Christmas Post pics

For more photos, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5398&l=db03b&id=1583256152

Christmas Linebacker

For a laugh, watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGtrzQx0M8M

(I stole this from your facebook, Hollie :)

Enjoy!

You have to watch this!

www.maniacworld.com/dog-having-a-blast-in-the-snow.html

love this advice!!!

Chicago

Some Chicago pics. For more, go to
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2530&l=f4ab7&id=1583256152

Ode to a deserted campus

O how to begin this ode?
I had to research it
because I've never knowed.
So I chose the structure called Pindaric
and now, here we ... goed?

I love eating downtown as I please,
trekking across campus, going to the health center,
all while parking with ease.
I love having a sign on my door that says "Enter"
and knowing no students are around to slow my productivity.

So, as I've expressed with these words
I find a deserted campus enjoyable and exciting
because I remain in my office, reading and writing.
But next week marks the return of the "Do Not Disturb."

Saint Augustine

"When at last I cling to you with all my being, for me there will be no more sorrow, no more toil. Then at last I shall be alive with true life, for my life will be wholly filled by you."
~Saint Augustine

simply

I'm not usually one to push products on others...but I have to share this with you:
Simply Orange and Simply Apple are the best juices I have had in my life. Ever. It is the closest I have ever come to popping a straw into an orange in drinking, or sucking all the juice off a plump apple.
Go buy some. Today.

anger

"Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others."
-Harriet Goldhor Lerner

love

"We can only learn to love by loving."
-Iris Murdoch

mean

One of my favorite former students approached me in the hall earlier this week as I was "wearing the hat" of clinical supervisor. She asked me if I could please be her supervisor at some point during her clinical rotation. I commented that it was so nice of her to ask and I was honored. I then asked her why.

She said she needed someone to be mean.

What???? I looked at my students who I am currently supervising who were there with us and asked them what they had been telling people...

But my student, who I had previously taught for 3 semesters and who also worked on my research project for me, was very quick to try and explain that she just knew, based upon her history with me, that I would tell her like it is, tell her the bad with the good, and that she wanted that.

So, I was feeling a little better at that point, and less like an evil supervisor. I do make a habit of giving the good and the bad, as my goal is not for my students to like me, but to leave this university as a better clinician because of something they learned from me.

I'm sharing this because most of you have never seen me in this role as a firm and tough instructor/clinical supervisor, and wouldn't believe it if you saw it. A friend from church recently commented that she couldn't imagine me in that role because she couldn't imagine me ever saying anything to hurt someone's feelings or to make them feel bad.

Oh, if only she knew. I'm sure my former students have many stories about me...Yet I am confident that they will look upon those stories later (maybe much much later) and see that though they may not have liked my criticism or comments, that it was truthful, made them a better clinician, and never mean-hearted.

on point

From a new friend:

"Our action, or lack thereof, is the cause of our government. Politicians do no more than give an innovative response to the political system we have molded. By and large, we live for reality TV, fantasy sports, American Idol, and iPods yet, we are surprised when our leaders do not approach us by a higher standard. A government for the people and by the people cannot be adequately changed from the top down; we must work to change it from the bottom up.

Today we will exercise a right that the majority of the world does not know and may never experience. Today let us not retreat to the safety of inaction but take up our blood-stained rights, handed to us by a generation long forgotten. I urge you, my fellow Americans, to vote. Vote because you breathe this air, share this dream, and care for this country.

I am proud to call you my countrymen and look forward to sharing my right with you today as we embark into a new chapter of America. God bless America!"

~Clinton Rice

learning

I think one of the saddest things I have witnessed in the past several years that I have been teaching and supervising at the university, and most recently during the process of homeschooling my brother, is that people just don't want to learn or think for themselves anymore. There seems to be no craving for problem-solving, no infatuation with the mystery of it all, no critical thinking...

I don't know if this is a new thing. It feels like it is, but it could be just that my perspective has shifted as I add the job of "educator" to my lifelong career of learning. But, it seems like there is a utensil-virus spreading, in that students want to be spoon-fed everything. "Just tell me the answer, tell me where to find the information, tell me what you want me to do with this client, tell me what I should do next, tell me where I should look, I looked at this passage for 2 minutes and I don't understand so I give up..."

This is so frustrating! And so sad. When pushed, many of the students have to learn how to ...well, learn. Hopefully they appreciate it and take this skill and apply it to other areas in their lives. Yet others say, "whew, that class is over and I'll never have to do that again!"

Will this get better or worse as I continue along my career path? What can I do to ensure the former?

Hmmm...Something for me to think about and figure out.

conscience

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency asks the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience asks the question, is it right?

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor popular,
but he must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right.

~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

the 3 miles

In the previous post, I fantasized about running 3 miles.
It was as wonderful as I thought it would be.
Thanks B for speeding me up a bit, for keeping me under my goal time for all 3 miles.
And thanks Jonathan for not complaining too much :)
Back to work...

you know you're tired of working ...

when it seems every muscle, every joint, every bone aches from sitting for 16 hours straight, working...

when your mouse hand refuses to click anymore...seriously, I'm not in full blown dystonia yet, but I'm close...

when your eyes can't stay still to focus anymore...the muscles required for that activity are too fatigued...

whey you try to measure voice onset time (VOT) for fricatives in a spectrogram...just trust me, they don't exist for fricatives...

when you start dreaming of activities and errands to do that require you to stand...

when you start fantasizing about how wonderful a 3 mile run would be right now...

the first thing to go...

Isn't this the truth!

"Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to think, time to contemplate what's working and what's not, so that we can make changes for the better."
~Sarah Ban Breathnach

My Deep Thought

Hey everyone, I haven't been on here in a while, so I thought I would visit to add a quote of my own. I have read all of Jess' quotes (she loves the quotes) and it made me think about the one that I just randomly threw out one day when we were watching something on t.v. Here it is:

"When a difficult decision is presented that could ultimately shape the rest of your life, don't rush to decide...fall on your knees, not on your face."

Brent

perspective

"I am not qualified to comment on what has happened in the last week where this city has changed shape, certainly psychologically, and in terms of some people's wallets. And I'm not qualified to comment on the interventions that have been put forth. I presume these people know what they're doing. But it is extraordinary to me that you can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day of preventable, treatable disease and hunger."
~Bono, on the bail out

trust

I'm trying to learn more about trust and forgiveness, and ran across this...

"When we trust others, we reveal that we trust God and that we trust ourselves. We have not placed our hope in others' trustworthiness. We have placed our hope in a Savior who is completely able to come through for us. We do not demand demonstrations of others' ability to be trusted, because our ultimate trust is not in other people. That is not to say that we don't want others to do what they say they will or strive to honor their word, but it is to say we know that, ultimately, there will be times when others will let us down. They wil disappoint us and frustrate us, but we can choose to believe that their hearts toward us are good. We can bring trust to our relationships to enrich them with action and endow them with meaning."
~Nicole Johnson