She Dreams in Comedy

 School was intense this year, and once spring semester ended, I thought I would enjoy a lighter work load and less stress. Nope! No break for me!
I took two classes in the first summer session, in addition to having two clients at the William Paterson Speech and Hearing Clinic.  The classes were interesting, but a lot of work. Keeping up with the client's paperwork is intense too - that's the most time-consuming.

This session, I'm not taking any classes, but I have two clients again. It's only a 4 week session, which is not a lot of time to make progress, but I'm doing the best I can to help them out.

In other news, I did not renew my premium livejournal account, and I'm less than thrilled with their new ads that prevent you from using the site.
So, I think I am finally going to move over to a different blog-hosting site - perhaps blogger or wordpress.
I'll keep everyone posted.
Enjoy your summers!

 I really really hate when I'm in the break room at work using the microwave and then someone comes in, takes their food out of the fridge/freezer, and then stands there and waits for me to be done.  It's just sooooo rude.
It's a small room, and they just stand there, leaning against the counter across from the microwave, and stare. Stare at the microwave like they're trying to Jedi-mind-trick the food to be done sooner.
Seriously, if you see someone using the microwave for over a minute, don't stand there and stalk it, leave for a few minutes and then come back. I promise the microwave will still be there when you come back.

 Gizmodo posted about a new doll that has just hit the shelves.  
If it weren't so disgusting and horrifying, I might actually find this funny.



This goes against all morals - anyone who thinks this is even tolerable, is way off in every aspect of their existance.  I'm just shocked - I mean there are horrible, awful toys, television shows, commercials, advertisements that exist and are shown to children at much too young of an age.  There are clothes that are too tight, too short, and that have over-sexualized messages written on them that are sold at children's stores every day.  But this... Pole dancing Doll???  I just can't comprehend how an idea like this one came into somebody's head, who then  thought it was a good idea, and then told it to multiple people at a toy company, who thought it was a good idea and actually went through with processing it and creating this disgusting example of children's toys.

Is this the line where people had to cross in order to protest these ideas and actually making a difference in the oversexualized messages we're sending to our kids???

September hasn't been a back-to-school month for me in almost 8 YEARS, but this year, it is, and in a very big way.  I'm starting my master's degree in Speech Language Pathology at William Patterson University. It's an intense program, and will take me about 2.5-3 years to finish it.  While that is a long time, I know it's worth it, because in 3 years, I will be a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, and that means I'll have a steady job, very good and steady pay, and I'll be doing a job that not only I enjoy, but helps people while I'm doing it.

I'm pretty excited about it! Sure, I'm nervous, and not so thrilled about all the loans I have to take out and all the money I have to spend on books and whatnot, but it'll be worth it in the end. Plus, I'm planning to work all through school, as long as it doesn't interfere with my workload and study needs.

Wish me luck!

So, if you're like me, you have a basic understanding of the family tree and the order in which it flows.  If you're like me, you also have no freakin' clue as to what the difference is between 1st, or 2nd, or 3rd cousins or once, twice, three times removed cousins. Soo, to help clear it up I have done some research on good ol' Wikipedia.

Here's the link to the explanation.

Also, here's a nice picture to help clarify:



So, at your next huge family gathering, such as a wedding, bar/bat mitzvah, or funeral, you know what to call those people you haven't seen since the last huge family gathering.

On Thursday July 9th, I opened up my internet browser to find this story:  A man tragically died in the factory he was working at.  Worse than that, the factory's license had expired, and it technically should not have been allowed to operate.  
All this is really sad, and I'm sure his family was shocked and horrified when they found out.  However, there is a deliciously dark humorous side to this story;

He died in a vat of chocolate.

Now, I'm not a mean person, nor am I suggesting that it's okay to make fun of someone's death, but, he died in a vat of chocolate!  I had two reactions to this: 1: Yum, what a yummy way to die, and 2: That's ridiculously funny!  What a weird story! Of course I immediately thought of headlines I would write if I were in charge of a newspaper.  "Death by Chocolate,"  "Willy Wonka's Worst Nightmare," "Bittersweet Obituary," and I could go on.

Today, I was shown a critical article, by a friend who is a research scientist in the food industry, complaining that the newspapers reporting this story were too insensitive; they were using these tongue-in-cheek headlines to publish the story. But I say, it might be cheap to get a laugh out of a tragic story about a victim of faulty machinery and poor factory upkeep, but there is humor in everything, and I'm not going to be one to stop people from exposing it.  I'm going to laugh at it, and then be sad for the victim, and then get a craving for chocolate, and then be sad ...

It feels like Mid-January.  No, not outside, but inside.  I am sitting here at my job, downstairs in the "dungeon," and it's freezing.  The Air Conditioning is pumped up so high, that I have a sweatshirt on, and I'm still freezing. It's really hard for me to type this right now because my hands are so cold that I actually can't move my fingers.

I WILL NOT WEAR GLOVES IN THE SUMMER. This is just absolutely ridiculous.
It's so nice outside, and so cold and awful inside. Plus, we have no windows in this room so I can't even look at how warm and nice it is outside.

This morning, I was browsing the internet and I happened upon a website for an interested type of museum.  Art Car World.  This museum is an exhibit of cars, that are functional, turned into art.  It's pretty amazing what some people have done to their cars - some people painted, some people sculpted, and everybody has transformed their functional car into functional car art! It's really cool.

  
Mondrian Car                                                Hamburger Harley                                         Cork Truck
 
 Mirror Image                                                Telephone Car!

These are just some of the ones I like the best - go on the site to check the rest of them out!

You can check out the pictures on the Harrod Blank Art Car Agency, or look at the ArtCar Fest site!

What would you make your car into if you could?
I'd probably turn mine into the "One-eyed, One-horned, Flying Purple People Eater."


 

I was looking at my collection of "stickie notes" on my computer last night and noticed I had one labeled "To post on lj."  I looked at it, and there were all these ideas of things to write about on here.  I wrote these down a long time ago... in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if I wrote them down over a year ago.

Here's one I wanted to share from the subway....

I was on the 1 train (while I was still living in the city), probably going down to work (while i still worked at MLB), when I noticed a pregnant teenage girl sitting with her mother on the opposite side of the train.  I felt a little bad, and then I noticed that this pregnant teen was drinking something from a McDonald's cup, and it made me feel sadder.  Like - here's this girl, who's terrified, holding her mother's hand while she's probably going to the Dr.'s, or coming back from, and she's probably upset at the situation she's in. And on top of that, she's just eaten some greasy, disgusting, unhealthy, McDonald's food.  To me, it showed me what this baby's future looks like.  Also - sad because I knew this teen's life as she knew it had ended - and she went from carefree teen to mom.  I was relieved to see her mother with her, so at least maybe she won't have to do it alone.  But think of all the teen mothers who do have to do it alone - or give their child up for adoption - or have to go through the trauma and pain of an abortion.

Which I guess leads me to think about the state of sex-ed in this country and the fact that there are people out there who believe in abstinence only education, and turn a blind eye to anything else.  I mean - I'm pro-choice- because I feel like it is a woman's choice if the situation is hard, or emotionally she can't handle it. But think about all the abortions we could prevent if there was education out there for kids about having safe sex - and schools would have condoms available for them to use - and promote their use.  Then maybe we would have at least some layer of protection from teen abortions.  It's really very sad. 

On top of that, there's a layer of why teenagers are having sex so young in the first place.  You can't just blame in on society, or just blame it on the parents, but you can't just let it continue to get worse. Younger and younger kids are having sex, or being sexual and sexualized - look at these baby clothes:( Read more...Collapse )

Well, most of my decisions were happily made for me - I got accepted to William Patterson's Communications Disorders program, which means that I will be starting my Master's Degree in the Fall, and in about two years I will be a licensing exam away from being a certified Speech Language Pathologist (SLP).   It's nice to have a future.

Yes, the job market still sucks, and I would like to work part time while I go to school full time, but at least if I can't get a job I have school to keep me going, and it will push me towards the direction of having paid employment (even if it's not for another year or two).  The good news is, that 
SLPs are in extremely high demand, which means that I will be paid well, and pretty much in a recession-proof job.  Experts are saying that this whole economic depression won't come to its peak until 2012, so at least I know I'm covered to get work even in the height of the slump.
Hopefully, I will get some financial aid so I won't have to worry so much about paying for school without a job, but we'll see how that works out.

Either way, I feel pretty relieved that my next two years are pretty much mapped out.  I have my department orientation on June 17th, so I will be finding out what classes I will be taking in the Fall. Right now, I'm taking another pre-requisite - which is less-than-thrilling, but at least I'm getting it out of the way.  Statistics is probably the most obnoxiously boring class ever, but it's a summer course, which means it's 6 weeks of class, 4 days a week. So it will go by quickly, and before I know it I'll be done with it and done with Math forever!   Once I am done with this class I will say Woohooo! But until then, I'll just suck it up and get through it.

I did well in my spring semester classes - A+ in Algebra, and B+ in Intro to Speech Language Pathology.  I'm pretty satisfied with it, but I will make sure I am studying harder for my Master's program classes.

My Grandmother turns 98 tomorrow - it's pretty crazy to think about all the things she's experienced in her life, seen, heard, done - my Grandmother is a pretty cool lady - and I can only hope that when I am her age I will be as coherant, healthy, and loved by my family.

Until next time...