31 Photos in 31 Days (Day 15) Where’s my Brain?

Sitting in the Uni library, trying to focus on some reading by I can’t my head is too goopy, my coughs too often. I think I’ll give up and head back home under my blanket soon. Semester starts tomorrow, and it’s all a little bit much right now!

Bloggers Without Makeup

I probably wear makeup about once a fortnight when I’m heading out for dinner and/or drinks, so you’ll usually see me without makeup on this blog, but why not join in the fun of Bloggers without Makeup? :p

I’m in the Uni library, on the final day of my semester, writing an essay about modifying a LOTE curriculum to make the language learning of a girl with Asperger’s disorder more successful. It’s an interesting topic, and does not require makeup (though it does require coffee!)

Nearly there!

Planning, Stress, AWOL, and a little Red Wine.

The organisation of my trip to Germany is taking shape, finally. We have flights to and from Vienna, I have train tickets for once we’re back in Frankfurt to Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, and have started sorting out / looking at accommodation.

Getting there.

Still need to get back to Frankfurt from Berlin, but that will be with Rish, so we need to organise that one together. And harass friends about Vienna :p

from the archives of the State Library of NSW

I’ve enrolled in a “Stress Containment” course, which is running over the Thursday nights in May, through the Women’s Information and Referral Centre. I can tell that I’m not exactly managing my stress well at the moment, and I’m hoping that it will give me strategies to improve my well being, and general awesomeness. To learn to breathe. We were doing a mindfulness exercise, and it’s amazing how scattered my brain can be!

I have a lot to do over the next few weeks (in 3 weeks I’ll be on the plane to Germany!)… There’s one more essay to submit on the 14th, a conference in Melbourne from the 16th – 19th, I fly back to Canberra on the 20th… I have this course I’m doing. And life. And then work, to make sure I have everything in order in case someone calls wanting something NOW. *heh* So I may be absent. But, I still love you!

I’m off to cook up a pot of bolognese sauce… lamb mince, fresh basil, and a little red wine, among others… noms.

xx

Fiona.

More on Colours

I loved these pictures over on the xkcd blog today…

Might actually be quite a useful resource for the design nerds out there, whereas I’m probably looking at it more linguistically, with flashbacks to a lecturer saying “some languages only have x number of colour names” (might have been 2 or 3) and me being weirded out.

Now, I ask again… What’s your favourite colour??

(I have a headache, a glass of red (yes , red, the dark stripe) wine, and no desire to do uni work tonight, having submitted a 35% assignment at 10pm yesterday, and another due on the weekend of the 15th.)

Extraordinary Machine

The Groom’s Buttonhole Flower

Sitting in the uni library, piecing together information about inclusion in the early and middle years of schooling, I think I’m about to get some feedback on an assignment I completed, and it always just makes me anxious. Feeling that unsettled stomach, slightly quickened breathing, wanting to know and not wanting to know. Knowing that maybe that assignment wasn’t as good as it could have been, but then I’ll just have to blitz the final part.

I’m sitting on another credit and distinction of my two subjects again this semester. I was around that level in my undergrad, with my practical and orally assessed subjects pulling more towards passes, and my linguistics and electives (hell yeah, I did ‘Cyberculture’ as an elective towards my Speech Pathology degree) giving me Distinctions and the occasional High D.

I go through phases of intense motivation and then lulls. The lulls tend to coincide with illness, or busy work schedules. Unfortunately, there are ofter due dates then too! ;)

I can do this.

Around

• Bit of a pin cushion. Blood tests. Let’s see what’s wrong. Is it okay to eat lots of things that might be bad for you in case you’re told to never eat them again?
• Uni. Assignements. eeee
• Porno sheep getting mentioned on national radio. I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna have groupies, to quote the Pussycat Dolls
• Sleep would be nice
• Wine’s nice. But best not used as a sedative
• Thankyou for all you awesome JESUS LOVERS. Keep commenting to win a purple glitter jesus moneybox. You rule!

Who Invented Microwave Popcorn?

According to Wiki Answers:

Percy L. Spencer holds patent (US) 2480679 from 1949 on microwave popcorn.

Thank you Percy.

Went back to work today. One of the OTs tried to drop me home after our school visit this morning, but I stayed til the end. Mostly catching up on emails and progress notes. It’s amazing how fast you get behind! Especially at this time of the year when the teachers have found their feet and are starting to contact about the kids!

Headache on and off today, along with some puffiness still in my throat. Getting there. Didn’t fall asleep! :p

Friday tomorrow, then a full on weekend of Uni things! Got the first lecture for ‘Disabilities and Learning Difficulties’ – gotta get my readings done!

Valentine’s Weekend

I’ve never been one for mushy, so had no concerns that the weekend was spent with Rish’s mum visiting and me heading to Uni for 8 hours on Sunday.

Yes, I’m furthering my education instead of pushing out kids. *K-Rudd looks on in horror*. Maybe in 4 years when we’re ready for a kidlet, we might have a leader of the country (or even the opposition) that is not a middle-aged, conservative, white, Christian male? Bring on the Greens, bring back the Democrats, bring on Fiona Pattern’s Australian Sex Party. Something. Oh, and bring on the republic.

*ahem*

The cool weather and rain on the weekend, meant that an 8am Sunday start at uni needed a coffee and tights. I think Autumn is coming, with cool mornings, but still warm days this week

We also managed to eat our first home-grown tomato! Baby-steps!

Work-Nerding (aka Things that are exciting me that are work related)

Fun and progressive things in the world of Speech Pathology:

• The Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May. They’ve even put the Conference Dinner on the last night to keep us there til the end!
• The LINCS speech pathology project – looking at best service delivery models for High Schoolers with language impairment. Hoping to see her present at the conference.
• AAC in general.
• Makaton signing. I need to brush up!
• Uni! Get to do a mini research project this year… topics swirling around, but it might be to do with Adolescent language or perhaps the special school population. We’ll see!

Me 5 years ago at the first national conference I went to. It was here in Canberra, I was a student volunteer, which means I helped out but got free registration. We made tiaras for the dinner. It helped get me this job!

Term Time!

Today’s officially the first day of semester for the University of Canberra… probably the earliest starting uni in Australia, they’ve commenced having a half-length winter semester mid year. If I ever decide to head back and do a teaching qualification it will really come in handy, but for now it just means getting my brain into gear by Sunday, as I have my first face to face workshop day on Valentine’s day. Aww.

I’ve ordered my textbooks, have my unit outline for one subject – There’s close to fortnightly assessed items! This is for the first section of my mini research project… there’s a lit review due week 3! And I don’t even know my topic! *pressure*

I have my study leave mostly sorted, it looks like I’ll take fortnightly Friday mornings on study leave and a couple of hours to cover the rest of the day on flex – which I’m already starting to build!

Lots of new things this term – I’ve been allocated 7 classes at the special primary school, which will be fun and challenging – One thing I’ll have to get my head back into is mealtime management/swallowing assessments. I know it, I just haven’t done it for awhile now.

Another good thing will be getting to trial communication devices, like the DynaVox V, which is so cool for a little nerdling like me ;) I would totally get it in Pink if I ever needed one!

Actually, and I think I’ve posted about it before, one of the coolest AAC devices out there is the Proloquo2Go, a must see for you iphone nerds out there. It’s basically and iphone/itouch with voice output software built in. Perfect size!