Guinea Pig

Well, here it is.  First blog post.  I am not entirely sure of the intent and direction of this (potentially) creative outlet.  It could be about my life in general.  It could be about my baking adventures.  It could be about graduate school.  Or, considering I've been watching basketball for the past four hours, it could be all about March Madness.  It will honestly probably become a little bit of each, and I think that's completely okay.

So. Today. Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I'm a wee bit Irish myself (mostly Scottish, but I can still use the reddish tints in my hair and my freckles to pass either way).  But instead of going and drinking green beer or eating green eggs and ham, none of which sound very appetizing at the moment, this morning my classmates and I decided to wake up before the dawn to go volunteer at the Special Olympics state basketball tournament over at Lipscomb University, working with the Healthy Hearing program to screen for hearing loss or other audiologic pathologies, etc.  We speechies learned from the audiology students and (eventually) figured out how to operate nifty equipment like tympanometers, otoscopes, otoacoustic emission monitors, and pure tone screening tools.  I started out with the tymps, and I was determined to master that surprisingly tricky little piece of equipment before tacking the realm of the OAE monitor.  So now, I have a modium of expertise, and left today reflecting on what I had learned: everyone's ears are different, I don't like getting cerumen on my hands, ears sweat, too, and working with my colleagues to help these athletes can be really fun.  And then, we got free lunch.  Win-win.

Today mostly consists of watching my new school try to get to the Sweet 16, and my old school trying to make it there as well.  There will be significantly more discussion about March Madness and all of its glory in the very near future, but it's gametime!  I think if we win, I can mark off today as being productive.  If not... well, then I can go drown my sorrows in some reading.  Maybe I should go put on my lucky leprechaun socks, because I really don't want to read...  Let's go 'Dores and  sic 'em Bears!