Halloween Happiness!

It's been such a long time since I've blogged. Things are just same ol' same ol' over on my end. Still having poopy and nose-snot days at the preschool. And still enjoying it as much as ever. Had to sit on the floor in the bathroom today with a little boy who was so sad that his mum left him at school and did not walk him in. I had to convince him that his mum was going to come back and pick him up just like always. I told him that the long hand on the clock is going to go around twice, and then she will be back to pick him up. Thinking about it now, I probably should have told him that the short hand on the clock will move to 10 and then to 11 and then his mum will be back! Dumb dumb me.

Yesterday was Halloween. My friends and I had our party last weekend instead. This year's Halloween came with a Voice and a Dysphagia exam. So the weekend before Halloween was spent trying to study and memorize information about types of assessments we can do for swallowing and what kinds of characteristics of the vocal folds a person with nodules will have. This semester is really a wing-it-for-the-exam kind of semester. Good thing that I've already had my clinic placement at the hospital.. makes the exam so much easier to go through. It really is true that merely studying the information will not make anything stick in your head. Learning through hands-on is what helps me remember at least. How else will I remember that palpation is when you put your fingers on a patient's neck to feel his swallow and his laryngeal elevation. And that cervical auscultation is when you listen to a patient's airway before, during and after the swallow using a stethoscope. :) During the exam, I could just hear my clinic supervisor saying those things in my head. Haha.

Anyway, back to Halloween. This year's Halloween party really reminded me of the past Halloweens that I had back in Miami. Going over to each others' houses to get ready for Halloween, having people who would actually help me think of do-able cheap costumes for me, taking hilarious pictures with each other while trying to stay "in character" and taking shots with each other... I really miss all that with my Miami family. But you know what I'm proud of.. that I did do all that this year with new friends. I went over to a friend's house to get ready. I didn't think of a costume for myself like usual, and another friend was thinking of costume ideas for me and said "Suling! You should be a present! Wrap yourself up in wrapping paper!" That's how the 'present' idea was born. I was at a Halloween party this year! and I had a lot of fun too.. I gave out shots and took shots with others... and took hilarious pictures too! Things are difficult at times, but I do know that if I persist to be unhappy about things, I will just be making my life unhappy for me. And I don't want that. I want to be independent, have people around me that I can call friends and be content. It took some time to get used to life without friends around me all the time. But I think I'm getting pretty good at it :) Maybe the next step is to live in a single apartment? With my doggie. Yes. My doggie!

 And look who else was forced to dress up for 6 whole hours for kids at work... A very unhappy-attempting-to-be-scary clown!

Happy Halloween everyone! :)