You'll notice the lessening of blog entries as we enter April. We're approaching the wonderfully dreaded finals for spring semester. It’s sad that the most beautiful time of year has to be associated with such a heinous thing, but thus is life. However, this is not a rant as Scott might think, but rather just a notice that there won’t be as many postings for the next month. If I manage to post anything from now until May you will know that I am procrastinating doing any kind of studying (which I am doing right at this moment). So, until May… it was nice knowing y’all.

Show and Tell

Long Tail Lizard and Anole
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

I wanted to bring my pets to show and tell today here on the blog. I have two fire belly toads, Joey and Cleo. One long tail lizard with no name, I have no idea if its a male or female. And I have an anole. I use to have two, but one disappeared, either escaped or died. Oh, and I have a fire belly newt. We call him newty newt. We've had so many animals die that we don't always name them now... well sometimes we're just lazy. Here's a pic of the long tail lizard and one of the anoles.

Well, when I have a lot of homework that I need to do, I tend to look for other things that are not quite as important to do. For example: I've spent a good deal of time putting more picture on the flickr page. Just so all of my procrastination time doesn't go to waste you'll have to look at the pictures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbateman/ In order to see specific pictures its best to either look through one of the three sets (they only let you make three when you are doing the free version) or look up the tags.

During my Spring break I've been volunteering at an adult day center (basically day care for the elderly). Before I start sounding too altruistic I must state that I am required to do a certain number of volunteer hours for a class of mine. On top of that, my wife doesn't get Spring break with me because she's doing her student teaching this semester. So, I'm not going anywhere anyway…. and I have to get these hours in sooner or later, so it might as well be this week Well, my motives might not have been as pure as they could have been, but that's okay, no one is perfect.

I started to talk to this elderly gentleman that I'll call John. Our conversation wasn't exactly deep, but it was pleasant. Later, John introduced me to some of the other people there as his “old friend that came to visit”. As far as John was concerned, we've been life long friends and I just came to visit him (not any of this homework stuff). All of the people there were very nice to talk with. I may have had to introduce myself a few times to the same people, but hey what do you do.

There seemed to be a reoccurring theme in my conversations with these elderly folk. Their family was the most important thing in their lives. Life goes by quicker than you may think. Your kids will grow up in a blink of an eye before you know it; so, don't miss out on them especially while they are small.

I got thinking about how beautiful and cute my little girl is at this moment. The idea of her growing up seems so remote. After talking to my new found friends, I get the feeling that Sydney will grow up before I know it. She’ll be transitioning from diapers to cars and boys in a heart beat. I just know that I’m going to be having a hard time letting my little girl grow up. I figure that I had better enjoy my eight month old while I can.

I also was reminded that people need people, even if they won't remember you tomorrow. John and his friends we’re so happy to talk to me. I’m not sure how many visitors come to the adult day center in our town. These people have so many stories to tell. They are just fascinating to talk to, but we generally don’t have time. Well, I for one don’t have time because of grad school and my little family, but I’m going back again.

I’m going back again to visit my old friend John.

My daughter, Sydney, seems to have a fascination with technology at quite the early age. She’s a whole eight months old right now. She's just like her father in the fact that any kind of technology gets her excited.

For example: the cell phone. If Sydney sees someone holdina a cell phone she drops anything (literally) and seeks to get the phone. When she succeeds, which she does many times, she then attempts to see what the phone taste like by quickly shoving it into her mouth. At this point, we usually attempt to trade the phone with a more suitable chew toy. This is pretty upsetting to Sydney, which she tells us with her healthy lungs.

She also thoroughly enjoys pounding on the keyboard and drooling on the mouse. In fact, she’s a little up set that I’m not letting her do this right at this moment. Well, maybe just for a moment.

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Well, there you have it.

When you begin to learn a lot you realize just how little you actually know. In grad school you learn how much you actually don’t know. Before hand you were in ignorant bliss, but now you know that you don’t know. Most of us would like to return to the beautiful state, but there’s no going back. The funny thing about this whole process is that no one else really cares what you know as long as they don’t need to know it.

When one of my friends who are also college students (particularly grad students), that are going into math, engineering, microbiology, genetics, or whatever, whenever they try to explain to me what they are learning I get lost and/or confused. Part of me really wants to learn what they are talking about and part of me would rather care not. Since I have no time to try to learn all of these fascinating subjects I tend to lean towards the later (it would probably take too much work anyway). All the information comes in one ear and out the other. These conversations generally go no where quickly.

My problem with this whole dilemma is that I am beginning to see the flip side. I’m in school all day learning about speech-language pathology. Naturally, I can talk about this subject extensively; however, as my friends have already learned, no one cares. I’m glad that someone is learning all about math so that I don’t have to. I assume that someone is glad that I’m learning all about communicative disorders so they don’t have to.

In this whole process of becoming educated we learn that we know nothing and anything we do learn we can’t talk to any body about, but we know deep down that someone is glad that we’re learning this stuff so they don’t have to.

Today my little family and I went to Boise, Idaho and watch our cousin's family get sealed in the Boise Temple. It was just amazing to see this family dressed all in white. It reminded just how much I love my little family and how much I want to live with them forever.

The family had been fighting to stay together. They adopted a couple of little girls. One of the fathers (who was in prison) was fighting for the custody even though the mom wanted this family to adopt her girl. She realized that this would be a better life. The father just wanted to get out of prison early. Well, after many appeals they finally won. We're so excited for them.

I just couldn't imagine having to wait for three years before I could know for certain that I would be able to keep Sydney. We're just so excited for this family.

Here is our family, in the snow up in Logan, Ut.

I haven't posted pictures of our daughter for awhile. These are all recent pictures of her. The first are of her and her beautiful dress. The others are of her this morning in her prison baby pajamas.

The semester is half way over for my first year of graduate school in speech-language pathology. I still have way too much to do in the next two months, but it's nice to have something already accomplished. Right now we're learning way to much for our own good in grad school. My motivation to go to class is ever increasingly weak. I find myself chanting the mantra "B's get degrees in grad school" I understand that the original was "C's get degree's", but C's don't get degree in my program, they get you kicked out.

So, just about one more year to freedom, that is... work. Strange idea of freedom, but a way out of student destitution is always nice. And the thought of no more tests is also appealing. It would also be nice to see friends that we once had. This time next year I'll just doing an externship with no course work, living in Salt Lake. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, be it a long tunnel. But at this moment, my lot in life in school (which I’m procrastinating doing stuff for at this very moment.)