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.

Happy St. Patricks Day

I had a pretty fantastic weekend :)

Backtracking a little bit, on Wednesday I got to go meet my grandpa for breakfast in Glenview while my car was being serviced... yay for 45,000 mile check ups. I had some amazing french toast at Walker Bros. Pancake House and afterwards I tagged along for Tom's choir rehearsal at the senior center. It was so fun to meet some of his friends and I appreciate them welcoming me into their rehearsal. This was one of their last rehearsals before a performance, so I felt like I got my own sneak preview concert! I hope I am as active and social and engaged when I am older :)

My weekend started off with some yummy St. Patrick's day goodies from our class treat exchange. I tried a new recipe and made Rice Krispie treats out of Lucky Charms, and they were pretty good -- I think I even like them better than actual Rice Krispie treats!

Then I spent Friday and Saturday with this guy:

...which was awesome. On Saturday we went on an adventure to downtown Chicago to see the St. Patrick's Day festivities. It was a MADHOUSE, and pretty cold/gross outside, but I'm glad we went. I can now officially say I've seen the St. Patricks' day parade! Because the city was so packed with crazies and it wasn't entirely clear where to see the famous green river, we decided to skip the river and got lunch instead (good decision). Thanks Chris for keeping me warm :)

Then during church this morning someone mentioned that the river would still be green today and possibly even tomorrow... sweet! I kind of assumed it would disappear pretty quickly and was fine with not seeing it. But since the opportunity presented itself and it was way sunnier outside today, I decided to stop by and check it out

Pretty cool huh?

The rest of today is set aside for studying. I have a crazy test-filled week ahead of me -- the final push before Spring Break! I will be back in Texas from March 23rd to the 30th and would love to spend time with as many Texas friends as possible... so let me know if you have time to get together! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Playing Catch-Up

A lot of really cool things have been happening lately, so many things that I am behind on posting about them! So, here's a quick summary of the past two weeks. There is probably enough material here to spread this out into a few posts, but...

Haha so anyways here we go:

1. My car broke down, and then it was fixed. The end :)

2. It snowed like crazy in Chicago, but barely anyone noticed or acted like they cared except for me!

Early last week we got a whopping 8-10 inches of snow! It makes me laugh to think back on my snow days at TCU... I loved them and made some of my best college memories during them... but come on we did not deserve snow days for like two inches of snow! And it was definitely not worth the title of "snow-pocalpse"! In Chicago hardly anyone mentioned it, and no way was school or work cancelled -- what a silly thought. Instead, everyone in the city did what they needed to do to make it to work on time. The snowplows here are like ninjas... I've never actually seen a road being plowed here, but somehow the streets are usually close to spotless. It's really quite incredible how well this city deals with snow, especially when I think back to how crippled my hometown was when we got 4-5 inches of snow over Christmas! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day

oh and here's a poorly photographed snow angle:

approximately 45 degrees ;)

3. After spending many hours practicing with Nami, we both rocked our range of motion practicum and neither of us had any points deducted! 

Check out that thumb extension! Okay I'm done now...

4. And then there were cupcakes...

I was able to meet up with my friends Olivia and Michelle at a cupcake shop near my apartment called "Flirty Cupcakes". They are considering Chicago for graduate school in social work. Olivia and I met in middle school but haven't seen each other since then, so it was nice to catch up with her!

5. No matter how old I get, I will always be extremely ammused by science museums

Chris and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry on Saturday! I think my favorite parts were the weather/storm/etc exhibits and watching baby chicks poke their ways out of their shells and try to walk for the first time!

Things I learned:
- Tesla coils are a thing, and they are awesome.
- my heart rate is freakishly high
- getting flowers is way cool :)

6. Daylight savings time happened on Saturday night / Sunday morning

How did I learn this? I was awake for a long time after it happened and was very confused :P. Good thing I had nothing going on the next day.

7. Despite me being responsible for his multiple deaths while playing Portal (haha), Chris and I are officially dating. Lucky me! 


I think that is everything. Woo! It's been a pretty awesome past few weeks!

It's National Cereal Day!!

In case you were wondering, March 7th is National Cereal Day! To celebrate this amazing breakfast food, I am linking up with Mama Kat :)

I come from a long line of cereal lovers. Growing up, my parents, sister and I always had two bowls of cereal each day. One in the morning like normal people, and another in the evening between dinner and bedtime. Cereal is a pretty big deal in my family, and my day doesn't feel complete without it!

I didn't really have a favorite -- I usually suffer from some serious cereal A.D.D. and get bored before the box is finished. Pretty much anything sugary and meant for children is acceptable. Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, and Froot Loops were some of the best. I was blessed with a high metabolism and a love of playing outside, so my parents never tried to regulate the kinds of cereals we were allowed to eat. The prizes inside could make or break which box we chose at the grocery store, and we amassed a pretty impressive collection of spoons that changed color when dipped in cold milk and a variety of other prizes.

My dad, when making me or my sister a bowl of cereal, would be sneaky and hide a few pieces of another kind of cereal  at the bottom of the bowl, and it was a game to try to find it. My parents were also known to hide Flinstone's vitamins in my milk also. Looking back, this is disgusting and I'm not sure why I let my breakfast be contaminated with grape-flavored chalk... yum. Cereal boxes were also often the target of April Fools Day pranks -- switching the bags around was basically mandatory, but one year my dad got us pretty good with a cereal box full of legos and other small plastic things. My elementary school self was pretty tickled by that!  

I developed a lot of strange ways to eat different kinds of cereal -- saving the marshmallows for last in Lucky Charms, eating my Froot Loops in rainbow order (I still remember when blue Froot Loops did not exist because it messed up my rainbow!), and making sure I had an even number of Cap'n Crunch pieces on my spoon when possible. 

Luckily I have grown out of most of these quirks, but not much has changed between me and cereal. I guess I should have moved onto boring health consious sugar-free things like Raisin Bran or Kashi at some point, but there's plenty of time to eat cardboard later :P

How are you going to celebrate National Cereal Day?

Sunday Confessions

1. I am hopeless when it comes to car things. I have always been lucky to have a dad who knows his way around cars, and I try to pick up any knowledge I can... but when my car battery died so extremely that my keys got stuck in the ignition on Thursday evening, I wasn't really sure what to do. I don't know many people here in Chicago that have cars. And of the people who have cars... most of them are my classmates who would probably be just as clueless about jumping a car battery as I am! Luckily after I had already lined up someone to come out and replace my battery my dad discovered that roadside assistance was actually included under the warranty of my car, so I was able to save a lot of money :)

2. I am terrified to take the train alone at night. I faced this fear on Thursday in order to get to my small group meet up, and even had to transfer trains. The way there was uneventful... but on the way back the lady a few seats down from me was having some issues. I spent most of the ride staring out the window across from us... but for some reason this lady kept accusing me of staring at her and demanding I stop looking at her. There was another girl my age in the same car and we ended up getting off the train at the same stop. When we got up to leave the lady said very loudly "thank goodness, I was about to get my face stared off!!". Me and the other girl just exchanged a mutual wtf-glance and went on our ways.

3. On Saturday I had so much fun finding out I can still rock some MarioKart. My Guitar Hero skills may be a little (ok, extremely) rusty, but I could be a professional Wii Fit hula hooper (haha). I also have some potential to improve at first person shooter games but I'm not holding my breath on that one :P Thank you Chris for being such a patient and encouraging teacher :)


Happy Sunday!



Linking up with Alyx at Every Day is a New Adventure

Let's Be Honest Here....

credit to xkcd, my favorite web comic, for reading my mind as usual.