One of Many Goodbyes

The campsite for the next week!

So this is officially my last blog for Rockhurst, which means this is my last blog period.  First off, CONGRATS to all graduates that get their diplomas on Saturday! 

This week holds a test, my comprehensive and then my class's white coat ceremony!  (if time permits I will post pics this weekend from the ceremony)  It is a little exciting simply because it is a tangible reward for the 2 hardest years of school in my life and because it marks the beginning of my final year and my great and rewarding experience with rotations that starts in a few short weeks!

It also means I must start packing....dun dun dunnnnnnn.  Being the organized person I am, this means packing takes three times as long.  Thankfully Marina has offered to come help next week!

I am on a slight pre-euphoric high with all the fun things coming up, which is helping me get through the 6-8 hours study sessions everyday in preparation for Thrust.  Thank goodness I get a short stint with my parents Friday!

So to all of you who are considering Rockhurst: Come check out our campus and get to know it!  Rockhurst is a great place to be and I have loved my 6 years here, the 4 in undergrad and the 2 in physical therapy school! 

To all of you who are already here: have a great and safe summer! 

To all of you who are graduating and putting on your big kid pants: good luck and find all the little blessings!

To anyone else: happy Sunday!

A HUGE thank you to my mom and her amazing Final weeks care package!
Rainbow Themed for a stormy week!

Rainbow Brite week

So in the attempt to be an optimistic person I have taken what is usually called an "H-E-double hockey sticks" well and renamed it Rainbow Brite week.  I am crazy OCD and organized when it comes to my planner and so every class assignment/test date is highlighted in a different color...this week I am blessed to have every color of the rainbow?!

But with the light at the tunnel slowly getting bigger the end is in sight!  Which means that this weekend was filled with hours upon hours of pouring over musculo notes and babysitting and the realization that I have to start saying good-bye is getting bigger and bigger.

I missed the bullet on having to say good-bye to many people when I graduated from undergrad in 2010 because I stayed here for Graduate school.  There were a few people who left for other schools or jobs but I was fortunate that my big chunk of friends stayed here in Kansas City.  So it is making it CRAZY hard to start saying good-bye to those friends I have had as a blanket on top of the kids I have babysat for the past 4 years. 

Now I know this sounds melo-dramatic considering I will be able to come visit some in the fall and I am coming back in January for 4 months to finish up my degree but even have something that is of that much comfort go away is going to be a little unsettling.  It doesn't mean I am not excited for rotations because am incredibly excited about those opportunities and they are going to be worth it!

The best part about this week ending is Emily and I get to have dinner with one of our old roommates and catch up!  (oh, and I guess finishing all these tests will be another plus).

I also caved in a bought a sweet/nerdy application for my phone that is the "PT Question of the day" where is sends you a board-like clinical question that you can answer and then get justifications on why the answer is right/wrong!  Hopefully it will pay off next year!

Until then have a wonderful week! 

The adorable puppy I will get to hang out with during my summer rotations!

PT school: turning us into moms one outfit at a time

Linds and I at the Royals game last week

So now that we have reached the home stretch of classes, my motivation has taken a trip straight out of town.  Here is how the rest of our semester breaks down:

• 1.5 weeks of classes and practicals
• 5 days of finals
• followed by the 4 hours comprehensive.....
• and then 2 more attempts if you don't pass the first time, because taking it the first time is so much fun!?

There are so many other things my mind thinks it needs to do like packing, cleaning, running, playing scramble with friends for hours at a time, and shopping. Today Jessica and I successful purchased more cardigans so we successfully like like moms on the go...you know, khakis, tennis shoes, and cardis.  We are very stylish :).

On a surreal note I was looking at my coursework and noticed that my class numbers are in the 7000s.  What?! When did that happen?!  It wasn't that long ago I was in 1000 level classes and getting stressed about 4 page papers!  Now I am an adult, with almost an adult job, who looks like a mom and thinks that everyone younger than me is a solid 18 years old (or babies).   

But seriously it has been a quick 2 years in PT school.  I can honestly say I did not picture this point in my life even a year ago because it seemed to far away and now it is breathing down my throat.  I am really impatiently waiting for rotations at this point!  What a crazy fun adventure!  But until then I should probably back track a few weeks and finish this semester!

Dog sitting Zoe...the perfect and adorable distraction to all things school

A birthday weekend of Titanic proportions

Standing on top of the huge pile of rock we moved!

So before I go into what was a sweet birthday weekend, on Friday me and 12 classmates spent some time volunteering at Habitat for Humanity.  We went to a donation site where we loaded a dumpster full of textured rock to be sold at their store, in which the profits go towards building houses for those in need.  Not only did we find 10 frogs in the pile and safely deliver them across the lot, we also loaded a majority of the rock in the dumpster and completely filled it up.  Now ask us if we used good body mechanics.....I would say we made a conscious effort but don't let our teachers know we had back pain the next day!

Kiley, Molly and Emily before the race

Saturday morning we went and cheered on our friends in the Rock the Parkway Half marathon!  There were 6 girls and 1 teacher running the half marathon and then another teacher who ran the 5K.  Our classmate Kim won the women's overall with a time of 79 minutes! How awesome! And Emily and Molly ran their first race with Kiley and they all did great!

Then is was time for my birthday weekend!  Now usually turning 24 isn't that interesting, but many cool historic things happen on April 15 including:

• Tax Day
• President Lincoln was shot and killed
• National Jackie Robinson day
• penicillin was discovered
• Leonardo Di Vinci was born
• AND this years more important event: the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking!

Megan and I at the Museum downtown...
Kevin bravely took the pic in the rain

In honor of the fact that I "only turn 24 on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic once", I did many a Titanic events including:

• The sweet traveling exhibit at Union Station...we got to be actual passengers and I survived! My friends did not :(
• Titanic and Ice Berg shaped ice cubes
• Titanic movie in 3D (still just as gripping as when I was 10, I was on the edge of my seat)
• Dinner and dancing with my great friends!

Dinner on the Plaza

It was a great and wonderful time and I am so blessed to have the great friends and family I do! 24 has never felt so good!  Then on Monday I went to the Royals Games with Lindsey and Patrick since they were in town visiting...next time I see them I will be moving to Oklahoma for rotation in August! That is CRAZY! (I will put that pic on the next blog!)

Dancing with friends!

Thankfully this week at school has not been to demanding because I am exhausted and have seriously considered a caffine IV to survive. Tomorrow is our last night of lab and we get to dog sit our favorite Zoe this weekend! Have a great Thursday!



Titanic in 3D! ...too bad Jack let go in the end

Let's take a ride in the Cash Cart

So today my infinite and vast amount of useless trivia finally paid off.  As my classmates and I were walking to musculo the Cash Cart approached us (yes if you are thinking "like cash cab but in a golf cart?" you would be correct).  So Allie and I rode around campus on this cart and answered Rockhurst, pop culture and history trivia.  Basically by the end of the ride our awesomeness was solidified...which includes our amazing guessing skills at time. And the best part was we won dinosaur tattoos and a gift card to Yogurtini!  Whoop whoop!  SAB (student activities board) was doing some promoting of an even they have tomorrow and it ended up being a great laugh.  Some questions we answered:

• Rockhurst Undergrad population?  A: 1500
• Disney Darling who just had a baby? A: Hilary Duff (don't mess with the Lizzie McGuire kids of 2002)
• First country to recognize Mexico's Independence day? A: USA
• President who said "ballots are more powerful than bullets"? A: Abraham Lincoln (we used our shout out, who was one of our professors, she didn't know but our guess was right!)

In more sobering news, today we learning that one of our professors is leaving the program to go help start a new PT program in Kentucky.  While we wish him nothing but the best and know he will do great things for that school, we are really going to miss him!  I was fortunate to have Don as a professor in undergrad and I give him a lot of credit for helping me solidify my choice to come to RU.  His teaching method was awesome and I knew that if the other teachers were anything like him I would get a great education.  So to the lucky ducks who get to have him as a professor, get excited cause we are really bummed that our future students won't get to!

We also went to Trails West State School today to work with children who have severe mental and physical disabilities.  My group got to meet a really sweet boy and work with him some on standing and muscle tone.  It was a very humbling experience and I respect those teachers and therapists so much for the work they do!

This weekend is my Titanic birthday celebration and I am so stinkin' excited!  More to come on Sunday! ....and yes, Allie and I will be sporting our awesome dinosaur tattoos when we venture out on Saturday!

Happy Easter!

At this late hour and a few days of many miles of driving, catchy and creative blog titles are not easy to come by!  So this week in school we learned taping techniques of the lower extremity.  Taping is a way to help re-align muscles so they move properly.  As you can see from the picture, you can tell they are very attractive and should be worn to any function where "dress to impress" is suggested.  I also got to be an example for how effective it can be for people who straighten their knee beyond zero....I seriously couldn't push my knee back! Very effective!

Then it was time to drive home for the beloved Easter break, which at Rockhurst is the last few days off of school before the last month of classes and finals.  My aunts and I were able to go and watch my sister and her pole vaulting meet on Saturday before my family drove north to Illinois for the Easter Holiday.  I even got to see my cousin's adorable son...which would be something like first cousin once removed? 

Four month old Josie Wales

Today we spent the day with my relatives that live in Illinois and got to spoil the newest addition to the family, my Uncles new puppy Outlaw Josie Wales (he names all of his hunting dogs after western bandits and cowboys. Her momma is named Jessie James)!  We also got our ceramic painted Easter Egg, my most favorite tradition of all time.  Every year my mom paints us an egg and it is an amazing tradition that I adore and am so grateful for! 

Titanic Birthday Cake

My sister (with assistance from my cousin and mom) made me my birthday cake!  For reasons you will learn next week my birthday this year is Titanic themed, so they of course made me a fantastic and fabulous Titanic cake.  It was as delicious as it looked!

Time to drive back to Kansas City tomorrow and get back to the books for the final weeks of class.  Of course I have not begun to start studying for the comprehensive exam...maybe tomorrow?! :)

My gorgeous family!

My Easter Eggs that my mom has painted over the years!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

So this week March said farewell with gifting us 3 tests that weren't nearly the nightmare I had imagined. We talked about patients prone to falling and finished our vestibular unit and even got to stop and smell the 300,000 tulips Rockhurst planted on campus that bloomed. I have added in a few of the pictures I took on campus of them. They are beautiful and a wonderful way to welcome spring on campus after spending way to much time inside the last few months!

The Science Center

Friday brought a few adventures for me and some of my classmates. First off was getting our certification renewed for CPR for our clinical affiliations. Then me and 15 classmates participated in doing a trial run of the OSKEY exam that is used for medical and even dental students in their education. Of course ours was the physical therapy edition :) Our professor was looking at the use of iPads verses paper for grading and to see if it is something the program can use as means of testing in the near future. My benefit? Getting practice with 2 standardized patients and getting feedback from actual clinicians all without the worry of failing a practical. So it was great to have some feedback before rotations!

Running in Loose Park

I was also blessed to be able to go run in Loose Park on one of the gorgeous days this week. Loose park is literally a mere mile walk from campus and is a beautiful place to run, Play Frisbee, study, or read a book. It has been one of my favorite places ever since I first came to Rockhurst when I was a freshman. Sadly my Flat Rock E. Hawk wasn't able to come along for the ride.



Between cleaning out my closet, painting pottery and making Easter cupcakes it was a pretty productive weekend. Now maybe I should get to a bit of studying? Let's be honest, I will probably watch the ACMs and enjoy my favorite country bands.

The Easter Cupcakes I made with the girl I babysit!

By far April is my most favorite month of the year and this go around is no exception. With Easter, my titanic themed birthday, habitat for humanity, the wonderful weather, and then some all packed into the next four weeks needless to say I am going to be busy but very excited!  But most importantly Thrusday I get to go home for my favorite holiday and to see my family!

Hope you enjoyed this beautiful day!