At the Health Science Center yesterday, I asked my supervisor about the new ADHD clinic opening in January. She's having me research EEG research with ADHD patients. An EEG looks at brain waves. Since the literature suggests that ADHD patients have a unique EEG pattern, I think it would be really interesting to use EEG with patients to see if it is true. If it us, then patients can be trained to control their brain waves. I think this is really fascinating stuff, and am hoping to get at least a research project out of it. Possibly even a dissertation! Yay! (For the record, David thinks it's really funny that I'm this excited about doing research. I know, I'm a huge dork!)

I have a big exam on Monday, so while everyone else is having fun this weekend, I'll be cooped up with my Psychoneuroimmunology notes and articles. Yuck! Oh well. The Carol Choir is singing again on Sunday morning, and I'm excited about that. The song they are doing is so cute! Well, it's back to the salt mines I go! Toodles!

Yesterday, I was supposed to have a clinical interview with a mother and a seven year old, who may have ADHD. I was all excited, and was ready to do the interview. Guess what? They did not show up. Pooey on them. The rest of the day was okay, the best part was the concert last night. I had several solos during the concert and did well on all of them! Yay! One of the pieces that we played was music from the first Harry Potter movie. It started off with just percussion and piano. Amanda and I were the percussionists who played the mallet parts at the beginning, so we decided to dress the part. I brought a couple of graduation robes, and a pair of Harry Potter glasses (without lenses), and she wears glasses anyway. While they were announcing the piece, she and I scrunched down and put on the robes and glasses, then stood up at the same time. Since the director has to look at us to start the piece, we knew he'd see us. He looked at us for a second, then grinned and chuckled at us, and started the song. The band members who could see us thought it was really funny. It was great! I thought the whole band sounded great, especially the percussion section (not that I'm biased or anything.) After I dropped my car off at home, we went by David's to hang out. Well, he hung out, I fell asleep. Oh well.

Today during supervision, I heard about an ADHD clinic that they are going to open at the Health Science Center in January. Since the patients will be primarily children, that means I'll get to work there. Yay! I am excited about this, too. I got my test back during class today, which I mentioned earlier. After class, we went to Grand Rounds. It was an interesting topic today, and I really enjoyed the speaker. He knew most of the people in the audience, so he had better rapport. Also, he was very funny and a great speaker to listen to. However, he did go on.....and on....and on. I was definitely ready to go when he was finished. Oh well, it was fun. Well, have a great evening, world!

This weekend was the big move. Well, for David, anyway. We moved him out of his place in Lewisville into his new place in Frisco. After rehearsal on Thursday night, I went over there and was helping him pack. Scrubbing down small appliances, let me tell you, is not fun. But that's okay. It needed to be done, and he was busy doing other stuff.

Friday, I was over there again, wrapping up dishes and putting things in boxes. After my piano kids were finished, he came over and got me and we went to dinner at this wonderful Indian restaurant before heading back to work on packing. He has a lot of stuff! I remember telling him half jokingly at one point to have a garage sale and get rid of some of his stuff. Oh well.

Saturday morning was moving day. He had originally asked some people to come help him move, however they all had stuff going on apparently, and could not help. So it was basically the two of us, making trips back and forth, which was interesting. We did have someone come by for a couple of hours, and that helped. We were both really impressed when the movers showed up right on time. After they got the truck loaded, David followed them, and I came behind him after awhile with the two cats. I felt bad for them, they had no idea what was going on, and were upset at David for quite awhile. By the time the movers had left, it was freezing! I was glad I stopped by my house on the way out to Frisco to get some long jeans and a jacket. Later, David and I were walking across the parking lot into Cici's Pizza, and I was almost running, I was so cold, but he was in shorts and a t-shirt and was fine! Oh well. His new apartment is really cool! I think it'll look really awesome once everything is unpacked and set up. It has two bedrooms, two baths, a living room, dining room and kitchen. Also, it has a large balcony. (He's on the first floor.) His new apartment complex has a nice pool and hot tub, and David had originally talked about wanted to try it out. I thought it was going to be cold, so I didn't want to do it, but luckily we were both so exhausted that the subject didn't come up.

Sunday, I went to church as usual, and it was an orchestra day, which meant that I got to run around even more than usual! Oh well, exercise is a good thing. As I was packing up percussion stuff afterwards, some people from my Bible study group invited me to eat lunch with them, so I did. That was a lot of fun. Then I went home to change and help out David some more. My cousin Ben called while I was home. He's a student at Ole Miss. So he and I had a nice chat. Anywho, then it was back to David's. We did have a funny incident happen at his old apartment. He was pulling the dryer our to get at some of the stuff behind it. Well, he pulled it out so far, that the hose came off. So, someone had to get back there and fix it, and I was able to fit back there after it had been pushed back enough to where the hose would reach it. Anywho, so I was crouched back there with a screwdriver, trying to get it fixed, which I did. I told David, that it was one thing that I never thought I would do: dryer repair. Yay! I fixed something! Go, me! We took another load of stuff back to his new place, and he changed clothes and got ready for youth. Last night was River, which is the youth-led worship service. They sometimes have a counselor speak, and David was the speaker last night. I got to do the power point, so that was fun. He did really well on his speech. Good job, David! Yay!!!!!!

So here I am at school. The really cool part is that I got a really, really good parking spot today! Woohoo! Today is looking up! Go make it a great one, everybody!

I was really stressed this morning. I had a patient scheduled to come in for therapy with me this morning, and my supervisor had not gone over what we were supposed to do. Well, it turns out that the patient needed to change the start of therapy until November. This took a huge weight off of me! I had a talk with my supervisor later, and she told me that I was doing a good job at my practicum, which I really needed to hear. She then asked me something that kind of embarrased me a little bit. She said that she noticed that I am very thin, and am I okay? I told her that I take after my father in looks and build, and that yes, I am okay. I think she felt kind of awkward asking me about it, and I felt kind of weird when she asked me. I mean, I guess it's a good thing that she is concerned, but still. Oh well.

Band rehearsal tonight was a lot of fun. We have a concert a week from today, so ya'll come! We also found out some really exciting news! We are getting a new bass drum, and very possibly, a set of vibes! Since the vibes are my favorite percussion instrument, I am really, really excited about this! Yay!

I had a fantabulous weekend. Friday evening when I got home, David had just pulled up in front of my house. He presented me with a couple of sunflowers that he had picked for me. (I love sunflowers. They are so cheerful-looking!) Then we tried a new place to eat out in Coppell called Cafe Portobella. Well, it was new for me, he'd been there before. Anywho, the food was excellent! I had some cream ravioli and David had.........well, I don't remember, but I tried some and it was wonderful, too. We then went to Grapevine Mills and walked around. David bought me a beautiful watch! I have a nice gold one, but I bashed the glass on the face of it somehow, and it is off getting repaired. So I have been wearing my Mickey Mouse watch that I have had for seven years. Well, David wanted me to have a nice watch that fit me better than Mickey Mouse did. (It has a big face, it almost covers my wrist.) So we picked out this gold and silver watch. They took out some links to make it fit while we waited. It is very nice and doesn't swallow my wrist. Thanx, David! We also did some other shopping and went to Starbucks. Later we watched the Special Edition Lion King DVD. I noticed that they added one song, and that's all I noticed, but David said there were some subtle differences in it. It was a fun night.

Saturday, I spent the day with Heather, having girls' time. We went shoe shopping, and had intended on going to Sam Moon, but we got sidetracked by a couple of other shops. I did wind up buying this cute sparkly top that would be great to wear next week at the Carrollton Band concert. We went to her brother's baseball game. His team did really well, and Ryan got three hits! Go, Ryan! Heather said that it was his best game ever, and now I had to come to all of his games. (Sorry, not going to happen.) We then met David for dinner at Cozymel's. Then Heather and I went to Grapevine Mills and did a totally silly thing: tried on formals. Now, neither of us have an event or occasion that requires a formal, we just like to do it occasionally, because we feel all girly and pretty in a formal dress. The sad thing is that most of the dresses are way too big for me, even in the petite sizes, but I still have fun. After having dress fun, we did Starbucks and went out to Andy Brown park in Coppell for some playground time. Yes, we go from trying on formals to playing on the playground. All in all it was a fun night, and I know Heather and I both laughed more than we had in the past couple of weeks. It was great. Oh, and we also decided that she and I are going to get together and cook something every couple of weeks. And we are not cooking something that comes from a box or a bag. We are going to really cook something. Since neither of us are adept at this, it should be interesting. It will also be entertaining, at least for us. Our last cooking adventure involved burning taco shells in the oven. (Well, the box said to brown them, and they were certainly brown!). It'll be great.

Yesterday was a good one. The kids had a great rehearsal in the morning. We sing for the congregation again in two weeks. That is hard to believe, but the kids will be fine. Then I had to perform with the praise team at the eleven o clock service. We met at ten-thirty to rehearse and the guitarist was playing a blues riff, so one of the guys started to sing "Sweet Home Chicago", and was very surprised when I knew the words to that. (Classic Blues Brothers tune.) The service went well. My church is participating in the 40 Days of Purpose campaign, that a whole bunch of churches around the world are doing. I got my copy of The Purpose Driven Life and I am enjoying it so far. Yesterday afternoon was orchestra rehearsal, and our director had both of us on percussion running around like mad! Oh well, good thing I had my running shoes on! After rehearsal, I headed over to David's church for youth. I was helping do the murder mystery activity, which is a lot like the game Clue. Three of the groups really tried to solve the mystery, which involved listening to other group members and teamwork. They did a great job and solved the mystery. The other group just wanted to sit there and whine. David, who was doing some wall-climbing activity, said that group was the same way at his station, too.

On a separate note, I checked my web stats yesterday. I found out that my site has had an average of 736 hits a day for the month of October. My photo album and this blog are the highest traffic areas. This month, my blog has had 718 hits. my photo page has had 1140 hits. Eeek! Kind of makes me wonder who is reading this, and also makes me feel popular. So I guess people are actually reading this, which makes me feel good. Yay!

Back to Friday morning. She had another heart attack on Friday morning, and didn't make it. After Heather and her sister found out, they told their brother, and then she called me. I told my parents, then called David. He had spent the night at work, and was still there when I called. He came over for awhile, then went back to work. I went over to Heather's and stayed over there for most of the afternoon.

Her mother was a great person, and one of my "other mothers". She knew almost as much about me as my mother, and even called me one of her daughters. I am very saddened by this loss, although I know I feel nothing compared to what Heather and her family must feel.

David and I were supposed to go to College Station for the weekend. I wasn't sure if I should go, given the cirmcumstances. I talked it over with Heather's family, my family and David, and they all thought I should go. We got down to College Station around eleven, and got settled in for the night. David was exhausted from his hectic workweek, so we didn't make it to yell practice. A little bit later, I was asking him about our seats at the game. He answered me, then said,"Oh, no." It turns out that he left the tickets on his dresser at home. I was disappointed, but that's okay. There will be other Aggie games.

The weekend was fun, I got to tour campus and buy a t-shirt. I took all sorts of pictures, which I will put on my photo album at some point. During the game, we went to visit with some of David's Aggie friends. I had a good time visiting with them, although I was pretty mopey the whole weekend. We then went out to play pool and socialize with some of David's friends from high school. They were nice, however, given Friday's events, I was not in a particularly social mood, so I went back to the hotel and read while David played with his friends.

Monday was the funeral. They had a lunch for the family beforehand, which I was asked to attend. I sat up in the front with Heather and the family. The hardest part of the service was when they opened the casket, and everyone in the room walks up the the front, row by row, to view the open casket and to say goodbye. It was really hard for me to see her in the casket, and even harder to see the faces of her family who loved her so much. My mom and David both came to the service, David bringing chocolate and kleenex for us girls. (Thanx, David. And thanx, Mom, for coming.) After the service, we went over to a friend's house for some refreshments. It was a sad day, and she will be sorely missed.

The rest of the week has been hard, trying to get through the week. I had a test on Monday, which I rescheduled for today, and a test yesterday. I took both tests and feel like I did well on both of them. Last night, we wound up having Bible study at Marble Slab because David was running late. While David was in line, paying for the ice cream, the kids and I were trying to come up with ways to relate ice cream to God. (e.g. ice cream comes from milk, which comes from a cow, which was made by God.) We had fun with that. I don't know why things happen the way they do, but I know God does things for the general good of man.

Birthday Greetings: Happy Birthday, Ian!!!!

This week has gone really well. On Tuesday, I went to my practicum out in Ft. Worth. Well, I had been there about an hour and a half when I was informed that my supervisor was not going to be in that day. So I had driven out there for nothing. Nice. I found stuff to work on, and wound up staying until early afternoon. Tuesday night was band. The band director brought his two sons to rehearsal. The younger one decided to come back and hang out with the percussion section. (brave kid) Well, I decided that if he was back there, he might as well play something, so I handed him a woodblock and a mallet and he went to town. He got to play on each song, and was having a grand old time.

Wednesday morning was group supervision. That's when I heard about the interesting article that I posted yesterday. To add to that, one of my classmates worked in a prison for sixteen years, and she would often take them for drug testing. She told me that one time, an inmate got a urine sample from another inmate, and somehow sneaked it into the testing room and turned it in as his own. Well, the test results came back, and they called in this particular inmate to discuss the results. They informed him that he was not only drug free, he was also six months pregnant! I thought that was really funny. After class, that same classmate and I went to the library to go to grand rounds, like we do every week. Well, they always have a free lunch with the grand rounds. However, this week they did not. How crummy is that? I mean, the whole reason we go is for the free lunch! (Unless, of course, my supervisor happens to read this. Then we are going for the educational opportunities.) Oh well, we bought a lunch and enjoyed the lecture.

Today was my half day out in Ft. Worth. I got to sit in on a very interesting clinical interview. I also set up an appointment for my first therapy client! (Poor person, having me as a therapist.) I will start seeing her a week from Tuesday. I am looking forward to doing therapy, although I have not really done it before, so this will be interesting. I also found out today that my supervisor will be gone all next week, which means I will not have to go out there. Yay, two days to sleep in! Tonight, I had handbells rehearsal. I was glad that I had someone else on the top bell table with me tonight, it is very tiring trying to play eight bells!

Well, I need to go rest up for the big weekend! I will report back of my adventures in Aggieland next week. Good night world, go make it a great weekend!

On Thursday, I discussed the results of the assessments that I had done on a 17 year-old girl out at the Health Science Center, with the girl and her mother. They agreed to some therapy seesions, which will be interesting, I think. I also did a clinical interview with someone who will be coming in for some therapy, though not with me. Which is good, because he kind of scared me, so I don't think I'd want to do therapy with him. Thursday night I had my first handbells rehearsal. It went well, although we need some more ding-a-lings. I was on the top table by myself, and had about eight or nine bells that I was trying to play. I was doing okay, until we did one song that had the melody up there on the high bells, and I was struggling to get it all played. Oh well. Good thing it wasn't the larger bells, I would have never come close to getting all the notes! Thursday night, I wound up talking to a good friend of mine, Becky. She and I have been friends since I was in seventh grade and she was in eighth. She played the French horn, and the percussion section was right behind them, so that's how we met. Anywho, she goes to OU and is graduating in May with her dual bachelors! I don't get to talk with her very often, so I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and catching up on each other's lives.

Friday morning, I had planned on going up to school, but I received a phone call at nine o clock in the morning. It was my friend Heather, who was at the hospital. Her mom had a heart attack, and will be in there until at least tomorrow. At any rate, I went to the hospital to be with Heather and her family. Since visitor hours were almost over, I took Heather and her sister to breakfast at IHOP, then we came back to my house and watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. Which is a total chic flick, but we enjoyed the time together and the movie. I wound up not teaching any piano lessons on Friday, because the kids all had parent-teacher conferences, which meant that they were not at school. David had some stuff to do at his church, which wound up taking longer than he thought. So, it was almost nine-thirty when he came over. We were both starving! Since I had purchased a coupon pass book thingy from one of the youth, David and I decided to look through it and find a good coupon. We were so hungry, we decided that it would take too long, and should we just eat the book? (We didn't.)

Saturday was Kimmie's wedding. David had been tapped to do the video of the ceremony and reception, so I didn't get to hang out with him too much. Since Kimmie and I have a lot of friends in common, it made the whole evening just that much more fun. My uncle wore his Air Force uniform and looked really nice. During the reception, I had fun on the dance floor. I danced with David, my dad, my uncle and even my mom and cousin Deanna. Deanna and I were attempting to do a made-up dance that was a cross between the push, the jitterbug, with a little bit of swing dance thrown in. Since I have not taken any kind of swing dance/jitterbug dance lessons, it was rather interesting. But it was fun!!!!

Sunday morning, the Carol Choir made their debut in the congregation. They did so well! I am so proud of them! Nobody picked their nose or did anything stupid that I could see during the performance. Several of their parents came up and told me what a good job they did. Yay! We perform again in November, that'll be fun, then the Christmas program which will include the older choir kids, plus the Sunday school classes. I think it'll be a good program. Last night, I went to youth with David. Since my feet were still sore from Saturday night's shenanigans, I wore my Freudian slippers inside the church. I got a lot of funny looks and chuckles for my unique foot gear. I also almost got taken out by one of the youth, who wanted to give me a hug, and kind of pushed into me. Well, my slippers have no traction, so I started to slide, but she caught me and stood me upright. After youth was over, I was doing my jitterbug/push/swing dance thing with a couple of the kids. That was a lot of fun. Yes, I am definitely goofy.