a good day

There was a miracle today that should be recorded.

I found out today that I can wear my tudung to work!

Apparently, they'd just changed the policy only about a month back -- I had no idea, was resigned to the ridiculous, archaic, hospital policy, and was ready to figure out long-term strategies on how to find a way to fulfill my religious obligations in a secular environment, with options like going to the possible future Speaker of Parliament, Halimah Yaacob, for support. I'd known two years ago when I accepted their sponsorship, that I had to adhere to the department uniform. They gave me clear, repeated reminders about it too. So over the two years, my darling Muslim classmates worried with me, and we charted out plans. Khai told me how hospital staff attempted to fight for it before, except they never succeeded, but that I should try anyway. It seemed difficult and thorny, and all I prayed for was ease, somehow. And I remember thinking, God, only You know how it breaks my heart to do this.

So imagine how stunned I was this morning when the HR lady saw my photo, saw me, and was like, Hey! You know you can wear tudung! It's all right now! I was seriously happily stunned.

Khai was so cute and gets how this was such a big thing for me.

Alhamdulillah. and Masha Allah. :) It is true that Allah makes easy for the slave what He wishes.

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Do you know, Philippa, what an unsuitable match is? It isn't the kind I shall have with Catherine d'Albon, or even the kind you will make with young Allendale. When one human being is trapped in the net of another's grand passion: then it comes about; and it is tragedy. It happened to Gavin and Sybilla. It is happening to Jerott and Marthe...

--Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett

I read Lymond with older eyes now, and the more I see it, the more melodramatic I realise Francis was. What was that except a whole load of fear, and cowardly assumptions about Philippa's affections; he thought her love could never be comparable to his? Philippa, of course, initially could not understand him and insisted, you are not always right. Please listen. Please think. Are you sure, when it matters so much, that you know my feelings better than I do? And then it follows their famous exchange:

No, I'm not infallible. You might, without my crediting it, fall deeply in love and for ever, with some warped hunchback whelped in the gutter. I should equally stop you from taking him.

God in heaven, Do you think that I care?

I know you don't, But you must excuse the hunchback who does.

Francis pretty much admits here that he's scared! Except he says it in such pretty prose. It's ridiculous. Can someone be too smart that they become stupid? If he'd been less drama about it, Philippa might not have ended up doing crazy things which led to more real complications!

Why doesn't Singapore have SLTs in our public schools??? I get so irritated by it, I feel like screaming. It does not help to tell a parent whose child needs speech language intervention to go to the hospital, because it makes it into a medical issue, which it isn't, most of the time. God, I feel so irritated, really. Only a fraction of speech and language difficulties are syndromic or medically-rooted; the rest just need a different kind of attention and teaching for language.

I've been giving feedback to parents of my research participants. When parents start unloading about their kids' difficulties and I realise that, hey, it sounds like there may be an issue, and I want to suggest, maybe you want to look into specialist help? and I mention hospital, parents get like this O.O !!! It's only understandable. I've been telling you my child has some trouble getting out a sentence and you want me to send him to the hospital? And then they start telling me, Errr, I don't think it's that bad...

It isn't that bad. And precisely because it isn't bad, that all the more reason, therapy will help so much and things will skyrocket and improve. But no -- we only get terrible, mostly intractable communication issues at hospitals, and all those who we can help, don't receive it. Ridiculous system that allows potentially successful children fall through our cracks. Stupid! SLT's should be in schools and help these kids.

Spoilers! for Nice Guy.







No particular reason that this is here, other than my deflating after a week of tense assessments, and non-stop brain-whirring.

I think I am watching this drama mostly because I love the two leads. Currently, Moon Chae Won has no contest for being my favourite kdrama actress, and Song Joong Ki I adore because he's one of the original members from Running Man, and IMO, the perfect blend of endearing and kakkoi in a guy, with that added bit of spark and subtle humour in his personality. Not so kakkoi that you'd be intimidated by him in person and not so endearing that he's an utter dork, haha.

Anyways -- the clip shows Eun Gi after her supposed car accident and memory loss (kdrama's favourite plot device!). I find it amusing how dramas always make recovering from brain damage like a walk in the park, if perhaps a long one. And that brain damage normally confers some memory loss but otherwise, one can be a-okay. When in fact, you can take your pick from a slew of real-life traumas, seriously: paralysis / aphasia / cognitive disability / personality changes / more??? Interestingly, the drama showed Eun Gi transposing words around as she writes (ooooh, phonological issue....?) -- a point up in realism! She doesn't appear as sharp or smart a lady as she was before the car crash.

Speaking of which, for clinical placement, I may have more than one apraxia case on my poor inexperienced head right now and diagnosing this thing is confusing the frak out of me! D:

THIS WEEKEND = FIGURING OUT WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO INTERVENE for provisional apraxia diagnosis vs. inconsistent phonology disorder vs. articulation plus language and literacy issues. These are too complex for training purposes, I think. D: HOWWW. stresssssssu.



ohhhmmmmmgg.

I keep telling myself: This is hard, but Alhamdulillah.

A week into placement!

And omg, the angst. This PCF-SLP project is becoming somewhat overwhelming. There is so much work. I literally feel my headaches build-up when we sit and discuss which kids we can work on, what stuff to get for assessment and therapy, the consent form issues and checking on data from parent and teacher questionnaires and collaborating with the psych department and their projects (!!!). Like I anticipated, it leaves less space for working on my clinical skills, which is so incredibly worrisome, I tell you. How will I survive hospital next year.

Thank god for having three other wonderful peeps with me. We keep each other sane. And we can actually laugh over our stress.

For Children's Day  celebrations yesterday, the kindy kids were dancing to Gangnam style -- 

it was soooo funny and adorable! if only we weren't barred from snapping photos.

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And because I missed them: 

If there's one concert I would love to go to, it's Arashi's. I may fangirl a gazillion other things, but there's this overall Arashi-awesomeness-vibe that I want to feel live. Arashi, to my mind, is about love, friendship, and just being happy in the here and now. And they're just so genuine, wholesome and family-friendly, you know (mostly). If I had kids, I wouldn't mind them listening to Arashi.

And this is an ancient (i.e. 7 years ago! haha) video transcript from an Arashi show where they discuss Domyouji and Tsukushi, and attempt to act out bits of Hana Yori Dango (thanks to MatsuJun's drama script at hand), and behave like overall dorks/oji-sans.

This vid puts all versions of Hanadan together! Of course, for me, the Japanese version wins, hands down. Although, I have a soft spot for Meteor Garden (the Taiwanese version) for being the one that opened the door to a whole new fandom for me.



And now, I need to stop fangirling.

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A true slave is a happy one.

here we go again

LAST PLACEMENT.

I'm one of the lucky/unlucky few (now a quartet, as we add R to our trio of frazzled ST students) who are part of the group trying out an SLP service for PCF Kindergarteners in Ulu Pandan. In other words, we are providing speech and language therapy for free to mainstream preschoolers who might need it, and in doing so, the faculty is also trying to pressure MOE, muaha. This is both exciting and nerve-wracking!!! Because there is no structure to this at all, and we feel like we're creating a start-up. There are absolutely nil ST facilities or materials on-site and we're going to have to dig through our department library for assessment and intervention tools on Monday. And while it's all exciting and new, we are also worried about how we're eventually going to be assessed for our clinical credits with this much lack of system and structure. I do need to graduate, please.

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And on our last day of exams, one of my favourite people photos ever:

I really adore this bunch of amazing and genuine people. How we'll miss being a class. But no matter! We have vowed to start an NUS SLP Club that will rival SHAS in numbers and enthusiasm, 

and keep in touch forever.

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And this is here because GD and Sungha Jung are on the same stage! :D

I wonder if Sungha Jung was fanboying like crazy inside. Also, BIG BANG is currently in Singapore!!! (not that I'm in any way going to their concerts or attempting to sneak peeks). But I am feeling a bit more of the love, nonethless.

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Also, we watched this last night and it was SCARY.

I don't usually find Western horror movies very scary but this was frrreeeaeaakkkyyy. The leading girl was very good and it also stars Papa Winchester (a.k.a. Jeffrey Dean Morgan)! :D And half the time, I kept wanting to shout out, "Call Sam and Dean! They can help you!"

I looked up Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) and I found a video of the President of the International Aphasia Movement speaking in a sing-song voice.

I cannot speak but I can sing. Now you tell me, does music have power?

It's fantastic!

I remember Eve during PBL telling us about MIT and saying how seriously, when we read about stuff like this, it makes us feel really skeptical. Hah, really, we just teach the client to tap rhythms and say words along with it??? And then they can speak? Stuttering treatments are equally amazing. Honestly, I feel that MIT seems a little like Smooth Speech which people use to treat stuttering.

Or like simple voice therapy where we do fun stuff like lip and tongue trills, or the Accent method where we chant around (honestly, I have no idea how the Accent method works!) -- simple stuff like this, they work miraculously. Somehow.

And it made me think how we always assume big problems need big solutions, but sometimes, the best things come in small, unexpected packages. God is Subtle, yes?