Why I love working with kids ;)

Me and roomie debated about whether this kid has a phonological disorder. ;) Methinks he is just assimilating the /f/ from fire to truck, but roommate thinks he has an idiosyncratic phonological process for replacing a stop /t/ with fricative /f/.

Kid below is soooo cute, esp the last part ("I love you too but I don't like you all the time!") LOL.

Last week of school

I am sad that summer '08 is coming to an end. Its been the best. But alas, its almost time to let go and move on again.

Life has been pretty good these two weeks. I slept in late this morning, although quite unintentionally. School load has been lighter and I've been keeping myself busy with some extra tutoring and babysitting. Today I met Korean guy II who has the most interesting life. He's in the Korean military and has been deployed to the North/South Korea border and also to Iraq, and is now funded by the military to do his PhD in Industrial Engineering. We talked about Lee Kuan Yew too, of all things. ;)

I have a final on Wednesday though. Boo.

Oh, and American Apparel and Izod are my new favorite clothing brands. I wonder why I never noticed them before??

Hello I'm home

I'm back from Louisville ("Luhvul"), Kentucky! I actually saw a billboard with a picture of Colonel Sanders on it, but we didn't see any KFCs when we were there. Haha. Louisville is really cool tho. We stayed in a nice hotel, walked around the river and chilled. I really liked that this retreat was actually really relaxing (first program was at 10am, and we only had two short sermons the whole retreat), instead of the crazy-intensive ones that I've been to in the past. The weather was crazy hot and humid though, totally reminiscent of a certain little island in Southeast Asia.

We went to the Louisville Slugger Museum and toured the factory where they made the bats. And we each got a "mini bat" as a souvenir which was nice. :) And I also saw videos of the best hitters in history (who would've thought Babe Ruth was so old and chubby?), and also all the baseballs autographed by presidents of the USA: Calvin Coolidge, JFK, FDR, Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, George Bush Sr. and Jr.,..... and a "Obama vs. McCain?" display. LOL.

Arrived back in Lafayette at about 9:30pm, after making a stop at the Edinburgh outlets where I bought a Nike cap and wristlet and two Izod golf shirts for ~$35 :). I didn't even know we had outlets within 1.5 hours of Lafayette! Probably won't be my last time there hurhurhur. Anyway I've been wanting to watch the X-files movie all weekend, and I was sooo happy when I finally got back in town so I convinced Scott to go watch the 11:40pm show with me. So yep, I'VE WATCHED IT FINALLY.

Well its not the best movie ever made but I'm still happy to see Mulder and Scully again, although they aged sooooo much. I think Skinner's probably the person who aged the best. The movie was pretty creepy though, and now I'm really spooked out about snow and snowplows. But thankfully I won't be seeing those for some time yet! Hopefully by the time winter rolls around I would have forgotten all about this. Oh, and we pretty much spent the whole movie yelling at Mulder to call for backup or dial 911 for goodness' sake!!

More summer adventures

Me and roomie drove back to campus at last night because I heard that the results of Fall scheduling were out and I buay tahan to wait until this morning. After moping around the house for a half hour, I finally convinced her to make the mad dash with me at 10:00pm back to our 2nd home, the lovely Heavilon Hall, parked illegally at handicapped parking, RAN down the hallway into the grad room, grabbed the results off the wall....

I got all the placements I wanted!!!!

Actually we both did, so we're very pleased. :) In the Fall I will be at: the birth-to-3 program (little babies, here I come!), ClarianArnett (boring Adult speech and swallowing stuff, but I need the hours), Kids Club (kids pragmatics group) and an adult stuttering client (should be interesting..).

Anyway, I've had a nice couple of days. I have sooo much more time to relax now that summer clinic is over. I babysat Av the last two nights too, for 3 hours each day. Trying to keep a little preschooler occupied for 3 hours is no easy feat. I greatly admire all mothers!

Check out our neat volcano! We used playdoh to make a volcano then made it erupt!He is such a little darling. :)

Brand new week

Its Monday and I'm well-rested, pumped full of caffeine, and ready to take on the new week!!

Phonology Group is overrrrr, which means I have 3 free mornings a week to sleep in till 8am, enjoy my breakfast, read news online (severe storm alerts again today), go for golf lesson, and THEN head to school. :)))

But I still have to sit through three hours of boring school methods class this afternoon. PAH.

Roomie made pumpkin pancakes last night (we suddenly craved pumpkin), and tonight we're having a little dinner party. She's going to roast a chicken and rice, and I'm responsible for the side dish of stuffed peppers and cupcakes for dessert. ;) It feels soooo good to have leisure time to engage in culinary pursuits!

Working away

Hello peeps, its the weekend!!!! Weather has been lovely, had some good Mexican and Thai food, drinks, watched Mamma Mia, practiced some golf. I bought some pink foam balls (everything is breast cancer support these days!!!) and I've been practicing on the stretch of grass near my apartments that is by the road. Everyone that drives by either honks at me or yells "FORE!!!!!!!". Its pretty funny.

I've been playing A LOT of board games lately. Including Loaded Questions, Big Taboo, Catch Phrase, Last Word, Apples to Apples.. kids games: Uno, Uno Stacko, Sorry, Kerplunk etc. etc. Playing at parties, during therapy with kids, during therapy with adults.... Its a good thing I really like board games. ;)

Lotsa great movies coming out this summer. I've been really wanting to see Wall-E and Kungfu Panda and the Batman movie because people keep raving about it. But best of all: the X-FILES MOVIE is showing July 25th - which is next Friday! Except that I won't actually be here because I'll be in Louisville, KY next weekend for church retreat. Pity. I was going to drive up to Chicago for the big X-Files party. But its okay. I've roped in Scott to watch it with me.. he's like 40 years old so he grew up in the X-Files generation too hurhurhur.

Fun times

I'm sad that summer is coming to an end because its been really great and I really haven't had much time to enjoy it at all since I'm stuck in school all day.

I'm pretty darn exhausted right now though. Today was exciting because Obama came to Purdue and everyone was hyped up about it and there were bomb squads and snipers. Exciting stuff. We also made a playdoh volcano today with the kids which was awesome. They loved it and wanted to make it "erupt" over and over and they played nicely and took turns which was very nice. :)

I ordered my first golf clubs from Amazon and I can't wait for it to arrive. Its pink and black. :) I'd probably go practice a bit more this weekend.

Oh and also I'm going to start tutoring another Korean guy II (friend of current Korean guy) next week, after my classes end. Golfing is wayyy pricey so I'm going to need all the cash I can get!!

Eventful Monday

Today was the last therapy session for one of my clients and I'm really sad to let her go. I always get very emotionally attached to the kids, especially if I've spent a significant amount of time with them. I mean, they are such little cuties. Well, this girl is 9, so she's not really that little (and she's also really smart), so its been quite a different experience compared to my preschoolers in the Spring.

I love kids. They have such simple, uncomplicated lives.

I also had my first golf lesson today! WHEE!! It was really fun and the weather was perfect and the golf course was pretty and the instructor was great. He also loaned me a golf club so I can practice until I get my own. Oh, and the best part is that he said I'd probably only need 2-3 more lessons before I can play a round of golf! (If I wanna just play for fun, that is, and not competitively) Which is a good thing because its not like I can really afford that many lessons. Golf is a reeeeally expensive hobby.

Lovely Sunday

I chipped my index-finger nail playing football on Friday and now its hurting like crraazy. Ouch!! I've never played football before and that darn ball is harder and heavier than it looks! I've also been invited to play volleyball with them on Wednesdays and it sounds like a good idea, except that I'll have to remember to trim my nails before.

Anyway, my golf lesson got canceled yesterday due to bad weather, can you believe it??! The weather has been perfect all week when I'm stuck indoors doing work, but the one day that I wanna go outside...! Church canoe trip was canceled too, for which I am glad because hopefully I'll be able to make it. Anyway, golf has been rescheduled for tomorrow, which is forecast to be sunny. *crosses fingers*

Summer is awwwwesome. Except that I have way too much work to do and way too little time to play. Pooey. And also I hate the bugs. Aside from that, its great.

I am learning the names of sooooooooooooo many plants and animals. I have to get my kids or friends to tell me what everything is, e.g. difference between squirrel/chipmunk/opossum, names of different types of spiders/insects/trees/plants. People spend so much more time in the outdoors over here! Pingbu was telling me that a lot of people think Americans are 'dumb' cos they do poorly in math and science compared to international standards, but if they had tests on things like nature, fixing cars and pipes, housebuilding, music, sports, knitting and baking, Americans would probably ace it. So really, its just a cultural emphasis on different things and "intelligences". Thats what I think anyway.

Frrrrrriday!

Its been one long week. I've been working very very hard this week and now its finally the weekend! Time to go out and play again! :)))

Tomorrow I'm starting my first golf lesson with a PGA professional. ;) I've also invested in a nice little golf outfit of white polo shirt and black Purdue shorts so far, but decided to hold out on the golf clubs and shoes until I decide for sure that I want to take up this sport. But I'm excited to start learning tho, because the weather these two weeks could not be more gorgeous.

I'm supposed to go to a "catholic" picnic tonight with my roommate. Should be quite an experience. I've been told that catholics are quite the alcoholics, LOL. Hey it even rhymes!

There's also an article in today's paper that AT&T has a Purdue discount for the iPhone service plan. Korean guy also told me that the iPhone 3G is on sale for only $199 (!) and so now I'm totallllly lusting after it!!!!!!! And it has GPS too. Ahhh!!!!

PAH!!!

Today I had my first experience calling the cops because some %!$%@* car hit-and-ran on me! I was just stopped at the stop sign when it swerved into the parking lot (at high speed mind you), smashed my headlight and zoomed off!

Anyway, I learned that if you're ever the victim of any car accident, the first thing you should do is call the police. Because I got scolded by both the operator and the police officer for waiting 30-45 mins before I called because I was driving around the parking lot hoping to find the perpetrators. And also, even though you are shocked and it happened really quickly, you should still try to remember the license plate number. Which I didn't. Why? Because I wasn't expecting them to run away. I think my faith in the goodness of man is misplaced.

I'm now very annoyed because I can't get their insurance to pay for it, and neither can I get my insurance to pay since the damage is most likely under $1000. Which means I am stuck with a broken headlight since not like I have the money or time to repair my car. MORONS!!!!!! *shakes fist in air*

Couple of pictures

Bailey, the all-american dog:The extremely patriotic cake:Finally... a little peek into the life of a Speech Pathologist (sorting out artic cards at 12:45am):

Independence Day

Long weekends are soooooooooooooo awesome! Chilled out at Chumley's last night with Gretchen's brother, then today we had a little 4th of July cookout at Tony and Meg's place. Johanna and I made all-american apple pie from scratch! Then we also helped Ilana make a patriotic flag cake and made the dog wear a patriotic bandanna. HAHA. Then we played Big Taboo and Catch Phrase, which was a lot of fun. ;)) I'd try to remember to post some pictures. Also, their neighbors set off like a ton of fireworks!!

And there's still two more days left to this awesome weekend! :))) I'd like to go shopping tomorrow if I can convince someone to go with me. Maybe drive to Indy or Chicago. Who knows? Anyway gas prices are down (a little) to $3.99. Goodie. With any luck it'd go back to being $2.99 again...... ;P

And I just learned today that Tony is the great great-grandson of Thomas Hobbes the philosopher. How cool is that? (Not like I actually know anything about Thomas Hobbes, but I do know that the tiger in Calvin & Hobbes was named after him)

The weather these couple of days has been SO PERFECT. Love summer, love school, love USA!