100th Post!!

To start off my post, I said I'd answer some question and Mel asked me:
1. What is your dream job when you finish grad school?
I want to be a clinical audiologist, primarily working in a hospital or medical setting, but NOT and ENT practice (pre and post surgical testing for an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, or as they like to say "pumping pure tones for The Man").  I would love to see all age groups, and I also love working with children and their families.
 The nice thing about audiology is that it is super varied, and you can see newborns all the way to centenarians every day for a variety of needs. As long as I can do diagnostic hearing and balance evaluation and fit hearing aids, I'll be a happy girl :)

2. Coffee, tea or soda?
Yes to all of the above! I'm a regular coffee drinker in the AM, warm tea on some evenings, and iced tea all summer long.  I've been trying to kick my pop habit, but if it has some alcohol added I usually say yes :)

3. What is your go-to music when you are studying? When you need a pick-me-up? When you're happy?
In terms of music I am all over the place.  When studying, I usually rock my solo piano pandora station. For pick me ups, I go to my country music, the classic Garth and George Straight.  My happy go lucky music is my Frank Sinatra/Michael Buble combo.

In other news:
This weekend, I am also running my first 10k! It's going to be a crazy day, but I'm so excited.  Stay tuned for photos and I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes.  I feel so much more prepared than I did for my 5k this time last year. It's amazing how interval training plus light lifting can shave so much time off runs.  I overall feel strong and confident my body can do this.  My goal is still to finish without walking, but I'm also aiming for finishing in under 1 hour 20 minutes.  I think I'd be able to manage around an hour easily, but I'm giving myself some flex time.

Also, finals week has arrived!  I have 2 presentations next week, a final on Thursday, and a take home due on the following Monday.  A few days of clinic, then home for a few days! While I'm home I'm going venue hunting and dress shopping with the moms (my mom and fiance's mom), so that will be lots of fun.  I'll be back at school for graduation and some of those festivities, and then down to spend time with the fiance.  I have 3 weeks off from mid-May to early June to study for my comprehensive exams and also to work on my first draft of my thesis proposal for my Doctoral Research Project (DRP).  While he's off playing Army, I'll be spending quality time at the library and we'll have evenings and weekends together :)

Taking a little me time.

Yeah, I know, I dropped off the face of the planet this last week.  After all the craziness of the clinicals situation, driving 3 hours round trip for clinicals on Fridays, and then also throwing 10-15 hours of work a week on top of it all- I was getting run ragged.   

 I decided to take a few days and the weekend and just enjoy some relaxing time to myself.  I got in lots of pool time and I actually got to read something that was not a textbook this week!  I read Mary Roach's book, Bonk about sex research, and it was quite interesting!  I love her other book, Stiff about bodies that are donated to science, and thought I'd give her other books a try.  I also got my hands on The Help, and I freaking loved it! I sped through that thing in 3 days.

Notes about the 5k I ran on the 4th- wow was it hot!! I think next year I am going to wait to register until the day of the race to take into account the weather.  I started running really strong the first 2 miles or so, staying at a 9:00 mile pace- I was trucking!  After mile 2, I hit my wall and the heat really started getting to me and I was feeling kind of sick.  I ended up having to walk about a half mile, then got to running again at a much slower pace.  I still finished with a PR of 30:38.  If I had stayed with my running partners I would have finished around 28 minutes, so all things considered I am very happy with the race. Here are some photos I can share.  I love my hot pink leggings!

At the finish.  Hating life a little right here.

My mom and sister were also in town, here sis gave me a post-race ride to the car.

Dinner the night before the race, we enjoyed being downtown, yay $1 sushi night!

I was also researching my little booty off this week, two of the researchers that are working with my professor were in town and going over our numbers thus far to determine if we had a significant different between the Deaf children we tested and the hearing children.  So far, there is a difference, and we still have 40 children left to test so that is good!  With them in town we were busy entertaining and yikes is my ASL poor.  I felt bad, there were a lot of miscommunications, but they seemed to be pretty understanding and patient with my lack of ASL fluency.  But, they were nice guys and it was nice to meet the guys that I research for. 

I’m counting the weeks until clinicals and classes are done- just 3 weeks including this week! Before I know it, “boots on the ground” day will be here! That pesky donut is finally back down to the 10% range- eeeee!!! Hurry home soldier :)

5k- check!

Yep, just finished my first 5k ever! OMG it was so amazing! I haven't run competitively since my high school track days, and this was my first distance race.  I successfully finished without walking, which was my main goal.  I also wanted to finish under 35:00, and my running partner and I finished together at 33:18! Not an amazing time, but right where I wanted to be.  Next race, under 30 :)

It was so great to see hoards of people on the sidelines, cheering us on and ringing cowbells.  It was an awesome experience.  My running partner almost gave up a few times, but I convinced her to hang on.  If I was running alone, I don't know if I would have met my goals.  However, I already have a new goal for my next race- breaking 30 minutes.  This is probably do-able if I train more than 2.5 weeks. As of right now, I'm feeling pretty good, but that could also be the post race beers talking.  It's amazing how big of a motivator a nice cold beer and some Olive Garden bread sticks are to running that last kick of the race at a faster clip.  Oh, and you know, that whole stadium full of people cheering for you.

Some photos from the race for your enjoyment.  (Ignore the beet red faces and smeared make up from morning clinicals)

Obligatory post-race cheesing with my medal.

Me and my P-I-C.

Sweaty hugs :)