mentioned before I was in an elementary school twice a week. After Spring Break, I took on the full caseload on those two days and did therapy with about 20 kids. This was seriously the most fun ever. The preschoolers were probably my favorite simply because I love that age group. I had a three year old who came in first thing in the morning for individual therapy (which sometimes turned into group). He was perfectly behaved and started talking to me SO MUCH by the end of the semester. My supervisor said that she noticed improvement from session to session and that he really seemed to enjoy coming to speech. I absolutely LOVED working with this little dude. His speech problem was definitely phonologically based, so we mostly worked on initial consonants and built in some medial and final consonants that should be emerging as well.
My most challenging group had four first grade boys. One in particular had emotion regulation difficulties, so getting him to participate was sometimes a challenge. They liked to compete, and some even got mean about it. I mean seriously, who cheats at Candy Land? But these were also my sweetest kids. One told every day, “I love you with all my heart, Miss Lindsay.” When I gave them their end of the year gifts (just pencils with a gripper and a note saying “You’re SHARP!”), he said, “This means I’ll never forget you!” I just about broke down and cried right there. Another of the boys in the group told me that he liked coming to speech class more than his regular class. I really miss my boys. They probably made a bigger impact on me than I did on them. It was so awesome seeing them meet their goals and make such progress in their understanding.
I also learned a lot from two of my nonverbal clients. My happiest moment with them was when one of the kiddos used his PECS sentence strip to request a toy accurately four times in a row. You could see he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was so excited that he was able to ask me for that panda bear. It absolutely made my day to see him make that small bit of progress. And on my last day at the school, the same kiddo saw me leaving. He stopped in the hallway and turned around to give me a hug. He had never done that before, so, once again, the waterworks just about started right then and there.
One of my preschool groups included a little boy who was just working on articulation. He’s quite shy and quiet, and he hates to be wrong. He takes everything very seriously, and he’s super polite and sweet. The first few weeks I worked with him, he barely spoke to me. His little face was so serious. On my last day, I told him and the other little one that someone else would be working with them next. He hugged my arm as we walked back to his teacher and said, “I’m gonna miss you.”
All the kids I had the pleasure of working with taught me so much. I loved listening to their stories, hearing about their birthday parties and field trips, and helping them make progress on their /th/ sounds and grammar structure. I also had a fantastic supervisor who provided me with specific feedback and trusted me with her kids. This placement once again confirmed that I’m going into the right field.
-L
Guys! I must confess I’ve become obsessed with yoga! One of my goals for 2014 is to increase flexibility. So, I’m doing gentle yoga in the mornings to help with muscle soreness -from stress and sleeping like a pretzel- and hopefully adding another practice soon in the afternoon. Yoga by Candace has some great gentle yoga videos I really enjoy. Anyone else try yoga?
~S
You guys. I have to talk about this restaurant. It’s been on my list of places to go since I moved to Memphis, but I just never got around to it. There are a few different locations, but I went to the one in Midtown. It’s this rather small, simple restaurant on Cooper, and it has some fantastic southern food. It’s not terribly expensive either. Entrees hover around the $10 mark.
I’ve started this thing that whenever I go to a new local restaurant, I try to get something that screams “MEMPHIS!” So tonight I tried the Memphis Poboy. Pork, bacon, cole slaw, and BBQ sauce. Definitely Memphis and incredibly delicious. I’ve never been a huge BBQ fanatic, but I’m trying to acclimate to my surroundings. I’ve also become mildly obsessed with fried okra, so when I saw that as a side option, I couldn’t resist.
The crawfish Poboy also looked fantastic. I only ate a little bit of the crawfish, so I can’t give my own opinion of the whole thing. But it disappeared fast enough to be pretty tasty. I also took home some of the caramel pecan pie…but I kind of obliterated it before taking a picture. My sweet tooth gets the better of me sometimes.
I’m super excited about finding another restaurant that I really enjoy. I’m such a food addict, and it’s nice to have options.
-L
Today we celebrated the 3rd year audiology students with the first annual Golden Lobe awards show and breakfast. While it was awesome and we worked really hard to make it so, I am stoked to show off our fancy first-year photo because we take so few as a class. Yes, my class is a class of four. Here we are!
~S
Enchanted Entirely 