My Little Corner

Last night I went to the Fort Worth Rodeo. As Mary put it, "You hear ‘rodeo’ and you think ‘Julia!’" Right. I grew up in Houston and we did go to the Houston Rodeo. Mostly we went to see Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers perform (my mom liked the Gatlins) because at the Houston Rodeo, there’s always a big concert at the end. Not so at the Fort Worth Rodeo. Now, don’t get me wrong, I had a blast. But I realized that there is a whole ‘nother world, the cowboy world, that I am not a part of. It’s fun to visit and see the boys get bucked off of broncos and such; but at the end of the day, I’m the girl getting funny looks because I’m not wearing Justin boots.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up in the cowboy world. Would I have been one of the barrel racing girls instead of a dancer? Growing up on a ranch, my daily chores probably would have included cleaning up the horse poop. I could have me a bare-back rider in tight jeans take me out to the local dance hall. Ye-haw! It would have been an interesting life and probably very different than what my life is right now. But, would I still have the same personality and the same quirks that I have now? Nature versus nurture debate, begin now.

I know I know. I’m in grad school. I should be able to figure out what all I am supposed to read (and read it) before I get to class. But there is no way anyone would be able to look at what is supposed to be read and what week it’s supposed to be read by and then what to do with the extra readings that are left over simply by look at two pieces of paper that do not match up. I need some kind of Rosetta Stone or something. (okay I tried to link to the Word docs of my reading list and the projected schedule but had no luck with that…if you know how to get a Word doc from my computer to magically pop up when you click on a link, let me know and you will be able to physically SEE what I’m talking about. But I’m pretty sure Jamie is the only person who reads this so you can just look at it in person when you move back *smile*) Not having my textbooks also is problematic. Stupid Amazon. Said they shipped on January 20th but the estimated arrival date is March. What?! School will almost be over by then!! sigh. I’m basically just complaining because I want to finish my book but I feel guilty spending reading time on fun stuff when I have 2 other classes with as much stuff to read as the class above. Why am I in grad school again? Oh, right: 4 more years of student discounted movie tickets.

My ballet teacher would always tell us that. "Discipline is freedom." Basically it meant whatever exercise you’d just finished wasn’t good enough and you’d have to do it again.

Last Friday in our cerumen management lab (google "cerumen" if you really want to know) I saw this picture on the wall (the lab also doubles for balance testing, hence the picture of a dancer on balance). It inspired me. I decided that my goal is going to be to duplicate that pose and hang my picture next to it by the end of the semester. Now, let’s do a reality check: when I was taking ballet classes five days a week in high school, I was not able to do that. I have not taken a ballet class since May, much less done any remotely physical activity since then. So tonight, yes tonight, I took a class.

I’m going to be very honest and say that I was quite happy when the adult ballet class was actually composed of adults–a couple of women 20+ years older than me–because it made me feel better about the shape that I was in and what I was still able to do. I’m a horrible person for thinking things like that. Forgive me The class started out fine; it felt good to stretch. About halfway through I realized I was breathing kinda hard and by the end of an hour and a half I was feeling the pain. I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow. Advil is going to be my new best friend. But you have to start somewhere, right? I’ve reconsidered my goal; it might have to be completed by the end of my three years at Callier instead of by the end of this semester. However I have taken the first (painful) step towards that goal. Discipline is freedom: if I have the discipline to continue to stretch my body, the freedom….will do something or other…..any suggestions for tying that back in?

was so exciting when you were little, right? Truth be told, it still kinda excites me–but also kinda freaks me out. My first day back, starting my second semester of a doctoral program and it was going to be from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Woo hoo.

Okay, so it’s not exactly 12 hours of straight school: My first clinical rotation of the day starts at 8:45 and my last class of the day ends at 7:45 BUT technically I left my apartment at 8:10 this morning and got back to my apartment at 8:15 tonight. And I had an hour for lunch/drive time between Callier Centers. So much for easing back into the swing of things.

My dad said "welcome to the real world" but in the "real world" you don’t have homework/studying/reading to do when the work day is over.

Now, with all this pessimism you might think it was a bad day. You think wrong, my friend (or whoever actually reads this thing….Jamie might be the only one ’cause she’s definitely the only person who comments–but how many people my blog actually reaches, I digress). I had a really good day. My supervisor is great; only nice old people came to the Assistive Device Center today; and I saw all 7 of my classmates for the first time since our last final in December. And I’ll be a doctor one day, though it seems far far far away, this is how that’s going to happen. First day of school.

So I’m kinda not so great at posting on this blog of mine. It’s January 2006 and the last update was in November 2005. Oops.

Hmm…what has happened since November? I finished my first semester of grad school (yay!), went home to Houston for 4 weeks, and now am back in Dallas. I worked at my dad’s office for the first two weeks; a lot of "oh I remember when you were this big!" and "so what exactly are you in school for? uh huh, and what exactly is audiology?" but it gave me something to do and my boss was nice to give me time off. My college roommate Mary (and one of my favorite people EVER!) came to visit me in H-town. That was a lot of fun. Yay for Mary! I went to Colorado on a ski trip with NW Houston Young Life. Had a blast hanging out in the lodge at Winter Park!! The girls in my cabin were great; the bus ride was not so great. I don’t even want to write about it and have to re-live it. Let’s just say that I’ve been on many YL bus trips to Colorado and this was the worst bus issues I’ve ever had. But there was pretty snow. I love Colorado! I got back to Houston the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas was great. Brother came in for a few days; cool cousin Jamie came in for Christmas. Lots of good family time. Monday morning I woke up and felt nasty. I basically stayed on the couch for 4 days before I even ventured out of the house. We watched A TON of TV on DVDs. It was fabulous! Except for the being sick part. Mom got hooked on watching the fourth and fifth season of Gilmore Girls. I ended up staying through New Year’s Eve (not my plan but it was very low key which I really enjoyed) and driving back to the Big D on Sunday–with a massive fever blister. Ew! and Ouch! I’ve been running errands, hanging out with Jamie, and not much else. I went to the doctor today and came home with four different medicines. But I’m feelin’ pretty good right now! School starts on Monday and I’m thinking it’s gonna be even more crazy busy than last semester. I think it’ll be good but it might take a few days to adjust from doing nothing all day to gettin’ back into the swing of things! My sweet friend Natalee is coming in on Saturday and we’re going to stick together when we go to our friend Jess’s wedding on Saturday. Natalee and I are both not bringing "and guest" to the wedding. Single people stick together! This is the first wedding of college friends since we graduated so there will be lots of catching up with people, which will be fun. And I want to find a really cute new dress to wear, because even though I won’t have a boy on my arm, I will look cute, gosh darn it!

Okay that was a good update. Perhaps I will post more often in the New Year. We’ll see how it goes!