You know that feeling when you’re sitting in the audience at a theater production waiting for the show to begin and then all of a sudden the curtain opens, just a little at first but then becomes wider and wider revealing the very beginnings of all the excitement about to unfold? My past week has been like that curtain but its like the curtain has magical powers and never stops opening! It just keeps getting wider and wider revealing more and more exciting things!
I’ve shadowed two days in the Head and Neck Cancer Center since my last update and both experiences were incredible! I got to see so many different kinds of patients, meet so many speech pathologists over there, and learn so many more things than I ever thought I would. Not a minute goes by when I am over there that I am not learning something new or making new connections with things I had learned in my classes at school. The patients are incredible and continue to amaze me with the perseverance and determination to live their lives to the fullest despite having some of the most basic human functions like their eating and speech abilities taken away from them by cancer. I simply cannot put into words what an amazing experience my time over there has been and I still have two more weeks left with them!
This past weekend, Jessica (the other CSD major down here) and I went to Dallas and Fort Worth to visit grad schools. Dallas is about a 4 hour drive from here so we drove up Sunday morning, spent the day in Dallas, and then visited two schools on Monday- The University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Christian University. We really enjoyed our stays at both schools and it was just so cool to actually BE at a grad school after having talked about them so much for the last few years. The two programs were very different- UTD is very big and TCU is much smaller. We had the chance to meet faculty and students at UTD since their school was currently in session, but we were only able to meet with one staff member at TCU because their building is under construction and their students are not there in the summer. Both programs left us with very good impressions and we think we left a pretty good impression on them, too. It was so nice to be able to tangibly see what of all this GRE studying and filling out applications could lead to! Definitely a great trip!
Well I am back in the office today getting caught up on things and then it is off to Katy, Texas tomorrow to shadow an early-intervention speech pathologist there who is a good friend of our Augie CSD professor Dr. Haskill. I am very excited for that as well and am sure the curtain will just continue to open…
Jessi and I are cooking dinner tonight with the BBQ sauce sent to me by my Uncle Lee who lives in South Dakota, so that should be lots of fun.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Katrina
Posted on July 13th, 2010 by katrina-jensen
Filed under: Katrina Jensen
You are so cute – always fun to read you blogs. We went to the Vermillion Community Theatre play “Okalahoma” as Jill had a boy, who is a friend, but not sure he is a boyfriend – long story – and his mom were both in the production. This weekend they are hoping to go to Jazz fest as they both play trombone and “trombone shorty” is playing Friday night!!! Rachel is at camp this week. Funny, how everyones life is a big curtain if they just let it continue to open:-) Jodie
Wow! That does sound like an exciting week! I’m sure it’s a great feeling to see what you think you want to do with your life and have it look pretty appealing.