Back on solid ground

We arrived in Brisbane after a whirlwind two weeks of cruising New Zealand. It was awesome. Hilariously, we were basically on a retirement cruise. I think the average age on the cruise was about 79. Ok, fine...65.

**I would like to interrupt this blog post to inform you that as I was writing this, Marissa was asking me a question about Shane's new job. Marissa: "What hours will he be working?" Leana: "I think - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!! IT FRICKIN BIT ME!!!!!!!" Yes. I was sitting on the couch innocently writing a blog entry and a wasp stung my arm. So not fair! Jeremy came in and saved the day, thankfully.

So anyway, the cruise. The ship was pretty sweet and sharing a room with Shane was surprisingly tolerable! It was NOT relaxing - there was soooo much stuff to do onboard and when we were at the different ports. We went to Auckland, Tauranga/Rotorua, Wellington, Napier, Dunedin and then had a day of scenic cruising through Fiordland. A picture is worth a thousand words, so let's see if I can find a few to help me out with this story telling.


Marissa and I in the water when we swam with wild dolphins. Sadly I did not get a picture of us actually *with* the dolphins. This was her 2nd time in the ocean EVER. The 1st was a little island near Auckland, Waiheke Island. It was cooooold. Tomorrow she will be introduced to Aussie beaches.
Family Christmas dinner before we left. Jeremy made a delicious roast chicken and Grandmaman made tourtiere and petes de soeur. A French Canadian feast!
The first formal night on the cruise ship. Another chance for me to wear my grad dress. Dad encouraged Marissa and I to ride the glass elevator while he took pictures.
Formal night number 2 - Christmas Eve. Note my tacky Christmas tree earrings and awesome antlers.

So the only people on board who were in their 20s were the staff. One evening, I was convinced by Marissa to participate in "Battle of the Sexes" on the ship, which I thought was just going to be an innocent game show where I'd have to answer a couple of questions. This game show was being run by Natalie and Jorge (Hor-hay), two of the cruise director's staff. There were two teams - boys against girls, obviously - of six people each. We had to come up with what we thought the men would say their top six magazines are, etc...so perfectly fine...we tied at that particular part of the show and that's when we moved on to the scandalous section. First, our teams lined up and we had to pass a ball from under our chins down the line and back again. That wasn't too bad. I did nuzzle a lady's neck for a good minute, but ya know...it's all good. We totally won that one. Now this is where things really get out of hand. Things you should know about me:

a) I hate balloons
b) I really hate popping balloons

So Jorge advises myself and the youngest guy on the men's team to sit down in chairs on opposite sides of the stage. THEN, I am made to sit there while the remaining team members of the opposite sex run at me, thrust a balloon into my lap and then jump on it, straddling and bouncing on it/me until it pops. Can you think of anything more terrifying than five men old enough to be my father/grandfather speeding at me with a balloon??? Actually, I must admit they were quite efficient. I was laughing hysterically because I was watching the ladies run at the guy with their balloons and this one rather hefty lady was bouncing away on the guy's lap and her balloon just wouldn't pop. Poor guy. So the men win this one, and Jorge and Natalie say that it's time for the people who were in the chairs (me and the guy) to get our revenge on them for making us do that. How, you ask? Well, I was given a balloon, Jorge sat down in the chair and I was supposed to run and pop it on his lap. Lovely. So I'm a good sport...I run at him, put the balloon down and jump, and he takes the freaking balloon away!!!! Inappropriate!! Bahahaha. And my grandmaman and 16 year old cousin are laughing their heads off in the audience...very supportive...don't you agree? So he tell me he's sorry and to do it again, but this time he moves his legs...so I firmly place the balloon on his lap and hop on it and finally accomplish my darn mission. There was a third challenge, which involved removing articles of clothing (whatever you felt comportable doing...for me this included a sweatshirt since I had a t-shirt underneath, my shoes, and my lanyard with my room key card on it) and making a giant line around the room with all the clothes - the ladies obviously won. My prize for all this torture? A freaking water bottle.

Anyway...I'm sleepy and tomorrow is a big day - ZORBING!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo...

1. New niece! Wecome Aliaina! (I really hope I spelled that right after a lifetime of being called the wrong name/written the wrong name on cards). Seriously, so excited to have a girl and boy niece and nephew. Way to do it right, Hayley!!! (and Lance...teehee).

2. I think I might have a job. Education QLD starting Jan 23rd IN BRISBANE (this is actually a pretty big deal). Possibly. Cross fingers!

That's all for now, except that my fam is here and we are having an EXCELLENT time!!!! xx

Add another thing to the list of Australian things I don't understand - cricket. Jeremy, on the other hand, is Brisbane's newest cricket aficionado. We both worked four 10 hour shifts in a row during the test match and he read up on it to try and figure out if the game would go for four days or five. Australia ended up winning on the 4th day, so we had a surprise day of rest!

On my stolen day, I went and made Christmas cards with Jen and Jess. We did the same thing last year, and it's just really friggin enjoyable. We go to Jen's mum's house (she has a ton of scrapbooking stuff), sit at the kitchen table, drink tea, eat snacks, listen to music, gossip and make cards. These two girls definitely will be among my lifelong friends. I left there and went to Jules house to help her study for her Motor Speech exam (did it last year, never again, muahahahahaha!!!) and then went and picked up Kim to hit up the gym. Finally, J and I headed to Milton for a double date with my friend Nicole and her fiance Ken. We had bought a daily deal for a Thai meal + tickets to a movie at Blue Room Cinebar. The food was AMAZING. The movie theatre was cool. Ro and I went there when he was in Brisbane. The theatres only seat about 30 people and the chairs are big, comfy and reclining. We didn't need to order food since we were stuffed from dinner, but you can order food and drinks and have them brought in half way through the movie or whenever you like. We saw In Time, which I wouldn't really recommend and I know J would agree. All in all, a fun filled day!

Today is cleaning/errands day. As I type, Jeremy is outside whipper-snippering (very loudly, I might add!) to make sure the yard looks presentable for our clan of Canadian visitors. Speaking of which, inside the house is my domain which means I better get off the computer and back to work!

The Big Pineapple was closed, but that didn't stop us from taking multiple picture in front of it!
We were being rabbits. Not completely sure why.
Mexican dinner at Montezuma's. Weird name for a Mexican restaurant if you're North American! So went away on holiday with my three best friends in Brisbane and one of their cousins, who is hilarious. Clockwise from front left: Jess, Kim (her cousin who flew in from Woollongong), Jen, me, Lisa.
Girls! Amazing trip. So much fun. Sooooooooooo much relaxing/reading/swimming/lounging.
The pool at the hotel. Jess found an amazing "daily deal" online, so a two bedroom apartment with kitchen, living room, etc was less than $25 each per night. We spent a lot of time at this pool and we were only a two minute stroll from the freaking BEAUTIFUL ocean, which had a water temperature of a balmy 23 degrees. The sun shined constantly (I mean, we were on the Sunshine Coast), except for when we tok a drive into Maleny to buy cheese. We went on a seafood lunch cruise, to the Eumundi Markets, to the Big Pineapple and to the Maleny Cheese factory, but the better part of the holiday was spent doing NOTHING. Yay. J came for the afternoon on the last day and him and I played in the waves and had an awesome time.

J and I are working the next five days at the cricket test match. YAY. Can't even describe how excited I am....blech. But really, I can't complain because the last four days consisted of the above. So, off to work!! Then one day of nothing, then my family arrives! :)

Question of the day? WHAT AM I?

A $%^&*!# SPEECH PATHOLOGIST! Yes, yes I am. Received a dean's commendation for high achievement in my final semester of the course. Highest mark possible for research project extraordinaire with the lovely Nicole and Alyssa (and Deb Theodoros <3). Passed adult video exam, which was pretty much the key element in arriving at this moment. So yes, not sure how many times Jeremy has had to hear: "Guess what I am? A SPEECH PATHOLOGIST!" today...but...it probably has been more than once (and he only arrived at the Sunshine Coast around 2:30 pm, so it hasn't even been a whole day). So what is this picture of?

Two newly confirmed (tanned, but sun safe) speech pathologists, sitting in a rock grotto hot tub/spa thingy, drinking mimosas in Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast to celebrate their awesomeness!

So, just in case anyone has been reading my blog and has no freaking clue what I'm talking about, this is what my CURRENT profession includes:

Speech and language pathologists provide a wide range of services, mainly on an individual basis, but also as support for individuals families, support groups, and providing information for the general public. Speech services begin with initial screening for communication and swallowing disorders and continue with assessment and diagnosis, consultation for the provision of advice regarding management, intervention and treatment, and provision counselling and other follow up services for these disorders.

• cognitive aspects of communication (e.g., attention, memory, problem solving, executive functions).
• speech (i.e., phonation, articulation, fluency, resonance, and voice including aeromechanical components of respiration);
• language (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatic/social aspects of communication) including comprehension and expression in oral, written, graphic, and manual modalities; language processing; preliteracy and language-based literacy skills, phonological awareness.
• swallowing or other upper aerodigestive functions such as infant feeding and aeromechanical events (evaluation of esophageal function is for the purpose of referral to medical professionals);
• sensory awareness related to communication, swallowing, or other upper aerodigestive functions.

Multi-discipline collaboration

Speech-language pathologists collaborate with other health care professionals often working as part of a multidisciplinary team, providing referrals to audiologists and other medical consultants; providing information to health care professionals (including doctors, nurses, occupational therapist, and dietitians), educators, and parents as dictated by the individual client's needs.

In relation to Auditory Processing Disorders^[3] collaborating in the assessment and providing intervention where there is evidence of speech, language, and/or other cognitive-communication disorders.

The treatment for patients with cleft lip and palate has an obvious interdisciplinary character. The speech therapy outcome is even better as the surgical treatment is performed earlier.^[4]

Administration

Speech-language pathologists act as case managers and service delivery coordinators as well as manage clinical and academic programs.

Healthcare

• Promote healthly lifestyle practices for the preservation of communication, hearing, swallowing, or other upper aerodigestive disorders.
• Recognizing the need to provide and appropriately accommodate diagnostic and treatment services to individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds and adjust treatment and assessment services accordingly.
• Advocating for individuals through community awareness, education, and training programs to promote and facilitate access to full participation in communication, including the elimination of societal barriers.

Research

• Conduct research related to communication sciences and disorders, swallowing disorders, or other upper aerodigestive functions.

Training

• Educate, supervise, and mentor future speech-language pathologists.
• Educate and provide in-service training to families, caregivers, and other professionals.
• Train, supervise, and manage speech-language pathology assistants and other support personnel.
• Educating and counseling individuals, families, co-workers, educators, and other persons in the community regarding acceptance, adaptation, and decisions about communication and swallowing.

Working environments

Speech and language pathologists can work in a wide range of settings. The clinical environments include both public and private hospitals. As part of the support structure in the education system working in both public and private schools, colleges, and universities. And some community support services in community health and day centers, and the judicial and penal services such as courts, prisons, and young offenders' institutions.^[5]

Subsequent to ASHA's 2005 approval of the delivery of speech-language pathology via video conference, or telepractice,^[6] SLPs have begun delivering services via this service delivery method.

Speechie Grad Dinner

Kind of funny to have a grad dinner when we don't actually know if we've passed yet, but I guess this way everyone is feeling merry and no one feels like a horrible failure! It was a fantastic time. This is the GEMS class (graduate entry master's students) minus a few lame people who didn't attend. This was our silly picture.

My dinner table. Starting from the left - Hayley, Anita, Lisa, Pranika, Jody, Vicky, meeeeeeeee, Nicole. Not pictured is Ken, Nicole's fiance. He was roped into taking a few group photos that night! He was also one of only four males at the event - I let Jeremy stay home for this one!
The girls in my research gruop, Alyssa and Nicole with our research advisor, Dr. Deb Theodoros. Google her - she's published so many things! The woman is a machine!! She's amazing and we were really lucky to have her.
Friends! This wasn't the dress I intended to wear, but when I put on the other one, I had lost too much weight in the upper body (ie boob) area and it was gaping off me. Jeremy agreed that it wasn't the most appropriate look. So I rustled up this little number from my closet. I got it at an "op shop" (thrift store) in Byron Bay with the tags still on. I think it was $80 on the tag and I paid $15. Not bad, eh? I think it's quite cute...if I do say so myself!
I had to take this picture - the Australians do this weird dance called the "Nutbush". No, seriously. This song comes on and they all rush up to the dance floor and start dancing in sync. It's hilarious because the Canadians just sit there gaping and have no idea what is happening! I just looked it up on Wikipedia, ever my wise and knowledgeable source and here's what it had to say:

The Nutbush is a dance categorized as a line dance, performed to Tina Turner's song "Nutbush City Limits" and has gained massive popularity in Australia.

In the 1950s, the dance was known as "The Madison".^[1] Inspired by Tina Turner's song, a variation of the dance emerged again as "The Nutbush" in the 1970s disco era. A comparison of the step sheets, however, does not support the conclusion the dances are the same.

The song of the same name by Tina Turner is generally recognised as being 'the song' to which the dance is performed. The dance is generally performed by a group of people both male and female at a social function where dancing is appropriate. Also, the dance is performed with the dancers roughly in a box configuration, like that of a chess board.

The steps are fairly simple, such that one who does not know them can generally pick them up by watching other dancers. A key in the song and dance being a popular combination is that the song has a moderately long introduction before the strong dance beat starts, which allows people who are sitting down to get up and to the dance floor and for all dancers to assemble themselves in a grid. Without this introduction, it is unlikely that the song and dance would be as popular.^{[citation needed]} For comparison, see "Bus Stop" (song).

The Nutbush continues to be a staple at many wedding receptions in Australia, along with the YMCA and Hokey Pokey.

First week of holidays = breakfasts, board games, gym, Cedar Creek Falls (pictured above), high tea, DFO shopping for grad dress (success!), trivia...all in all, not too shabby. Today I have an interview for a private practice on the Gold Coast. Sadly today is overcoast and rainy and yucky - I wanted to do interview, then beach!! I guess I'll see what it's like when I get there...maybe it will clear up. Not so nervous or excited about this interview since it is part time, which doesn't appeal to me but I guess the practise is good and I have nothing else to do today anyway!

C'est fini

I *think* I did it. I felt horrible after our big paediatric exam, but after the adult one I feel like there's no way I could have failed. Wait - is it bad luck to say that? So basically I am a speech pathologist...at least I will know for sure on Dec 1st when grades are released. Scary/exciting!

We had our Punjabi Palace dinner (1st picture, above). There was a tiny amount of wine involved. We lingered there for quite some time (we had to finish the wine!!) and then went into the city and met up with Jeremy and some other med students. The second picture is us in transit from the fancy "Bavarian Beer Cafe" to The Pig and Whistle, where we met up with more speechies and did some dancing and singing. The picture WAS supposed to be girls/speechies only, but Jeremy and alastair had other ideas and I think it made the picture better :) Hehe.

J had two exams yesterday and was really happy about how they went. One was a diagnostic case with a standardized patient, so he had to interview and get a case history with all the symptoms and then make a diagnosis. The second one was a management case, so he knew what was wrong with the patient (migraine with aura) and had to tell her what to do about it. He was very confident about his answers and thrilled to have some straightforward cases where he could showcase his clinical skills and knowledge. The standardized patients both said he had a very warm and inviting manner that made people want to open up and one of them said that he was the only one to ask at the end if she had any additional questions/concerns, which gave he the chance to bring up an additional piece of information. Way to go, J! So once his marks are out, he'll be a 4TH YEAR MED STUDENT!

So basically this means my blog will shift from me whining about exams and assignments (unless I failed yesterday's exam, in which case there would be HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE whining/complaining/freaking out) to me whining about not getting a job because of my visa. Hahaha. But that will be sorted out soon enough!! Then I can blog about being an allied health professional...and also about new random Aussie tidbits that I pick up on the way!

This is it.

Well, it's 2 hours before my last exam ever - so obviously I am updating my blog. Yes, very logical. Some people say you can't learn anything in two hours, but I beg to differ - there have been times in the past where I've crammed crucial info into my brain in the last couple of hours before an exam. But this exam - well, I've been studying for a couple of weeks AND it's based on everything we've learned about adults over the last two years. It could be anything. So at this point, I just have to be confident that I know my stuff and I can get that 60% pass mark (okay, yes, after I finish writing this I will be rushing back to my hammock to study frantically for another hour before I walk over to UQ). Jeremy left bright and early this morning for his two last exams of third year medicine. After today, he will be a 4th year med student! JUST ONE MORE...year, that is! Muahaha, at least I'm down to one more exam.

Tonight we have celebratory plans to the extreme! I am sticking with my tried and true post exams Punjabi Palace outing - since our first exam in Anatomy, we have had dinner here after every exam period. The first time, Ro was with us - wish he could be there again tonight!! First will be a stop at the Red Room, the campus bar, to collect our thoughts and indulge in a beverage or two. Then to my house to get ready for night of epic-ness. Punjabi Palace reservations await us at 7:30 pm - it's BYO, so we will bring supplies and linger...and then meeting up with J and the med crowd since they are all celebrating their own done-ness!

Seriously, cross your fingers for me. If I don't pass this, it will be max humiliation since I won't get to graduate with my class and will have the added heart attack of having to sit it again. Not to mention, have four house guests who were planning on attending my grad (thought I don't think they will be TOO heartbroken at not having to sit through hours of boring). Gargh. Nervousness setting in. 2 hours to go. 4.5 hours till it's COMPLETELY done. Brain, please have my back!

I'm melting..........

Oh my God. I had to take a break from studying on the hammock because it's so hot that sweat is pouring off me. All I am doing is lying in a damn hammock! So far it's been the driest November in Brisbane for 50+ years but I keep hearing these horrendous rumours that the summer is supposed to be wetter than usual. UNACCEPTABLE - I don't want rain! Rain makes everything less fun, especially the beach and all other outdoor activities. Urgh. Anyhow, at the moment, nice and dry except for the sweat! Forecast all week has been 30+ and yesterday it was 35!! Remember - it's not even summer yet. Just late spring. Poor Tuna, our cat, can barely move...he's currently sprawled out on the coffee table in front of me when normally he is outside exploring at this time of day.

2 days till the big final final final exam. TWO DAYS. Honestly I could spout off a bunch of treatment approaches for dysarthria, apraxia, aphasia, right hemisphere disorder, traumatic brain injury...but watch, it will be something I don't know. Jeremy had one of his exams today and just made it - something was going on with the buses and he was pretty concerned, but he got there! He has two more on Friday, but finishes earlier than me.

At 4 pm I get to go to UQ to give a tour/orientation to the new Canadian allied health students coming in through OzTrekk. Hah - they have two years of crazy work ahead of them and I AM DONE!!! (almost) Free Thai dinner afterward is the motivation for this altruistic service, especially with limited hours of study time left. Oh well, you can't study every hour of the day and you do need to eat!

Well, better get back to it but I think I will avoid the hammock which is directly in the glaring sun. In an hour I'll probably head over to a friend's house to avail myself of her pool while I study. Pool study is my new favourite thing.

Oh, and not that anyone cares but I needed a new purse and we went to Lifeline (thrift store) yesterday to buy some storage containers and I found one for $6 that I really liked. I bought it and then looked it up online - it's genuine leather, looks brand new and retails for $90+. How friggin awesome is that?!

Need Advice/Opinions

I've been seeing flyers around the neighbourhood and I picked one up and read about it and I really want to do it. The Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer Cancer - it's a 200 km bike ride in Queensland to (obviously) raise money for cancer research. They did it last year and made $4.1 million or something along those lines. The ride starts in St Lucia (where UQ is) and you ride to the Wivenhoe Dam (~100 km from Brisbane), camp for the night, and then ride back the next day. For some reason, I just really feel like I should do this...it's kind of like a personal goal tied in with a charitable cause. I was at the doctor the other day filling in my family hx and it was kind of shocking really - colon cancer, leukemia, breast cancer. Family members and friends are fighting/have fought cancer. I will be working in health care, perhaps in the head and neck cancer area, treating patients who are dealing with the effects of cancer. I worked for awhile at the Women's Breast Health Centre.

It's in August 2012, 9-10ish months away and I need to raise $2500. They have all sorts of support to help you with fundraising ideas when you join. It's a daunting amount, but I don't want to let it scare me away. What is raising a couple thousand dollars compared with enduring radiation and chemo treatments for weeks/months?

Anyway - anyone reading this - what do you think? Can I do it? Or is it just a silly idea? Am I setting myself up for disappointment/failure or is this something I can achieve and be proud of?

ONE MORE.

Can this point finally be here? I have one more exam to write (and pass) and then I can say I am a speech pathologist! It's not the career I thought I'd be doing when I was a kid, or even when I started university...funny how things change. I have wanted to do this since 2006, right after I graduated from my undergrad degree and randomly read the job description on the Ottawa Hospital website. Literally from that second, I knew that this was my dream job. Little did I know how difficult it would be to achieve (practically impossible if I had stayed in Canada - would have involved completing an ENTIRE additional undergrad degree in Psych and Linguistics, maintaining a pretty much perfect average, getting amazing letters of recommendation and then still probably only having a 20% chance of getting in because of the very tiny amount of spots available in the program). 5 years later and here I am. I really never could have dreamed it would actually happen. Okay, so getting ahead of myself since I do have another giant, scary exam to write. This is the most important exam EVER, since I need to pass it to graduate with my class. Eeeeeeeeeeeep. Luckily it is a whole week away...

Fashions on the Field

Hahaha. Okay, not quite. But here I am with Kristy all gussied up for the Melbourne Cup @ the Queen's Arms Hotel. I think I need to update my fascinator to something more colourful and BIGGER!

Shawarma

Over the last (almost) three years, we've been seeking out the foods that we miss from Canada and are slowly building up a steady selection of places to find these things in Brisbane. Jeremy knows where to go to get something similar to bacon strips like you would find at home and has also found spicy salami that tickles his tastebuds. We still haven't found the calibre of pizza that you would get in Canada, but J makes a pretty amazing homemade one with his own dough. We live a 5 minute bike ride from a reasonably priced breakfast place that does a mean eggs Benedict. Sure there are some things that we might never get here: Clamato, cheese curds, Crispers, but that's ok. Haloumi is a decent substitute for cheese curds and Canadian guests can usually be counted on for Crispers/Clamato.

One of the things we noticed right away here is that Australians don't do shawarma. In Ottawa, I don't think you're further than 1 km from shawarma at any time! They have kebabs, which are like shawarmas but not as good. Difference b/w Australia and Canada:

In Australia, Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Lebanese migrant populations have introduced shawarma. Commonly it is known simply as in Armenian kebab or in Turkish Doner kebab or, where Greek immigrants have settled, as a souvlaki, or less commonly, gyros or yiros. Shawarma costs A$6.00 upwards and is wrapped in a large pita bread or more commonly khubz, known locally as "Lebanese bread", coming with beef, chicken or lamb, salad of lettuce, tomato and onion and cheese. Sauces include "garlic sauce" (Tzatziki), chilli sauce, hummus, tomato, and barbecue. Sometimes it is toasted after being wrapped in the bread.

In Canada, the cuisine is typically available in any population centre that has recent immigrants. Due to meat handling regulations, shawarma is never available at street food stands (unlike hotdogs) and is mostly associated with food courts or pizzeria-style small restaurants. Typically, shawarma is available both as a wrap with traditional vegetables, hummus and hot and garlic sauce, or as a "plate" or "dinner" on a bed of rice with a side of vegetables and salad; the salad can be Middle Eastern, like tabbouleh, or of a more traditional variety, like Greek or Caesar. The dish is not associated with any country in particular and can be branded and served by a variety of nationals, from Algeria to Afghanistan. Shawarma is being successfully introduced as a fast food franchise by a number of companies and may not be necessarily associated with Arabian population - or mom-and-pop businesses - anymore.

I think the two main differences are pickled turnips and the garlic sauce used in Canada. In Canada, they use a garlic sauce called Toum: Toum is a garlic sauce as prepared in Lebanon, the Levant and Egypt similar to the European aioli. As well as garlic, it contains salt, olive oil or vegetable oil and lemon juice crushed using a wooden mortar and pestle. There is also a variation popular in many villages (such as Zgharta) where mint is added, called "Zeit and Toom". It is also used as a dip, especially with french fries and chicken. It is used in Lebanese sandwiches.

It is AMAZING! In Aus, they use a watery thin liquidy tzatziki type thing which doesn't come close to the deliciousness!

So anyway...what is the point, really? A Lebanese friend informed Jeremy a couple of weeks ago that she had found somewhere to get shawarma. He went and got one and it was good - even had toum and pickled turnip. But YESTERDAY after avoiding study, we found FANTASTIC shawarma. I looked up Lebanese cuisine and saw that there was a place in the suburb Morningside, which is conveniently where my BAF (Best Aussie Friend, hehe) Jess lives. I really wanted to go get some, and so did J, but I thought if I wanted it I should work for it. So we rode our bikes 20 km round trip over some pretty nasty hills to get to the shawarma place and back home again and then really enjoyed/appreciated our shawarma! We also got Jess to meet us there and introduced her to the wonderfulness - she agreed with our praise!

(Anything to procrastinate from studying...)

Speaking of which, meeting some classmates for study this morning in an hour, so should probably get moving!

Byron Bay/Melbourne Cup/Slip Slop Slap and Wrap

Byron Bay was glorious! The only problem was that it was too windy to go snorkelling with sea turtles :( When we arrived at the dive centre, we were told that the water was very choppy and we could still go out, but we likely wouldn't see anything and they wanted us to have a good experience. Instead, we opted to go for a hike up to the famous Byron Bay lighthouse. It was a good wakl, lots of uphill and it was quite warm, but we made it! We rewarded ourselves with gelato and the promise of a swim once we got back down to the beach. The water was amazing, but before we got into it, Jeremy helped perform a SEA RESCUE on a stranded ray (See Exhibits A & B, above).
I took this picture because if you look REALLY hard, you can see a pod of dolphins behind the people swimming. More to the left-ish. They were doing jumps and everything! So close to the people!!
Our final destination, the Byron Bay lighthouse! In some bushes on the other side, I saw my VERY FIRST Australian snake (not in captivity). It was an Eastern Brown Snake, which is known to be deadly. This is some of what Wiki has to say: The eastern brown snake is considered to be the most venomous member of the genus Pseudonaja based on LD50 value. The venom consists mostly of neurotoxins and blood coagulants.^[2] These snakes kept at venom supplies laboratories yield an average of 4.7 mg per milking. As with most venomous snakes, the volume of venom produced, is largely dependent on the size of the snake. Worrell (1963), reported a milking of 41.4 mg from a relatively large (2.1 m) specimen. This record is atypical, as on average, the eastern brown snake yield a low volume of venom which is regarded as not more than 10 mg.^[3] Without medical treatment, death can occur from the bites of this species.^{[4] (Sorry Carolyne, if you're reading this I realize you're probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown - but one snake in almost 3 years is pretty darn good!!!)}
This is Nicole and Ken. They drove up from Brisbane that day just to go snorkelling. Oops! On our hike, we reached the most easterly point of the Australian mainland, as you can see by the sign they are standing beside!


BEAUTIFUL! So much better than Surfer's Paradise.
At our accommodation, these little guys were everywhere!
Lisa in her "big teepee" accommodation! Only in Byron Bay...
Jeremy standing in front of our "Island Retreat". It faced out onto a tea tree lake. It was definitely glamping...We had a light and a double bed in our tent. I didn't mind it!
The girls. Notice varying degrees of sun safety. Nicole, in the white, is a very fair-skinned Irish rose type girl. She followed "slip, slop, slap and wrap" to the fullest! (Slip on a long sleeved shirt, slop on some sunscreen, slap on a hat and wrap some sunglasses around you head...or something like that!) She is definitely the most sun safe! I forgot my "sunnies" but was wearing sunscreen and a sun hat. Anyway...yeah.

Today is Melbourne Cup Day, which is a massive thing all over Australia.

The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Billed as The race that stops a nation*, it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races. Conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, the event starts at 3pm on the first Tuesday in November.

'Fashions On The Field' is a major focus of the day, with substantial prizes awarded for the best-dressed man and woman. The requirement for elegant hats, and more recently the alternative of a fascinator, almost single-handedly keeps Melbourne's milliners in business.^{[citation needed]} Raceday fashion has occasionally drawn almost as much attention as the race itself, The miniskirt received worldwide publicity when model Jean Shrimpton wore one on Derby Day during Melbourne Cup week in 1965.^[60][61]

Flowers, especially roses are an important component of the week's racing at Flemington. The racecourse has around 12,000 roses within its large expanse. Over 200 varieties of the fragrant flower are nurtured by a team of up to 12 gardeners. Each of the major racedays at Flemington has an official flower. Victoria Derby Day has the Corn Flower, Melbourne Cup Day is for the Yellow Rose, Oaks Day highlights the Pink Rose and Stakes Day goes to the Red Rose.

In the Melbourne metropolitan area, the race day has been a gazetted public holiday since 1877, but around both Australia and New Zealand a majority of people watch the race on television and gamble, either through direct betting or participating in workplace cup "sweeps". As of April 2007, the ACT also recognises Melbourne Cup Race Day as a holiday.^[52] In 2000, a betting agency claimed that 80 percent of the adult Australian population placed a bet on the race that year.^[62] In 2010 it was predicted that $183 million would be spent by 83,000 tourists during the Spring Racing Carnival.^[63] In New Zealand, the Melbourne Cup is the country's single biggest betting event, with carnival race-days held at several of the country's top tracks showing the cup live on big screens.^[64]

It is commonly billed as The race that stops a nation, but it is more accurately The race that stops two nations,^[65] as many people in New Zealand, as well as Australia, pause to watch the race.

If you got through all that, good for you!! Don't you feel more knowledgeable now?! For the first time, I'll be going to a Melbourne Cup event, so I better get all prettied up now!

**Drumroll please**

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I am done my frickin' Master's! (Except for 2 exams, I suppose those are rather important, eh?)

So if you've been reading this, I guess you realize that every time I finish some aspect of this course I am going to make a big deal of it...just bear with me. Hehe.

Yesterday was my last clinic ever - it was a bit of an anti-climax. I met my clinical educator at the special school and we did our morning sessions. She said she needed to leave and go get "Panadol" (Tylenol) because she had a bad headache. When she returned, she informed me that she had just vomited in the parking lot and she's pretty sure she has a migraine, so she's going home to sleep. She advised me to go to the base in Ipswich, where we'd later be having my final evaluation. I had nothing clinic related to do, so I made Ethics study notes (productive use of time, yes??) She managed to sleep it off and come in for my evaluation, where I was told that I was at entry level for every section except one (promptly started freaking out inside my mind, I mean...I need to be at entry level for everything, OMG...no!!!). They then told me that for one of the sections they put me at ABOVE entry level, because I was better than them, and if they just put me at entry, what would it say about them?? So that was it...I passed my final clinic!

We then headed out to a shopping centre to have afternoon tea. I was (hilariously) seated across from the lady who will be interviewing me next week. She pretty much told me exactly what to do for the interview, so can it get much better? (I say that now, and then won't get the job...hahahaha) I had to rush out to make it back to Brisbane to go to Speech Pathology Australia "Welcome to the Profession" drinks. Made it there, mostly just talked with my friend Marion and another private practitioner and then had to literally run out the door to meet Jeremy at a restaurant for dinner.

We had bought one of those online deals and I accidentally made it for a night when I had that other thing on. It was not able to be re-booked, so I just had to leave early...and I made it! According to our voucher, we were to get champagne and a "huge" platter of tapas. The "huge" platter consisted of Greek salad, a lot of calamari, 2 spring rolls, and some bread with dip. I would call it a medium platter at best. The champagne, however....well, let's just say that the guy serving us screwed up and accidentally gave us an $80 bottle of champagne, so I totally celebrated passing clinic in style! Jeremy and I were eating, drinking and chatting when I looked over and saw a friend who I hadn't seen in FOREVER...I was a bit hyper from all the excitement so I zoomed across the restaurant and gave her a giant hug. We ended up sitting together and staying for two hours longer than usual...was really great to catch up with her and her boyfriend, and we made more plans to hang out soon. IT WAS FATE!!!! Hehehe.

Jeremy and I returned home after a busy day and called Ross, who was a delight to talk to as usual :) Then I was up this morning at the crack of dawn (okay, not quite, but I can't seem to sleep past 7 am these days!! It's irritating! When did I become an early riser?!) and in a few hours we will be leaving for BYRON BAY!!! We're going with a group of (fun awesome did not cancel at the last minute like some others I know) people and staying at this cool hostel called the Arts Factory. Jeremy and I have a room called the "Island Retreat": Island Retreats are surrounded by a small tea tree lake and they come as either doubles or twins. If you and your partner want to get close to nature, and yet have the conveniences of modern living a short stroll away, then these Island Retreats are perfect for you. It's kind of like a fancy tent - "glamping", if you will. I'm excited! I love Byron Bay! Beautiful ocean, scenic views, laidback attitude, yummy tapas...it's just the ideal place. Tomorrow we're hoping to go snorkelling with sea turtles at one of Australia's top 10 dive sites. Life is grand!

Alright, Byron pics to follow. Hope everyone is content and feeling the love!!

UQ Speech Pathology Class of 2011 (Master's and Undergrads)

See me, can you see me?

Yesterday was my last lecture ever as a Speech Pathology student. Guess what? I MISSED IT. So annoyed! I mean, in one way it's good because it looked pretty boring, but really?! It was my last one and I've gone to every other one this semester! So what happened? Well...

Yesterday was also the day to hand in our YEAR LONG RESEARCH PROJECT WHICH IS NOW OVER WITH!!!!!!! A girl in my group had very nicely printed and bound it, and we needed to meet up to sign a cover sheet certifying that it was original work, etc. Then just hand it in. Easy, right? So I decided to flip through it, because I'm not sure why...but ofte people don't feel the need to proof read before printing?! So I did, and found that with our References sections, the title "References" had moved onto the previous page...uh, that is sooooooooooo not APA style. Hahahaha. So I had to be the annoying one, and be all like "OMG, we need to print and bind this again, we can't hand it in like this." (Well SERIOUSLY. We couldn't.) So we walked all the way to the other side of campus and had a big ordeal fixing things, then the printing came out wrong...basically it took half an hour to get it to an acceptable standard. Went and handed it in at the student unit, where the lady told us 'You need TWO copies". AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHDSFJHDJSKFHKJDHFJ!!! So we walked all the way BACK across campus to get another copy printed and bound, then across campus again to hand it in, FINALLY...and then by the time we got back to class, this little task which should have taken 10 mins at most had taken 1.5 hours! So yeah. We missed class.

However, we did NOT miss champagne. Yay for free champers from lecturers! Then we had a GEMS dinner (GEMS - Graduate Entry Master's Students) at a classy pizza joint. It was happy/sad.

So yeah...basically done and dusted (Aussie expression) with this course. Clinic tomorrow, exams the 10th and 18th of Nov...and then DONE DONE DONE!

P.S. You can click on the picture to make it bigger - then you might actually have a chance of finding me!

How cool is this???

Alright...not very. Well, the concept is cool, but perhaps not the execution. What in the world am I talking about??? Well, this website:

http://www.uq.edu.au/graduations/live-broadcast

allows people anywhere in the world to watch me graduate! Hahahahah. My parents didn't need to fly across the world after all! In case anyone is interested, you can tune in at 8 pm on December 8th (Ottawa time) to see me graduate December 9th at 11 am! Very odd. I don't anticipate anyone taking me up on this incredibly amazing offer, but wow...technology...leaps and bounds!

Here I am with my Community Education group in all our YELLOW GLORY in front of our poster with the website and brochure we designed! Okay, so it was really boring to stand there for 3 hours waiting for people to come ask about our project, but it's over and at least we...matched? Learned something?

This is it. WEEK 13. My final week of classes and clinic. I had clinic today and I'll have it again on Friday. This morning I did a Lidcombe session with a boy who has a stutter. Lidcombe is considered 'gold standard' treatment for younger kids who stutter. It's based on operant behaviour/behaviourist theory and the parent is the main facilitator. The speechie's role is basically to teach them how to give praise/corrections and how to determine a rating of severity. (It's a bit more involved than that, but who wants to hear about that anyway). So pretty much it was a review session with the kid and his mum. We played games and he talked a whole bunch and I gave him appropriate reinforcement. It was really fun! Didn't feel like doing work at all. He was a super pleasant, chatty kid and apparently his stutter has gotten a lot better over the last few months. I had never met him before so I had nothing to compare it to, but he did quite well. I was a bit nervous beforehand since I've never done any fluency therapy but it was all good!

This weekend was a bit of a bore. Stayed in, did work, read books. OOOOOH, speaking of books, ROSS IF YOU'RE READING THIS - I finally got the book you've been recommending: "Every Man Dies Alone". How uplifting! I've only read a few pages in but am excited to keep going. Actually, I shouldn't say it was a bore. I met up with my friend Marion and went to see her clinic. We discussed me getting a job there and how it would work. Jeremy and I also went on a bike ride in the Toohey Forest and up to Mt. Gravatt Lookout. There were LOTS of hills. We made it though and ate a Subway lunch at the top of the lookout! Jeremy had his first "swooping" though it wasn't as dramatic as when it happened the me - the magpie just swooped over his head a few times rather than bashing into his helmet. My friend Lisa was swooped at the UQ bus stop the other day - it sounds hilarious and I wish I had been there. She was eating a sandwich and this bird decided it wanted the sandwich so started swooping her and slamming into her hand to try and get it! She shoved it in her mouth as fast as she could once she realized what was happening!! This was in front of a big group of people too...heh heh. Classic!

Real men do speech pathology!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwn9ylaz70o

ADDENDUM

I also have an interview with Education Queensland!!!!!!! Yowza!

EXCITING THINGS!

1. Yesterday we had our meeting with Deb, our advisor (and the head of speech pathology at UQ). She was really happy with our research paper and wants it to be published! She said we did a good job and we met our deadline and, well, YAY FOR US! We're going to submit it to the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. It probably won't be published for months, but it is still awesome!

2. Working at SpeechNet has paid off. I have an interview at a private practice on the Gold Coast at the end of November. Then today, I was talking to my friend Marion (who was a new grad when I started working at SpeechNet and now owns her own private practice) and we kind of got around to the subject of her practice and then all of a sudden we were discussing me working there! She's calling her accountant to see what kind of hours she can offer me. She said "It's the easiest job you'll ever get!" (Not meaning workload...more in terms of it just being offered to me). It's a bit of a concern to think of working for a friend, but she's very straightforward and she said we would just need to communicate really well with each other, which I think is possible. It would likely be part-time and if I get the job at the Gold Coast, that would be part-time as well, so put 'em together and you get...FULL TIME! So...watch this space!! It would be great because the GC job is adults/kids and Marion's practice is just kids...so a variety!

3. Next Friday is my very last clinic, then I'm going to Speech Pathology Australia's "Wecome to the Profession" drinks, THEN on Saturday Jeremy and I are hoping to go to Byron Bay and stop and collect Shane on the way. I looooooooooooooove Byron Bay!

One area of concern - Argh. Visas. Obviously my student visa will not last forever - in fact, it expires in Feb 2012. The next step is for me to get a Graduate Visa (an economical $270 as opposed to permanent residency...um, let's not talk about how much that costs). As the name would suggest, I need to first GRADUATE in order to apply for this visa. However, employers kind of like to know that you hold a valid work visa in order to hire you. I got a call from Education Queensland the other day...I had submitted an application and they were calling to enquire about my visa status. Apparently they can't hire me on a student visa, and they are doing their big hiring spree right now. I e-mailed the lady a bunch of info about the graduate visa and my intentions, but who knows what will happen. This news makes it even more of a relief that I have these private practice opportunities on the horizon.

Whew. Well, things are happening! Stuff is going doooown! So excited for my family to get here and to go on our NZ cruise!! Only 50 days away! The weather right now in Brisbane is quite appealing - only minimally rainy, not too muggy/humid, and just generally pretty decent. Maybe it will stay that way?? Doubt it! This is my favourite time of year in Brisbane though - good weather and beautiful jacarandas blooming everywhere.

Ethical Geniuses

First of all, THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS! I have now been inspired to carry on. Special credit to Mum. Love you! xx

So for the last several weeks I've had to endure sitting through 3 hours of ethics presentations every Tues afternoon. I also had to prepare one of these presentations with a group. This year, I decided that I didn't want to work with the same people I always work with. Last semester, this decision ended up being a bit of a disaster! Let's not go there. This semester, however, I have had awesome group experiences across the board. Our ethical scenario involved a nurse calling you from an aged care facility and asking you to change the patient's diet over the phone (when you had just assessed and modified her diet for safety) because the patient had stopped eating. There were many things to consider in this case and we had to use an ethical decision making model to puzzle it out, come up with a variety of options, pick two and discuss them thoroughly and then choose one. We based our presentation on 'Can of Worms" an Australian show that has a panel of experts discuss controversial topics. It was hilarious and awesome, if I do say so myself. Our prof thought so too - 95%!!! So happy. Today is Community Education Day. For this project, we were assigned to groups and given a topic/tasks to complete. Somehow through the luck of the draw, I got what I believe is the best group in the class! There were no dramas, no arguing, no panicking...We all just did what needed to be done. With a group of 7 people, this is a pretty great feat. Now we'll be presenting our project at a poster day where speech pathologists from around Brisbane will be coming around and asking questions. My group has some beautiful mustard yellow t-shirts from the Hear and Say Centre and will also be wearing yellow ribbons in our hair. Matching is key! Let's hope it all goes off without a hitch.

Finally, this morning my research group has our second last meeting EVER with our advisors. We have put together a full draft of our paper and will be meeting with them today to discuss it. The end is really, really, REALLY in sight! Next Wednesday we have our final lecture (followed by snacks and champagne provided by the lecturers...(yes, really) and then Friday is "Welcome to the Profession Drinks" put on by Speech Pathology Australia. I can't believe I'm sooooooooooo close to my dream job!! Let's just hope everything stays on track!

Just for fun

This is what J and I would look like if we were bogans. We would also need to own a Holden, drink VB, and likely have a child named Mercedes Porsche III.

No one comments on this stupid blog.

LESS THAN 2 WEEKS TILL CLASSES AND CLINIC ARE OVER!!!!!!!

Today I went to my first engagement party. It was fun, but seemed to be a lot of effort. There were about 80 people there. They served egg mcmuffin type things, punch, and a giant array of sweet and goodies including FRUIT KEBABS! We played croquet and baci ball wearing colourful dresses in the bright sunshine and tried not to think about school stuff. It was a lovely Sunday morning kind of thing to do.

Speaking of balls (Was I speaking of balls?!), my friend Kim and I go to a gym together and on Saturday morning we did a fit ball class. It was pretty good - my abs are still sore! The instructor was funny...I think she got a kick out of saying things like "Grab your balls, girls!" I was pretty sad when the gym around the corner from my house closed because I had been going there for two months and it was sooo conveniently close. When it closed, we switched over to one in Greenslopes which is much less convenient but they offer a lot more (e.g. the fit ball classes) so I guess it's a trade off. There are also more machines, so that's good too.

This afternoon Jess is coming over and we're going to ride our bikes into Fortitude Valley and back. Then, we will watch a movie and cook dinner. I think I deserve a fun Sunday after spending all of Friday night working on my research paper when Jeremy was out with Jess and her mom, Kathy B having a hilarious time! Research group is getting a bit dramatic - there's one girl out of the four of us who has contributed the least and is kind of.........ok, I don't want to be mean so I won't say it, but let's just say she was supposed to graduate with the class ahead of us, but then failed something so was then supposed to graduate with our class, but then failed something else so uh...yeah. Our group is getting very irritated with her lack of effort and the fact that we've carried her through this year long project, which may get published and will then have her name on it for doing basically nothing! Argh. /vent

It's such a gorgeous sunny day today. It was a bit of a stormy week, with hail and crazy thunderstorms. We were at Sarah and Brian's yesterday hanging out in their backyard and you could just see this massive storm rolling up. The sky got really dark and the wind picked up. We all manned our posts, trying to make sure the tarps that we were sitting under didn't blow over. There was a really cool cloud like nothing I've ever seen before...it was gray and swirling and spinning like crazy above our heads. Sarah's niece Eloise said "It looks like fairy floss!" and it totally did! (Btw, fairy floss = cotton candy). So it poured for about 5 minutes and then passed right over and left some good mud puddles for the toddlers there to stomp in! We saw Wendy and Jim and Jim is really not doing very well at all. His heart is failing and the doctor said there's not a lot they can do and it might not be worth operating on, but they're going to another appointment on Tues so they will hear more then. He spent a lot of time sleeping yesterday. Wendy is great as always - she was supposed to be in Europe right now but decided against it because of Jim's health, but in early Nov she'll be going on a trip to Nepal...I think?

Anyhow, I better go get ready for my bike ride on this lovely clear sunny day!

It is difficult to administer phonological assessments to children who have different vowel sounds than you do! I feel like my life has been swallowed by school work. Things were supposed to get better after Alby - but it's been all report writing and discussion writing for thesis. Yesterday Jeremy and I escaped to the Gold Coast for a bit - played in the ocean, lay on the beach and found Shane at his hotel to bring him his hockey stick. He's definitely living the backpacker's life now - 12 bed dorm...no thanks! I think it will be an awesome experience for him though :)

This weekend brings two fun events - a change from the drudgery of constant work! Saturday is "Villahausenfest", an annual Oktoberfest type party held every year by Jim and Wendy's daughters at their house on Villa St (hence "Villahausen") in the next suburb over. Sarah's partner Bryan has a home brewing kit and he goes head to head with a few of his buddies trying to create the best home brew. There's a blind taste test and everything! I hope Wendy and Jim are there - we only seem to run into them at Sarah and Chantal's parties these days...note: invite W & J to dinner!! Sunday is my friend Alyssa's engagement party. It's a mid-morning event and apparently there will be nibbles and croquet! Jeremy, for some reason, has chosen not to attend this event!! Can you imagine him not wanting to go to such a thing?? Hahahaha. It's all good, there will be lots of girls from class there and we can croquet it up together.

I guess I should cut this short and go work on my discussion...SIGH. A bientot!

Shane has departed, to begin his big Aussie adventure! He stuck around long enough to get an Australian driver's license, tax file number and bank account and has headed out into the great beyond...or something like that?! He left this morning, with his giant backpack, to get the train to the Gold Coast. The other day when I was procrastinating and not writing about Alby (my fetal alcohol child, which ended up being very stressful and 31 pages and is finally handed in...NO MORE INDIVIDUAL UNI ASSIGNMENTS LEFT IN MY DEGREE! Unless I fail this one and need to redo it! Let's all cross our fingers that I pass!!!) we looked up a bunch of backpacker's hostels and hotels on the Gold Coast and I made Shane call them/apply on line to jobs. So, pretty accomplished and we'll see what happens. Now I just need to do that same thing for myself - apply for jobs...but it's a little more involved than just calling a hostel. Sigh! My resume has been prettied up, but I have to write to all sorts of selection criteria and it's very time consuming. I must say, looking at the income for these positions IS pretty friggin nice...I am 28 as of a few days ago and this year will finally be done school and getting a career!

Shane stuck around so that he could come to birthday celebrations for me. My friend Nicola's b-day is the day before mine so we had a joint thingy...dinner at the Polish Club and then we got a private karaoke room for an hour. It was a lot of fun...good people, good friends, good food, good beer, good Polish vodka! All the speechies in the group were also celebrating the "death" of Alby (aka handing in our giant assignment) so it was an extra super duper perfect night to celebrate!

The countdown continues: one ethics presentations, one community ed project, two exams and three more weeks of clinic until the END!

Shane is on a plane right now and will arrive in Brisbane tomorrow morning! How exciting :) Jeremy and I were just arguing over who is going to cook dinner for him tomorrow night...hahaha. J is cooking now, so tomorrow I will be doing the cooking. Pad Thai, mmmmm...except that we were just at the grocery store and I forgot the rice noodles, which are generally a very important ingredient in Pad Thai. Ah well, that can be easily remedied. On his blog he mentioned that he thinks that he "won't understand people most of the time, but will pretend to". Bahahaha...I'd say he'll understand about 90% about what they say and the other 10% will go straight over his head. I mean...EFTPOS? Fairdinkum? Unco? Would you like some school vouchers? Bottle-o? Tracky daks? Daggy? Arvo? Sticky beak? WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?? I know now, but there are still some that trip me up every so often!

Spent today, the first "official" day of my holiday at my friend Jules' house working on an assignment. Well, first we had lunch and played with her baby for awhile, then I dragged myself away to assignment yuckiness. It's good to have it started though. Two pages down, 13 more go. Oh dear. Jules has a Canadian nanny, which is pretty cool. Her name is Jen and she's from somewhere in Ontario near Windsor...I always forget. It's nice to have someone who understands random Canadian-ness...like today I was eating a delicious cookie and said "Mr Christie, you make good cookies" and she laughed, as is appropriate! The Aussies just kind of looked at me like I was not making any sense, which I suppose is mostly true. Then Jen told me about how she was out with friends and someone sneezed and she said "Robitussin!" and they all thought she was nuts as well. Jules will be very very sad when her visa expires and she is left nanny-less. She used to be in my year of speech path, then had a baby, and now is in the year behind me and Jen is essential for her sanity and survival while she's in class and writing assignments. She keeps asking if i have any amazing Canadian friends who want to come over next year and be Billy's nanny. It's actually a sweet deal. It's a live-in position, and her house was just built last year. There are kitchens and bathrooms on both floors, so Jules and her family live upstairs and the nanny gets the whole downstairs area. Jen's room has sliding doors which come out to the in-ground pool. She does some housework and cooking and of course takes care of Billy, who is a darling. She has weekends off and is always out exploring Australia, checking out Byron Bay, Sunny Coast, etc with a big group of friends that she's made over here. Jules and Bruce are the most easy going people ever and Jules always goes on and on about how great Jen is and how she has no idea what she'll do when she's gone. My friend Nicole and I go there almost every week, and Jen sits and has lunch with us and we talk and laugh. Honestly, I wish I had a job like that when I first moved here!! (Except the live-in part would have been weird, and that's kind of what makes it affordable for Jules since part of Jen's wages include what she would be paying for rent). So yes, more Canadians getting a good name around here...always nice to hear!

So my little brother will be here in 4 days - how crazy is that?? He's started a blog as well to talk about his adventures down under. In case anyone is interested, it's http://shane-nomadsland.blogspot.com/.

I don't have any big plans for my week off. Hopefully the weather is nice so that we can get some good bike rides in, hang out on the South Bank "beach" and maybe get out to the Gold Coast one day. I also have a ton of work to do on that FAS assignment. Urgh.

Last night was SWIM wine & cheese - my favourite med event! Wine, cheese, what's not to like? We got together at a friend's place beforehand and played board games...new awesome board game heads up - Ticket to Ride. So cool. We didn't get to finish because we had to leave for the wine and cheese but I'm really excited to play it again soon! You build train empires and it's all strategic and stuff. It didn't sound like the sort of game I'd like, but...surprise!

Tomorrow night we're hosting a little dinner party with a Moroccan theme. My friend Jen has a "tagine" which I had never heard of until she mentioned it. Wikipedia describes it as:

A tajine, or tagine (Berber: tajin), is a dish from North Africa, that is named after the special earthenware pot in which it is cooked. A similar dish, known as tavvas, is found in the cuisine of Cyprus. The traditional tajine pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay, which is sometimes painted or glazed. It consists of two parts: a base unit that is flat and circular with low sides, and a large cone or dome-shaped cover that rests inside the base during cooking. The cover is so designed to promote the return of all condensation to the bottom. With the cover removed, the base can be taken to the table for serving.

Should be fun!!!

Time keeps on ticking away - only a few more weeks of classes till I am FINISHED this degree!

As I've mentioned, I have really been liking my Ed Queensland prac. Last week I started at a special school, and it's a bit more challenging. Obviously the service delivery is different, since you have to think about the child's abilities, moods, etc. I helped with a couple of groups and administered a standardized assessment to a five year old in three sessions over the day because a five year old can't really be expected to attend to a boring test for 1.5 hours straight!!! Assessments are a bit of a weak spot for me because I haven't had the chance to do very many. They all have different rules - you need to know about basals, ceilings, what prompts you're allowed to use, specific ways of scoring, and so on. My CEs this term have been really nice and are making a point to try to find kids who need assessing so that I can do it. I've done a some SPATs CELF-P2, a few CELF screeners, a CELF-4 and a PLS-4 over the last couple of weeks...names are not really important, they're basically all just language and phonology tests. It's also important because Canada requires you to have x amount of hours for child assessment, so this adds to those hours. Of course, Ontario is the most annoying province for requirements and don't count professional development hours - YAY! I was thinking of where I'd like to live in Canada, and Kingston, Halifax and Victoria were all promising options. Jeremy seems to be in agreement. However, due to Ontario's unrealistic requirements, Kingston may have to be taken off the list. We'll see though.

So, one more week of classes/clinic and then we get a week break. Shane conveniently arrives during my break so it should be a good chance to show him around Brisbane. I've already decided that he will not be jetlagged at all. Heh.

I also need to be doing work on a big assignment about fetal alcohol syndrome. We need to use this ICF framework with a bunch of codes to describe a kid's case with reference to the literature and then we need to come up with a management plan. I think it's a 15 page paper or something? Yuck. I've looked up all the codes and researched some articles but I need to force myself to actually start writing the thing. It doesn't help that FAS is one of the most depressing things I can think of. There was a kid at the special school with it who can't talk at all and it just made me want to cry.

Today I'm going to Pranika's house to work on our Community Education project. I actually think our topic is kind of cool. It's for the Hear and Say Centre, a charity organization which provides therapy to kids after they've had a cochlear implant. Our job is to create a website specifically for their Outreach program, which is for parents/kids who live in rural and remote areas and aren't able to come in for regular therapy. Instead, they hold weekly sessions over Skype, come to the city twice a year, and have the therapists visit them at home twice a year. To be an audio-visual therapist doing this sort of work, you need to be a speech pathologist or audiologist and also do three extra years of on-the-job training. On our website, we'll have a bunch of videos which show examples of therapists using strategies with kids, printable resources, information on how to set up and use Skype, a rural section and useful links. We also need to make a brochure about the Outreach program since the one they have is a little out of date. Finally, our group has to write a paper discussing why we chose to present our resources this way, who our audience was and how we targeted them and so on. We also have to make a poster and present at a community education day to speech pathologists who will come around the our booth and ask questions. It's a pretty big project but we're in groups of 7, so everything gets divided pretty nicely.

Okay, so I've pretty much just rambled on about projects that no one wants to hear about, but that took a long time to write so i'm leaving it there!!!