Tumbles and the whirlwind.

Woah, guys. I don't even know how long it has been since my last post. I intended to keep up with this, but grad school, friends, and sickness have decided otherwise. Alas, here I am. FINALLY updating. I'll try and keep it brief, but it has been a while (and you know how wordy I get).

FIRST, I am going to start with something that happened to me yesterday and made me laugh and laugh and realize that God is truly trying to make me anecdotal proof of his ironic humor. After that, I'll follow the established format of breaking my life up into categories (which really won't be that hard considering my life is all-consumed by only a couple of areas lately). Pick and choose what you'd like to read.

TUMBLED 'ORE. That title was more of a joke for my friend Alex. (In one of our text rants my phone autocorrected "Dumbledore" to "Fumbled 'Ore". It makes sense for this post). So anyways, I had a shitty day yesterday. I mean, it takes a lot for me to say that my day has been shitty (and it definitely could have been far worse) but let's just suffice it to say that I didn't like yesterday. This is why: I woke up late, didn't get ready in time for school, and felt sick. I got to school early to turn in a report before 7:30 am to a clinical supervisor, and was studying for a HUGE exam later that day. Then, I had an audiology review (which was kind of unnecessary) which took out of studying time for the exam. Then I went to the exam and it was WAY harder than I thought it was going to be. Feeling pretty down after that, I decided to go check my mailbox. I was told my supervisor was waiting to see me, so I went to see her. Aparently, I can't read and did not format the final report correctly (she was EXTREMELY nice about this though). I was feeling overwhelmed about life in general and almost broke down in front of her, though. Thankfully, I didn't. SHOW NO WEAKNESS. I digress. So, I went and had my session, which was the high point of my day, BECAUSE my client was incredible! He/she used a brand new AAC device WITHOUT A PROMPT. I was in Seventh Clinician Heaven. I'm pretty sure Jessica Biel waltzed in and congratulated me at one point. Anyways (again), after this I was working on reports and GA stuff and feeling pretty sick. I went to the Student Health Center (for the third time in a week) and signed up as a walk-in. I waited, and waited, and waited for 45 minutes and a large number of people coming and going in front of me before I went up to the desk to see why I had been waiting so long. Apparently, I wasn't in their system. So they readmitted me and I waited some more (another 20 minutes). Normally, I'm a very patient person. But I fell asleep at one point and finally a girl came out and asked if I'd been helped yet, to which I said, "nope." So she went in back and got me in right away. Long story made a wee bit shorter, I was screened and diagnosed with strepp throat AGAIN. I had to go home immediately and was treated like I had the plague, understandably in my field. I am SO lucky to have such supportive classmates and friends here, they all reassured me they would take notes and grab handouts for me. They are great. So I was just feeling shitty and upset and everything and I went to get out of my car. When I did, I went around back of my car and felt something hard and scratchy hit my leg, roll up my body, and pick at my hair. WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WAS???
Tumbleweed. Yes, my friends. There really are rolling tumbleweeds out here, and I was nearly impaled by one. THIS IS MY LIFE. Bunnies, sidwalk cracks, tumbleweed, hay bales: Wyo wants me to experience everything, I think. Even in the middle of the city. When that happened, I couldn't help but laugh out loud (to the amusement of the tenant below me), and go upstairs. I promptly turned on Breaking Bad and took a nap. That was my day.

SCHOOL. Is crazy. Nuts. Busy. Informative. Overwhelming. It's just all so different. I mean, I feel like I'm learning a lot of the same stuff as undergrad, just WAY more in-depth. When I feel like I understand a concept, I'm tested on it and the world is like, "PSYCH. NICE TRY, MIA." And then just skips away to the tune of "Another One Bites the Dust". Gah! I truly love my professors and all of the classes. I feel I'm much better suited to the grad school environment. High school was okay, college was great, grad school is even better. I'm finding my niche, and Wyoming is definitely the place I'm supposed to be. I'm looking into doing a thesis (instead of oral comprehensives for graduation). I'm going back and forth with it right now, just because it will be SUPER time consuming, and I want to have some free time (HA!) to hang out with friends. We will see. I'll keep you updated on that one. All I can say is, what I would be doing my thesis on is MEGA interesting and awesome and cool. :)

FRIENDS. I have met some truly incredible people out here. There's a couple other girls from the Midwest in my program, so that has been great. Also, there are some people who went to undergrad here that I have become close with. One of them introduced us to this guy, who introduced us to his friends, and now we have a pretty good base of awesome people to be around out here. It's weird how things work out like that, eh? Generally, we are never apart from each other. We are on campus from 7:30 to 6 pm most days and spend all of our time studying, doing reports, and trying to keep each other sane. On the weekends, we go to football games and out on the town. The Cowboy Bar here seems to be our location of choice (we all love our country swing dancing!). Honestly though, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to go through this experience with. I'm very lucky.

SICK. Well, I already told you I've had strep twice now. So that's fun. It takes away from productivity time (which is NECESSARY) in grad school. That sucks. It takes away from class time. I just don't like it. That's all you need to know.

HOCKEY. I AM SO SICK OF THIS LOCKOUT. And there is no college hockey here. I mean, there is a club team (which my friends are I are checking out this weekend), but no legit hockey. Bleh.

HOME. Fall has been a lot different this year. I know it's only the beginning of October, but there are really no Fall colors here. Thankfully, my mum has been sending some pictures, and friends have been posting some. So that's nice. I've been missing my friends from home lately. So if you're one of them, YOU'RE MISSED. Terribly. Also, Maggs. Because, I mean, who wouldn't miss that tub of brown love?

POKE PRIDE. I love my Wildcats, but I am REALLY loving my Pokes. The whole city is based around the university here, and it's awesome. The night before home football games, the marching band does a pub crawl and plays fight songs and other classics at all of the local watering holes. IT'S WONDERFUL. Also, the football games are fun. The university is about the size of NMU, but it feels a lot bigger. Campus is beautiful. A lot of the chants they do here are the same as back home; they even do the Tech "Beer Song"! Go Pokes!

COWBOYS. There are so many. Like, for real. I hate to say that you get used to it, but you get used to it. That doesn't make it any less wonderful when you remember that the rest of the country isn't like this, though. At the Cowboy Bar, most of the real ones come up and put out their hand and do this bowing thing and say something like, "Would ya care to dance, ma'am?" It's phenomenal. Also, those tight jeans, boots, button up shirts, and hats.... MMM MMMM. It's a different world out here, and I love it.

QUOTES. I've been obsessed lately. Mainly Winnie the Pooh, Calvin and Hobbes, and Peanuts. But really, any quote or song lyric that is even remotely applicable to my life lately I have been gravitating towards. I did this last year, as well. Hmm... maybe it's the time of year.


I can't think of anything else to say. I'll try to provide more specific stories in the next posts, but it's been so long since the last time, I forget a lot of things, and the rest just doesn't really seem relevant.

Tout mon amour!