Another Semester in the Books
That's one more semester in the books, and I am officially a third-year student. Now I have one month off.
Normally I would use the downtime to work as much as possible and play catch-up financially. So what are my plans for this break? I'm still going to work, but only part-time. I begin my assistantship at the VA in October, and I intend to spend every day of the layover studying something audiology related. On my days off, I'm going to visit the clinic and practice performing a diagnostic battery using hospital protocols. I intend to become proficient with real-ear measurements. On the days I work, I'm going to spend the afternoon and evening with my head in the books. I did not grow as a future clinician as much as I would have liked to this semester, and I am determined to build back my confidence, and not let it be shaken again.
No, I have not and will not forget my duties as a husband along the way. It is a blessing to have a wife who has paid her dues as a grad student and understands exactly what I'm going through. She is going through a stressful time herself having only two weeks left of her education and little time to search for a job. People often ask, why tie the knot now? Why not wait until after school? The way I see it, if we can survive this chapter in our life, I see the rest as a breeze (God willing).
I have the privilege of attending the Audigy Fall Summit 2011 in Las Vegas! My old compadre and fellow SAA Media Committee member Chris Cox brought forth the opportunity and hooked me up with an interview. He is a recent graduate at North Texas and now works for Audigy. This is a conference that will be attended by many private practice owners and staff, as well as a select group of students. I see this as an excellent opportunity to explore how a private practice is operated first-hand, and meet some great leaders in the field along the way.
Lastly, I'd like to say congrats to the ADVANCE staff for putting on a great virtual conference. Unfortunately, I did not get to hang around long due to finals (though I did catch Dr. Bauman's lecture), but I can tell that a lot of work was put into it, and I sincerely hope it is a learning avenue that is pursued in the future.