Fallen Off the Blogging Bandwagon

     I have been a rather boring/absent blogger lately... sorry guys! This time of year is always crazy for me. My first year in occupational therapy school is coming to an end. It's hard to believe that right now, I've finished more of OT school than I have left in front of me. My classes are essentially complete after this coming fall semester! Unfortunately, with the end of the semester comes a million papers, assignments and tests, not to mention my teaching assistant duties have multiplied tenfold as I now grade approximately 120 papers weekly! That doesn't even include tests and now the dreaded second journal article assignment-- it takes me around 15-20 minutes just to grade one student's assignment! I have truly enjoyed being a teaching assistant in psychology this semester and especially have appreciated the benefits financially... but I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty sure I never want to be a professor, like ever. Too many emails and not enough free time! Good thing I'm going to OT school :) 

     In addition to the world of academia, I've also been busy with some fun things too. I've visited Chris both at ISU and his hometown as well as having plenty of fun here in Chicago also. The weather is starting to warm up a little so I've been doing some more city exploring as well, and recently ran a 5k with several classmates to benefit those who were affected by the Boston Marathon attacks. I'm hoping to see the sun more after close to a week of dreary rainy days. For those of you who asked, no, I was not in the danger zone as far as flooding in the area goes. However, my idea of how close the serious flooding actually was was WAY off, it was actually quite close to me! Good thing I am on the second floor...

     So what do the next few weeks/months look like for me? Well, after I stalk all of my friends online for TCU graduation, I get a lovely few weeks of summer vacation before starting summer school classes on May 28th. I'm taking 2 classes, 4 days a week for about a month: one about adaptive technology which I am really looking forward to because it's more of a hands-on lab type experience, and another class about healthcare policy etc. I can't say I'm looking forward to that one with quite as much zeal as adaptive tech, but it should be interesting and useful information to learn as the country goes through this massive healthcare transition. After that I have about a week until I need to head home to Texas for my one month fieldwork placement at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital! I am beyond thrilled to have this opportunity to learn from a hand therapist in one of my favorite places, Fort Worth! And then I get to rock my fall semester back  at UIC and then go on MORE fieldwork and then graduate and then pass my NBCOT exam with flying colors and then I'm done :) Exciting stuff, y'all!

Spring Break

I realized I wrote this up but never posted it!! Oops. Here is a recap of my spring break :)

It wasn't feeling too Springy when I left Chicago on Saturday evening. I spent close to 6 hours hanging out in O'Hare airport due to delays, and by the time I made it back through my door in McKinney it was after 2am. Thankfully I was able to camp out near an electrical outlet and a few of my wonderful friends and boyfriend kept me entertained until it was finally time to board the plane. Those that know me well know that flying is not my favorite, so it was extremely helpful to be distracted during gmy long wait! The following morning Chicago was slammed with 12 inches of snow, so I'm glad I got out of there while I still could!

I spent the week relaxing by the pool, playing video games with my sister, exercising with my dog, eating mountains of delicious food, and spending time with my family. We adventured to the museum, got our nails done, went out to eat, and saw a movie. I spent some time at Keystone and caught up with my friends. Overall it was a great and relaxing week! The weather cooled off a little but mostly it was sunny and warm... which was marvelous! We also did a little bit of early Easter celebrating and dyed some eggs. My parents also thought it'd be funny to hide a few eggs for my sister and me on Friday morning... I will never be too old to run around my house like a crazy person looking for plastic eggs as long as there is still someone hiding them :P hehe.

On Saturday morning I made the trip back to Chicago. It was a wonderful flight compared to the way there! Our plane was upgraded to a larger sized plane right earlier that morning, and not all of the seats were able to be filled. So first of all that was probably the biggest plane I've ever seen -- 9 seats and two aisles across! I had two seats and a window all to myself which was lovely. Before we took off there was acoustic guitar music playing and videos of nature and cute baby animals playing out of tiny screens on the backs of the chairs in front of us... weird but awesome!

I went to my grandpa's church for Easter, it was a cool mix of traditional and contemporary music. It's been quite a while since I've set foot in an actual church -- the place I've been going since last semester meets in a middle school auditorium. I did miss that silly auditorium though! Afterwards we traveled to Port Edwards, a cool brunch buffet place with mountains of breakfast and lunch food and desserts. I tried some crab legs for the first time (pretty good!) and got to meet some of Joan's family. Overall is was a great week, I posted many pictures on facebook but may go back and post them here if I find the time (but don't count on it) haha.