So apparently keeping up with this a little more difficult than I originally imagined! The past few weeks have certainly kept us busy. I have settled into my internship nicely. I have taken over several of the sessions, and will continue to take over more and more until I am eventually planning and leading all of the sessions. There are two weeks left in the preschool's year, then I get one week off before our summer therapy starts. This is when only the speech therapists are around doing therapy while the preschool classes are on break. We only work 3 days a week, and as it turns out several of our kids will not be attending summer therapy for various reasons, so even the days we are working are essentially half days. We will do most of the planning for the sessions at home, giving us more flexibility with our schedule. That will be really nice for me, as our visitors start rolling in very soon, beginning with George's visit during my week off, and continuing until after I finish my internship. It will be busy, but we are looking forward to sharing our experience with our friends and family!
Other than work, Lucy and I have kept ourselves pretty busy on the weekends as well. We first met up with a connection through my grandmother. She and her family have already been extremely helpful. They took us out to lunch and grocery shopping at the U-Village, which is just a few blocks from where Lucy and I live. They also took us to another festival in Seattle, the Folklife Festival, on Memorial Day. It was a lot of fun. Folklife is a big music festival that celebrates all kinds of musical acts from around the area. We are talking everything from Traditional Scottish music to Bollywood dancing to indie. All kinds of people are there, and even aside from the registered acts are loads of people set up on the sidewalks playing homemade instruments, performing magic, etc. And again, food vendors are set up along the way as well. Lucy and I really enjoyed the different music we were able to listen to, and people watching was pretty fantastic as well.
The past two weekends we have taken it somewhat easier. After Memorial Day I got sick and was extremely tired the whole week. Lucy and I went to a movie that Saturday. The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) has been going on, so we saw a Scottish movie starring Jamie Bell and Claire Forlani. We then explored the area where the theater was (Queen Anne neighborhood), had coffee and went to a huge record store, Easy Street Records. I think we could have spent hours in there were if we had the chance. Then this past Thursday we went to the Burke Museum of Natural History at UW. It is free the first Thursday of every month. It was very interesting, and they had an exhibit on the Hoh River and the Native Americans in the area. It also showcased a lot of the different cultures of the Pacific Northwest, which was really neat. We ate Indian food one night (Lucy's first time trying it) and had Bubble Tea. Yesterday we shopped a little more on the Ave. The weather here has been extremely rainy and cold-the complete opposite of the heat wave going on in SC right now! It has literally been in the 50s in and out over the past few weeks. Needless to say, neither of us brought many winter clothes with us, so we were looking for some long sleeved shirts to carry us through the next couple of weeks until hopefully it starts to feel at least like spring. Today it was chilly and overcast so we headed downtown to check out the aquarium. We grabbed a late lunch downtown and as we were leaving, the sun finally came out and was had some beautiful blue skies.
I think that pretty much sums up the past few weeks! I will try to post a little more regularly here on out!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Summer in Seattle-Week 1
Well Lucy and I have been in Seattle for a little over a week. We are starting to settle in here, get into our routines. Our apartment is great-much better than we had imagined. It's a cute little one bedroom basement set-up, furnished. The couple who rents it lives upstairs-they are very nice and have been extremely accommodating so far. The house in in the University District (aka U-District), near the University of Washington. It's in the historic district, so it's in a safe neighborhood but near several conveniences and "The Ave" (the road that runs through the university, full of restaurants, shops, coffee houses, etc). There are several vintage/consignment shops that Lucy and I have checked out, as well as a few used music and bookstores that are on our ever-growing list of things to see while we are here. My dad flew out to Seattle with us last Saturday-I am so thankful he was here to help us get everything settled. He was such a help, and I am fairly positive Lucy and I would have flown home after about 2 days had he not been here to help out! He left on Thursday-we were sad to have him leave, but I know my mom was glad to not be home alone anymore!
I started my internship last Wednesday at Listen and Talk. It's a pre-school for children with hearing impairments, and it uses the auditory-verbal (AVT) approach to listening and speaking. I completed the specialization track in AVT while at USC, which is why my intership had to be focused on this type of therapy. I am loving it so far. The children are precious, and my supervisor is great. All the staff has been very welcoming to the southern girl! I am really looking forward to working there this summer. It's a very laid-back atmosphere, but I'm already learning alot. For my speech girls (especially the AVT girls), I have found it interesting how many of the children here have bilateral implants. It seems that more of my kids do than do not, and based on where their speech and language is, I would say that second implant can make a huge difference! So far, I have mainly been observing (I am still meeting all of the children), but I think tomorrow I may take over a few of the sessions, so we'll see how that goes! If you are interested, here is their website: www.listentalk.org
This past weekend, Lucy and I were quite busy. Friday night, we went to dinner in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood close to downtown. It is a really cool neighborhood, full of a mix of people-lots of college kids (Seattle University is located here), young professionals, hipsters, some families, and so on. Getting to Capitol Hill was quite an adventure-that's a story to be told over the phone/in person. When we got there, we ate at a great pizza place, and had the best dessert ever-Nutella Calzone. It was sinful. Saturday we went to the U-District Street Fair. It was kind of like a cross between a much larger Charleston Market and the state fair. Tons of vendors were set up with art, photography, jewelry, candles etc, combined with 'food courts' on the side streets, complete with elephant ears, corn dogs, strawberry shortcake, and so forth. It was fun, but unseasonably warm (a record-breaking 90 degrees), so we ended up hanging out in the shade and shopping in the consignment shops. Then on Sunday, we headed downtown to Pike's Place Market for another festival-the Seattle Cheese Festival. Oh yeah. Literally hundreds of vendors were set up along Pike Street selling their many kinds of cheese. For $1 you could sample any or all of the cheeses. Needless to say, it was delicious. And, since the weather was gorgeous, it was fun to check out downtown, see the market, all that good stuff. That about covers it so far. Lucy is job searching, going to interviews and turning in applications. I am adjusting to my early wake-up hours and learning the buses. I will try to update again soon!
downtown
our backyard,the house, and a little of our apartment
I started my internship last Wednesday at Listen and Talk. It's a pre-school for children with hearing impairments, and it uses the auditory-verbal (AVT) approach to listening and speaking. I completed the specialization track in AVT while at USC, which is why my intership had to be focused on this type of therapy. I am loving it so far. The children are precious, and my supervisor is great. All the staff has been very welcoming to the southern girl! I am really looking forward to working there this summer. It's a very laid-back atmosphere, but I'm already learning alot. For my speech girls (especially the AVT girls), I have found it interesting how many of the children here have bilateral implants. It seems that more of my kids do than do not, and based on where their speech and language is, I would say that second implant can make a huge difference! So far, I have mainly been observing (I am still meeting all of the children), but I think tomorrow I may take over a few of the sessions, so we'll see how that goes! If you are interested, here is their website: www.listentalk.org
This past weekend, Lucy and I were quite busy. Friday night, we went to dinner in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood close to downtown. It is a really cool neighborhood, full of a mix of people-lots of college kids (Seattle University is located here), young professionals, hipsters, some families, and so on. Getting to Capitol Hill was quite an adventure-that's a story to be told over the phone/in person. When we got there, we ate at a great pizza place, and had the best dessert ever-Nutella Calzone. It was sinful. Saturday we went to the U-District Street Fair. It was kind of like a cross between a much larger Charleston Market and the state fair. Tons of vendors were set up with art, photography, jewelry, candles etc, combined with 'food courts' on the side streets, complete with elephant ears, corn dogs, strawberry shortcake, and so forth. It was fun, but unseasonably warm (a record-breaking 90 degrees), so we ended up hanging out in the shade and shopping in the consignment shops. Then on Sunday, we headed downtown to Pike's Place Market for another festival-the Seattle Cheese Festival. Oh yeah. Literally hundreds of vendors were set up along Pike Street selling their many kinds of cheese. For $1 you could sample any or all of the cheeses. Needless to say, it was delicious. And, since the weather was gorgeous, it was fun to check out downtown, see the market, all that good stuff. That about covers it so far. Lucy is job searching, going to interviews and turning in applications. I am adjusting to my early wake-up hours and learning the buses. I will try to update again soon!
downtown
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