Schedule

I probably won't be able to post much for the next couple of weeks. Here's why:

• September 29: Short Essay Due
• September 30: Meet with my scholarly project advisor to finish up my project
• October 1: 2 hour clinical education meeting to go over things we already know
• October 5: my birthday (happy birthday to me *sigh* see below)
• October 6: Paper due
• October 7: Paper due
• October 8: Final exam and Business plan project due
• October 9: Advanced Eval project due and Paper due
• October 13: Scholarly project presentations
• October 14: 2 hour meeting

All of this is in addition to class and I just found out about 90% of it over the weekend. I can't even type one more sentence without going into a huge rant about it, so I think I'll stop here and go get to work on some of this before class.

Perspective

I'm currently procrastinating on writing the conclusion to my scholarly project. Although it's still a rough draft and won't be finished completely, it'll still be a relief to have it done. My goal was to get it done this morning before class, but I'm not sure I can make myself work that hard. I've been feeling pretty unmotivated this week, and that's really going to come back and bite me. There are only 2 more weeks of class after this and a lot of things to accomplish in that time. I know I can get it done, but I really have to get focused!

This weekend is the big Fayette Fall Fest, although it is supposed to rain that day :( I don't know if I'll even get to spend much time up there, other than to eat lunch and maybe walk around once. I probably will stop up at the softball tournament though. They're having a softball tournament that day for a boy (well, he's a teenager) in our town that has leukemia. It's a pretty sad situation, but this kid is amazing. He has kept good spirits the entire time since he was diagnosed. I know it's got to be difficult to have to miss school and make so many trips to the hospital. But he's kept a good attitude throughout it all. This situation really puts things into perspective. A lot of times, we complain about little things in our lives that really aren't that big of a deal, yet here is a 14 year old kid keeping a positive attitude throughout chemo treatments and trips in and out of the hospital. We are having a 24 hour prayer vigil for him at church this Saturday/Sunday. I signed up for 11:30pm. I highly recommend that anyone from around Fayette come whenever you can, even if it is just for 5 minutes. We want to have at least one person in the church for the whole 24 hour period. And trust me, if anyone would like to stay the night there, I am more than willing to stay too, just to make sure those 12am to 7am hours are covered!

With that being said, I have no complaints for this post. And the positive note for the day is - I am so blessed to live in such a loving community.

Monday Monday

It's gonna be a long week...Thank goodness I'm almost caught up on all the papers that are due. I hate leaving things for the last minute, even though I do my best work under pressure. I'd rather get all of this out of the way, so I can focus on finishing up this scholarly project that I've been avoiding. I think when it is complete, I will throw myself a huge celebration. Even if I am the only one celebrating, I will be so relieved.

My "date" Friday night went well. I had a good time, but I am really not looking for a relationship where I have to spend every single waking moment with someone else. And it seems like anyone I ever go out with wants that from me. I feel bad, because this makes me sound like a mean person and I have really been trying not to be mean and negative. I guess it just comes from growing up as an only child. I spent a lot of time by myself and I liked it that way. I like having "me time" to just sit around and watch tv by myself or be lazy by myself. I don't always need to have someone else around. It's not that I don't ever want a relationship, it's just that I'm perfectly happy with the way things are. That's why, when this guy asked me to come over again on Saturday, I had to say no thanks and explain to him that I don't want to rush right into anything. I think he took it pretty hard and that made me feel bad, but you know what? If you can't take it slow with me and respect the fact that I need some time to myself to do what I want to do with my day, then I guess it's just not meant to be. I am hanging out with him again on Thursday, so we will see what happens. I want to get to know him better, but not by spending every single second of all of my free time with him. I guess that makes me sound pretty selfish...but it will never work if I get suffocated.

Today will be a long day. I'm driving to Toledo for class, then to Montpelier to the eye doctor, and then finally home. There's nothing like spending $20 on gas in one day. I have a feeling the eye doctor is going to tell me that I need glasses for driving at night...which won't make me very happy since my insurance plan didn't offer vision insurance. Let's keep our fingers crossed that these eyes are working just fine. Let's also keep our fingers crossed that my eye doctor never retires. I will probably cry if/when he does. Seriously.

"Attitudes count more than achievements"

This is my new motto. I read it in a book this week, and I really like it. What good is being a DPT and CSCS if you have a bad attitude about it? The whole point of pursuing this career was to help other people. Why wouldn't I want to get the best I can out of my education so that I can do the best I can with that knowledge when I start working? Three big clinicals are coming up and it will be time for me to "show my stuff" by putting my knowledge to work. If I really want to help people, I need to have a good attitude about it. I really feel like God put me on this earth to help others and from now on, I'm going to try my hardest to always have a good attitude about it.

As far as school goes, it's pretty hectic right now. There are approximately 3 weeks until I am done with classes forever (excluding continuing ed courses). That is a good feeling. It won't be long until I'm sending out resumes and scheduling Boards.

In other news, I have a date tonight with a guy from W.U. I've known him for a long time, just kind of lost touch for the past few years. It should be fun. We're supposed to be going to the Williams County fair. Although, I would just like to point out that one date does not make a relationship and I have certainly not been searching for a relationship, so we'll see how it goes!

Is there a limit to the number of TB skin tests a person can get?

Well, I guess I really got what I asked for when I wrote that post about needing more patience. The guest speaker didn't show up for class yesterday at 2, so class was "cancelled" after we had all shown up for it, and we didn't have another class until 4:30. I could have whined and been annoyed about this (on the inside I was) but instead, I took the opportunity to sit down in the "LRC" (yes, we have an LRC at Scott Park campus - just like the old Fayette High School! ha) and add 4 more pages to my 8-9 page paper that is due next week. So I am making progress in my goal to become a more patient person.

And speaking of papers, I have three to get done by the weekend. Awesome. Not only that, but my email inbox has been bombarded with other busy work to get done by October: schedule a CPR renewal, get another physical done and TB skin test for my health form (which I just did in April), etc. Luckily, my SP is almost done, otherwise I would really be stressed out right now.

In other news, I got called for jury duty yesterday. Luckily, it was just for Fulton county and there is some form included that I can fill out stating that I can't serve because I am a full-time student. Sadly, I would almost rather serve on jury duty than sit in class for 4 more weeks, but I have to fill out the form because I have been called for September - December and that conflicts with clinicals :(

Positive note for yesterday: The Biggest Loser started up again!

Countdown to Scholarly Project completion

If I learned anything at all today, it is that I seriously need more patience. Although I have gotten better, I have a long way to go. I had a frustrating morning driving all over Toledo from campus to campus all to get some papers signed for my clinical. After all that fun, I had a meeting with my SP advisor and then class from 2-4. Although we lucked out today and only had class until 4, it was still pretty frustrating to sit there until 4:15 as the guest speaker went over. In the grand scheme of things, 15 minutes is not that big of a deal (and I keep trying to tell myself this), but I couldn't help but be frustrated. I really need to grow out of this ASAP, because I am 100% certain that working in health care means that you don't leave work on time very often.

On the plus side, I don't meet with my SP advisor again until October 1st! Apparently, I either really impressed him with the amount of work I've gotten done so far or he just doesn't care about my project anymore since it didn't get accepted for the OPTA conference. Either way, we both agreed today that I'm almost done with it! yay! I can't wait until that project is completed.

On the downside, I have three papers to write this week...and a looming "PT business plan" to get done by the end of the semester (three weeks from now). No more being lazy, it's time to get to work! My goal is to really crank out the papers this week so that I can enjoy my weekend and then focus on finishing my SP next week. We'll see if I really accomplish that goal or not. All I got done tonight was setting up the format for each paper and saving the files. And now that football is on, that's all I will get accomplished tonight. My goal is to have a very productive Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!

Keeping with the theme I started last week - Today's positive note was: although there were 70 cattle loose on US20 today, I did not hit any of them!

Gleaned vs. Gleamed

Well, I can't even make myself work on my scholarly project anymore. I got my chart done and got EndNote installed. That's all the work I can manage to do in two weeks time. I don't even know how to use EndNote in combination with Word (which my paper is in), so I guess I'll just stop here until someone shows me how to do it.

The trauma rehab observation went well yesterday morning. I thought it would be a lot more "traumatic" than it really was. I did realize that I could never work there though. I was lost in about 5 minutes of walking around and the parking garage was pretty annoying. Usually you can exit without having to go around and around every single floor, but not this one. You have to wind around and around and around through every floor and through construction on every floor until you can exit. I was only on the 3rd floor, but by the time I got out, I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

Other than school, my plans for this weekend are to watch a lot of football. My plans should include writing an 8-9 page paper for advanced exam/eval, but that won't happen. I really don't see how I can outline treatment plans for patients who don't even have a weight-bearing status. Plus, I don't really feel like gleaming and gleaning (two of Dr. H's words of choice for how we should write this paper). So...I'm pretty sure I'll end up ignoring the paper for the weekend just relaxing yet again.

I'd like to put the "End" in EndNote

I STRONGLY dislike the EndNote software. Although I must say, I am very grateful to my friend, Amber, for letting me borrow the disk to install it for Mac. UT is amazingly ignorant and thinks that every student has a PC. They like to brag about how "convenient" they've made the download and installation of EndNote for their students by making it a link on the myUT website, but really, it's not "convenience" at all for those of us who have a Mac.

Even so, I am getting pretty frustrated with trying to make EndNote add the "et al." into my citations. Ugh. I know it will automatically put this in for APA format if you just add ALL the authors names, but since I typed up my own bibliography, I don't KNOW all the authors names. I only know 3 of the authors and then "et al.," which you should be able to manually add, but I can't seem to figure out how. Nice.

I did manage to find a bright side to yesterday and today, despite the frustration over scholarly project.

Yesterday: My CI from Bryan hospital agreed to be one of my references for my resume next year!

Today: My official certificate came today stating that I am a CSCS. I can officially put those letters behind my name and start designing workout programs! yay!

Countdown to May...or maybe just October 13

Well, I probably won't get too many updates in this week. It's going to be a hectic one. Although, it was nice to have the day off today. I had a great weekend with my nephew and the rest of my brother's family. It was so good to see them and meet baby Wyatt. He is an adorable baby!

Now it's back to the real world, or as real as it gets in PT grad school I guess. I have a lot of work to accomplish on my scholarly project, a trauma rehab observation at Toledo Hospital at 8:30 am Thursday morning followed by a 4 hour break and then class till 6:30 pm, and (unfortunately) I see that we're doing a lot of group work this week in class...sigh. It's going to take a lot of caffeine to keep me motivated. I think I need a countdown of the number of days left until my scholarly project is due. Maybe that will give me a kick in the behind to get it finished.

There is nothing much else new with me at all. I feel like I've been pretty anti-social lately. It all started with the major study marathon for the CSCS exam, but now I can't decide if I'm just being lazy or if my idea of "fun" has changed over the past month or two. Maybe it's a little bit of both. I think trying to save money has a little something to do with it also. Either way, I've been perfectly happy just sitting at home watching tv on Friday and Saturday nights. This is either a pathetic or wise decision...haha.

However, I have decided that from now on, I will find something positive about each day, even if that day has been rough. Today's positive note has to do with the fact that I found an "error" in my registration at UT last week. We are supposed to do our own registration, but our faculty decided to change it at the last minute and add a class and drop a class. They did this as a "batch registration" for us. Well, come to find out, I was never de-registered from the class that I was supposed to be de-registered from. Since we're considered full time status anyway, I didn't think it would make much difference in the amount I paid for my tuition, but I sent an email about it just in case. You never know, sometimes those classes cost $400+! Well, the error was resolved and I received my refund check in the mail this weekend. I opened it today and it was a whopping $5! But hey, it was $5 that I didn't have before. With that $5, I can get a $5 footlong, a 6-pack of 24 oz. pepsi bottles at the grocery store, or two new ringtones for my cell phone.

The cutest baby ever has come to NW Ohio

Since I am being extremely lazy and non-productive this morning, I might as well update everyone on the events of the weekend. My brother and his family are here! I got to meet my nephew, who is by far the cutest baby ever! He is getting baptized this afternoon. I will be sad to see them leave tomorrow. They actually got here a bit early on Thursday so I got to spend some time with them that evening, and yesterday we got to spend time with a lot of family all together. It was nice.

Although, yesterday was somewhat of a stressful day for me. I spent 2 hours on the phone with the customer service people at Schwinn fitness about my exercise bike. Ugh. On Thursday, they told me that it was all taken care of and they were going to ship me the parts that I needed (two parts were distorted and the seat wouldn't lock). Yesterday, they called back and said they couldn't replace them and I had to ship the whole bike back - AFTER telling me to dispose of the distorted parts (which I did). So, obviously, I couldn't ship the whole bike back if I don't have all the parts and since THEY told me to dispose of those parts, it is THEIR fault. Ugh...So frustrating! I tried to be nice but the guy I was talking to was so mean and rude. For example, he asked me to take pictures of the distorted parts.....UMMMM....how do you take pictures of parts you have disposed of??? Needless to say, I was pretty stressed. They are supposed to let me know in 7-10 business days if they can ship me a new bike or not. Apparently, they can not ship the individual parts, THEY HAVE to ship a whole bike at a time. Who knows why...It makes no sense. If they can't ship me a bike, I am out $250. Nice.

But, for now, I refuse to focus on that. Today is going to be a GOOD day. My nephew gets baptized and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a good day for Michigan football too! GO BLUE! Other good things about the day: I get to eat at The Barn (it's a restaurant - I'm not that hillbilly) and my mom ordered a cake from Kristie's and it's NOT chocolate! Yay! (FYI - I don't like chocolate cake, lol).

I'll post a few pictures later!

LiveStrong

Well, seeing as how I am not motivated at all to work on my scholarly project, write up a marketing summary for one of my classes, or read an article for class tomorrow, I guess I'll make an attempt to post something half-way worth reading on here.

My meeting with my scholarly project advisor went better than I expected yesterday. The only downside is that he is making me do my bibliography/references page in EndNote. So after I already typed the whole thing up (100+ references) in the correct format, I have to go download EndNote, re-find all my articles electronically because I did not save them, and figure out how to make the exact same bibliography page in EndNote, awesome. I didn't complain though, because:

• he is letting me do a poster presentation when we present on campus in October. Poster presentations are when you just stand beside your poster and discuss what you did with anyone who comes up to talk to you. The only other option is a Platform presentation, where you stand up at the podium in front of everyone and go over a Power Point presentation of what you did, no thanks.
• he is meeting with me on Mondays, instead of making me drive to Toledo every Friday (when I don't have to be there for anything else) and since this coming Monday is Labor day, we only have to meet 3 more times this semester.
• he told me he could tell I'd been working hard on it (I was afraid he'd tell me that I didn't do enough work on it)
• I do not have to present this project in Columbus, or even go there this fall, because my project didn't get accepted.

So...I didn't really complain too much about the whole EndNote deal. I'm not too thrilled about it, but oh well. It would be much worse if I had to give a platform presentation. All in all, the meeting went better than I expected it to, I got my parking pass taken care of for the next 6 weeks, and I got to eat at Chipotle. It wasn't too bad of a Monday.

Today I only have class from 4:30-6:30, meaning I should probably be getting work done beforehand, but I'm still trying to get some relaxation in after studying so hard for last weekend's exam. I went running this morning with my $3 orthotics in my shoes and surprisingly don't have knee pain! But, instead of just going out and running a long distance without stopping, today I ran interval sprints, meaning that I would sprint a certain distance and then take a break and walk and repeated that for about 2 miles. I have a feeling that the $3 orthotics have nothing to do with the fact that my knees don't hurt and more to do with the fact that sprinting requires you to land on the balls of your feet, rather than your whole foot, so it doesn't matter that I can't evert. Thus, no knee pain.

However, I have been trying to sell my elliptical for a while now because that does cause me to have knee pain. I know, it sounds really stupid because you technically don't "land" on your feet when using an elliptical (in PT, we would call that a closed-chain exercise), but since I am constantly pushing the pedals down with the lateral part of my feet, it kills my knees. So if anyone wants to buy an elliptical, I have one for sale. And it needs to go soon because my new exercise bike is coming today! I probably shouldn't have spent the money on it, but I need some way to exercise in the winter and some way to get a cardio workout without hurting my knees. The elliptical is out. Running on a treadmill is out. Biking is pretty much it. I can't wait to get started. Plus, it's a lot easier to study while biking, because you're not bouncing around like on an elliptical or treadmill. Not that I think I will actually have the motivation to study while exercising, but it is another potential advantage.

The only other news is that I am super excited for this weekend! I can't wait to meet my nephew!