I still suck at running, but I can bike and swim forever. My goal for next week is to run the entire 5K - last year I ran/walked. I'm super pumped :)
5.28.2009
Triathlon Season
Next week is the Danskin Women's Triathlon and as of 5 minutes ago I am officially signed up :) I am doing two tris, possibly three this year. There's a tri in NB that I can't NOT do, it's right in my backyard!
5.21.2009
I am a biking fool.
No offense at all to my old bike. It got me through my first Danskin Women's Tri last year and we didn't even come in last! But, she was heavy and the wheels were a funky size, so I had a hard time finding and keeping tires and tubes for it. So, when graduation and me getting a job rolled around I figured I would get a new bike! Nothing fancy or carbon or anything, just a good bike on which I could both race and go to the grocery store.
So, I hit the Bike Mart website and lo and behold I found my little biker soulmate. I was so excited that first day that I got Azzi (short for Azucar) that I rode her 15.5 miles. Yeah. definitely paid for it later.
Anyway, it's been about 3 days and I've already put more than 20 miles on it - I biked to go swimming yesterday (don't get me started on how much it makes me miss Austin and NB in the summertime) and then today I biked some errands. I'm getting more confident on busier streets, although sometimes I still hit the sidewalk when I'm not feeling confident enough in the drivers around me. It makes me wish that there were more fresh local markets in my 'hood. And rivers. But there's not too much I can do about that second one.
Turns out I just needed a little oomph to get my groove back. I'm stoked about the possibilities of having this bike, of the lower gasoline bill/emissions and adding a new element to my year of health!
5.18.2009
*yawn*
verve [vurv] -noun:
1. enthusiasm or vigor; spirit.
2. vivaciousness; liveliness; animation
I currently have none of these. Perhaps it's because I'm coming down off the stressfulness of being in school and the brain-fuzz the allergy medicines cause.
Humbug.
5.15.2009
I don't even know this girl...
but check out Maura's website, and please lift her and her family up in prayer. They need it today.
5.12.2009
5.11.2009
Barley?
Well...after many long hours of discussion and such, we decided to wait on getting a new puppy. Mostly because we've got a LOT of work to do with Jake...he's still sort of aggressive and still has a habit of nipping at children that we have to work on before adding another pooch to the mix. So, I'm calling the trainer today and signing Jake up for twice weekly training. We'll let that go a couple weeks and then go from there.
I am definitely the spontaneous one and the hubs is not so much, so we've done a lot of talking and compromising on the arts of measured spontaneity and not over thinking things. It ultimately came down to being used to the whole "what's next?" mentality because that's how it's been for us as long as we've been together: I'll graduate and then move to Dallas and then he'll find a job in Dallas and move and then I'll go to school and then we'll get married and find an apartment and then there's this practicum or that new project or internship in Austin and then we have a new house and then graduation and then...and then....
We agreed that it was just time to take a breather and figure out what normal is for us now before adding another little bit of crazy into the mix.
5.10.2009
GROSS!
Okay - this originally was going to be a cry for help. SOMETHING IS EATING MY PLANTS! More than frustrating, they're eating my tomato blooms! My lamb's ear! My sage! The horror! Here are some pics from the crime scene:
Now, in case you haven't noticed I've been a little preoccupied with such things as finishing my master's degree, and I've been a very bad Garden Mommy. But I'm back, and I'm ready to fight.
I've had some thoughts - maybe it's birds or worse, RATS snapping off my beautiful tomato flowers and dragging them off into the Great Beyond, so as a precautionary measure I encouraged my husband to pee on my plants. Hey, don't be ooged out, your grandparents did it. I also found out from the neighbor that rats are particularly bad around here and he's a sweet old wise man who has lived here awhile. No better place to get your gardening information.
I've had a sneaking suspicion that slugs were my nocturnal nemesis (nemeses?) because I saw their iridescent trails on the pavers a few weeks ago.
Well, tonight the hubs and I were enjoying some Maredsous on the back porch after dinner and I thought "hey! My sweet sister over at thegerminatrix.com said that slugs were raging alcoholics..." so, I opened a less fancy beer and got out some plastic lids, poured about a half cm of beer in there and went inside.
Folks, gratification has never been so swift. When the hubs went out 30 minutes later to let the dog out before bed, he exclaimed, "Dude, you are catching a sh*t ton of slugs with your beer." Thinking he was joking, I went outside and was giddy (and SUPER grossed out) at the sight of this:
Say it with me now: EEEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!
But much in the way that popping that pimple feels sooooo good, I'm glad to finally figure out what's going on. Folks, they were literally CRAWLING OUT OF THE LAMB'S EAR. Poor thing. I'll be sure and take pics of the dead slugs in the morning.
Aren't you excited.
Five Years Later...
Friday morning as I was getting ready for my defense and exam, I was stopped in my tracks by memories. I distinctly remember Mr. Richter's Business of Music class where I at once decided that a profession in the music industry was not my thing, and sometime during the semester wrote a paper and gave a presentation on music therapy. I found it the other day. It's terrible. I also remember actually giving the presentation, back when I was terrified of speaking in public.
More importantly, I remember telling my boyfriend Kyle about music therapy, and him saying "I think this would be a really good thing for you to do." See, because it was the Spring of my Junior year in college, and I was starting to freak out because I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
The original idea had actually been there all along. I was to go to music school first for performance, then med school. I had always been fascinated with how music effected the brain/body because of my own experiences using the piano as my own punching bag to deal with my mom being sick and my parents' divorce. I was actually a dual music/premed major for awhile. Then I took chemistry *shudder.* I think if I had the maturity and the drive I have now, I could have done it, but I just wasn't ready.
So, halfway through that paper/presentation I was doing, I got two really important phone calls. First from Kyle. "Did you know that the national conference for the American Music Therapy Association is in Austin this year?"
Huh? Tell me that isn't Providence.
The next call was one I had with my sister. "Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, you're going to the conference." I didn't even know what that meant, but I was really grateful and really excited. At that point I even had to go against an organization I had just joined in order to attend the conference. The decisions I now had to make were dealing with the rest of my life, way past the scope of band sorority business, and it was a huge paradigm shift for me. It no longer mattered that that was the beginning of the end of some friendships, that people would probably think I was crazy for changing my concentration to ethnomusicology when I originally HATED music history. I had finally FINALLY found my niche. Besides that, I had learned that I was fascinated by world music history, and filled my schedule with as many ethno classes as I could get my hands on. My mediocre grades also drastically improved over those last three semesters. What a difference finding my way made.
I cannot even tell you the...sigh of relief, the overwhelming, giddy sense of peace that I got when I walked through the doors of that conference. There was a band singing praise songs and so many presentations on music's effect on everything from Autism to learning and memory in the brain that I often found myself going to two presentations during the same hour. I was enchanted. Also super enchanting was the spreadsheet that Kyle made for me. I still have it. It's an exhaustive list of every music therapy school in the country, their audition requirements, tuition and fees, and length of music therapy equivalency programs. I think that was actually one of the first times that I thought, "I am going to marry this guy."
So yeah, all that came rushing back as I drove to Denton and set up my computer, prepared my notes, and started answering questions about my thesis and the last four years of my education.
The choice to become a therapist is not an easy one. It means developing a sense of self that others are often allowed to ignore. One has to constantly be in check with oneself...am I getting enough sleep? Am I responding therapeutically to every situation? Is there a reason there could be some kind of counter-transference here? Sometimes I feel like I am a pitcher and if I'm not careful I will pour too much of myself out and have nothing left. I'm not saying any of that like "Oh I'm so self-aware it's amazing." I actually describe myself as painfully self-aware because I tend to really overdo it.
I think all that said it really means that graduate school, especially as means for a therapy ends (any kind, OT/PT/Neuropsych) is a meat grinder. A fun one without any real homework. One with mirrors in a fun house that constantly reflect you back to yourself and then asks, "what are you going to do with this? how are you going to help others with the gifts you've been given?"
The whole process on Friday was nerve wracking. I didn't sleep soundly for three days, couldn't eat the day before, and had to pull out all my reinforcements including my power panties, the clinical strength antipersperant/deoderant and even yes, the belting and tucking in of a button-down shirt. The thesis defense was actually a breeze. Relatively speaking, I guess. The rest of it was really cool and tough at the same time - the whole purpose of a defense/exam is to make sure you have the vocabulary to hold your own as a Master of Arts in Music and also as a music therapist with a higher than entry level degree. So, we basically just had a big conversation on topics from score analysis to Debussy (why does my life always come back to Debussy? That's a whole other blog post.) and Ravel, symbolism, impressionism, exoticism, behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques in the psychiatric setting...everything.
Apparently I held my own.
By the way, after a national and regional presentation, I am no longer terrified of speaking in public. I have learned to play the guitar, to improvise (sort of), to conduct research, to do what I've always wanted to do: use music and help people.
More importantly, I remember telling my boyfriend Kyle about music therapy, and him saying "I think this would be a really good thing for you to do." See, because it was the Spring of my Junior year in college, and I was starting to freak out because I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
The original idea had actually been there all along. I was to go to music school first for performance, then med school. I had always been fascinated with how music effected the brain/body because of my own experiences using the piano as my own punching bag to deal with my mom being sick and my parents' divorce. I was actually a dual music/premed major for awhile. Then I took chemistry *shudder.* I think if I had the maturity and the drive I have now, I could have done it, but I just wasn't ready.
So, halfway through that paper/presentation I was doing, I got two really important phone calls. First from Kyle. "Did you know that the national conference for the American Music Therapy Association is in Austin this year?"
Huh? Tell me that isn't Providence.
The next call was one I had with my sister. "Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, you're going to the conference." I didn't even know what that meant, but I was really grateful and really excited. At that point I even had to go against an organization I had just joined in order to attend the conference. The decisions I now had to make were dealing with the rest of my life, way past the scope of band sorority business, and it was a huge paradigm shift for me. It no longer mattered that that was the beginning of the end of some friendships, that people would probably think I was crazy for changing my concentration to ethnomusicology when I originally HATED music history. I had finally FINALLY found my niche. Besides that, I had learned that I was fascinated by world music history, and filled my schedule with as many ethno classes as I could get my hands on. My mediocre grades also drastically improved over those last three semesters. What a difference finding my way made.
I cannot even tell you the...sigh of relief, the overwhelming, giddy sense of peace that I got when I walked through the doors of that conference. There was a band singing praise songs and so many presentations on music's effect on everything from Autism to learning and memory in the brain that I often found myself going to two presentations during the same hour. I was enchanted. Also super enchanting was the spreadsheet that Kyle made for me. I still have it. It's an exhaustive list of every music therapy school in the country, their audition requirements, tuition and fees, and length of music therapy equivalency programs. I think that was actually one of the first times that I thought, "I am going to marry this guy."
So yeah, all that came rushing back as I drove to Denton and set up my computer, prepared my notes, and started answering questions about my thesis and the last four years of my education.
The choice to become a therapist is not an easy one. It means developing a sense of self that others are often allowed to ignore. One has to constantly be in check with oneself...am I getting enough sleep? Am I responding therapeutically to every situation? Is there a reason there could be some kind of counter-transference here? Sometimes I feel like I am a pitcher and if I'm not careful I will pour too much of myself out and have nothing left. I'm not saying any of that like "Oh I'm so self-aware it's amazing." I actually describe myself as painfully self-aware because I tend to really overdo it.
I think all that said it really means that graduate school, especially as means for a therapy ends (any kind, OT/PT/Neuropsych) is a meat grinder. A fun one without any real homework. One with mirrors in a fun house that constantly reflect you back to yourself and then asks, "what are you going to do with this? how are you going to help others with the gifts you've been given?"
The whole process on Friday was nerve wracking. I didn't sleep soundly for three days, couldn't eat the day before, and had to pull out all my reinforcements including my power panties, the clinical strength antipersperant/deoderant and even yes, the belting and tucking in of a button-down shirt. The thesis defense was actually a breeze. Relatively speaking, I guess. The rest of it was really cool and tough at the same time - the whole purpose of a defense/exam is to make sure you have the vocabulary to hold your own as a Master of Arts in Music and also as a music therapist with a higher than entry level degree. So, we basically just had a big conversation on topics from score analysis to Debussy (why does my life always come back to Debussy? That's a whole other blog post.) and Ravel, symbolism, impressionism, exoticism, behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques in the psychiatric setting...everything.
Apparently I held my own.
By the way, after a national and regional presentation, I am no longer terrified of speaking in public. I have learned to play the guitar, to improvise (sort of), to conduct research, to do what I've always wanted to do: use music and help people.
5.08.2009
omg done.
I have something more poignant to say, I promise, but that is going to have to wait 'cos I haven't really slept in 3 days and when I got home I was like yep. shower, then nap.
This is so surreal...it's like...okay...now what? I mean, I know now what - I do assessments next week and get rolling on the best career of my life but it's still kind of...wow.
This is so surreal...it's like...okay...now what? I mean, I know now what - I do assessments next week and get rolling on the best career of my life but it's still kind of...wow.
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