Swamped.
Things are busy this week. Mainly I'm sad right now because I'm studying/cramming for my geology final for tomorrow (my online course that was meant to be *easy* but has taken me over nine awful months to get through). Enough of that, though. 24 hours from now it will be done.

But lots to catch up on. The family zoomed into town last weekend to attend my belated graduation from grad school. My parents, brothers, and uncles descended upon Chicago and our brood ate our way through the city. Truly, we were a sight to behold. I counted on Monday evening, and it looks like I ate at 12 different eating places with them in the four days they were here, and they hit like 14. I won't bore you with details, but let me just say: on Sunday morning we started with dim sum in Argyle and then walked directly across the street to wolf down some pho. My uncle wanted to taste the Chinese/Vietnamese offerings in Chicago and let me just say that he and my mom loved the hell out of Furama. They both said that their dim sum was better than anything in Maryland and Virginia. Furama gets an enthusiastic thumbsup from the family, which is an honor indeed. Go to Furama, people. Sunday was far from done, since the rest of the day held promises of bao from Wow Bao, drinks at the John Hancock and then an enormous prime rib dinner from Lawrys from fathers day.

Their visit was fun and graduation was all right, but a little underwhelming and a tad bit disorganized. It was actually kind of funny what a clusterfuck it turned into behind the scenes: they actually forgot to announce me! Skipped over my name entirely, so that someone had to rush quietly to the announcer and tell him to announce me before they started with the undergrads. It was okay, though, since I ended up sitting with the end of the alphabet and they were fun.

My school year officially ended but I've started doing extended school year for four weeks. I've been assigned four schools which are located in areas I've never ever been to, so I'm discovering just how large Chicago is. I liken my experience as an itinerant SLP split among four schools to the classic, The Little Prince and how the prince visits all of these different little planets in his travels. Each planet offers its own cultures and experiences and personalities. I will say this: I like two of my schools very much, am relatively okay with one of my schools, and the remaining school is less than impressive. That particular school is where I encountered the rudest classroom teacher I've yet to meet (granted, I haven't met that many). She was pissed off that I was there, and when I told her that one of her kids was on my caseload, she sighed dramatically and loudly and exclaimed: "Well, that's counter-productive!" I kind of wanted to sock her, especially since the kid was sitting there at a table doing NOTHING when I walked in. No paper in front of her...nada. I was gracious though, swallowed my annoyance, and calmly informed the charming instructor of the times that she could expect me every week. After encountering her I realized for real how lucky I've been with my teachers at my present school--the majority of them like having an extra set of hands in the classroom.

Summer school is pretty awesome, though, since it's 3.5 hours a day and four days a week. My kind of schedule!