questions worth considering

1. Why do I seem to have an attention deficit disorder in those times where my attention to a project is especially needed?
2. Is going to work at a coffee shop with free internet really the wisest choice?
3. Who decided to schedule finals immediately following mother's day?
4. How many references for a five page paper are too many?
5. Do my grades for graduate school really matter?
   

A little education for you

April is rolling to a close, and I haven't gotten around to saying it till now- But in case you didn't know, April is Autism Awareness Month. And in honor of that, I thought I would bring a little more awareness to you the reader by giving you my:

'Top 10 Lesser Known Facts about Autism'

1. April is Autism Awareness Month (duh), but Autism also shares the title with 'National Poetry Month' and 'National Sexual Assault Awareness Month'. It should also be noted that April 2nd is WORLD Autism Awareness Day- take that poetry!
2. Jenny McCarthy is sort of crazy.
3. Her teaching-kids-to-play video actually isn't that bad.
4. But no, Jenny McCarthy did not cure autism.
   
5. The Gluten-free Casin-free diet has no empirical evidence to support it.
6. While I'm at it, chelation doesn't work either.
7. If you have seen one kid with autism, you have seen one kid with autism.
8. Those vaccines don't cause autism. And in fact, the preservative that was thought to be the culprit (thiamine) has not been in the vaccine since the mid-nineties.
9. Not all people with autism have a savant skill, like in Rain Man.
10. Behavior therapy (or more specifically ABA) does not always mean drills sitting at a table, Incidental Teaching and PRT are two great empirically supported ABA treatments that do not involve any tables. In fact, you my friend engage in ABA based behaviors every day- you aren't going to work in the morning for the pleasure of it. It just isn't as obvious because your reinforcer comes in the form of a paycheck every other week.
    

my next career

It's decided. Once I am finished with this whole Speech Pathology thing, I am going to be a surgeon. That's right, a surgeon.
Last week I had a great opportunity to go with a group of surgeons and SLPs over to Mexicali for a cranio-facial clinic. It was a crazy whirlwind two days. We were greeted with a large group of residents waiting for us at the Red Cross clinic down there. There were kids with needs that we don't see that late in their development. I saw quite a few cleft palate and cleft lip, fistulas, and other non-facial anomalies. The crazy part of it all is that we started our day with assessments of oral structure and function, and the kids were scheduled for surgery for that day or the next!
The best part of the trip was when I got to sit in on part of a surgery for a cleft palate. That's where the new profession comes in. I thought I would be queasy, but was the exact opposite-- I didn't want to leave, it was so interesting.
The only problem with this new career in the future is all the schooling. Maybe if I start a collection now, I can raise the money I need to get through 6 more years of school. I would be really good in that operating room, I just know it. No really, I would!

on being a hero

I have plenty of school work due this week, so of course.... it is the perfect time to write.
Did you also know that it is the perfect time to save the world?
I have donated 820 grains of rice to help end world hunger today. I have also expanded my vocabulary a bit. Did you know that 'grotty' means wretched?
What have you done to help the world today?
If you are interested in helping the hungry, or studying for the GRE or writing a dissertation and need to expand your lexicon, I recommend heading to the site....

a reality barometer:

Is this actually true of me:

from Stuff White People Like
#81 Graduate School

Being white means to engage in a day in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they imagined.

In coffee shops, bars, and classes white people will engaging in conversations about authors and theorists that go nowhere as both parties start rattling off progressively more obscure people until eventually one side recognizes one and claims a victory. By the time they graduate (or a year or two afterwards), white people realize that they will need an edge to succeed in the cut-throat world of modern white society.

That edge is graduate school.

Though professional graduate schools like law and medicine are desirable, the true ivory tower of academia is most coveted as it imparts true, useless knowledge. The best subjects are English, History, Art History, Film, Gender Studies, Studies, Classics, Philosophy, Political Science, Literature, and the ultimate: Comp Lit. MFA’s are also acceptable.

Returning to school is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory.

Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can:

• believe they are helping the world (of course I am!)
• complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough (well it really doesn't, and those interest rates on loans are getting higher every year)
• claim they are poor (to the extremest extent, perhaps)
• feel as though are getting smarter (my brain does frequently hurt from all of the learning)
• act superior to other people (me, superior?)
• enjoy perpetual three day weekends (maybe at other programs, but certainly not mine)
• and sleep in every day of the week (I wish, unless you consider 6:30 or 7 sleeping in)

After acquiring a Masters Degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program where they will go after their dream of becoming a professor. However, by their second year they usually wake up with a hangover and realize: “I’m going to spend six years in graduate school to make $35,000 and live in the middle of nowhere?”

After this crisis, a white person will follow one of two paths. They will either drop out and move to New York, San Francisco or their original home town where they can resume the job that they left to attend graduate school.

The second path involves becoming a professor, moving to a small town and telling everyone how they are awful and uncultured.

It is important to understand that a graduate degree does not make someone smart, so do not feel intimidated. They may have read more, but in no way does that make them smarter, more competent, or more likable than you. The best thing you can do is to act impressed when a white person talks about critical theorists. This helps them reaffirm that what they learned in graduate school was important and that they are smarter than you. This makes white people easier to deal with when you get promoted ahead of them.