**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!