A Website for Couples

So it's Monday, yuck. Supposedly it's supposed to get warm again today - I hope so! It has been nasty, cold, and rainy here all weekend long. (Which was maybe why I was able to read all 769 pages of Breaking Dawn in one weekend? Wow, I'm lame.)

I wanted to share with you guys an article in the local paper today (the very well-known Waco paper, haha). There's an article about my research advisor and the website that we just put up! It's a really cool website if I do say so myself, so you all should check it out:

http://pairbuilder.com/

And here's the article about it from the Waco Trib:
Baylor Professor Develops Couple Conflict Website

This Semester's Classes

Okay, now that classes have started, I can give you a quick rundown on what they are. My first class of the day is Psychopharmacology, which is basically a class where you learn about every little receptor on every little neuron in your brain and their infinite variations, and then about every drug that affects them which is usually referred to by a title such as RK10293 or something like that, and then you apparently have to memorize all this information for the test.

Yeah. That's that class. Luckily, it's actually entertaining and interesting during class...but when I'm tested on this, there's a high chance I'm going to fail.

My other class is Measurement, which is another statistics class (third in grad school, 6th in my college career if you're keeping track). We get to do a real research project, so hopefully that will be interesting and I can somewhat relate it to my upcoming dissertation research.

Dan is taking Accounting, Econ, Operations, Statistics, Finance, IT, Healthcare finance, Healthcare Econ, Strategy, and Public Health. That's all!

The first six classes are his "core" classes, which means he takes them every semester but they are only one credit hour. He thinks the rest of them are going to be pretty interesting - his professors really know their stuff. Although he will have a ton of work, but I guess that's what you get with 17 credit hours.

Sammie is taking Sleeping, Eating, Going Outside, Playing with Toys, and Learning to Ride in the Car. They are her "core" classes too, and she has done pretty well in all of them in previous semesters - except Learning to Ride in the Car. We're hoping this will be her year for mastering that. No Obedience Class yet for her...we don't want to risk her self-esteem by putting her in a class she might not be the best at.

The Semester's Finally Over!

Well hello there friends...

You may be wondering where we've been the past few weeks. Well, finals is the answer to that question. This semester ended with a bang as we both had a lot of studying to do as well as a lot of other stuff for school and work that all came at once.

Dan had several finals, plus presentations, including a presentation to a real company in town! He is so legit. And good news is that he did well in all his classes this semester, at least according to the grades he's gotten so far, so he will be chugging right along next semester with a supposedly even harder semester.

I had two finals, which you would think wouldn't be that bad, but it was. When you work at the same time and then also have other research, clients, etc. no matter how many tests you have it becomes difficult to study. I have no idea what grades I got yet, but I think I did fine...

which means...

I get my Masters!! YEAH!! I will have a Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology, which is just about the coolest thing ever, until I get my doctorate at least. So feel free to ask me all your psychology-related questions because now I can officially claim that I know what I'm talking about. Well...sort of, anyway.

And I know someone will ask this, so I'll just go ahead and remind everyone that no, this is not the final stop for me. It's just a little step on the way to my final doctoral degree. And I'm exactly halfway done with that degree. I have 1.5 years left of classes and then 1 year of internship, plus dissertation somewhere in there, to go.

So now we are officially done with school for the semester. I have two more days of work, and we both have a couple more meetings and such, but we're basically done. And in four days Dan and I will be traveling to Ohio, and we are so excited to see everyone, and hopefully see some snow too!

Halfway!

I almost forgot to tell you! I am exactly halfway done with the school part of grad school!

I started in summer 2007. Since then, I have taken 4 full semesters, and 3.5 summer sessions.

I will be finished with classes in summer 2011. I have 4 more full semesters to go, as well as 3.5 summer sessions!

I can't believe it - there is actually an end in sight. It's all downhill from here.

Granted, my dissertation will have to be completed in this time, and then I have a year long internship after finishing classes before I can graduate. So I'm not exactly halfway done with grad school. But I'll take being halfway done anywhere I can get it!

Spring Classes

I started my new semester of classes yesterday. This semester I'm taking two classes (as always), which are Clinical Psychopathology and Experimental Design.

Clinical Psychopathology: In this class, we basically go through the DMS-IV-TR, and learn about every possible mental illness or disorder that exists. Although I already know quite a bit about these from everything I've done so far, this course gets down to the details and requires a lot of memorization of symptoms, etc. Theoretically, this class will qualify me to diagnose or classify any psychological problem...which is kind of cool. :) The class is small, just us second years, and with a professor we've had before, so I don't think there will be many surprises.

Experimental Design: This is pretty much "Statistics 2." It's taught by the same professor I had last semester, and continues on with how to design research studies. This class is a little exciting because the third year students will be in it with us as well, and they weren't last semester. Other than that, I think this will be very similar to last semester.

I'm still continuing my practicum work, and I'm not working as a TA this semester so I'll get a little more free time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But to be honest, this semester seems like the "same old, same old." Am I hitting the sophomore slump? I guess we'll find out as the semester continues.

Dan just started a new semester yesterday as well, but apparently when you're a high school teacher, things don't change as much. His only change is that he has two new students.

One More Week Til Christmas Break!

Guess what! I'm better. Thanks so much for all your well wishes. And here's the thing...I was sick enough that my statistics professor told me not to come to the final exam. The cumulative final over the whole semester. He said he will just average my other grades instead. This conversation happened the day before the final. I had studied approximately 10 minutes total because of being sick. Hence, it was maybe the best Christmas present I've gotten so far this year. (Besides my Clean House Clean Planet book, that is. And my bike.) Therefore, I'm not exactly regretting that I was sick. Ergo, maybe I need to get sick during finals week more often.

So now I'm done with classes for the semester! I still have work and research to do this week, but that's it. So my review of classes for the semester:

Developmental Psychopathology: I enjoyed this class a lot. I learned a ton and although we tried to cover way too much in one semester, I now have resources about lots of different childhood disorders. I think this class really has helped me shape my understanding of when and how a lot of psychopathology develops. When: during prenatal development and the first couple years of life. How: if anything goes wrong or anything that shouldn't be there exists during pregnancy or during birth; and the relationship with primary caregivers.

Statistical Methods: I was in way over my head in this class. I've realized I like math, but not so much statistics. It's way too much of an art for me - I prefer numbers and calculations to have exact answers, thankyouverymuch. But oh well. I made it through. And I may have learned something in the process.

So we are driving to Dallas, then flying from there to Columbus this Sunday, the 21st. Dan and I both work this whole week so we will be packing and getting all ready to go on Saturday. This Thursday, we have our Bible Study Christmas party, but besides that, it's a light week. Hopefully it will go somewhat quickly because we are both excited to get back to the Buckeye state!

My Attempt at Homework

I was really trying to study today....see my statistics book underneath the puppy? Every time I tried to read she would just crawl on top of it and plop down.

Hypnosis and Hot Flashes

So that may have been the least-expected title for a blog entry in recent history, right? But I promise, it's relevant! Dr. Gary Elkins is the head of the Clinical Psychology program that I'm in. He taught my Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy class last year, and I'm actually working with him to TA the lab for that class this year.

He has been doing a lot of work with breast cancer and hypnosis for the past few years, and all my classmates who are in his lab have been as well. He recently got a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Health — the largest ever awarded by the NIH for this type of research! So far, he has found that hypnotic relaxation therapy can decrease both the frequency and severity of hot flashes in menopausal women. Basically, they take women going through menopause and induce relaxation through hypnosis. It sounds a little out there, but what do you know - it's working, and it's producing some pretty groundbreaking findings! The grant is to extend this research because it's pretty much sweet.

Here are some articles talking more in detail about his research and the grant:

U.S. News and World Report

Reuters

Yahoo News

So if you're planning on going through menopause anytime soon, book a flight down to Waco and get in on the trials!

Fall Semester Begins...

On Tuesday, I started my new classes for the fall. I am taking "Developmental Psychology" and "Psychological Statistics."

I'm really excited about the Developmental Psych class. We get to learn about childhood basically! It's focused on both general development (parenting, self-esteem, peers, etc) and childhood disorders (autism, ADHD, ODD, etc). Because right now I'm thinking I want to work with kids, this will be really relevant toward my work - and even if I don't end up going into it, it is still helpful for now with my work at the Speech Clinic and still very interesting!

The Statistics class should be fine...we'll see...I'm reserving judgment on this one for now. :-)

I'm also TAing a class for the first-year graduate students! The class is called Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and it's basically learning one approach to therapy. That starts this morning, in about a half hour actually. I'm leading the Lab portion of the class. I'm a little nervous about it - an hour and a half is a long time! What are we going to do for that long?!

Dan is chugging away at his second week of teaching. I can't believe how hard he's working - he's been going in at 7 and getting home after 5 every day! He's taking it like a champ though and this year has been going well so far. He's got 5 classes and about 50 kids total (they have small classes at his school) and he's teaching Spanish 1, 2, and 3. So far so good but I'm so glad it's a 3 day weekend coming up because he (and I) can really use one!

You'll also be glad to know our air conditioner is finally fixed. It broke last Thursday and the maintenence man tried to fix it pretty much every day through Monday and somehow never succeeded. Finally, Monday night, he got it working, but the thermostat was disconnected from our wall and he couldn't fix that until Tuesday. (Yeah, can you tell we live in a cheap apartment?) So our apartment went from sweltering to FREEZING - on Monday night we were both shivering all night long with blankets over our bed!! Haha, but I can't complain, because at least we have air conditioning again and now it's finally fixed for real.

The best part of the whole ordeal is that our maintenence guy was in our apartment on his phone with we think his girlfriend, or baby momma, or something, and fighting with her in Spanish the whole time! He even had her on speaker phone! I know for a fact he has no idea we know Spanish so I'm pretty sure that was why he had such a lax attitude, but basically Dan and I just sat there pretending to be on the computer and instead listened the whole time. Dan understood about a thousand times more than I did but it was still fun. :-)

Time to go "teach!"

Summer's almost over!

We just booked our tickets to Ohio for Christmas...we're flying out of Dallas on Sunday, December 21st and then flying back on Friday, January 2nd. That's right, folks - 12 days! Tickets were somewhat ridiculous and there was no way we could fly out of Waco...it would have been over $1000.

When you move away, you don't mean to strand yourself. But it sort of feels like we're on a desert island here sometimes with the gas and airline prices the way they are! So yay for coming back.

Dan has staff training all next week, and then the first day of class next Friday. Here's his school website if you want to see how he spends his days:

http://www.rapoportacademy.com/education/school/school.php?sectiondetailid=103

I just finished my last summer class and the final exam is due tomorrow. Then I get a break from class (although not work) until August 25th! A website of my school? Okay:

http://www.baylor.edu/psychologyneuroscience/index.php?id=21323
If you click on "Our students," there are pictures of me and my friends :-)

Back to work on my final...

Dan's Modeling Debut...or something

Dan was selected to represent Rapoport Academy High School in the Waco Tribune Herald - nice! He did a photo shoot with the local newspaper a couple weeks ago and the section just came out. Unfortunately we missed it since we don't get the paper delivered, but here is the links\ to his shots in case you're interested! (note: you have to scroll through to pictures 10 and 11)

http://www.wacotrib.com/ap/mediahub/07302008wthsspirit/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=115152

My New Practicum Site

I started my new job at the Speech and Hearing Clinic last week (we switch practicum sites every year). I'm the staff psychologist - crazy huh? - so they call me in for all sorts of things. The clinic works with kids from preschool up through adolescents who have some sort of speech, language, or hearing problems. They call me in if they are having trouble with behavior, have questions about their intelligence, attention problems, or think there might be family relationship problems. I will be doing some testing (mostly IQ, ADHD, and autism) and some therapy, as well as working a lot as a consultant for the staff. The tests I'll be giving will be kind of hard since a lot of them are completely non-verbal, so you're supposed to gesture and pantomime your way through the directions.

We also started our second summer class, which is simply called "Assessment 3." Basically, the professor can teach you whatever they want. So, we are currently learning the Rorschach - the famous inkblot test! Pretty neat, huh?

We Work with Movie Stars

There's a new documentary out called "Crawford" about the town where Bush's ranch is, which also happens to be about 20 minutes outside of Waco. It's a pretty low-budget film, but I know it's showing at least some places nationwide. I talked to Dad earlier today, and he said he thought it might be playing at the Drexel in Columbus...so it seems like it's probably at smaller, more independent type theaters.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but this is a quote from the director kind of explaining what it's about: "I was duped. I thought that Bush was from Crawford. I thought he grew up there, that he had roots there. When I found out he had moved there in 1999 just before he announced his candidacy, I became very intrigued with what life would be like in this 700-person town to have the then-governor move in, win the presidency and sort of put this town on the map and just explode it...... When I first went in, I was very interested in the notion of political stagecraft and the way in which the town contributed to Bush’s folksy, small-town image, and that element is still in the film. But, ultimately, I found something much more compelling and that was the people of Crawford and their stories. The film really became about them, their story . . . and I think it’s better for that."

The neat thing about all this is that Dan's boss, Misti Turbeville, used to be a history teacher at Crawford High School. Dan has been talking about this movie for a while, because Misti was apparently one of the main people they talked to in it and she has been excited for it to come out. There was an article in our paper the other day where they interviewed the director, and he mentioned Misti by name!

http://www.wacotrib.com/search/content/features/stories/2008/06/06/06062008wacCrawfordQA.html

(I'm not sure if you have to log in to read the article, but if you do, it takes like ten seconds and is no big deal)

So it sounds like she plays a pretty key role in the movie. We can't wait to see this documentary -when we do, I'll let you know what I think. But I really encourage you to see it if it's playing anywhere around you and cheer for Misti! Then you'll know Dan's boss on a very personal level, just like you were here in Waco. :-)


[[UPDATE: Okay, I don't know that it's actually coming out in theaters for a while. But here's the trailor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZBc0zBfb80
Misti is the woman who says the parts about"He had to be from somewhere besides the Governer's Mansion..." and "Most people think everyone around here is conservative, but I'm not." Also, here's the official movie site: http://www.crawfordmovie.com/ in case you're interested!]]

5 Months/ Last Day of School

Yesterday, we both woke up tired from chaperoning the school dance the night before. The school dance, by the way, consisted of three rooms of video game systems in addition to the dance floor. Dan and I both played Guitar Hero and rocked it... then we mostly hung out with the other teachers eating brownies and laughing at the kids' antics the rest of the night. It was fun, although we were there from 7-11:15 and were both exhausted by the time we got home.

Somehow, we managed to get up and drag ourselves to work. Dan actually got up on time, which may have had something to do with the fact it was his LAST DAY! I didn't get up on time whatsoever, and therefore did not shower, put on makeup, or let dear Sammie go to the bathroom before I went to work.

I got a phone call from Dan around 11:00. I was in a good mood, because I had just had an assessment with an 18 month old that went pretty well. Dan was in an even better mood, because he found out that he passed his Spanish oral exam! He had to pass this test at Advanced-Low level to get his real teacher certification (he only has a temporary one right now). I know what you're all thinking, that of course he was going to pass. But actually, this test is really hard and a lot of people "fail" it because they get Intermediate-high ranking. So he was really nervous and has been worrying about it since he took the test several weeks ago. So it was such a relief to find out he passed it and now can become a real certified teacher!

I stayed at the clinic until 1:00. But then it was time to come home and prepare to celebrate! I made a homemade key lime pie, which turned out awful so I'm not going to bother to share the recipe. (It tasted like a big hunk of cream cheese, basically). But it was fun to make and looked really pretty. Unfortunately I let it chill before I took the picture, so the wording ran into the icing:

It says "Congrats! School's out! 6 on Test! 5 Months!" The 6 on the test refers to the Spanish test, and the 5 months refers to...our five month anniversary, which was also yesterday! So we decided to open up a bottle of champagne that Matt and Leah got us for our wedding. That's in the picture too.




I also made dinner, "Herbed Salmon with Mixed Greens" from Cooking Light, which turned out delicious. After dinner, of course we watched Lost season finale online. All in all, a great night.

My Child, Get Up!

http://www.crosstieswaco.org/

">Talitha Koum

Okay, I'm not sure if this link works or not, but here is a link to Talitha Koum, which I do a lot of work at. It's a therapeutic nursery that serves the most disadvantaged people in Waco. They work with kids who are infants to age 6 and the goal is to get them ready to succeed in school and in life through what they've learned at Talitha Koum. I do play therapy with one child, and I also lead a stress management group for the teachers there. I also do testing on the kids to see where they're at with their cognitive, language, and motor abilities. It's a great place and it makes me so thankful for the childhood I have. You should hear the words that come out of these kids' mouths (I'll give you a hint - I didn't know them until I was WAY older than 6!) and the ideas they have about how life works. However, it's so neat that we are at least able to help out some kids and hopefully make a difference in their lives. Anyway, I'm actually going over there right now but I just wanted to show you all where I spend my Wednesdays.

By the way, Talitha Koum is an aramaic phrase in the Bible that Jesus uses when he is raising a young girl from death to life. It means, "My Child, Get up!"