notes from the underground--grad school edition, volume 2.

worst day of grad school > worst day of undergrad.
funny how that works, eh?
not that grad school isn't a lot--it is.
but. it's not so all-consuming as my last year of speechpathrussiangradapps was.
(cause that was just insanity. let's never do that again, yeah?)
this isn't rocket science, after all.
and, considering there's so much we don't know, there's a lot of ambiguity.

you know what the things is about grad school?
they don't actually force you to do anything.
not really.
it's expected.
and not doing these things punishes no one but yourself.
there's glory in that--
it's all your own.

- - -

i get a weird joy out of being lost in basements of libraries.
not lost, but lost to the world. at least for a time.
though sometimes it also makes me feel like i'm losing my humanity.
also. truth universally acknowledged?
it's always cold in the dungeons of the library.
always. why is that?

- - -

i like the different research findings we talk about,
but i don't like the research process itself or academia.
still, i'm frustrated by the desperate need for more research.
when humans are involved, though, research only goes so far.
that's something i kind of love about this field: ambiguity.
because sometimes there's not going to be an answer. it's okay not to know.

ease with ambiguity.
comfort with complexity.
confidence tempered by humility.

- - -

in one of my classes a few weeks ago, we were talking about biases.
researcher bias, examiner bias, all the possible bias in all things.
if you believe something in your head, you might find that.
agreed.

but. you know?
i also think.
sometimes. you must know what you're looking for in order to find.
not in all cases, of course.
in life, though.
with people.
perhaps you need a general idea of what you're aiming for if you ever hope to get there.

- - -

what do i really want out of life?
what do i really want it to look like?
these are the things i think about and scribble in the margins of notebooks during long lectures.
or when i've finished exams or quizzes before everyone else.
(i'm almost concerned at this trend--this finishing so soon when i receive last.)
i think too much, really.
that's my problem.
and yet i can't stop thinking and wondering.
what do i reallytrulyactually want out of life?
how do i truly want my life to look?
more than that--how do i get there?
most days i know, some days it all seems farfetched.

i wonder more often than i probably should why i am where i am.
not in my university, of course. in other things.

- - -

despite all these things we study and talk about,
even with the medical interests i have--
i still keep coming back to autism and languages/bilingual issues.
what does this mean? does it mean?
the other day one of my professors was talking about her research and her history.
how as a graduate student, she was bored with the typical, and so she got involved with some other research.
it was the part of my days i was most looking forward to.
and that's where i needed to go. that's what i needed to do.
[she studied complex syntax, and i thought it was fascinating.]
i'm not saying i'm interested in complex syntax. (i'm really not.)
but i am saying.
i'm bored.
my time is consumed, but i am bored.
and so i think too much.
and my mind wanders from every topic to what influence that may have on autism.
and i'm all filled up with all these pieces of different languages.
i mean, it's mostly russian anymore.
but there are still all those other pieces.
that must be for something. it's something cultivatable.

in my developmental language disorders class the other day,
we were talking about preschools for a minute.
and. you know?
an autism preschool.
a language-based preschool for individuals with autism.
that wouldn't be so bad.

(speaking of preschools.
when my children someday go to preschool.
i'd like their teacher to have a college degree.
and preferably, i'd like it to be a language-focused curriculum.
too much? right. okay. we'll cross that bridge later.)

- - -

i'm perplexed sometimes by the mix of people and personalities that end up in this field.

perhaps even more perplexed by the way there's not as much variation as you'd think.

- - -

if you don't like people, if you can't have empathy--
you shouldn't be in this field.

did you know they've done studies?
in the end.
if you're a good clinician, you'll see results--regardless of what you do.
these things we're learning, they're tools.
but sometimes.
even when the work is good, the research results are not inspiring.
and there is no one-way ticket to minimizing negative effects of language and speech disorders.
individuals, you see.
there's something in that, though.
the fact that, if you're a good clinician, you'll see results.
because it's about being a human being.
who believes. cultivates. empowers.

- - -

all of my personal experiences prior to graduate school--
well, they don't all relate. not really.
people say things--with astonishment, of course--like,
oh, you know russian?? look at you. that's so great. i'm sure it will be useful.
i'm sure it will. because it's useful in life. kind of.
but the offering in this field from russian-speaking countries is meager.
speech-language pathology isn't a very large field outside of the united states,
especially outside of english-speaking countries.
in ukraine i'd tell people what i was studying,
and often they had no idea what it was.
i had to describe the field to them, just as i frequently do in english.

my russian, particularly as a double major,
honestly has very little to do with the things i study now.
and yet.
all these languages i've studied.
all the literature that has seeped into my soul.
the experiences i've shared with so many different kinds of human beings.
they've sharpened me.

a sharpening a bit like a pencil in a pencil sharpener, you could say.
not one of those pretty electric ones that flooded into classrooms in my later elementary years--
rather, the metal manual sharpeners.
the ones you have to crank with your hand, and listen to the grinding.
you know?
everyone secretly despised the person who got up in the middle of a spelling test to sharpen their pencil.
despised that painful grinding that pierced through the room.
it's not pretty, that process.
the shavings discarded in all shapes and sizes.
sometimes you think the pencil's sharpened,
when really there's a hunk of wood on one side blocking the lead.
and so you shove that pencil back in and twirl the crank around,
pushing the pencil towards the circulating blades.
and then when you pull the pencil out--she's sharp as an arrow.
oh boy, is she sharp.

so it is.

these experiences from every kind of place and time.

these interactions with people of every kind.

they sharpen my perspective.

they sharpen the way i approach and categorize new information with the old.

they sharpen. me.

sharp.

- - -

p.s. first fall break i've ever had in college?

joke's on me. there's still several things scheduled for clinic throughout the week.

in addition to a ridiculous amount of things to be done.

#happyfallbreaktoyoutoo

then again. today i slept in.

did a bunch of laundry.

(washed my sheets for the first time in youdon'twanttoknow how long.)

ran through these beautiful streets.

worked on some readings.

did some researching trying to find article upon article.

worked on these bigger projects.

and made pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies while watching parenthood. 

(aka mynewfavoriteguiltypleasureshow.)

i'm nowhere near done.

but. you know. this breakandbreathe lyfe ain't so bad.

notes from the underground--grad school edition, volume 1.

all through my aphasia class today we were talking about neuroscience.

all i know is that i kept thinking about brains. and autism. and aphasia.

in my other class, i kept thinking about autism therapy.

we were talking about phonological theories and articulation,

but i kept thinking about autism.

this is the thing about individuals with autism--

they see more than they get credit for seeing.

they see more.

- - -

the brain is so malleable, but damage is damage.

at church on sunday i was talking to someone.

and when i talked about my course of study, he had a real-live response and discussion.

(not just the usual coolokaybye. that means idon'tknowwhatthatmeansbutgoteamokaybye.)

because there was a woman in his ward or somewhere who was brilliant and bright and sharp.

and then she had a stroke and lost her words.

him: you can just tell. the words are right there. it's all still there, but she can't--

me: --yes! it's there, but she just can't get it out.

him: exactly. and now you can tell she's so reliant on her husband for everything.

aphasia is so fascinating, but tragic to me.

because even if you didn't lose your life from the stroke,

you've lost the words that give you life.

in therapy and intervention prognosis, they always talk about influencing factors.

things like age and site and severity of lesion.

family support, previous skills prior to the event.

and motivation.

because with acquired language disorders, so often the motivation comes so hard sometimes.

no one can understand you, or you can't understand yourself.

and so individuals become depressed sometimes and unmotivated to work on treatments.

as if a little part of them knows--

no matter how intensive the therapy,

their gains may never reach again where they once were.

in the beginning of college, i'd always understood that concept--

but only as a concept without really understanding.

then last fall as part of the professional practices course,

we talked about the stages of grief.

for individuals, for loved ones, for caregivers.

and i wonder--

would i lose my motivation and quit trying were i old and lost my words or comprehension?

would i fight?

we all say we would,

but when you've lived most of a life,

your heart and brain worn down--literally--from your battle scars.

would you keep fighting anyway, no matter how small the gains?

i'm not so sure i would.

- - -

there's a linguist in me.

or at least i thought there was.

but now i know.

it's a linguist for other languages, not english linguistics.

i love languages and their rule systems and the way they so eloquently function.

my freshman year i took a french class with this terrifying french woman.

she always used to say, c'est logique, c'est français! [it's logical, it's french!]

russian was more complex, but had all its sound systems and history of morphology.

my professor would put up all these linguistic rules about voicing or softness.

and even the exceptions came together in a beautiful sort of rhythm and rhyme.

not english, though.

i don't care for english linguistics.

we sit and talk of phonological processes and patterns.

language development theories and linguistic constraints.

and in english it all seems so scattered to me,

like groping for some small semblance of explanations.

they haven't found one yet.

because there isn't one.

- - -

that's the thing about graduate school--

it's so much less concrete than you'd think.

the statements of fact handed you as an undergraduate,

are taken away and returned to you as a collection of possibilities.

because everything's an option when it comes to pathologies in the brain and language.

everything's an option when it comes to disorder.

analyze what the child is doing.

figure out the puzzle.

this is what keeps our job so interesting.

because there is no one rule to follow.

they give you pieces of all they know,

they go through the process of solving puzzles with you,

and then they send you off to solve the puzzles yourself,

equipped not with answers, but with the resources to find the answers.

to keep researching until you find information that might work.

might. hopefully.

do the same thing with two seemingly identical individuals--

do you get the same result?

not necessarily.

and so you're left to create an answer yourself.

that's all it is--

a collection of answers for interventions that could work,

some are even likely to work.

but when human heads and hearts are involved, you just never know.

even when it seems they should--

sometimes they just might not.

granted.

but also.

even when it seems they shouldn't--

sometimes?

sometimes they just might.

choosing.

the thing about a mission is that you choose. anyone should be sure that it's a choice of their own, but especially as a sister. there's no obligation whatsoever to serve full-time. in fact, when i made my choice, there were plenty choosing not to go.

the thing about a mission, though, is that also at some point--usually at the beginning--that choice made as a statement turns into a question. i chose this? because when you make the choice, you don't know. no one can see into the future. you make a choice based on a visualization that you create in your head that was made according to that which you attempted to predict. which, of course, is normal and good and right. i'm a firm believer in the power of visualization as a means to guide your desires and direct your choices. but then you get in there, and as you ought to expect, you encounter the unexpected and unimagined possibilities that are now reality and you say with a hint of betrayal, disbelief, and possibly disappointment all rolled into one: i chose this?

missions are an odd sort of alternate universe that highlight and force simplicity and minimalism in every aspect of who you are and what you do, because you're called out of the world with a singular purpose. and the effective fulfillment of that purpose requires picking everything apart and simplifying to the core basics of what you believe and the doctrinal foundations that guide your life. and in such an experience--choosing a mission and entering the field--the discrepancy between expected and reality is quite pronounced.

i'm not here to talk about missions, though. (feel free to lament that it took me three paragraphs to get here.) because while all of this is true, and i myself experienced it and lived to tell the tale (and, by choice, to not tell many a tale), i've been surprised at how much i now see the same experience hidden in far more places than anticipated. it was always there, of course. but not until now does it have a name and face like this each and every time.

the discrepancy between the visualized expectation and reality. everyone is guilty at some point or another of creating a prospective image of the future with details that are more than fuzzy--even when you know you shouldn't. perhaps especially when you know you shouldn't. because that's what it means to try to imagine the life you have ahead of you. because if only you could just see ahead--to imagine the first day of a new school semester or year as a whole, to imagine a career role in twenty years, to imagine an internship or job placement, to imagine a future spouse or family. there's power in that dreaming and visualization. because i believe in that searching for an image we create, we find which strokes of the paintbrush we couldn't manage without in addition to those that aren't so necessary as we once thought. and because in the formation of these choices, we allow ourselves to believe that brighter things really are ahead and it will all result in something glorious. those creations give something to believe in.

but what about that discrepancy from the image we've so painstakingly drawn? even when the picture is made with allowances for life's realities, it's still just a picture we've made. but. that picture. inside that picture are strokes of the heart of our desires. after you make a choice, and perhaps as part of making that choice, you design the idea--an image of what you want it to look like.

what do you want? the heart wants what the heart wants. what do you want?

Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.

The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming.

Dallin H. Oaks, Desire.

and this is why we dream. our dreams are desires. our desires guide our choices. but. there's a difference between capital d Desires and lowercase d desires. what we want most (capital d) in comparison with something we think we want (lowercase d)--when in fact there's something ahead far better suited to our own personal interests, needs, and capabilities.



one of my jobs this summer is in a niche of this field that i always thought i wanted to specialize in and study in depth. in fact, i'd nearly planned on it, and nearly applied to a few other graduate schools because of an available specialty. if not that, then i'd find opportunity to work to further study and specialize in it once out working. because i'm good with puzzles and finding answers for what makes people tick. and. well. it's a passion of mine, really. and most of my experience revolves around this. (when i was in israel, there was a woman who was given a free pass by me for anything because even in israel, while it was still april she wore an autism speaks pin on her shirt every day. i'm not even a little bit exaggerating: free pass in my book.) and i love it. autism is fascinating to me, maybe because it is such a mystery and each individual is a different puzzle piece. there's so much we don't know, but also so much that we do. anyway. i'll save my autism obsession and observations for another lump of words. the point is, i love it. i love the individuals i've worked with who have autism, i love the individuals i've worked with in working with those who have autism. it's a beautiful, often indescribable, rewarding experience.

however. there are moments when in my head i say, with a hint of chagrined disbelief: i chose this? 

despite my love for it. despite my interest. despite my passion. despite my previous experience. despite all these stars that have aligned to bring me here. despite all that--this summer is showing me what i don't want to do with the rest of my life, not what i do. it's showing me what i love about speech-language pathology specifically rather than behavioral therapy.

and there's a place for that. there's something laudable in that. there's value in having this experience, and in the hilarious, darling, as well as draining moments that fill a day. (sometimes all within the same 10 second period.) and yet. there's something vexing about it too. i chose this?

because it's not what i expected it would be, even if i did choose this and it chose me. rather, it's not so much that it's not what i expected, because i have enough experience to know the face this work wears. what i didn't expect is how i feel about it now. what about that discrepancy of finding that it's not what i necessarily want to, or should, specialize in forever?

the answer to it all is that it all comes back to capital d Desires compared to lowercase d desires. and i have capital d Desires that matter most. and those lower case d's--well, those are only given placement when they allow for attainment of a capital d. and the capital d will always supersede lowercase d, even when we don't know why a lowercase d has to go--we just know that it does.

and this. this is the educating of desires. in choosing and living the image you've created, including the unexpected and unanticipated. because that's what it means to educate your desires--to come to know them and the faces they wear in every kind of light, in both the portrait you paint and the portrait that results. because in the education thereof, some lowercase d's are ultimately sent into extinction, and others rewarded a tenured position next to a capital d.

The Spirit of Christ teaches us that we must pray, that we must ask for the things that we seek. (...) But before we can do this with focus, we have to become aware of a multitude of defined or undefined, conscious or subconscious desires. We have to learn to bring them to our awareness, to analyze them, to categorize them, and to bring them in to order according to priorities. When we do not do this, we will be condemned to remain, in our prayers, on a superficial level, or even on the level of formality, where there are no answers or there are only imagined answers. But there are always hundreds of different desires fighting for supremacy within us. The act of categorizing them is a very painful, but needful act to become, in the eyes of God, a mature person and to be taken seriously. (...) When the Light of Christ is able to penetrate our hearts, prompted by the enlightened testimony of truth by a focused teacher, it will cause in us a state of awakening, an awakening of the real me, the child of God, so that we can learn to channel our desires to focus on our true needs.

F. Enzio Busche, Unleashing the Dormant Spirit.

paint that picture in colors or words. write them down. by all means, write them down. because the process of giving a color and shape to desires is in itself illuminating. it gives something to believe in. because before we start the education, we surely need to know what we're educating.

this is where desires fit inside our agency--in that choice of the desires we educate. because that is the true gift of agency: to use those desires and priorities as tools in making choices. because choices are personal and meaningful and important and it is the choices we make that our lives are created. and desire? well, desire is at the heart of absolutely everything. no wonder they always say, the desires of our hearts. the heart wants what the heart wants.

and when what you want turns out to not be what you thought you wanted? don't be dismayed. there's always another lowercase d waiting on standby. always.

what do you truly want?

вот это--желание наших сердец.

1:68. 1:42. 1:189.

april, did you know, is world autism awareness month?
april 2nd is world autism awareness day.

the cdc recently released new and startling statistics, perhaps you heard?
1 in 68 children has an autism spectrum disorder.
1 in 42 boys. 1 in 189 girls.
and. the numbers in utah are even higher.
yes, diagnosis abilities have improved. that can't be denied.
but. that cannot be the only explanation for such a rise in prevalence.

a few years ago, i began to fall in love with autism.
all because of a little boy named ghița.
(pronounced like pizza with a g at the beginning--gizza.)
one of those one in forty-two boys.
but to me, he was just ghița.
my ghi ghi.

i might be volunteering at a school for children with autism soon.
i walked in to drop off paperwork today.
and.
there's something in the air there.
something that makes me feel like i could and should spend my whole life in that kind of environment.
i don't mind working in an office.
but.
in the end.
i want to work with people. in a direct way.
and something in the air revived that today.
a reminder of the future, if that makes sense.
a tender mercy message moment from god.
a reminder of who i will be. and what i will do.
of who i'm becoming in order to give my life to helping others become.
doing something that truly changes a life.
that.
that is why i will be a speech-language pathologist.
that will be my specialty: the art of becoming.
to elicit that greatness which is already there.
for expression, for speech, for communication, for relationships.
autism speaks.

it's true, i was made for you.

"you know the Greeks didn't write obituaries.

they only asked one question after a man died: did he have passion?"

Serendipity

i found my passion. one of them anyway. below is a story of mine. a story that started in romania. a story about my inspiration. a story that leads me and helps me see what my life needs to be. a story about a six-year-old boy. a boy named fred. (name changed for security reasons.)
it's a bit long, i know. so read on only if you dare.
but you should just know, this boy means more to me than anything in the world.
click here, or read more. (same difference.)