Calling all Lethbridge-ites!

If you are from Lethbridge or have been there, I'm talking to you.

Think Lethbridge. Think summer.

What would you recommend doing in Lethy during the summer months? I need a things-to-do-for-fun-in/around-Lethbridge-during-the-summer list.

I know I know, I've lived there for 22 out of my 24 years, but I want your opinion.

May this famous Lethbridge Bridge inspire you.

A Glance at the Life & Times of Julie

Soooooo, upon Tracy’s request (Tracy is a faithful Julie-blog-reader and suggested that I write about what exactly it is that I do), I will sum up my academic career for you all.

I’m currently finishing my masters in Speech Language Pathology. Most people think that speech pathologists fix lisps and that’s about it. Such is not the case. It is an incredibly varied field. Sure we work with lisps, but also with:

• other articulation errors
• stuttering
• language delays (i.e. when kids haven’t picked up on plurals/past tense etc etc)
• people who have had strokes/brain injuries/have degenerative disorders and have problems understanding and/or talking (i.e. communicating)
• people with voice problems (including transgendered people: when individuals go from male to female, they need therapy to help raise the pitch of their voice. When females have sex changes, they can take hormones that lower their larynx and therefore make their voice lower. However, men already have a low larynx and it can’t be raised, so therapy helps them raise their pitch in the healthiest possible way for their vocal folds).
  
• swallowing disorders (i.e. dysphaiga)
• respiration (b/c it’s important for speech)
• *edited to add: hearing screenings & working with the deaf/hard of hearing population (duh Julie)
  

Basically we work from the lungs up. So are you catching on? It’s varied.

How did I get to this point? I did a 4 year undergrad degree in Psychology and took several prerequisite courses. The particular degree doesn’t really matter as long as you have the prerequs which are mostly in the areas of linguistics, psychology, anatomy, and stats. I also have tons of other experiences. I have:

• volunteered with Speech Pathologists
• worked with autistic children
• visited an aphasic lady weekly since my first year of University, and now whenever I go home
• done linguistics research (and published it)
• worked at a neuroscience lab
• GRADUATED in 2005
  

Now what's involved in the masters program? A STINKload of work. It's an intense course load to begin with, then throw in clinic, a thesis or "project", a ridiculous amount of reading... the list goes on. This goes on for15 months (straight) then after Christmas the placements begin. People will be done at different times, but I'll tell you about mine.

• My first placement was at an intensive stuttering clinic. LOVED IT.
• My current placement is at an Edmonton hospital (doing tons of dysphagia and adult communication stuff). Also enjoying this.
  
• My final placement is in Lethbridge with kiddies. Really looking forward to this.
  

In December I graduated and in November 2007 I will convocate and be completely finito!


Here's my challenge for you. I know it's a risky question (and if you don't know me well, you likely won't notice), but what's unusual about this picture?! (And please don't say my forehead looks square or something).

"Girl" Push-ups

The other day at the fitness centre I saw a girl do- I kid you not- this:

(my reenactment)

(?!!?!) I know there are "girl" push-ups and "boy" push-ups and I'm pretty sure that this is supposed to be a "girl" push-up. Unfortunately for this mysterious girl, though, it didn't quite turn out that way. It's more of an elbow workout if anything. Witnessing this made my day, so thank you mysterious girl! (PS- no offense if you do push-ups like this! I'm sure it's working out... something;)

Still Skeptical

Yesterday Lowell attempted the "spoon thing" (as raved about in my previous post) while cutting onions. We tried 3 spoons before we got one that fit his palate nicely... but by then I think it was too late. The onions had already started working their evil. Lowell wasn't even halfway done cutting the onion when he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said, "My eyes hurt. Can I take the spoon out of my mouth?" Yes dear, you can. His left eye was particularly red and watery because it didn't have a contact in it.

Aw, poor baby...

Ave mentioned that you can't talk while doing such tricks with onions. Perhaps this spoon thing is more strict than we thought necessary! Next time maybe we'll try the "bread thing"(?!). (Care to expand Dave? I have no clue what you mean!!)

Despite Lowell's teary and stingy eyes, he continued to be the helpful man around our house that he always is. He fixed our fruit drawers! It sure is handy for us girls to have a man around now and then.

More Brilliantness!

Once again, I spotted one of my roommates doing something weird. Avery was cutting onions, and she announced, “I’m doing what Tara does!” I turned to see Ave cutting an onion while sucking on a spoon. Uh….what? Apparently it’s supposed to prevent eyes from going all watery crazy. I tried this morning when making guacamole, and it sure didn’t work for me. I complained to Tara about this and she set me straight. The convex side of the spoon has to be pressed against your palate (yet another tip from Marc B). Ah. That I shall try next time.

Is it just me, or are my roommates weird? Geniuses… but weird.

Everyone is allowed a blonde moment once in a while…

The other day I went to Safeway all gung ho to stock up on groceries. Naturally, I stopped at the grocery cart pile in the parking lot to pick one up. I pulled out my loonie and attempted to release the captive cart. It didn’t work, so I tried again. And again. And… again. Finally, I gave up and just stood there, staring at the cart and the “loonie hole”, wondering why it wasn’t working. I thought I was losing my mind (you know that feeling when you over think something so much that it no longer makes any sense?). I was sure I knew how to get a cart. After staring blankly at the cart for several seconds (I won’t say just how many as it’s actually really humiliating), a Safeway employee (i.e. a young man) came to my rescue. “Can I help you?” He asked (clearly amused). I had basically swallowed all my pride at this point as I was so confused, so I blurted (in an annoyingly chipper voice), “How the heck do these things work?” He looked at me with a smirk on his face, said “a quarter” and then used his little magic tool to release it for me. A QUARTER. Of course.

After trying to hide my embarrassment with some lighthearted laughter (which, in hindsight, probably made me look even more ditsy), I dashed into the store and out of sight of the parking lot dude. From then on, I kept a close eye out for him and was ready to hit the deck at any sighting of him. I was really very embarrassed, and did not want to give him another opportunity to see my face (shameful as it was).

Moral of the story: If the loonie doesn’t work, try a quarter. If the quarter doesn’t work, maybe you failed to notice the complete lack of a hole and use of the cart is free. If you have to think about it too hard about it, turn around and go back home. It's clearly not a day you should be in public. It's a "blonde" day. It happens to the best of us...

Avery's engaged!

Normally on a Sunday night, I'm not only in bed, but fast asleep by 10pm. Except this Sunday. I didn't get home til later, so I was still awake in my bed when Avery came home (she's a night owl, that one). A few minutes after she came home, the roomies came traipsing up the stairs to my room, slowly opened the door, and said softly, "Julie?" I responded, so Avery put her hand through the door first to show me her new sparkler! My reaction: "HOLY CRAP!" I knew they'd get engaged, but I didn't think it would happen until Christmasish. They're planning a June 2008 wedding, so that gives Ave plenty of time to plan!!

You can read the story on Avery's blog.

Congratulations Zak and Avery!

This picture is a year old, but me likey!

Brilliantness in all its brilliancy

On Wednesday, Tara (roomie) and I went for a soaking wet slushy run (as Edmonton is finally warming up) then decided to make supper together. After a delightful little meal, I witnessed Tara doing this while we were doing dishes:


She's rubbing a wet plastic bag against the side of the cupboard. Are you thinking what I was thinking? What. the. heck. I questioned her about this, and she said that Marc (her boyfriend) taught her to stick wet bags to the side of the cupboard when they're wet, then when they dry, they'll fall down (something he learned in Africa?). BRILLIANT! I'm sorry I ever doubted, Tara, I am now converted to this special method of bag drying.

I love winning!

Remember when I posted about Lowell and I's first date? Well, as I finished typing that up, John Tesh on EZ Rock 104.9 said "...So go to tesh.com now and enter your first date in the contest..." (as Valentines week was "love week"). How convenient was that? So I did a little copy and pasteroo, and a couple days later I got an email saying I was a runner up. They asked me to email them my address and my size as I had won a pair of pajamas! I wanted the pajamas to fit, so I was very specific about my size. "I'm usually this or this, but my measurements are this and this, but in some stores I'm this, but keep in mind that I'm 5'7", so I don't want them to be short..." I think they found these instructions rather tedious, so they sent me these instead:

A Josh Groban CD

A Natalie Cole CD

A Rod Stewart CD

And....

A Subway cash card! I don't know how much is on it, but I'm hoping it's in the thousands/millions as it was once (for a brief period of time) a goal of mine to eat at every Subway in Canada, and this could help make my dream become reality! What are the chances?

The CDs about doubled my current CD collection, so I think they sent those to the right girl. The only CDs I own are "20 Praise & Worship Songs", 2 Celine Dion CDs, and Amy Grant's CLASSIC Christmas CD. With 7 CDs in my possession, I think I'm good to go...

Thank you John Tesh! (Although I still kind of want the PJs...)

Learnings...

Though I just found out that the book was indeed not meant as a gift for me, I have learned a thing or two. While most facts are just plumb disturbing, Lowell and I happened across some equally fascinating ones! Such as:

The number of sperm that could be fit into an aspirin capsule would be enough to repopulate the earth to its present numbers. (I found this particularly interesting as up until a few years ago, I thought sperm was actually the size of a tadpole...that's what they look like in all the text books!)

The number of female ova necessary to repopulate the world could fit into a chicken egg. (Again....surprising)

Just think, the entire earth could be repopulated from just an aspirin capsule and a chicken egg. Weird...


In my previous post, I mentioned the little tidbit about Mark Wahlberg and his third nipple. I didn't even know who the dude was, but apparently he was "The Body" in the 80's, an underwear model, singer, and is now an actor (Entourage?). He originally became famous b/c he was the little brother of one of the New Kids on the Block. *sigh* New Kids on the Block...
Anyhoo, Marky Mark (as he is apparently known) declined removing the third nipple b/c he "began to embrace it". Well, good for him, I say!

Here he is ladies and gents...

Hidden Treasures

Lowell and I came home to Lethbridge for the weekend for a premarital course at E-Free (which was great, by the way, but not the point of this post), and when I went to my room, I found a little treasure in the form of this book:


I can think of no one that would leave this little treat for me but Marc & Kylie , who used our house as a last minute packing station before flying off to Kenya.

Here is an example of one of the less completely inappropriate factoids:

Mark Wahlberg has three nipples. The third nipple was airbrushed out of his underwear ads.

If my conversation suddenly turns a little less appropriate than usual, you know why... and you have Marc & Kylie to thank.