My Little Corner

That’s what I feel like. Friday night Susan and I went to the Kelly Clarkson concert and a band I really like Rooney opened for them. It was really fun to see Rooney on a big stage when previously I’ve only seen them in small venues, like in Deep Ellum. The boys rocked (as always) and I could easily fall in love with pretty much any member of the band. But first and foremost, they’re a great band. Good show guys! Kelly also puts on a great show. I know there are people out there who turn their noses up when they hear her name but seriously, the girl can sing. She’s very friendly towards the audience and gives it her all on every song. She can belt it out. I loved it! It was extremely hot (and very sweaty) but totally worth it.
Today I drove to Austin (and back to Dallas) to meet the ‘rents and brother for a birthday lunch (the boy’s). I love to visit Austin but I hate driving in that town. Perhaps if I lived there I would figure out my way around and it would be okay but right now, I have no desire to ever live there and am very glad that I can ride along in the car and not have to drive. Justin’s we’re-not-sure-if-it’s-his-girlfriend-or-just-friend Emily also came. I’ve met her before and like her but the parents hadn’t so I’m sure it was very interesting on her part. But she did survive lunch and birthday cookie-cake with us…good for you Em!
Tonight I plan on finishing my huge pile of laundry, that I started last Sunday, and clean up my room. I also need to organize my life–get a new planner for the fall semester (which starts on August 17th…oh right so this is my second "summer break" of 2 weeks) so I can put all of my classes and clinic rotations in it, figure out what I’m supposed to be doing as the treasurer of our organization, clean the apartment before Erin comes on Wednesday (so excited!) and Jenn and the parents come on Friday (so excited!), prepare for having company and going to a wedding, and get ready for Chicago. Busy but thankfully it’s all fun stuff and not stressful school stuff! Okay, putting clothes in the washer now.

I rediscovered today that I don’t handle work-related stress well. I found this out last summer when interning in the store at Frontier. My boss left for a week and lots of things went wrong. One of my girls was reassigned (without asking me or my boss) when one of the guys broke his leg and couldn’t do his job anymore. For some reason, the powers that be thought he should work in the store (because when you’re on crutches it’s really easy to run to the back room and bring out merchandise) and the store girl should work his job. Stressful because I had no control over the situation and the situation was not being handled well, which added to my stress. Then, both of the computers that control the cash registers broke and we had to resort back to hand writing all of the serial numbers down (for inventory) and calculating tax by calculator with lines literally going out the door. Not fun, very stressful.
Today, my supervisor left twice while I had patients. Not just left the room, but left Callier to handle workmen at her house. I understand that life happens and you have to take care of stuff but at the same time, I’m just a student. I still need to be supervised! I can’t just step in and do her job all by myself! Stressful. I am perfectly okay with supervisors letting me do things on my own. To go get the patient, do a case history, and do all of the hearing eval. But at some point, the supervisor needs to do her job and supervise me. Look over my results or poke her head in during testing to double check that things are going okay. To leave me alone with a 94 year old woman who only speaks Spanish and tell me to figure out if she has Medicaid to pay for a hearing aid and then to figure out if she’s eligible for financial help for a second aid is out of my skill level. We haven’t even been taught how to choose hearing aids based on the hearing loss! I hate looking stupid in front of patients but I can handle that–it just makes me frustrated but not really stressed. Not being able to help a patient because I have not been properly equipped by my supervisor makes me very stressed. Fortunately this was kinda of a freak occurence and hopefully I won’t have any more supervisors who leave me alone. And today was my last day with this supervisor so it all ended well. And I’m not stressed any more. But today was not fabulous.
On a better note, we went to the lake yesterday. I love the lake. I finally figured out how to wakeboard properly. woohoo! My body definitely hurts today from it though. But I did it right! And I figured out–the hard way–that you don’t stop on a wakeboard the same way you do on a snowboard. It sounds fairly obvious and it doesn’t end pretty. Oh! And I get to see Rooney AND Kelly Clarkson on Friday. Get excited!

For the first time in my grad school career, I have a fairly easy schedule. I still am at school/work from about 8 to 5 every day but I do have Tuesday mornings off and our instrumentation class doesn’t have any tests or projects to study for/work on. We have readings and quizzes and labs so I still have things to do but the feeling of summer has set in. I’m not very motivated to get stuff done. Instead of just finishing my labs or readings or whatever in a timely manner, I choose to watch one more episode of 24. This becomes problematic because when it finally rolls around to me actually doing the work, I have even less momentum than I did before. sigh. It’s too hot to be in school right now. I should be sitting in my air conditioned apartment watching Jack Bauer save the world or I should be swimming in our beautiful pool. I should not be drawing diagrams of mulitmeters or the speakers connected to the PC to use Adobe Audition and then writing my "general impressions on what I’ve learned from this lab."
Oh well. Life is still good. I got to see some friends when I went home this past weekend. I’ll see some more in a couple of weeks at a wedding. I get to go to Chicago in August. The question now is: do I watch 24 while doing my lab write ups or do I watch the ‘Stros?

So I’m watching the All-Star Game; for those of you who don’t know this about me, I really like baseball. Specifically, the Astros are my favorite but really I’m happy watching just about any baseball game. A college friend, Anna, once found me giving myself a pedicure while watching an Astros game and remarked that "only you would be watching baseball and painting your toes–you couldn’t just paint your toes because that would be too girly." That might be true, but I also just love to watch baseball. Two weekends ago I got to see 2 Astros games–it was great! The first was against the Texas Rangers. Note to self: noon game at the Ballpark in Arlington during the middle of summer is extremely hot and uncomfortable. The second was in Houston at Minute Maid. Both were wins for the ’stros. I love our stadium. Retractable roof and a train full of huge oranges–brilliant! Plus, there were fireworks. Yay for America’s independence and celebrating that by shooting fireworks.
I’m glad that the All-Star Game is playing by NL rules (aka "real" baseball). And now I think I have a new crush: David Wright of the NY Mets. Partly because he scored the first run for the National team and partly because he’s really cute.

Long time, no blog. So I had a couple of weeks of h-e-double hockey sticks of school. This whole staggering of classes wasn’t a good idea–stupid Callier! But as of this week, I officially only have one class (which has no tests, just "self assessments" aka quizes over readings that we can take whenever we want and have 3 chances to get 8/10 correct) and the rest of my time is filled with practicum and work. So far, the easiest schedule I’ve had. And I am quite thankful for it.
So what have I been doing in the time that was formerly taken up with studying for medical and researching for projects? Glad you asked: I’m watching the first season of 24. I’m finally catching up to the rest of the TV watching world. Although most of it is pretty predictable, I’m enjoying immensely. And I like to count how many times the characters say "fine" in response to orders given. heehee.
I went home for the Fourth of July weekend. It was a blast to see my family and go do fun things with them, like watch Clemens’ return to the Astros. Go ’stros!
Okay, can watch one more episode before I have to go to bed. So addicted but I love it!