The choir rehearsal went very well on Sunday. The kid who had been screaming did not this week. I think it might have been because I asked her mother to sit in on rehearsal with her. At any rate, I heard not a peep from her, aside from singing the song with the rest of the kids. I also had someone come in to help me with the choir. Since she doesn't play the piano and I do, she is going to stand in front of the kids and cue them, while I play the piano. We had a great rehearsal, and practiced singing while standing up, and adding hand motions. It is going to be great! Oh, and one of the girls noticed that Speedy, the guinea pig was out of water, so we had to end rehearsal a couple minutes early so we could give him/her/it some water. Anywho, after that, I played the set. Although I was sight-reading most of it, I felt that I did well. Besides, I like playing the drums!

Monday was my exam. It was a pain in the bootie. I think I did okay, although I remembered something that I forgot to put on the exam, right after I walked out of the room. Arrrgh! Why does that always happen? Oh well, c'est la vie! Today I was out in Ft. Worth. My supervisor's daughter was sick, so I was on my own for most of the day. I did get to give an IQ test in the afternoon, which was fun. Well, no it wasn't fun, but I did it anyway. Tonight at band rehearsal, we had another percussionist show up. Yay!!! This is a good thing, because there are several parts that we cannot cover simply because there are not enough of us. I had someone who was going to play the piano on a song, unfortunately, she was not able to change her schedule, so I wound up doing it. Which is fine with me, except he stopped everyone else and had me play it by myself. (Since I had never looked at the part before, you know I enjoyed THAT.) Anywho, it was a good rehearsal. Tomorrow I get to finish my case presentation (yuck). On tap for this weekend, my cousin's wedding on Saturday and the debut of the Carol Choir on Sunday morning. Something to look forward to next weekend: David and I are going down to College Station for Alumni Weekend at the Wesley Foundation. I don't know what exactly I'm getting myself into, but I am looking forward to it.

This has been a National Bad Week. On Sunday, I had a screamer in choir practice. She wasn't upset or anything, just felt the need to scream during class. Which got a couple of other girls to act out, too. Arrrrghh!!! Fast forward to youth that night. We were supposed to take the kids in groups of eight off to a room to do the small group Bible study. Well, I wound up with ten very enthusiastic kids. Unfortunately, they were not enthusiastic about the lesson and did not want to listen to me. I was so frustrated! David walked by the room, and I gave him a "Help Me" look. He came in and got the kids to sit on the floor and do the lesson. Arrrrgh!!! Why didn't they listen to me?? Then I got a nice sore spot on my face thanx to one of the kids knocking into me. (For the record, it wasn't on purpose, and she felt really bad and apologized.)

On Monday, I had to present on a hormone for my psychoneuroimmunology class. Well, I found a bunch of information on my assigned hormone, however, it wasn't what she wanted. I felt so stupid!!! During my night class, a friend of mine usually drives me to my car, because it is a long way to walk in the dark. Well, she wasn't in class, so I wound up walking to my car. Sigh. I got home and found a slew of e-mail letters from the students in my class that I TA for. I was supposed to have their exam scores up on the website by Tuesday, and the students wanted to know where they were. (Yes, it was still Monday and I was getting these letters.) I put the scores on the website (so I thought) and then went to bed.

Tuesday was a day out in Ft. Worth. I was supposed to finish scoring the assessments I administered on Thursday. Well, I couldn't find the test manual for one of the tests, and I also couldn't get the software to work on one of the others! Wahhh!!! I was going absolutely nuts!!!! Then, once I got the software to work (the problem was, it was the wrong software, but it had the name of the test and said 'scoring' on it, so I thought it was the right one), the computer decided to freeze up. I had to enter the data four different times! Then, the stupid printer decided to lock up, too! Grrrrrr. Oh well. I observed a clinical interview and did a couple of tests on a woman later that day, so I didn't leave Ft. Worth until six! I was home long enough to change clothes and throw food in the general direction of my face before running off to band The rehearsal went well, although it went later than usual. I came home to more e-mails from the students, saying the grades still weren't up, and why didn't I put them up there? I worked on that, then worked on my presentation for Wednesday morning's group supervision.

On Wednesdays, before my nine o clock class, the six of us who are doing practicum out in Ft. Worth have supervision with the four practicum supervisors. During supervision, one of us presents a case they we have been working with, and then we are asked questions about it. Sounds easy, huh? WRONG!!! The supervisors hammer us with questions. I got the sense that they were not trying to be mean, they were trying to show us what they wanted us to know, and if we didn't know it, they told us to go learn about it. I had heard from the previous practicum students that they dreaded this time each week. I was volunteered to go first, and knew what to expect, thanx to the previous students. It was still not on my top ten list of fun things to do.

Well, that was how the first part of the week went. Luckily, the latter half of the week was much better. I got my report written for my practicum, and got to sit in on a very interesting session of couples therapy. I enjoy the times in Ft. Worth when all three of us on the Family Medicine rotation are there and we talk about clients, school, and sometimes even personal stuff. That is the best part. I also found out that both my degree plans (M.S. and Ph.D) have officially been filed with whoever they need to be filed with. (I think it is the graduate dean.) I also had to show my TA for my Psychophysiological Processes class that I knew how to hook someone up to an EEG machine, and how to tell what the different waves mean, and I passed with flying colors! Yay!

Well, I have an exam on Monday that I need to go study for. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Shout out to my friend Heather (yes, of National Bad Day fame). Happy Birthday, Heather!!!!!!!!

Practicum: I am working out at the Health Science Center. I found out today that I have been assigned to the family medicine clinic out there. When we are doing our practicum rotations, we will have white coats and name badges, so I get to feel official. I told David about the white coat, so he went out and bought me a Fisher Price doctor kit. Thanx, David! Last Wednesday, I went to a grand rounds session out there. The grand rounds are where someone comes in and lectures on a topic that is of interest to the doctors and medical students out there. My practicum supervisors think it is good experience for us to go, so I went. The lecture was rather boring, although I did enjoy the free lunch that I got. We also all got free tote bags, and chocolate! I think I will definitely have to go to more of those.

Church: Things are moving right along at church. I have had two rehearsals with the first and second grade choir. The first rehearsal was insane! Picture this: fifteen kids, Desiree, and a guinea pig. Plus, we didn't really do a whole lot last week, as it was the first week of the new Sunday school year, and they were just getting used to new teachers and all that. One of them stuck her weekly church offering between the slats of the guinea pig's cage, and was hollering that he was trying to eat her offering. This week, I had a song for them to work on (we perform during the service on October 5) and that went really, really well. The kids surprised me in that they liked the song that I didn't think they would like. They also did really well to work on the words and memorizing them. (Since they are so young, we don't try to have them read the music or the words, I just teach it to them by rote.) One of the boys raised his hand during one of the verses, and after we finished the verse, I called on him, thinking perhaps he had a question about the music, or needed to go to the bathroom. Instead, he proceeded to tell me that it was Sunday, and the next day is Monday. Not quite knowing how to respond to that, I nodded and told him, that yes that was right. It did make me laugh, though. We had our first orchestra rehearsal of the season yesterday. I was the only percussionist there, so I made sure I was wearing my running shoes! Don picked out some great music for us, and I look forward to playing it during the service!

Band: The Carrollton Band has had two rehearsals already. We are playing some really great stuff (lots of percussion parts). We are currently working on our program that we will play in October. One of the pieces we are rehearsing is the Harry Potter Symphonic Suite. It starts off with nothing but the bells (me) playing the Hedwig's Theme. The first time we did it, I didn't know that I was playing by myself, so I thought maybe I was in the wrong spot, but I was correct. At our board meeting about a month ago, we discussed having a standard piece that we started every show with, and another that we ended with. Someone thought the Liberty Bell march would be good, but every time I hear it, I think Monty Python's Flying Circus, so I didn't think that one would be good. Oh well, we will think of something.

David: He is great! We went dancing last weekend at Red River, which is where we had our first date. We had wanted to go to this place out in Lewisville, but as we drove past, we discovered that it is now a biker bar, and probably not a good place to go. So we opted for Red River. This weekend we had a wedding shower for my cousin and her fiance. Since they wanted it to be a couples shower, David got to come. (I don't think he would use the word "got" though.) We had a good turnout and had a great time. David was deemed the official videographer of the shower. Between he and my father, we got a really nice video of the whole thing. The funniest part of the video had to be when Kimmie (my cousin) was playing on the pachinko machine. She was really hitting it hard!! David and I typically see each other on the weekends, due to both of us having crazy schedules. I do typically show up at his church on Sunday nights for youth events. I took a group of girls aside last week, to do the small group Bible study, that was a lot of fun. Last Wednesday, I went with him for Bible study. He was telling the junior high kids the story of Samson. Well, he mentioned something about how Samson was going to go make kissy-kissy with his fiancee, and the kids all looked at me! I thought that was funny. David did too.