Friday in Pictures+Words

Fridays are supposed to be my day off. Keywords: supposed to. One thing about my current schedule is that I work on Saturdays. I don’t really enjoy that but I’ve gotten quite used to it. I use Fridays to plan care/doctor’s visits, grocery shop, sleep “in,” dream about working out, and pay bills. Believe it or not, I do need a whole morning to pay bills. Planning, setting up payments, browsing online, and deciding what my “splurge” will be that pay period takes time.

Yesterday, my day went a little different.

I woke up and went to work from 9ish-2:15ish. I work at a middle school and yesterday I had a pretty good session with a bilingual (Spanish-English) 8th grader. She requires support formulating sentences that are clear in meaning and grammatically correct. She basically writes the way she talks, in a “stream of consciousness” that tends to leave the reader confused because her thoughts run all together. I am trying to work with her in a way that she can understand that there are certain things we can say but not write. That there’s nothing wrong with the way she speaks, however, when we write we have to stick to conventions. We revised an essay she had previously written, and she seemed to trust me and enjoy the editing process. I enjoyed being able to code-switch and hopefully give her some functional strategies whenever she has a writing assignment. I’m thankful that I’m able to work with students supporting them academically, and teaching them that writing is a beautiful thing and not something to be feared or detested.

I don’t know if you caught that a couple of month’s back I glazed over the fact that my new iPad mini was stolen at the middle school. Before lunch I got a call from a gentleman who said his son bought an iPad for $100 from someone, they took it to someone to try and “unlock” it and my “stolen property” message popped up with my number. He decided to Do the Right Thing like Spike Lee. 🙂 Let’s pray this intention has a happy ending.

Lunch was a nice free treat. I got to choose from this spread.

After I left the middle school, I headed over to Howard University to attend the Honors and Awards Program for the Senior Dental, Dental Hygiene and Postdoctoral Dental Programs. While at Howard, I worked and became very close to one student doctor in particular. All dentists are not “people dentists,” some could really use some lessons in bedside manner. My student doctor taught me that first and foremost patients are people. This has been something that I know firsthand as a speech therapist but now I hold other professionals to the standard. Dr. Brown is the sweetest person and most gentle doctor I’ve ever worked with. I had to go support. I’m a baby about any dental work, therefore, it’s not often that I acknowledge someone is gentle, knowledgeable and all-around great as she is!

Somebody was getting the Graduation “side-eye.” lol

After I left Howard, I needed a place to go and do some paperwork. Coffee shops tend to be the go-to places, however I had picked up a flyer about this new-age “shared work space” called Cove. When I typed it in my GPS, there was one location like 8 minutes away at 1624 14th Street in Columbia Heights. I’ll write another post soon as to why this is my ideal “productivity” place. Whoever thought of creating this space should be making big bucks soon because it appeals to: artists who are suddenly struck by the muse and need a quiet space to release, self-employed folk who can’t work in the busyness of coffee shops, academics who need “group-friendly” spaces for studying and or writing dissertations, ANYONE who is perpetually distracted at home, and a person who travels around the City for work and needs an “office-on-the-fly.” I sat in my corner of productivity for about 3 hours. All because the first trial was free. Thanks Cove! Check here to see if Cove has arrived to your city!

Don’t mind if I do!

All in all, I can say that although it was a “busy” day, it was a good day. I didn’t spend the day dreading about work the next day, and I got to enjoy the day at my own pace. Every other Friday is also payday and I can’t be mad at that!

Looking forward to more productive Fridays, on my watch!

-She

PS- Congrats to all the 2015 graduates!

WEIGHT on ME

 

This semester has been pretty heavy on me, to say the least. In spite of the fact that my favorite season is officially here (SPRINGGG!!), we’ve had a pretty tough winter (by D.C. standards) which has caused 11 snow days in these here public schools. Now, who wouldn’t love a snow day to cuddle, drink hot chocolate and culminate in a 4-day work week?

Not a girl trying to rack up her clinical hours. I work in an elementary school, my hours are dictated by face to face contact. NO school, no contact, no hours.

The fact that I’m still a little ways away from my 400 hour requirement has been weighing on me all semester. And considering we have about 5 weeks left of school, I’m sort of freaking out although everyone around me (i.e: classmates) is basically chilling because they’ve either reached their hours or don’t know what it feels like to be in my predicament. Well, I’m holding on to faith. I know I will make it, but sometimes it’s hard to see past the number I’m at now.

Besides that, my supervisor is a tough cookie. I mentioned in my last VLOG that she is an older woman, who hasn’t taken an intern in 10 years (red flag). I’ve come to the conclusion that she is one of those people who is never satisfied by other people’s work. Granted, there are areas I need to work on, that’s why I’m still in school! And I know think she wants me to be a good clinician. She’s got that tough exterior, or some may call it tough love. I don’t know if I would call it tough love, because I’m still scratching my head wondering, where is the love?

Maybe I’ve been a little spoiled with positive verbal reinforcement for most of my graduate school clinical placements. Most of the time, I look to be treated the way we are taught to report information to our students’ parents: SAY SOMETHING NICE FIRST! I don’t care if it’s…that’s a nice shirt she’s wearing, you live in ______? That’s awesome! or he is such a well-behaved boy! You don’t flat out start talking about all the negative before saying something positive. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a battlefield at my site, where every question is an exam and the help offered to me is limited. It has strengthened my belief that everyone is not meant to be a supervisor. I still do not regret the decision, because the bilingual case load I have is valuable and has taught me a lot so far.

But boy, am I tired of carrying the weight.

–She

My Praxis Story

Despite no people of color on this poster, it has a lot of great info

Last week, I completed another milestone in my #SLP life. I passed my national licensing exam in Speech Language Pathology! I am not a great test-taker so this was a topic of much anxiety for me…I studied for about 3 weeks (watching Review videos compiled by my Department, taking practice tests provided by ETS and reviewing my areas of weakness, using a Praxis review book, and searching personal blogs for bits of inspiration and test prep tips). I found some inner confidence to face an exam that in all reality was fair and related to real life situations we find in our field.

I originally scheduled my exam for February 14th. After hearing success story after story of my classmates passing the exam, I decided to push my date up by a week. Testing sites usually offer times beginning at 8am. I scheduled my exam for 12pm on a campus I had never previously visited. I also rented a car to get there. Below are some things I learned from the experience.

Smart things to do:

• If you schedule your exam at a site that you are not familiar with, take some time to go and visit the location, and find out what parking is like, etc. I didn’t own a car at the time, so I didn’t have the option of doing this ahead of time.
• Know yourself well enough to schedule your exam at a time where your brain is at its most productive state. I scheduled my exam for 12pm because I didn’t want to oversleep and I wanted to have a decent breakfast. The morning of I woke up at 7am and could not go back to sleep. Needless to say, I spent a lot of hours twirling my fingers at home that morning.
• Approach the exam with confidence. For me, I kept writing affirmations like “I’m grateful that I will pass the Praxis” and taping them on my walls, used positive self-talk, and envisioned what I would do the moment I saw my passing score. This is another perk of the computerized exam– your exam is graded right away!
• Anxiety is good, if you can learn to manage it. Anxiety can help us, whether it be that kick in the behind to stay on our study schedule, to turn down social events, stay focused at the task at hand during the exam and to stay motivated about the end result.
• Don’t second guess yourself! Your first answer is usually the correct one.

For me, the most helpful piece of advice was to stay confident because, if you’ve made it this far in your graduate school journey, you know more than you give yourself credit for! I spent a considerable amount of time studying how to take this particular exam, because it is not merely an exam of recall– it involves analyzing, synthesizing and critical thinking. I took 3 practice tests, under real live testing conditions (put my phone on airplane mode and out of arm’s reach) and gave myself 2 hours. It also helped that my school offered a Praxis preparation course, where helpful tips are given and practice exams are also administered.

I wish every #SLP2B, no matter where you are on the journey, positive wishes to stay the course…the pay off is surely worth it!

Any SLPeeps who have passed the PRAXIS have any tips they care to share?

Sincerely,

She

Remember #TheLegend

I once read somewhere that it was impossible to stay upset while listening to Bob Marley. Yesterday I was mad at the world and feeling so stressed out that I snapped on someone on my telephone (whom I deeply care about) while stuffing my face with custom-made pizza (don’t judgeth). Then Bob Marley came on in the establishment I was sitting in. Subconsciously, I began singing along and the parasympathetic branch of my autonomic nervous system kicked in (the one that restores your system in response to our fight or flight reaction) and I started to realize that I was wrong, yo. So, I give the man respect.

Whose music puts you in a better mood?