Convocation

After two packed years of grad school I am officially no longer a "Masters of Health Science" candidate but hold the official MHSc. paperwork.  To retrieve it I was fortunate enough to get three days off work (plus a stat!  Thank you Remembrance Day) which I used to fly out to the great Toronto.  How much I miss Toronto (Tronno) could be a whole new post.  It is a city that gets a bad rap around the country (and Mayor Ford is doing NOTHING to help this) but those people clearly have not lived in the downtown core and experienced all that the city can offer when one does not have the stress of driving in that monstrous videogame (10 points for the garbage can! 30 points for dodging that biker!).

For conVAcation on Tuesday evening my parents and two friends from home (plus their tiniest dude who turned one that very day!) made the drive to watch me wear a silly robe in front of over 1000 people.  I felt very loved.  Here are some photos of me becoming a master.

A gaggle of lovely classmates

Me and Obama

Introducing Hi-C, ShanWow and Katie V, MHSc. (all)

Thank you, UofT

Chilling with RoRoW and others in Convocation Hall

Overly intelligent people in silly robes 

Hi-C and the Golden Sceptre (possible children's book?)

Paddy - thumbs up to the crowds?

More golden sceptre

Me and the padres.  Can we tell that it was humid in Toronto?  Point for Red Deer: optimal hair conditions

I'll (not) Be Home for Christmas

See what I did there?  Clever, eh?  Even if the sentence becomes a slightly Brit way of saying things.  Moving way out here I had known that not going home with my family for the holidays would be a possibility this year with me being the noob at work I was not expecting first dibs on vacation time.  And I was right.  But not even that - this year we get 4 days off in a row due to when Christmas falls.  Knowing this I decided to at least TRY to get home.  This time it was the airlines that crushed my dreams.  Thank you Westjet and Air Canada for a lonely Christmas due to your greed.  To get my sorry butt to my parents's house for the big day was going to run me around $1700!  Yep, you read that right. To fly in my OWN COUNTRY.  Let me remind you that it cost me less to fly to Nairobi, Kenya just this summer.  Add to that kidney-punch of a price the flights are at the most inconvenient times giving me barely 48 hours with the famjam.  Let's break that down:  1700/48 = $35.42 per hour to hang out with my family.  If you include time wasted sleeping then it gets up to about $65/hour.  After a realistic and very adult conversation with my mother on the phone tonight we mutually agreed that, while sad, we would not be lining neither Air Ebeneezer's nor ScroogeJet's coffers this season.

Fear not, dear friends!  I had a few very kind offers from friends and co-workers in the area for some company over the holidays but the best offer so far has been to head over to Regina and spend it with my Aunt and Uncle and their 4 cool kiddos (shout out!).  So maaaaaybe I spoke to soon about where my money would be going but perhaps not.  Tickets are still pricey at about $800 (if I'm lucky) to do the Regina thing by air so my cheap cheap heart has been considering a $166 greyhound ticket.  I thought my bussin' days were behind me but that saved $600 could go to new shoes.....or my loans.  So looks like I'll probably be packing some good books and my ipod and hunkering down for a long winter's nap in a chair covered in stained 80s fabric.  

Sneaky, Sneaky Chapters

So - I went to Chapters last weekend on a whim.  Not that big of a whim because I wander around that store rarely buying anything at least once a week.  So maybe it should read "I went to Chapters last weekend on schedule".  Set up near the front of the store was a table with a young dude and some books displayed in an obvious "I wrote this book and I'mma sign it for you" kinda way.  So I approached because I can't resist a book.  It turned out to be a graphic novel which is rarely how I roll but it got me thinking:  Hey, my sister likes all this jazz.  DING DING!  Christmas!  It was all dark and foreboding looking with a razor on the front and black used a lot.  I flipped through it and it had werewolves and guns and generally seediness and angst.  Perfect!  Sister will love it!  Plus the dude mentioned that it was already in the works to become a movie.  Not only would I be giving my sister a novel I think she would enjoy it was about to become extra cool and she could say that she liked it "before it was cool" which is what every hipster wants*.  Excited I texted her to say that I had found part of her Christmas gift and golly gee whiz would she ever like it.

Flash forward to this weekend:  I grab the book off my shelf to sneakily read a chunk and see what it is like when I spotted the dedication at the front.  "This book is dedicated to every soul still searching for the Truth, the Life, and the Way.  Oh no you didn't.  I quickly scanned my brain - there had to be some other reference that would use that line than John 4:16 (ie.  the bible).  But in my heart I knew.  I flipped through the book more carefully hoping to allay my fears but e'erbody be wearin a CROSS!  This be a Christian graphic novel.  My sister don't really roll that way (and we know from previous posts that neither do I).  Should Chapters not have to post some sort of warning on booths like this?  Or hide the table in the religious section?  I guess not in Red Deer you don't.

Thank goodness sister has a sense of humour so we had a good chuckle over text when I broke it to her that the "totally amazing and right up her alley gift" likely would not be all I had made it out to be.  She said she'd take it anyway - apparently a graphic novel is a graphic novel.  Plus I have to hand it to the dude - the drawings are pretty wicked.

*I should clarify that my sister isn't really a hipster.  But I think everyone appreciates being able to slightly arrogantly claim to have "known about [insert pop culture reference here] before it became cool" every once in a while.

What's In a Name

My given name is Katie.  I assure that that is my full name.  You can look at my birth certificate (although, let's be honest, if you were going to fake a form of Canadian legal identification this would be the one - it looks so easy!).  In fact, people sometimes have such a hard time believing that Katie is not short for anything that I have to whip out the blue-proof-of-my-existence just to shut them up.  So, to clarify, my name isn't Catherine/Katherine, Caitlyn (or any variant thereof), Kathleen or Frederick.  Just Katie.

It is a pretty solid name and I have no complaints but I do sometimes wish I had a longer, more sophisticated (read: grown up) name to fall back on.  With this in mind I had the epiphany that I could be whomever I chose when I moved to Red Deer so I set out to be Kate.  Just to test the waters.  To get a feel for the name.  When in social settings and at work I introduce myself as "Kate" and it is starting to feel less weird.  I even answer to it most of the time.  The plan hasn't been foolproof because my resume had said Katie and so my coworkers were expecting someone by that name.  Some have made the transition and others haven't but I don't correct anyone.  It is my name after all and I don't really notice.  And - woops - my name tag at work says Katie so it is about 50/50 what I will get called.  What feels the strangest to the point that I just can't really say it with a serious face is my full name with Kate instead of Katie (ie with my last name).  It just has a different flow and doesn't have the same ring that one feels after 26 years of using the same name.  So if you come to Red Deer you can still call me Katie but you might hear me introduce myself as Kate.  Who knows how long this will last. What I have learned so far is that I like using Kate at work when introducing myself to clients but that there really isn't anything wrong with Katie and I think I like my name even more now.

Anyone else ever try to transition to a new name (or variant of your given name)?  Whether moving to a new place or not.

Time to "Gopher" an Adventure

I'm so witty.

The purpose of this is multi-fold.  1) To make you incredibly jealous of my adventures.  2) To show you that if you come to visit me I bring it.  3) To demonstrate the somewhat backwardness of this region of Canada.

ShanWow came down this weekend to the Deer and boy did I have some plans for us.  Especially getting to bed nice and early on Friday night.  So we could be up for adventure on Saturday....of course.  The only thing that could have made Saturday better would have been me offering waffles and bacon for breakfast instead of lame-toast.  But you can't win them all.  We jumped into Otto and sped* off to the Red Deer craft show at Westerner Park.

Back up.  I forgot one of the most exciting parts of the weekend.  ShanWow arrived on the G'Hound at approx 830pm Friday night.  Having yet to go to the station myself I used the ol'GPS to get there and, since her bus was late, pulled into the Dairy Queen across the street to wait (with a Blizzard).  Things were dandy, we enjoyed some soft serve and then it was time to head home.  Looking both ways I pulled out of the parking lot and made it about 30 feet when it simultaneously dawned on ShanWow to ask "This isn't a ONE WAY STREET is it?".  Then sensory overload as I processed her question, the cars coming at me from the incorrect direction and the flashing Po-po lights in my rear-view mirror.  Pulling into the nearest parking lot to wait for the officers.  They are EVERYWHERE!  And sneaky!  This was my very first time being pulled over and my first time having to present my license and registration to a uniformed civil servant.  I blame the poor signage.  Although I played up my newness to Red Deer and they let me off with a friendly reminder that the downtown of the city is a maze of one-way streets.

Now back to the craft show.  It was pretty darn cool. AND we bought things because we have jobs and money.  And you couldn't elbow someone without damaging an unborn child.  I swear to pumpkin milkshakes that every woman in Red Deer is reproducing.  If the world is over-populated I have found the culprit.  Government - if you're looking for a place to do top-secret medical testing this might be the place.  But I walked out happy with some emu lip balm and a new children's book to add to my collection.  Technically I buy a kid's book in any place that I travel but since moving here counts as an adventure and it was published by Red Deer Press AND the illustrator was there to SIGN IT I feel like this was a boon for me.  I am now the proud owner of Tiger's New Cowboy Boots.

The craft show was just the opener though.  Did you know that if you drive south 45 minutes to Olds, hang a  louis and keep on going for another half hour you will find the jewel of the prairies?  I'm using the term jewel metaphorically of course to represent the Torrington Gopher Museum.  Since the moment I hear about this place I knew it would be awesome and, since ShanWow also has great taste, I saved it for her visit.  Much to our dismay we found online that the museum was only open June to September.  GASP!  Do not fear fair readers - we decided to call *just in case*.  We were rewarded for our tenacity, too.  Who should pick but Diane, a curator of sorts for this magnificent display and she informed us that, with enough notice (meaning at least 3 minutes and 39 seconds needed for her to walk across town) she would open the museum for visitors  throughout the year if we just "gave her a dingle" on her home phone.  The rest of the story can be told pictographically.

Clem, the town mascot

Every hydrant here has a personality

We stopped for lunch.

Pizza N' More "Eh" has a monopoly on the local fuel market

We gave Diane a dingle and she met us at the museum.  We took up the parking lot.

She asked if we wanted to wear the gopher head.  Need she even ask???

 Of course this was not all I had in store.  The rest of the evening was spent making gnocchi from scratch then eating said gnocchi.  We turned on Hocus Pocus (who doesn't love a buck-toothed Bette Midler and an air-headed Sarah Jessica Parker sucking the souls out of children?) and carved pumpkins until out hearts were full of Halloween spirit.

*I feel like a rebellious hooligan driving my usual 10km over the speed limit here. 

Let's Talk About Food

Since moving here I have been a bit lazy on the food front.  Attempting to remedy that I headed down to that local, organic, hormone-free, had-a-happy-life butcher, picked up some chickpeas at the store and whipped up an old favourite.  One of my very favourite things that my dad makes is chickpea meatloaf.  How hard could it be?  Not that hard except when the recipe says you need a food processor you should probably have a food processor and not improvise with a blender and a fork for smooshing rogue chickpeas.  In the end, though, it was more than edible (although a bit chunky and not as good as my dad's).  To top that off I baked some coffee bread but ended up with my worst batch so far.  My excuses, I've decided, are going to be 1) it is a new oven with which I am not familiar to explain away the uncooked centre of one of the loaves, and 2) I didn't put enough flour in and the bread ended up disappointingly flattish.

Upsidedown mushy meat brick and an oh-so-tasty-one at that

And since we're on the topic of food I have decided to be a bit of a self-made human Zagat guide to Red Deer.  Let's be honest, someone needs to do it.  Since it is early in the "DapperDame Eats Red Deer Zagat" my focus has mainly been on the "ethnic" cuisine.  Skipping over Italian because "East Side Mario's" isn't ethnic.

Here is the list online under "Ethnic" that I will be eating my way through + reviews:

East Side Mario's Italian Eatery  2004-50 Ave. Red Deer - NOT ETHNIC....but I have eaten here.  It tasted like carbs. 

Las Palmeras Mexican Restaurant  3630-50 Ave. Red Deer - This place has the prices of a schwanky pub but the look of a diner.  It is missing that cheesy charm of the traditional Mexican restaurant and the lights are not dim is-that-a-drug-deal-going-down-in-the-corner-or-a-jukebox that is the typical backdrop for Mex food.  What it lacks in cheesy-charm it makes up for inside its enchiladas.  Seriously.  One visit and I'm already in a rut:  do I get the enchilada again because I *know* it is awesome or try something else that *could* be awesome? - 4/5 tastebuds agree this place is worth the visitLucky's Lounge 

Pho Thuy Dong Vietnamese Restaurant  5108-52 St. Red Deer - Looks just like any other viet restaurant inside including requisite lucky cat statues and fish tank full of angry creatures.  A restaurant that would be hardly memorable were I still in Toronto I know my  selection is limited and I would definitely return.  Plus they try hard and give a bit extra.  Order the lychee juice and they will put whole, fresh, peeled lychee in your drink to give it flair.  Not the place to go if you don't eat animals.  After asking for the vegetarian menu I was told anything could be made "vegetarian".  Halfway through a good, if not a bit bland, pho it came out that the broth was chicken broth.  Woops.  No puffy fried tofu either (but you can't blame them for not serving it - the market might not be there in beef country).  Big props for the variety of perfectly steamed veggies in the pho.  3/5 tastebuds.

Red City Donair & Pita - The miniature downtown core actually houses 3 donair (read: shawarma) restaurants.  The first I wandered in to was slow and as I waited to try what they were offering I glanced at the condiment selection and was left disappointed.  I decided to take my chances somewhere else and stumbled upon Red City.  Not only was the pita dude extremely friendly the chicken shawarma was pretty darn good.  The chicken was the best quality I have seen in a shawarma place.  My decision to order was made up when I spied the neon pink pickled turnips that keep me going back to middle eastern restaurants.  Even though I specified "everything" the gentleman left out the turnip and was surprised when I requested it specifically.  Go to Red City, get a dang chicken shawarma and risk it - order the pickled turnip!  4/5 tastebuds

Wok Box  5250-22 St. Red Deer - I have fallen for this one twice.  Mostly because I love Asian food of (almost) all types and this place is right in my view.  Let's not fool ourselves though - 'tis a chain.  The pad thai is tasty and flavourful and NOT PAD THAI.  Not in the least. Not a hint of tamarind and, in my mind, the tamarind makes the pad (or the thai?).  If you have yet to eat Pad Thai (or any asian dish for that matter) do not try it for the first time here.  The chicken teriyaki was better but perhaps I'm just less familiar with what it SHOULD taste like.  - 2/5 tastebuds....er....1.5 tastebuds

Alberta Adventure: Drumheller Edition

From the town of Red Deer one can drive to Drumheller (read:  dinosaur capital of Canada) in 1.5 hours.  Since moving here I have wanted to check this place out and today my roommate and I took the drive.  The town is obviously proud of their cretaceous heritage and one cannot go 100 metres without yet ANOTHER statue of a dinosaur.  Although, the triceratops is sadly under-represented.  Today was a big day as I stood beneath the WORLD'S LARGEST T-REX STATUE.  Jealous?  I left a car in there for scale.  That t-rex would eat the ones in Jurassic Park as a snack.

The town is also home to the Royal Tyrrell Museum - a pretty swanky joint with all kinds of dinosaur fossils and exhibits including a wicked look at what snorkeling could have been a billion years ago.  Let me tell you - a little freaky.

The other thing that Drum is most famoso for is the BADLANDS.  Sounds like a place where bandits hang out to rob unsuspecting tourists.  In fact, it would be the perfect place to do this if this weren't Canada and a giant tourist circuit.  It is quite beautiful and one of the big sources of fossils.

And the tall rocks with caps on are called Hoo Doos.  Pronounced exactly like it is spelled.  Can you get over those blue skies?  The colours of the prairies, especially as the sun sets, still blow me away too.

The Things (That Make Us Who We Are)

Since 2007 our family has lost three very special people: grandparents to me, parents to my parents, a brother to my great aunts and uncles.  For each of them I wrote a post trying to summarize a life: Nonno, Nana, and Grandpa Les.  But before this blog our family lost Grandma Maggie.  She was one of the toughest woman I've known - she could hunt and fish, she raised 6 kids, and she could really bake.  One of the biggest impacts she has had on me though, she'll never know.

2007, after finishing my undergrad in business and realizing that it was the last thing I wanted to do with my life I took a year off.  I worked at an employment office.  I save money.  I used all of that money to travel to South America for three months on my own and learn Spanish.  I shadowed an SLP and decided then that I could do that and I could like it.  4 years since - I worked to save money, spent a year at UWO getting the prerequisites and applying for the program, and after, thankfully, getting in on my first try, I spent two years in Toronto earning a Masters of Health Science.  Now I can put things like MHSc., R.SLP and SLP(C) after my name.  I collect letters.

The program at the University of Toronto is set up so that the first year lays a foundation and centres around child language development; the second year addresses acquired communication disorders and focuses primarily on adults.  From my Grandma Maggie I already knew two things:  1) I wanted to help adults with communication disorders; 2) I was terrified that I would not be able to do it.

When my grandmother was still quite young a despicable disease started to slowly steal things from her - balance, coordination, the ability to walk, care for herself and even her speech.  We eventually found out that she suffered from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy or PSP.  Her speech became increasingly difficult to understand and, while they tried communication devices, the technology at the time was not as advanced and she had limited control of her hands with which to use the devices.  After two years of study I now know that her speech was a mixture of Hypokinetic, Spastic and Ataxic* dysarthrias; all three fighting against her intelligibility.  At the time, as a 10 year old, all I knew was that I couldn't understand what she was saying and I felt so guilty for not understanding her and too afraid to ask her to repeat herself for fear of hurting her feelings that I was afraid to talk to my own grandmother.  That isn't easy to admit and I'm not saying it to hurt anyone's feelings but to be honest.  To this day I feel badly about my 10 year old self and wish that I had spent more time with her being patient and admitting when I couldn't understand.

So that is where both my fear and motivation came from.  I so badly wanted (and still want) to help adults with language and speech disorders communicate with their loved ones and improve their quality of life.  I was also apprehensive that as soon as I was met with a client with a significant speech disorder I would discover that I could not understand them and that conversations would be exercises in frustration for both of us.  That didn't happen.  It didn't happen because I now knew to take the time to listen.  I know now strategies to help people get their message across.  And I discovered that I am often quite good at deciphering difficult speech.  Now when I have clients with nearly-unintelligible speech my initial reaction is still a lump in my stomach but I remind myself that I now know what to do and set out to help them in any way I can.  Thanks Grandma Maggie.

*Almost all speech disorders distort the pronunciation of speech sounds.  On top of this, each unique type of dysarthria impact different subsections of the speech system to decrease intelligibility.
Hypokinetic Dysarthria:  Often associated with Parkinson's Disease, this speech disorder makes it difficult to initiate speech and often causes people to speak in short, fast bursts at low volumes.
Spastic Dysarthria:  This type of dysarthria causes a strained or strangled voice quality, slow speech, and a monotonous prosody.
Ataxic Dysarthria: this is a result of damage to the cerebellar system.  Speech is often reported to sound "drunk".  Sufferers have a difficult time coordinating speaking and breathing (something we take for granted all the time) and develop a tremor to the voice.  Speech sounds become further distorted and speakers often have pitch breaks and uncontrolled volume changes.