Browse Month: November 2005

pulled in all directions

Grrr…work is so crazy right now. Being the only occupational therapist on staff at my preschool, I manage about 80 kids. It’s a saga of reports, goals, treatments, meetings, consults, more meetings, and more reports….it just doesn’t stop. To make matters worse, I have an upcoming trip to Florida lurking around the corner and I’m trying to get things done before I leave. In fact, I will have to get off the plane on Tuesday morning and get my ass to a 1:45 meeting next week. I hope my flight is on time.
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Another funny thing about being the only one of my kind is that I somehow appear to be the super therapist who has an abundance of time on my hands to take care of every need that comes along. This is one of the reasons why I don’t eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge. I’ve come to realize that each time I pass a teacher or administrator on my way to somewhere on campus, I get bombarded with questions such as “did you get the email I sent about so-and-so?” or “have you gotten a chance to observe so-and-so?” or “will you be able to attend a last minute parent meeting and come with a progress report in 5 minutes?” What ever happened to, “how are you?” and “how was your weekend?” Let me growl a little more for a second…grrrr…ok. That’s when I feel very fortunate to have a portable on the other side of the school to myself where I can blast my music, eat my oatmeal, and write my reports in peace. I may like this “new” job but I certainly do miss PTN sometimes.

Is that carrot or bell pepper?

If you had to choose between your abilit y to hear and your ability to see, which would you be willing to give up? I just had a conversation about this and decided that I would prefer to lose my hearing. I think I’d be ok with not being able to hear again. I’d be fine if I couldn’t use my iPod anymore and I would certainly have a lot more patience with the screaming kids at work. I couldn’t use the phone anymore but who needs to anymore with all the text and instant messaging available? I’d be so sad and lost without my vision tghough. I’d have to put my cameras away. I wouldn’t see the expressions on the faces of my friends and family. And don’t get me started about the number of falls and bruises I’d have. My proprioception is bad enough with my sight already compensating.
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Today I got an itty-bitty taste of life without sight when I got my eyes checked. In the middle of the examination, the optometrist asked me to take out my contacts and just toss them in the trash. She said that she’d replace them with a new pair once she figured out my new prescription. Well, I thought we were almost done so I didn’t think twice about the request. Little did I know that it would take another 20-30 minutes before I could see clearly again. The office was a total blur and trying to maintain eye contact with the optometrist was giving me a headache. Since I had to go back to work that afternoon, I had to return in the evening to get my pupils dilated. Well, that was another interesting experience. My pupils were almost the size of dimes and I could sort of make out distant figures but certainly could not see close-up. So when Jes and I went to dinner right afterwards, I couldn’t read the menu, I couldn’t see my food, and everything was a little lesss enjoyable. I was so afraid of getting a super Thai chili surprise in my mouth since I couldn’t really tell what was on my plate or spoon. So there you have it…my hunch was confirmed. I would lose my hearing any day. By the way, I’m typing with compromised vision at the moment so forgive me if there are typos.

Belated Turkey Day

Jes and I went to the Buena Park house today to prepare this year’s Turkey Dinner. Due to work schedules and all, we postponed our turkey eating to today. The extended family came including Jes’ uncle, aunties, cousins, and grandmother. The turkey roasted all afternoon as Jes serenaded it with his version of the “Fat Turkey” song. He also kept muttering to himself, “the best turkey ever”. It appeared that our chef was especially cheerful today. Meanwhile, Jes’ mom prepared a slew of Chinese food to accompany the traditional American fare including her yummy sticky rice stuffing. Of course we had too much food and were so full afterwards. Everyone left that night with baggies of leftovers and about 3 pounds of food in their stomachs.

another crazy night

We went to Daddy’s Lounge in Hollywood last night. The bar was dark and chill with lots of big couches and ottomans. There was an eclectic mix of music ranging from Black Eyed Peas to Jeff Buckley. We met up with a bunch of friends including Dayantha, Jimmy, Yoon, Mike (Yoon’s brother), Holly, Roy, Tinou, and Matt. They all brought friends too so it was your traditional holiday weekend gathering for some drinks.
Afterwards, some of us got some infamous “LA Danger Dogs” from the cart outside. Boy, I could smell those bacon-wrapped hotdogs from inside the bar. So good… Meanwhile, Jes pushed Dayantha to the floor for fun and that was all we heard about for the rest of the night from Dayantha. He kept threatening him back with “December 23rd”. I suppose that means Dayantha will be getting him back at the Christmas Party. We ended the night at Denny’s to sober up a bit and then headed home. It was another crazy night.

Non-Turkey Day

Jes and I met up with Bang and Vyl at the Williams-Sonoma on Friday to use Vyl’s awesome 40% discount to buy some real wine glasses. Later that night, the four of us tried out a bunch of wines that we’ve been saving for while. By the end of the night, we finished off 4 bottles of wine and lots of cheese and ended up with a very drunk, stinky Bang.
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Today is Thanksgiving and we had the parents over for a non-turkey dinner. Johnny came over early and beat us at poker while Jes made standing rib roast. What a feast…we had a nice juicy prime rib with sweet potato, corn, and au jus. Jes even made some bread pudding that almost beat the stuff that Lawry’s serves. Mmmm… Happy Thanksgiving!

finally…a 4-day weekend

I’ve been waiting for this weekend to arrive all month. November is usually a busy month for me because of the number of parent conferences I have to attend. Well, it’s almost over and I can finally enjoy a nice 4-day weekend. I finished at about 1:00 today and looking forward to some yummy food and hanging out with family and friends. On the agenda so far are the following:
1) Wine Tasting with the Miss Chans
2) Thanksgiving Dinner with the parents at our house
3) Possible Black Friday shopping
4) Another Thanksgiving Dinner with extended family in Buena Park
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Unfortunately, I’m swamped with 4 reports to write by next week…maybe I’ll get some work done over the weekend too…*sigh* it just never ends.