I put gorillas because they have fuckin tails, right?

Picture it: Dallas, Texas. June, 2009. Ok, well June 8th I had to go back to school -but I had had almost a month off, so I was prepared-ish. First, I had to say goodbye to my awesome friends in Austin for awhile. So of course, we did trivia. At the time of Ben's birthday, he had made it clear he didn't want to celebrate. Note to everyone: if you tell me something like that, I take it literally! So we could tell he was kind of bummed that we listened, so Mere and I brilliantly threw a surprise trivia party for him a month after his birthday. guaranteed surprise! I made a dirt cake b/c he had said a few weeks before how much he liked those and hadn't had one in years! Then Mere brought balloons, including a singing Elmo balloon that kept going off in her trunk. FTW!
So back to school and work...as it turns out, I was asked to help some of the staff move offices. No problemo - except as I'm moving one, Luci points out that the prof. I'm moving is very particular about her things, and doesn't know she's being moved...and also, it's the prof I am most afraid of - AHHHH! SO I took a ton of pics and made sure everything was EXACTLY the way she left it. She ended up happy about the move and wasn't mad - whew! I don't have to have her again, but I was afraid maybe she'd try to take away previous credits or something - hehe.
First day of class, we take a fieldtrip to these 2 guy's houses, which is pretty cool - one person has paraplegia so we got to talk with him and see how his house is laid out, and the other had MS and was quadriplegic. Both people were so sweet, and when we got to the second house, Bill's, he was waiting for us outside. He told our prof, Ms. Lipoma, that she needed to move her car b/c people tended to come around his corner fast, but she could park right in front of the house. She asked Sajid to move it, and we're all kind of watching him and Bill says, "You think he can do it?" and I said, "OH yeah, he's a valet on weekends so he knows what he's doing." Aaron added, "But he might want a tip." Sajid parks the car perfectly, and gets out. Bill says, "Son, I don't know whether to give you a tip, or a razor." It was pretty hilarious! Later that week, we were given instructions to build a tower our of newspaper that touches the ceiling, and that was pretty much it. So we divided into 2 groups, and my group ended up getting ours to touch the fastest - we had a little newspaper flag on top that did the touching. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't stable, but it touched! The rules also mentioned that it wasn't a contest, but we were pretty happy we finished before the other group, which had Luke. During our discussion, the main point of this activity was to identify which group members took on which roles. Lauren, our observer, pointed out that we worked well together, but then we were way too competitive with the other team. Too funny - and Luke maintains that they won b/c theirs was more stable and their's more legitimately touched. Sorry dude, we followed all the rules and we beat you fair and square. Next we did an activity where we cut out pics from a magazine and glued them onto construction paper - 1 side represented what we see ourself as now, and the other was what we want to be in the future. I was in a good mood that day, but I wanted my collage to be perfect, so I ran out of time - and therefore only had 1 side.
oops. So I put the word "shimmers" on there for future, and then had to explain why. My basic words were: "I've always really liked the poem Richard Corey, and ok, I know he commits suicide at the end, but it's got really good immagery...the townspeople describe him as 'he glitters when he walks' and I always loved that image! So to change it a bit, I put 'shimmers' b/c I want to shimmer when I walk - like people see me and are like, 'wow, she's so pulled together!'...but I'm not going to kill myself or anything.......I am actually really happy with the way things are right now........" I was the only person that had to say that!
Then Luke goes, and his has this tiny "alcoholic" in the corner, and he said, "all of the best times I have with friends have alcohol involved, so I put this as kind of a joke" and I commented that we'd have a good time without alcohol, too - it's just a coincidence - trying to explain that he's NOT an alcoholic, but then the teacher says something like, "well, this might come up in a group, and it's hard to admit" etc. so Luke thought I had like thrown him under the bus - whoops! She was just saying that to everyone in general - not specifically to him.
Onto birthday party part 2 - Well, it ended up when we had to volunteer during a fishing tournament the weekend after school started - either Saturday or Sunday. My Dallas birthday party had been scheduled for Friday, but some of the people at the party had signed up to volunteer at 4:30 on Saturday. We had beer, wine, sangria, margaritas, and other random alcohol...and at some point we decided it would be easier to stay up all night. So...yeah.. everyone left about 3 to head to the fishing tournament, and I went to bed :). Apparently it wasn't much fun to be awake all night then work the next day. I went on Sunday, and aside from getting up incredibly early, it was OK. There were some really drunk guys from a frat there with us, and one of them followed Carrie around like a lost puppy. On Saturday, , Mariana had planned on picking up Pri and Shubi before the tournamnet. After the party, she went home to change, called P and S and told them she'd leave in 10 minutes. She fell asleep, and woke up to someone pounding on her door. Pri, Shubi and Ms Lipoma had called several times and gotten no answer, so they finally went to get her. She wasn't in trouble - they were just worried. They ended up eating at Denny's before going to the tournament.

The next week we went to a Ranger's game - Hamilton was out (boooo), but Kinsler got a run and the Rangers ended up beating the Astros in the 10th. Traffic was horrible when we left, and Aaron still needed to take his Quant quiz. We ended up calling Mark on speaker phone, and he logged in as Aaron and we tried to answer the quiz questions. He ended up with a 70, but that's better than a zero. Good times! I can't wait to go to another game. For class, we took a tour of the Mary Kay factory and took note of ergonomic risk factors. I was annoyed I didn't get any free samples, but it was neat to see the factory and it was comical how many ergo notices they had - my favorite was the "American Safety Idol" contest.
I also got to go to the Anteparum unit at Baylor and help lead a group - it was a great experience, and I learned a ton from the OT there as well as the group participants.
That was pretty much my June - stay tuned for July!

The triumphant return of DDoA!

Ok, so it's been a looooong time since I blogged. I get it - but the people are asking for more, so I give you... MORE KATIE! I'll give a mini-update in a multi-part series.
Part I: End of May!
After Boston, we came home. Spent some time in Austin - yay! - before school started back up. It was almost my birthday, and I turned 26 - AHHHHHH so old! I also share a birthday month (really more like 2 weeks) with Clare, Mary, and Ben, so we had Birthday trivias, which = fun times And as a bonus, we won! Had birthday happy hour on the 28th - got to see some old friends, and Duffy cameEnded up at Mean Eyed Cat which was awesome! Had a great time, lots of drinks, and we had a pizza delivered there that said - no lie - "your pizza experience has been managed by Christ". ! It was a really great night. On Saturday we went kayaking in the morning, and ended up tying Mere and Mary's kayak to ours for awhile while they got the hang of things. Later that evening we went to Mellow Mushroom, which I get like once a year on my birthday, and it was delicious as usual. The month ended, but I was definitely not finished celebrating! Stay tuned...

How do you like me now, Biznatch?

Ok ok... I know it's been almost a month since I've posted anything, but between school projects and finals I haven't had any time. Plus, things haven't been all that interesting. Here's the quick version:

Kinsese practicum: hated it - was grilled and graded too hard, but it worked out in the end.
Last day of class: went to Toys R Us as fieldtrip, got to play parachute and boxing in class - lots of people got agression out this way :)
Thursday after last day of class: awesome - went to Sherlocks w/ Anna, Mariana, Luke, Aaron, Sajid and Courtney Armato and had a blast - got drunk, laughed a ton (my abs were killing me the next day) and left at 1:30 AM.
Weekend before finals: lots of studying - went to Taste Addison for Mother's Day and got to do Robert Mondavi tasting. Fun and free wine! Got a little tipsy. Ate lots of food, too. Went home an took pictures for David's bizarre graduation present.

Finals week: took finals - not as motivated as I was during midterms but still did fine. Finals suck, as always. Wednesday night was end of year party, and I was the only grad 4 that went. Still was fun - glad I got to stay goodbye.
Thursday after finals: Sherlock's again - this time lots of people came. Got drunk early as I had to leave early. Played pool and darts - beat Aaron at darts once! Shout out! Group got "strongly encouraged to close our tab" and some people got kicked out. Also left Ben a happy birthday message that might have been a little too obnoxious. And wished him a happy 29th even though he was turning 28.
Friday: Shuttle came to pick me up to take me to airport at 4:25 AM. gross. Got to airport - total asses. They forced me to check my bag, so when I got to Boston I was kicked out of the secured part of the airport to the pre-security section, so there were only a few restaurants. Mark's family got there a few hours later, and we drove around to meet up with David. Took 2 hours as we went the wrong way forever- finally made it to dinner at Dali. It was awesome! Tapas are killer good. Made it back to hotel and crashed.

Saturday: Mark made it! Met us at the museum, where we went on a duck tour (quack). Saw lots of stuff - old churches and Big Dig. Really wanted to go to H&M but didn't make it. Ate at famous foodcourt. Saw harbor - no tea, though. Rainy and cold! Went to reception - free alcohol = drank too much and embarassed David. :) Hibatchi for dinner - yum!

Sunday: Still rainy, so went to Cambrige to see Jim's seminary w/ Cordy. BIG FIRE!!! Turns out, fire was one block up from where we were going - very smokey and gross. Cordy saw seminary (made her life!) and we saw big mormon fire. Crazy!
Went to David's graduation - very nice ceremony, very personal (they all got to give one quote or whatever). Drove as fast as we could to liqour store that closed at 6 (actually 7), but no corkscrew so lady employee opened it for us. God bless her! Ann drinks in parking lot. Ann drinks in car on the way to dinner. Dinner at Legal - so good! All the food we had was great! Go back to hotel and crash.

Monday: Mark and I go to Manchester to catch flight back to Austin. Barely get on, but got to sit together. Made it back to ATX!

Presentation FAIL

Ok... so after a week of sort of planning this presentation, the only thing I needed to do was finished editing for grammar, and Aaron was going to add a reference - easy peasy, right? Sunday AM 1st thing I finished editing, and sent it to everyone so they could practice their parts. Later, I was doing something with the document and I realized - FRICK. I once again opened the document from gmail and hit save - which means it gets saved in some secret secret buried "Temporary" file. I have no clue why it's made that way - WHY would I want to save something that I don't want? Why doesn't it just pop up and say, "YO! You can't save it here!" Anyway, NOT the first time I have done that, unfortunately, and I had to redo it all. Ok, still good. I texted Aaron like 5 times to make sure he was finished his reference, and that he was using the RIGHT document. No answer all day, and finally he's like, Yeah, I'll do it as soon as I'm done w/ quant quiz. Ok, good. Also, we have to have a handout for the class, so we made this crossword puzzle. I forgot, so then I was like, crap, Aaron needs to send that, too. Except then Anna forwards me the crossword and the file is corrupt or doesn't open. Instead of texting Aaron again so he doesn't kill me, I text Sajid and ask him to call Aaron and see if he's done it yet and to remind him about the crossword. Ok, he's going to do it. ...Monday morning comes around, and there's no message from Aaron that he sent it, so Anna sends the incomplete version to the professor b/c part of our grade was turning it into her before the presentation. Turns out, Aaron actually did send both the crossword and the powerpoint to teacher. As it turns out, the crossword was indeed broken and therefore not saved. So we have to re-do the whole thing in about 30 min before class, and it's online, so apparently you can't really save it. We get it all done - - just waiting to print 37 copies for the class, so Luke and I go upstairs to set up our powerpoint and everything, because we have like 5 min before class starts and we're going first. A few minutes later, Anna and Aaron come upstairs w/out the copies. Wait...what? Turns out, Aaron sent the stuff to "print" but it never made it to the network printer, and he logged out of the computer before they knew that. SO NO CROSSWORD AGAIN. We ended up having to redo it AGAIN, and the teacher moved our presentation to last. Print - SUCCESS!!! Ok, so we're done...we present, it goes pretty well, everyone likes my homemade I <3 Kielhofner shirt...Really, you have to have a sense of humor about these kinds of things. But we still suck at life.

As long as they don't stare at me in a creepy way I'm ok

I was supposed to go to my parent's house on Saturday, but since Rebuilding went so late, we rescheduled for Sunday. We pretty much just had a low-key dinner at Olive Garden and I got to hear about my dad's new job. Otherwise, most of the day was spent doing homework galore. After 3 weeks, I'll have a break, but until then it's going to be crazy!

That stuff kept getting in my mouth - it was gross....shut up.

manual labor - blar! Things I did today (almost all we new to me):

1) threw roofing shingles into a dumbster via a wheelbarrow
2)cut roofing shingles
3)shoveled concrete
4) spread concrete with a skreet board
5)brushed concrete to make it smooth
6) brushed concrete to make it textured
7) nailed shingles to roof
8)fixed bathtub, "installed" carbon monoxide monitor
9) lots of time on hands and knees picking up nails and junk from the roof

Yep - I was doing it all today - and I'm going to be crazy sore tomorrow, I'm sure.

Movies that make you dumber

Housebunny. While I didn't expect a lot from this film, I thought it might be kinda funny. There were a few funny parts/lines, but for the most part it was pretty dumb.

"I want to be your girlfriend more than protons want electrons" and the whole scary voice thing were the best parts!

2 MRS. GEBHARTS??

Today I went to observe my mother in law's kindergarten class, which happens to be at my old elementary school. The kids were pretty interested in who I was (naturally), and when she explained that I was her daughter in law, the kids were supposed to try to guess my last name. To give them a hint, Cindy told them my last name was the same as her son's. The problem is, most of these kids do not have the same last name as their mom or siblings. Hmmmm...so finally, she just told them. The fact that there were 2 Mrs. Gebharts was very interesting to them. Anyway, I had a lot of fun watching the kids do their activities, and it was a really good learning experience. Some of them come from really tough backgrounds, so I really hope they'll be successful. I also got to see 2 of my old teachers, Mrs. Ludtke and Mrs. Sidweber, and they both remembered who I was (and my sister)! Sadly, they painted over my name on the bricks as well as the mural in the cafeteria. So sad!
That evening I went to Luke's house for a get together and had a little too much vino. But that's ok :) It was still fun, and I really like his friend Sam's girlfriend, Jessica.

I suck at goodbyes

Today was my last day at Fieldwork - I can't believe it's done, and I am a little sad. I really enjoyed working with Justine and her kids, and learned so much in a short amount of time. She told me I could call her anytime if I needed help (or if I'm ever back in Dallas - a job). Then I went up to school to work with Courtney on our kick ass treatment box, and then I had my backpain balance study. It wasn't too bad - kinda interesting! They checked my reflexes and all that, and then I got in a box and did some things with my eyes open and closed and balancing. The only one I thought was awful was closing my eyes and balancing on one foot. I actually didn't do too bad on that compared to other people, but it's hard - try it sometime! My COG is really far back (ironic since my trainer used to yell at me for being on my toes!) and I guess I don't like it when the walls move - it confuses my brain. Anyway, $20 free to Target for participating!

Hey, who am I? *sticks out chest*

...the answer would be Luke.

The guys kept making fun of him for some picture I took - Sajid has crazy eyes b/c he was jumping up to be tall, and IDK what Luke was doing. Anyway, went to Dr, went to open lab, went to work...came home, worked on homework. It wasn't a very interesting day :)

I know, you waited almost a whole week for this.

Happy 2 1/2 year anniversary!

9 years ago

This morning didn't go quite as planned. Last time we checked, the 9:05 flight to Dallas had plenty o seats left. Excellent! But when I got there, apparently there were like 20 non-revs in front of me and it was "not likely" I was going to get on. ... luckily I made it on at the last minute and was ready to head back to school life. As we're pulling away from the gate and the flight attendant is giving the spiel about safety, some guy stands up. "Sir, you need to sit down." NOPE - not going to happen. Dude grabs his laptop and shoves his way over everyone and starts walking to the front. Post Sept 11 you cannot do this, so the flight attendants surrounded him and he started saying something about his purse and pointing to the bag. Not sure what happened next, but he got up to the front, the plane stopped moving, and started moving back toward the gate. Guy gets off, and we leave again. Later the pilot said the guy "did the right thing since he wasn't feeling well". I guess he had a panic attack. EVERYONE was staring at him though, and I thought - this must be really mortifying for him.

So yes, 9 years ago today I started dating Mark. The pic is as close to 9 years as I could get with what I have on my computer (all of our older stuff is on mom and dad's at home) but you get the gist. We were young and crazy! After 9 years, I still am not tired of him - weird, right? I often wonder how he's not tired of me, either. One of life's mysteries!

Another finally!

Mark and I went for a walk today, and I finally got to see this windmill. I've seen it from the highway several times (it's a trail between the NB and SB lanes of MoPac), but I finally got to see it up close. I'm running out of things to do in Austin that I've been talking about for years! Later Mark and I had a nice date at Mozarts - great evening!

Baby talk

It's probably a good thing I didn't stay at ONR, because apparently there's been a pregnancy outbreak since I left. But anyway, I finally got to meet Venus's baby, Isabella, and she's so cute! It was really cool to see all these reflexes in real life, too. Isabella was really happy and never cried, but she loves to be held. She also was surprisingly strong and really wanted you to tip her backwards! It was great to finally meet her, and to see Venus again. I don't miss working much, but I do miss my coworkers!

Shut up, the couch!

Tiffany had a game night at her house, and after about 30 min of driving around and taking wrong turns we finally made it. As most parties like this go, there were 2 groups - us vs. them. Well it didn't start out that way, but... some members of our group may have gotten a little tispy, and therefore a little rowdy. Some members of the other group may have not liked this. I think the highlight was when we were playing Taboo and Mark yelled out "PRECIOUS!!" (which was clearly the correct answer) for the other team. Then the guy says, "We should get the point for that one because that was ridiculous." Of course we were going to give them the point - IT'S JUST A GAME! Also, at one point we were being very loud (hmmmm) and obnoxious, and someone said to someone else, "It's OK" and she said, "no, it's really not." So to the other group - sorry we ruined your game night. We had a lot of fun, but sorry we didn't take Phase 10/Taboo seriously. I rarely take games seriously, which may be why lots of people don't like me.

Also, this painting was hanging on the wall in Tiffany's living room. I didn't think much about it until she explained: "It's so horrible, but they tried so hard!" Then the more I stared at it, the more ironic and funny it got. It's called "Midnight Snack".

I want someone to lay on top of me!

...Also, I had a weird flight to Austin. First, they gave me a ticket for a different flight on accident, then called me back to the desk to get on the correct flight. Then, I got on with no problems, but then they decided to wait for a connecting flight so we were delayed an extra half hour. We pulled away from the gate, and then we sat on the runway for 10 min waiting our turn. We had to go around some crazy thunderstorm. 1/2 way through the flight some drunk guy stumbles up the aisle (while the fasten seatbelt sign is on), stumbles back down to the back, then ends up at his seat again with a wad of paper towels. As it turns out, either he or the crying baby next to him threw up. Gross.

Ha-HA your rocket didn't launch!...that's what she said!

I STILL don't speak kinsiology

Today I was really frustrated, because I just don't know anything about kinesiology. We're doing wrist and hands, and there's just so much info it's all jumbled up in my head! Luckily I have a big break coming up, so I can learn all this stuff.
Then I went to work, and I actually had a lot of work to do! AND...(drumroll) I am FINALLY on the payroll! So in a few weeks, I should be getting a paycheck! So that's how this works, huh? Also, I found out the next AOTA conference is in Orlando, so I am totally going to try to go next year.

No you didn't, you bitch!

Dr. Neville had an open lab for kinese that I fully intended to go to...except, it was at 8:00. And I took Mark to the airport at 6:30...soooooo...I was really tired. Anyway, apparently like 5 people went (it's 8 in the morning on MONDAY!) so she was a little annoyed. She passed Anna in the hall and said, "Did you miss me this morning?" and Anna said, "oh yeah!" and she replied (jokingly of course) "No you didn't you bitch!" She also called Aaron a smartass (which is true). It's things like these that make me think I could possibly handle teaching at a college level. Still don't want to, though! Ms. Lipoma was sick...Dr. Candler was sick...so we got out of all of our classes early, and there's no class next week. YAY!!

Happy Easter!

It's Easter! and I survived Lent!

To celebrate my dad's birthday (from January)/ him getting a new job, we went to Fogo de Chao. If you've never been, it's quite an experience. It's all you can eat, and there's a gorgeous salad bar (enough to be a meal on its own) plus gauchos with skewers of different kinds of meat. By the end we were all so full I wasn't sure we were going to make it home. Fogo definitely makes my top 5 list of ultimate eating experiences (Also on the list are cruises and Melting Pot). It was nice, but I'm glad we don't get to do it very often.

Blar Saturday

So I wasn't feeling so well on Saturday - I had pretty much no energy and felt cold all day even though it was pretty nice outside. I just couldn't imagine getting up and moving around. Mark made dinner, and I felt a little better, so we decided to go to the VCC. It wasn't too bad, and we didn't stay too late. We ended up watching women's bowling for no real reason, and Mark kept making fun of them. To be fair, though, they didn't get nearly as many strikes as they should have. Then men's bowling came on, and it was even more apparent how bad the women were. Oh well. And I have no idea what this was, but there was a basketball game on where the teams were "USA" and "World" - Hmmm.

What's this cloud of black surrounding Dallas?

Wish I could tell you I had and awesome and crazy Friday, but really not so much. Went to work at 8:00 AM - I thought today was the day I FINALLY got paid, and we were soooo close, but... nope. Well, the other campus called at 9:00 AM to tell Luci that they need my SS card by 11AM if I wanted to get paid today. Could you have called, like, I dunno, a week ago? a month ago? Anyway, my SS card is in Austin, and Mark was already at work. Being the awesome hubby he is, he ran home (actually took the bus, which dropped him off at the first stop - ran inside, grabbed the card, ran back and got on the bus at the other stop - my hero :) ) and copied it. By 10:00 I had a copy, so we faxed it to the # HR had given - noooo answer. Called the woman back - also no answer, and she never returned our message. So we faxed it to a different number, but I was never able to tell them what hours I had worked, so I won't be getting paid this time. Hopefully next pay period!

Then I went to fieldwork and worked on my big fat assignment for fieldwork class. Getting closer to being finished!

Then Marky Mark arrived, so I picked him up and went to dinner with his parents.

Was planning on maybe meeting up with Luke and Michelle for a drink or something, but it was like 9:30 and I was so flipping tired, so we just went home and crashed. I know, we're too cool for words!

I had a friend who was Gayzilla! He'll tear down Hong Kong he's so gay!

Thursday - Of course I had class at 8 - luckily Ms Buckingham keeps it interesting. I also learned that my purse weighs a little over 5lbs. Then I went to Lab, and we watched a video about a kid with no arms or legs - it was really interesting because he could do most things anyway. I was planning on doing laundry at my parent's house, but I wanted to leave later b/c I knew traffic was going to bad, so I decided to eat dinner first. Well, first I cleaned up my apt, then I ate dinner. I was doing pretty well, until... SPLOSION! Diet Dr Pepper everywhere! It was all over the floor, appliances, walls, ceiling...it even made it to my table somehow. Luckily since it's diet it wasn't too sticky, but ugh! Then I went to Mom and Dad's but they weren't there, so I did some laundry and watched TV. They came home, and my mom walked in first (well, ran in, actually). She looked at me, screamed, and then screamed again. Then she said, "Don't scare someone who has to go to the bathroom!" Like I did it intentionally! Anyway, after I was done there, I stopped by Sherlocks and had a drink w/Anna, Luke, Emmy, Wes, and some of his coworkers. Fun! Didn't stay too long, but enough to get this awesome expression from Emmy. Even she didn't know what it means :) Always a good time with those guys!

There's a street called "Spanky Branch"

Went to fieldwork - I think after this week I only have 1 more time left, which is good and bad. I can't believe how fast the semester has flown by. Went to quant (SO glad that's almost over) and presentation class. Courtney K made these awesome cheesecake things. NOM. After class, ended up going to trivia. We had talked about going somewhere else, but since it was likely my dad's last trivia for awhile, we stuck with Pluckers. I was super excited because the weather was so nice - I thought we'd get to sit outside. Enough people in our party were there, so we ended up getting booted. We got a table inside, but then the way it was positioned there was a big pole between us. Ended up in 4th (bleh) - but it just wasn't very fun, and after talking to my dad we kind of decided to call it quits for awhile. It's really difficult for everyone to get there an hour before to get a table, and then it costs at least $8 every week. Plus it always seems like the day I have to get up the earliest is the next day!

We're going to look into some other places in Dallas that do trivia - hopefully they'll be cheaper and won't require hours!

Feels like I'm 17 again

No Fieldwork class today, so I got to sleep in until 8! I put on some fancy clothes since I was going to Pearce later. Then I headed up to school where I quickly met with Ms Campbell, who gave me my summer schedule. As it stands, I have 4 classes (who knows how many hours they're worth?). More classes now = fewer classes later though, and I think Mark will be able to spend more time here in the Summer, and if I already have to be here... :) Went to Kinese, and afterwards there was a big job fair going on. I got tons of free stuff - mostly pens and highlighter - and some bags. And someday maybe a job offer :) After that I drove over to Pearce to observe Lindsey - an hour later than I said I was going to be due to said job fair (SO sorry Lindsey!). I didn't get to do a ton of observation but I think I got the gist of what she does. Also, I got to meet some of the characters from her stories ;) It made me a little sad to see that some of the posters for people running for student council said things like, "Vote for Chelsey, class of 2010!" I'll have a MASTERS degree in 2010!!

What season is this, anyway?

So tired today - I slept a ton this weekend, so I guess my body wasn't too thrilled with getting up at 6:30 this morning. Plus, it was like 35 degrees outside, which definitely didn't help. Random freeze warning - it's APRIL!! I managed to make it to class and everything else today, and got some homework done. Also managed to randomly shout something out, too - the Grad IVs are looking for gag gift ideas for the profs, so they asked what they should get for Dr. Neville and I said, "A bong!" Luke, Anna, Aaron and Sajid thought this was HILARIOUS, but then I got embarassed and was like, "Who said that? That was so inappropriate!" and the people who hadn't heard me the first time thought I was serious. Excellent! These next few weeks are going to be crazy, though!

I got my new (signed!) Gomez CD in the mail - word! Haven't gotten to listen to it yet, but I'm excited :)

"I ate crawfish for 10 hours straight"

Sunday came all too soon! I woke up late

and pretty much did nothing until it was time for me to go to the airport. Mark dropped me off (luckily he changed out of his "all khaki all the time" outfit), and I made it through security just fine. While I was waiting to board, I got some coffee from Austin Java and noticed a $20 bill on the ground - YAY!! I looked around, asked a few people if they dropped it, and nobody did. MINE!!! But oh no, counter lady says, "I think this guy dropped it when he was taking out his money." Ok, cool, give it back - but wait! "This guy" denys that it's his. So I should get it back, right? I hung around the counter for a bit (getting milk and such) to see if she gave it back, but as far as I know, counter lady pocketed it. RUDE! Maybe she needed it more than me. Anyway, I got on the flight, but I got the LAST seat - like, there was an off-duty pilot who had to sit in the cockpit. However, I did get to fly in the Califonia plane! Once I got to fly on the Shamu plane, too. It was awesome. (BTW, not my picture - I stole it from the interwebs) During the flight I spilled my water on the elderly lady sitting next to me, and I appologized a ton, but she didn't say a single word. Then she said something about it being a nice day when we landed, so maybe she didn't know what happened. Anyway, my big plans to do lots of homework last night didn't happen, of course - but that's ok. I'm really good at wasting time.

"If someone got a little drunker than me, I'd be like, 'get a life - it's my birthday.'"

Morning started off with the Independence Brewery party/tour - basically, it's free to get in, you get 3 beers and if you want, you can pay $6 for a souvenir glass that you can drink your beer from or you can use good ol plastic. It's all around awesome! They also had a live band and crawfish boil (gross - I went over to watch this, and it was just about the sickest thing I've seen in awhile!). So then we went over to Camden's and played Wii and old school nintendo until it was time for dinner. After sitting in a lot of traffic thanks to Texas Relay, we went to this place called Vivo - it was very interesting. Upscale decorations (lots of naked women paintings) and fancy drinks with orchids in them. Not too expensive (but not that cheap, either.) It was an odd blend of upscale/romantic and loud. Also, the bathroom sinks had ice and rose petals in them - no idea why. The food was OK - the salsa was good but super hot, but my dinner was pretty much a glorified nacho. Although the guac was pretty darn good. All the girls got a rose when they brought the check. Not a bad experience, but not super-great food, either. Then we headed back to Camden's, where we played Cranium and had cake. We pretty much demolished the cookie cake his co-workers had brought! Attempted to watch Teen Wolf, (to which I said "YAY TEEN WOLF!" and Amy starts cheering too and says, "Wait...Oh...I thought we were cheering for something else.I don't know what that is.") but of course we were a little too loud to hear what was going on. Hope you had a good Birthday, Cam!

It burns the flesh.

Celebration of Scholarship - YAY! Luckily, I pretty much had nothing to do here except show up. Another fabulous reason I'm glad I am not in PTE. We attempted to take a group pic of as many grad IV and grad II as we could get - which wasn't too bad. However, we took it in the auditorium, and the lighting isn't great. Winnie Dunn was the keynote speaker and she was AWESOME! I learned so much and have a better understanding of sensory integration now, plus she was really funny and entertaining. The rest of the day was for the Grad IVs to present their lines of research and what they have concluded. After a few hours of sitting in the auditorium, I decided to venture off and try to get some homework done. At lunch I met up with a bunch of people, and we had fun. At one point, Emmy spilled her soup of her hand, and we all gave appropriate respose like, "Oh!" "Ouch!" "Are you ok?", and then Aaron says "It burns the flesh." LOL, WHAT? I guess that's true. I got to talk to Justine for a bit, and then went back to the auditorium for the rest of the presentations. Since I wasn't sure how long this was going to go on, I had planned on flying to Austin. The last flight of the day is at 7:25, so I knew I should make this without too much trouble. When you're going through the security line, and you've passed the metal detector, and you're going to grab your shoes - do NOT stand there and block everyone else and put your shoes on. Particularly if your coin slot is more than showing. Keep it moving, ass crack! Anyway, this didn't really matter because my flight was delayed. Several hours. 7:25 flight is now departing at 10:05. Well, there's not much you can do - the previous flight had already left, and the 7:25 is the last flight to Austin. Of course, people forget details like this, and then start yelling at the gate agent, as if she controls the weather (or when planes get to leave). "What do you mean there isn't an earlier flight to Austin? You're telling me one flight leaves at 6:50 and the next one doesn't leave until 10:05?" - UM, YEAH, but remember it was supposed to be 6:50 and 7:25, dumbass. Then someone else rolls their eyes and says, "I could get in the car and drive there by the time this flight leaves." - ???? Ok. Do it, then! You're right - it's a 3 1/2 hour drive. SW will totally give you credit to fly another time. Whatever - as frustrating as it is, the ticket agents/pilots/flight attendants have nothing to do with it. I was content to sit at the airport and work on homework - which I got a bunch done! - until the plane got here. There's really nothing we can do about it! So I got in about 11, and Mark and I went back to the apartment and went back to sleep - it all worked out just fine!

It's B-I-N-G-O, right?

This morning we went to CDC to observe and get an idea of how the program works. I wasn't looking forward to this too much - it's a place for adults who are unable to keep a "regular" job for various reasons such as TBI, Stroke, MR, etc. I wasn't sure how this was going to go - last year I did OK at Walnut Place, but I just never know what to expect with adults. Luckily, the people were so welcoming and excited to talk to us that it ended up being a really good experience. I helped some of the people with their jobs - today it was peeling labels off of jars. Yep. It was actually pretty darn hard! I tore up my nails. I'm still not sure why they're not allowed to use anything like goo gone or a coin to help, but those are the rules. The funny thing was, the labels they were peeling off were for anti-cellulite cream. Wonder what the new labels will be - face moisturizer? Then we played Bingo, and when Priyanka was the caller, she asked me "It's B-I-N-G-O right?" So despite my reservations, it ended being a good experience. Then we had Peds lab, and it was all about feeding and eating. We watched a few You Tube videos with feeding methods, and then we tried it ourselves. Not sure how much I got out the whole thing, but I guess it got us thinking about how we eat and our preferences. The last thing we did was watch a video of a kid throwing tempertantrums. The mom commented that they're getting worse as he gets older, and she couldn't show the worst parts of them because it was too much for her to handle. So Mrs. Fletcher asks what we would do if this was our kid. My answer: "Start drinking?" Not the answer she was looking for. Then we all rushed to Mrs. Campbell's house for a pre-celebration of scholarship party. It was ok - awkward at first, but then people got more comfortable. We also got to talk to Dr. Dunn and got some good advice about practice and school.

Note to crazy woman: a street is NOT the same thing as a highway!!!

Wednesday. April Fools Day, which I HATE. I don't think anyone played any tricks on me, luckily. Went to Fieldwork and got to participate more with one of the kiddos (I still like hearing "Ms Katie!") and saw an initial eval and a re-eval. It was funny how different the re-eval was than how we learned it in school - as I suspected then, standardization is pretty darn difficult when you're dealing with kids with LD and Autism. Then I raaaaaan over to Region 10 to do a presentation. Except, I went to the wrong building and I was in a hurry. So I ask Ms. Doesn't-Understand-Streets where the meetings was. Convo:

Me: Hi, Um, Can you tell me where the Region 10 OT/PT meeting is?

Ms. DUS: Whaaaat? *pause* *looks at schedule* Um...*keeps looking, scanning* I don't see it. That's not happening.

Me: *peeks over desk and points* Yeah, it's right there - on the schedule. Pecan room?

Ms. DUS: Oh...yeah... that's in the other building.

Me: Ooook, where is that?

Ms. DUS: Um, across the street.

Me: Which way? (as there are no buildings across the street the 2 ways I can see)

Ms. DUS: You're gunna turn left out of here, do a u-turn, and go across the highway.

Me: Highway? Wait, where is this place?

Ms. DUS: Across the street. You turn left outta here, turn right, and cross the highway.

Me: *Getting flustered now* Across the highway? Like, 75? What's the address?


Ms. DUS: No, it's just across the highway. You turn left outta here, turn right, and cross the highway.

Me: Can you just tell me the address? What street is the other building on? *phone starts ringing*

Ms. DUS: Take a Left outta here, do a U-turn, and cross the highway.

Me: OK, THANKS.

And I just left, and I asked my classmate, who was on the phone. As it turns out, it was a 1/10 up the road - sort of across the street, but more like on the other side of the street and further north. There was definitely no highway involved. Anyway, luckily made it just in time to start my presentation - which I hadn't rehearsed or even really read before. It seemed like no one was paying attention anyway, though, so I suppose it was fine. Then we headed back to school for class. Our class that is done at 5:30 ran over a bit, and then we had to stay and finish our Helen Killer treatment plan. Since we were almost done before, I figured it wouldn't take too long. WRONG. Around 6:30 I start getting trivia texts - "Are you going?" "What time?" "How many?" "Where are you?" "Can you get us a table for 10?" "Where are you?" "Coming soon?" "When are you coming?" "WHERE ARE YOU?" By the time we got out of there, it was about 8:15. As we're discussing what else we can do with her, Aaron says, ".....nevermind, I'm not going to say it." So I say, "What, She's DEAF and BLIND?" Yep - lol. We're all just ready to turn this stupid thing in. Ok, so I finally make it to trivia, and we're at a few different tables. We ended up tying for 2nd - so - wing off! Jenn didn't have to do it this time - we had a new guy who was more than willing. and, he kicked ass! We won by almost an entire wing.

I can has paycheck?

Nope...not yet. They're "still working on it." I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. I thought, well, hey, I'll just get a big fat paycheck someday until I realized that given all the hours I have worked, I'll still have made less than $150. And I actually haven't worked all that many hours. But any money is better than no money!

He's playing fetch... with my kids... he's treating my kids like they're dogs.

Today was looooong - pretty much like every other Monday. I got up at 6 after a not-so-great night of sleep, and had class from 8 - 12 pretty much straight. We took our class picture, and for some reason some people put up a big fuss. I guess I get that it's 10 minutes of wasted time, but - meh, whatever. We even got out of class early. Then of course we had a long afternoon class, then a student meeting to discuss some things, and then I worked with Aaron and Priyanka on our Helen Keller treatment plan. So pretty much at school for 12 hours. It really wasn't that bad, though. All things considered. Still housesitting - it was weird having a room full of animals this morning!