*Cricket*

The cricket's are really going crazy these days. I kind of love it. I had forgotten what a staple that was of falling asleep in summer when our family lived in Asheville.

I'm pretty awful at thinking of things to post these days. But I've been thinking a lot lately, and I think it's healthy for me to return to posting more often. If nothing else I've enjoyed reading other people's blogs, I may as well put something back into the system out there, help what few readers I have (especially those who still manage to look at the blog after almost a year of absence).

But I think it's time to do another gratitude post. I've been in graduate school just over a year now, and things have been going great. I work insanely hard, rarely get enough sleep, but I'm happy. Grumpy, whiney, but happy. I've got wonderful friends, some old ones Kenny (who I can call and enjoy talking about whatever with) Josh and Grant who help me stay sane with wonderful co-op video game time most nights. A host of Ben's (Ben's are cool people, if it's not a science fact it should be one) some awesome families, a great ward (local church unit), and living in one of the most attractive corners of this world I've ever lived in. Not to mention Adam and Nick who provide most of my local non-major friend interactions.

Of course I can't forget to be thankful for my cohort mates, in general because they're all wonderful people, and specifically the three or four of us who eat lunch together a couple times a week who have helped me get through grad school in general and the grant in particular. When I refer to "the grant" I'm referring to this cool little grant I've participated (well I guess participating, still have one class in it) that focuses on preparing professionals to work with people with severe disabilities and autism. It's awesome, but it is a LOT more work than the regular program, it adds 18 credit hours to an already busy course schedule, and me and one of my grant mates were silly enough to take a literacy elective on top of it (which was actually a lot of fun, I feel like I understand how literacy works a lot better now, and have a more informed opinion than I did before the class). But still it was something extra.

See above about me being whiney? It's part of the process. One of the most exciting parts about the last year is our poster presentation proposal being accepted for the National ASHA convention in San Diego. For those of you who know me, you know I've ALWAYS wanted to go to that zoo, ALWAYS! Of course my first priority is to be a professional and do convention stuff, but I'm really excited. I love big cats always have, and when I was a kid the San Diego zoo was one of the best in the world for large cats, I hope they still are.

I've had a phenomenal summer clinical placement with an awesome supervisor. I cannot express how happy I was with the experience, and I told my supervisor that, it was really nice to be able to express that to her directly.

Overall things have been great, and I'm happy with life. And I'm enjoying one of those wonderful brief times in a young single adult LDS person's life when people very rarely bug me about getting married. It's great. All that being said, it's still exhausting, frustrating and insane, and leaves me very little time for putting out positive internet vibes, but heh, that's life, and I would MUCH rather be busy and happy than bored and well documented.

Woulda Coulda Didn't

I had some cool thoughts earlier today, I was going to post some of them here. Instead I shared some of them with my Fluency professor, that was back during the part of the day when I had cognitive juice left. It was cool.

He's a great approachable guy. I'm alive, entering finals, which is fun fun fun.

Short and Sweet

If I'm going to post at all these days, they by necessity have to be short and sweet. Thanks Mary for leading the way.

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"Life is too short without something sacred." -Mercedes from Glee.

"If holy men and sacred places are exempt from war. Then make all men holy and all places sacred." - The Silver Surfer 'Requiem'

I liked this episode of Glee. I think it adressed a lot of our modern worlds issues with religion. They ended with "What if God was one of us", which I'm sure some christians found blasphemous when the song was new. But isn't that the miracle of it? That he descended to live like us? Isn't that one of the truth's we're trying to share? That we're siblings with him? Aren't we all holy?

Thoughts on post-modernism

I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's guest blog post over on "Whatever" . It was really an eye opener. One thing I have to say about Brandon Sanderson, is he is really really good about helping aspiring authors feel better about what they feel and think and hope, and of course giving them practical advice. I was lucky enough to be in Quark at BYU, and he was nice enough to come talk to us. He's a really really nice guy. As friendly as you'd like. Considering how prolific of an author he is, I'm amazed he made time to talk to a bunch of nerds like us.

Anyway I had a lot of fun while at BYU taking classes from John Talbot. He introduced me to Postmodernism in literature. Well as something that I thought about in literature anyway. What Mr. Sanderson was talking about was something completely different. What they both have in common is they got me thinking. A lot of the post-modern stuff I read with Mr. Talbot, when I really thought about it, was disturbing in its message and intent. Most of the disturbing underpinnings would have escaped me had he not pushed me to think about it.

I see that same intelligent approach to how Mr. Sanderson was addressing modern fantasy. I've read a great deal of Mr. Sanderson's stuff, and I like it, I like it a lot. I particularly loved Mistborn and those "tricks" he used.

Back on topic, I realized while reading his blog post about specialization, perhaps that's what I should title the article (welcome to Ben stream of consciousness). While I was engaged in Mr. Talbot's class I was used to THINKING about literature. But even then I only really thought about the classics I was assigned to read, because I knew that class could be so much more if I really engaged the topic before hand and really engaged Mr. Talbot during class. I realize now that I never really used that while thinking about what I read for fun. There are a couple of reasons for this. 1. I think a great deal of the fun of life can be sucked out, by looking for hidden meanings and agendas and everything. Dad does that a lot with grumbling about the Commies in Hollywood as his excuse to not watch or, if he doesn't want to, enjoy a movie. He'll let someones political orientation, whether or not it is evident in the movie or not, affect if he'll even watch it, let alone what he thinks about it. 2. I'm lazy. When I read for fun, I read for fun.

That being said, thinking about literature and culture is also fun! I look at myself now and when I read for fun it's really to give my brain a break. It's acquiring a lot of new knowledge and information at an alarming rate, and needs it's breaks. But reading Mr. Sanderson's essay really got the old juices running, and has me hankering to talk about literature again.

Some of my greatest memories are talking about literature with friends, not least of all is my mom, with whom I've talked about more literature and in more depth then anyone else.

This is a weird random post, but it's what is on my mind. I hope you all enjoyed it.

Grad School

My normal excuse for how very infrequently I post is that I usually put out a pretty good/long post. It's a fairly creative and draining task. It's also been how I feel better about being cheap and not having a camera which converts into not posting pictures. Plus most of my posts have as topics, things that traditionally don't have pictures involved with them.

I may not have the time or energy to do those kinds of posts anymore. Grad school has sucked a lot of energy lately, and after talking to my good friend Cyndi I was reminded that people use this as a way to get a snap shot, not just of what's happening in my life but how I feel about it. I had a really good Blog vibe going on the first day of school, but ended up being social instead of blogging it up, and like always happens when you have a good story idea, it went away. I remember the gyst of it, but the feeling is just gone.

Most of my best work is done when I've got that weird manic inspired feeling. Too bad I can't turn it on at will eh? Or even put it on hold.

So graduate school impressions:

1. Man is it nice to be moving along with my life plan. Been awhile since I've felt like I was doing that.

2. Moving is expensive.

3. Thank goodness for NSSLHA's buddy system (student version of the our professional body, the WCU chapter pairs first years up with second years, been invaluable so far).

4. Frisbee golf in the rain is fun.

5. My teachers are amazing and I think they really honestly care if I understand and are interested in filling in the caps of my knowledge and sating my hunger for more. No just teaching to the test here. Most of my BYU teachers taught to a test.

6. We are SO HELPFUL. I often used very uncharitable terms for the majority of the people in my major at BYU. Kelsy if you're reading this you're one of the few exceptions. To put it short. Me and the other grad students are working together. I have felt zero competitive vibes coming off my classmates. Those of you that think women aren't competitive are crazy.

7. Greg is very nice to invite me to bowling, even if the social situation makes it not as fun as it could be. (Being only first year and other stuff). Still better then most situations like that I've been in in the past.

8. My fluency professor is really really sincere about doing his scholarly work for the greater good of human kind. I mean on a visceral level. This guy is awesome. I've never met another academic with such passion.

9. I'm way more worried about starting clinic then I should be. I've trained for this for a while, I've got a great Clinical instructor there to help me if I need it/

10. I need to find a better way of managing stress (staying up to all hours of the night reading recreation books just does not fit with the life I need to live right now). Perhaps blogging?

Anyway over all things are really well. I'm really enjoying having my own apartment, a lot more then I thought I would.

I am VERY thankful to all the people who have talked to me on the phone when I've felt lonely (often). In fact I've gone over my phone minutes for the first time since I've owned a Cell phone I think. That's been another one of my stress management methods that is probably not as wise as it could be. I really should blog more often. It's like talking but with my fingers, and while not quite as good as calling you sweet people up (partially due to the gnats who love my computer monitor here) it is relaxing me a bit.

Anyway thanks for everyone who cares and looks at my blog despite the slowness of updating. And Kudos to those of you who are smart and use some kind of browser plugin or google tool to keep track of my blog, as well as others you're interested in. I'm still too lazy to set that up and currently just rotate through bookmarks. Thanks for any of you that prayed for me for this transition, it's been helpful I don't doubt it.

I have a new, and profound respect for anyone who does this (let alone a doctoral) program with a family. It is time consuming in a way that I had no way of understanding. I'm no stranger to insanely busy (last summer, 3 jobs ect.) but grad school, no job, no GA just me class, clinic and a little grant class and I often find myself wondering where my day went. Mom, I have no idea how you were not only able to do it, but do it while being the world's best mom in the universe. Joe you are amazing. Angela you must be a saint as well, I'm sure a PHD program is much crazier then a masters, and that can't be fun for you.

Love you all!

More Creative "I Got In!"

There's a half finished piece about "Glee" floating around I could finish first, but I thought I'd blog about my mid-week weekend.

In case ya'll haven't heard, I'm working retail. Which translates to me very rarely having two days off in a row. Any time this happens it's a weekend. Even if I have to schedule it. Which I did in this case. I spent some wonderful time with my brother Ed and his wife Laura who were kind enough to share their house and animals with me for my little mid-week three day weekend. I used this chance to go check Cullowhee out, talk to Dr. Rice (the faculty member who's my advisor at the moment) and do some apartment hunting.

I found a nice little place that I'm very excited about. I feel like Heavenly Father is really helping me out with this transition. With strong feelings about the place I should live and good weather to do random exploring with. This trip was great to make it feel more real, more immediate. I'm so excited to get the education I need to work as a Speech-language Pathologist. The building is nice, the facilities look nice and wonderful. Campus was nice, it's obviously been upgraded a lot lately. I would rate the bathroom sub-BYU in most buildings, but still well within acceptable.

It's a much smaller town than Provo, and a much smaller school. All in a good way. I already feel like I know Dr. Rice fairly well. And I felt like everyone was trying to make me feel welcome (except for the comic book guy in Asheville, but well... you've seen The Simpsons... it's an archetype for a reason). I had forgotten how comfortable and relaxed the mountains could be. I think the main thing that annoyed people was how long it took me to adjust to mountain driving.

For those of you thinking, "But Ben, you've lived there before, plus two years in Montana and nearly four in Provo." I site that I moved from Asheville when I was 13, well before I drove (well other then my awesome sister Mary letting me steer once or twice on this awesome long driveway some family friends had). Also Provo does not have curvy confusing narrow roads like the Appalachian mountains do. I credit Brigham Young and many other excellent city/area planners. Even Montana roads are wider and make more sense. That being said other then having to turn around because I overshot stuff a lot I feel like I did pretty good, in no small part to how great my Brother Ed's directions were.

So bottom line, I had a great time. Found a place that I like. And got very excited to go to Grad School this fall. Heck I'm even excited about getting the bits of furniture together to put in the place. Did I mention that, it's un-furnished! Mom and dad at one point have already bought me a dresser and book shelf (a very generous and handy b-day gift), two essentials. And there's a few pieces laying around the house that they may be willing to part with. But yeah I'm also excited for finding other stuff that they don't have extras collecting dust, like a bed and what not.

I hope this was more like the excitement people expect, because I care about stuff like that.

By the way school/moving won't be happening until mid-late august, so I've got plenty of time and wiggle room.

I got in!

I got into Western North Carolina University. I already talked about it on Facebook, so most of you probably already know, but I promised it'd be blogged about. Sadly I'm not feeling terribly creative right now, so this is about the extent of it. Perhaps a creative writing vent will come along in a bit and I'll expand on it.

In short, I AM VERY EXCITED and VERY THANKFUL. I plan on working my little touche off for the next two years. It'll be great.