Today's Song

When I heard this on the radio, I didn't even know that the artist (Ryan Star) was using the song as a platform for the current economic climate (and the subsequent challenge in job hunting), but I fell in love with it any way. The one line I copied down was "She likes New York at night."

And it's true.

I do.

Scared of being Transplanted...

Over the past few months, I have made feeble stabs at job-hunting. I say "feeble" because of the small number of applications and my lackadaisical follow-up attempts. I've never seen anything that made me jump up and down, squealing, "Oooh! I want to be a speech pathologist THERE!" Of course, this could be due to a long-sneaking suspicion that I don't really want to be a speech pathologist, and as a result, my laziness kicks in, and I'd rather go to barbecues than Monster.com...

But I don't think that's the biggest issue.

The real problem is that I am FLIPPING OUT. I am terrified. I don't want to move. I don't want to sell my house. I don't want to explore a new city. I've always said that I wanted to do those things, and part of me still wants to, but not like this.

I never really dreamed that this day would happen alone. I knew it was a possibility, but in the thousands of happy scenarios I played out in my mind, I was rarely, if ever, going it alone. Family is my anchor and my safe spot, and I always assumed that if I couldn't take my family with me, I'd take someone who was my "new family." I wasn't going to do this alone.

But now I am.

And I know it will be wonderful (because my God is good), and I know I will learn, and stretch, and grow (because that's my God's all-encompassing plan), but right now I'd rather just sit in the sun, pool-side, and ignore the looming discomfort transplanting always brings.

So, I would covet your prayers as I wend my way through these last 30+ days of my graduate program. I'm bored. I'm terrified. But I'm almost done. And I'm not particularly excited about finding a job.

Quote of the Week:

"You are a dating retard."


(my exceptionally loving, usually tactfully understanding dad)

Why I Want All Boys

Vacation Bible School is my favorite. Although I dislike Indiana's nasty humidity, and am not convinced that craft time is entertaining, I love children. This year I am a Kindergarten leader of the "lime green" group. We promise to be a very entertaining bunch, and I believe this is due to the fact that we are predominantly male. Tonight served to solidify my desire for all boys (should I ever be a "mommy").

At snack time one of these little boys (a future all-American linebacker, I'm guessing), wiggles around, looks up at me, and says,

"Miss Courtney! You're my girlfriend."

I eyed him skeptically. "No, Bryce, I'm not. You have to ask me, and I have to say, 'yes.'"

His brow furrowed at this unexpected complication. "Hmm... well, then. I guess I'll just have to marry you."

I shook my head soberly, "Well... I'm sorry Bryce. You're not done with school. When you're done with college, call me up."

"Yeah!" piped Bryce's neighbor, "My mom said that you shouldn't get married until you're done with college. That's when she got married. Before that, it's not a good idea. That's what my mom says."

Bryce nodded thoughtfully, "Yes, that's a good idea, but you see, I'm not going to college. I'm going to Batman school."

Both I and his neighbor produced exclamations of surprise and interest.

"Well, not really Batman school... Actually, I'm going to learn how to be a Goblin and chop people up with a helicopter." Concerned, I asked,

"Oh my! Bryce... does this mean you're going to be a bad man?"

"Oh yes. Yes, Miss Courtney. I will be a very bad man."

I shook my head sorrowfully, "Then I'm afraid I can't marry you, Bryce. I can't marry a bad man."

Bryce exhaled in frustration. He furrowed his brow, looked me up and down, and said, "Oh, fine. I'll be a good man for you, Miss Courtney."

"Thank you, Bryce."

"And now you will kiss me."

"Call me when you're 23, Bryce. Please finish your nachos."

My week at a glance

This had been my prior exposure to tracheostomies.




This is more like reality, well kind of. I actually couldn't find a good one of "reality"... This one needs "copious, creamy, pale yellow secretions" bubbling at the entrance, with the whole tube being buried in neck fat and flab as the patient gasps for breath, looking confused and fragile. I actually wish I could see a trach like this one below. My poor patients...

Introduction to acute long-term care... and secretions.

When I started this major, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Last semester of my senior year of high school someone told me that I would be a good speech pathologist. I had no idea what a speech pathologist was. Minimal research showed me that they worked with special needs children and had great job placement. Practicality won out and I abandoned my dream of English education and politics to pursue a degree in a field that would justify my mutual fund being washed down the tube of education.

In my first college course I was told I needed a master’s degree. I was shocked. But I could handle it.

Next I learned that we worked with people who couldn’t swallow. “Dysphagia” requires an up-close and personal look at saliva (an irrational phobia of mine). I was disturbed, but I could handle it.

Neuroanatomy was an area I had never even dabbled in. But my major requires a cursory knowledge, and I picked up a minor in psychology through a variety of neural courses. I was surprised, but I could handle it.

Grad school application, anatomy/physiology, stressful labs, sheep brains, biology petrie dishes, the GRE, babies, geriatrics, cleft palates, acoustic analysis, and piles of paperwork. I was continually surprised. But I could handle it. In fact, I grew to enjoy the sciences, the neuroanatomy, the biology, reveling in the pursuit of “hard fact,” dicing up research articles, pointing out their inadequacies and constructing their practical purpose. I was, in short, a nerd. But I could handle it.

Nothing prepared me for today.

My supervisor, who is conducting me soothingly through the world of special needs toddlers and adorable babies, is on vacation. I don’t get a vacation. (Of course not. I’m the unpaid student. Why would I need a break?) So I have acquired a new supervisor for this week. This supervisor works on floors in long-term acute care. The patients on these floors are on trachs or vents, severely disabled, and definitely NOT pediatric.

I have never had to control my facial muscles to such a degree for so long. Do you know how many secretions can ooze from the human body? I thought I did. I didn’t! Things wheezed, goop bubbled, and I had to chart these things with words like “thick, yellow, viscous, and copious.” As I watched my supervisor work, all I could think was that I needed to shower, and could never work in this place.

Then came a tiny, frail little lady. Her pain had been uncontrolled and dose after dose of medications were not helping. I went to the bathroom, dampened a washcloth, and sat down beside her. As I gently wiped her face, her tired eyes, her wrinkled forehead, she sighed contentedly. Some of her tension dissolved. The woman was so incapacitated by the medications, that no therapy was even practical. But after those few minutes, I didn't have to control my gag quite so much.

Because hurting people are hurting people, no matter what kind of gunk they may be oozing.

To Classic or Not Too Classic

Outside, the rain is barely loud enough to patter over the whirl of the washing machine. Having no money,working with spitting babies, and owning only two pairs of scrubs, results in frequent laundry whirling this summer. The humidity is smudging up against my window, a fan flips quietly above me, and at my left elbow is a pile of untouched fiction. Tonight was library night.

I'm not pleased to report that I'm a library snob. I have this sneaking suspicion that every librarian thinks exactly as I would, if I were a librarian:

"Really? Six romance novels? Someone hasn't had a date in months... Is his life really so starved for excitement that he only reads mysteries?... This person has checked out nothing but paperback, 100-pagers. Guess who doesn't have reading level above the fourth grade."

Yes, I know. I'm a horrible person. And there have been times when I've snuck a skimpy, 4th-grade level novel in between my Dickens and Chaucer, however, for the majority of my life, I've reveled in the "classics." I love their sentence structure, the vivid vocabulary and tangential descriptions which loop back around to relevance (Dickens doesn't always do this, consequently I do not always approve of Dickens). A little bit of my world shattered when I found that Sir Walter Scott described all his heroines the same way ("eyes like diamonds, teeth like pearls"), but for the most part, my allegiance has held steady to the ancients. In high school I had a tutor for English (something about two engineering parents being at a complete loss of what to do with me). She made me read some modern classics (i.e. "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Cry The Beloved Country," etc.), but every now and then she would put down a paper, look at me sternly and say, "Courtney. Did you read Jane Austen this weekend?" Apparently, when you read only eighteenth century literature, you begin to write like eighteenth century literature.

So reader, I have a confession. Lying here, in a tempting pile, are an assortment of books which probably can't even claim the term "emerging classics." The theme of this library trip was "books-which-aren't-happy-with-where-Jane-Austen-ended." I've turned up my literary nose at such items in the past, but always with a sneaking interest. I have now caved to this interest. What person, after falling completely in love with characters, doesn't grieve a little when the author writes "The End"? (The one exception to this would be the Elsie Dinsmore series which drags on for 60+ inane books, the only interesting characters being the "sinful" errant children. The readers of this series must cry "uncle!" long before the final book in order to preserve their sanity.)

I can hardly wait to curl up on my couch, licking a popsicle and reading without needing a thesaurus. I now bid you adieu, dear reader. I'm about to imbibe some fluffy, girly nonsense to the tune of rain drops and the washing machine.

Dear (perhaps long-gone) readership,

I have neglected you shamefully over the past several months. My brand-new propensity to bottle up my thoughts, my stories, and my daily frustrations is a novel sensation for yours truly. Prior to this new habit, I had an age-old propensity of hurling massive portions of incoherent words at a blank screen, hoping that in the hodgepodge of attempted literature, a coherent thought might emerge.

In short, writing was my coping mechanism.

It's not any more.

I'm torn as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It swivels towards "good" in that I no longer feel as though my emotions must first and foremost be expressed in writing, pushing many other literary attempts to the side as I batter my thoughts out. However, it's "bad" because I'm neglecting to write entirely, as life's noise no longer inspires word hemorrhage.

This past week I began my second clinical externship at an undisclosed-for-privacy-issues hospital. I am absolutely and completely in love with it. Which is good, because (as you know, dear reader) I haven't loved much in my major in the past two years. Blips of joy were occluded by nagging, criticisms, nit-picking, and a constant sensation of microscopic scrutiny when it came to all things clinical. Today, after two hours of therapy, my supervisor told me two things to do better. JUST TWO! Where there was previously an hour of correction and reproof-- JUST TWO! My last few weeks at my prior placement had a similar amount of correction (i.e. a miniscule amount).

I was SHOCKED.

And pleased.

Maybe I'm finally ready to be a speech-language pathologist?

I will work harder at my writing. Promise. I miss it dreadfully, and I would keep writing today, but... I've also shockingly abandoned vacuuming lately, and I can ignore the clutter no longer.