Speech Language Pathologist: My Awesome Job

"Vroom, vroom. Beeeeeep. Oh! Red light. Stop, car, stop! Green light.... go, car... vroooommm."

If you think this sounds like a 3 year-old playing cars, you're close.

If you guessed that this sounds like me at snack time, you're spot on! If you further guessed that that the "lights" consisted of fruit snacks and the "car" was a rectangle of graham cracker driving around a laminated "streets & buildings" placemat, well then, clearly you have taught preschool!

Have I mentioned lately that I love my new position as a Preschool SLP? I do. My favorite part is the two Language classes that I get to teach. Its speech therapy... but its run pretty much like a 90-minute preschool class once per week:

• Free play: Wherein I attempt to collect data with one child and the other 7 immediately swarm around me because they love to learn. And also, how often do adults sit on the floor and play with them on their level?
• Clean up: My assistant and I sing endless varieties of the "Clean Up Song"-- pretty much the same concept as "A Spoon Full of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down" except without the neat snapping trick.
• Bathroom: Depending on how many children are potty-training, we may do this one or many times per day.
• Circle time: Where I believe I'm brilliantly incorporating Viconic Language Methods by drawing all the kids onto large poster paper with a thought bubble showing them what we're learning about that day... and then one of them inevitably bursts my bubble with an awesome comment like "There's a cloud over our heads!"
• Art project: Process over product, folks. If the papers we send home look like your preschooler did them... he did.
• Snack time: Social engagement, food exploration, etc.
• Books & puzzles or Play in the Motor room: This decision is completely arbitrary and depends entirely on whether my kiddos and kidlets have drained my energy reserves or not.

Among the many reasons that I love language classes are that we are encouraged (yes, encouraged!) to play with our food. Sorry Mom's...  I promise to teach manners too, but I have a few kiddos with adaptive feeding goals and my Occupational Therapist consult said to get creative with our food.

So we do letters and numbers and shapes. We do walking in the halls and lining up.  We do sharing. And we do hugs. But we also do play. Because play is kids' work.

After spending the past 4 years at all levels from Kindergarten through the post-High School transition program, I'm pretty excited to see what I can do for children to give them the best start before they enter school.

I have a file on my computer titled Kids Say the Darndest Things. So far its kind of sadly empty; by virtue of being an SLP all the kids I work with have some sort of communication disorder and I've been working with non-verbal kids for the past 4 years. But I do have two gems to share:

From last week:

Me: Do you want one rectangle (graham cracker) or two?
3 y.o. boy: 10! Splays all ten fingers
Me: Uhhh... okay! Breaks 1/4th of graham cracker into 10 pieces while counting to 10.
3 y.o. boy: Good job counting to 10, Teacher.

      Schwoo! [wipes brow] So glad I passed that test!


From last year:

Kindergartener 1: My Mom has a baby in her tummy. It was an accident.
Kindergartener 2: Did she eat it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While I'm no longer doing it full-time, I still have 8 hours per week devoted to my previous position, Augmentative Communication (AAC) Specialist.

Don't know what AAC is? I'd be happy to show you...

 

 

A. Stephen Hawking, who communicates via a twitch switch on his cheek muscle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKaJcrZLIEM

 

B. One of my absolute favorite videos because it shows a kid with a disability just being an absolutely typical kid:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=d7WgRVEPW0g&feature=endscreen

 

C. One child two-switch scanning using her head; other child using eye gaze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9wIjc8gfDc (Preview)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9wIjc8gfDc                         

      

(Show link)

D. Schuyler of Schuyler's Monster fame (incidentally she is now a teenager and uses an iPad instead of the Vantage device show here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9toup9IDb4 (Preview)                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9toup9IDb4                  

E. A man using his toes (yes, his toes!) to operate his AAC device and a woman using a head pointer (which nowadays has mostly been replaced by eye gaze technology but also exists in micro-dot form)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytn53lTdsf0

 

I love these two messages from the trailer of "Only God Could Hear Me":

    Don't limit non-speaking people.

and

    Life is bigger than how we communicate. Its that we communicate that's much more important.

 

When you stop to think about it, opening the power of language & communication to a child... its a pretty awesome job!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The last part of my job is in an unofficial capacity: Teaching & Research.  I've been fortunate enough to be on University panels, conduct Continuing Education workshops, and guest lecture in M.Ed. programs. I love teaching adults because when I stand in front of a classroom and lead a discussion, rather than lecture, I get to learn from every person in the room. I am consistently in awe of the varied experience and paths that have brought each of us as learners together.  I can't think of much that I enjoy more than sharing ideas and the innate high of conceptual learning. I also can't believe any child is as wily, squirmy or fast (well, okay, maybe fast) as Graduate students love to pretend they are when they stymie my well-laid plans for object lessons with their role-playing.

 

Someday, when I'm all grown up and have all the answers grey hair, I will teach University.

 

In the meantime I'm working on my Ed.D. so I can be a more effective researcher and practitioner.

 



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

I suppose that, if I have to work for a living (and really, its not like I haven't considered the alternative!) I am pretty blessed to have been led to a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist.

 

What do you do, Dearest Reader?  Tell me in the comments what you do and why you love it.

10 Things

Earlier this week we had a team-building activity to kick off our staff meeting at the preschool where I work. Written on the white board were the directions “List 10 things you do well. Be prepared to share.” We were each given a pink notecard to make our lists.  

Here are the contents of my notecard:

1.       Writing/blogging

2.       Reading

3.       Learning

4.       Sleeping

5.       Working with kids

6.       Cutting my own hair

7.       School list making

8.       Teaching/guest lecturing

9.       Going to professional development

10.   Making mashed potatoes

This list took me less than 2 minutes.  I went back and crossed out “school” on number 7 to make room for “list making” when I realized it was kind of a repeat of #3, learning, and that I was the first person done. By more than 5 minutes!

For the life of me, I could not understand what was taking everyone so long. Folks, take a look at yourselves. Are you dressed?  Is your shirt on the right way and do all of your buttons and button holes match up? Some days I am not that put together. I think that’s enough rationalization to put it on your list.  Do you remember to floss every day? I don’t. Do you fix your hair regularly? My cubicle-neighbor brings her flat iron to work and sometimes she still ends up just putting her hair in a messy ponytail.  Clearly these are skills that not everyone possesses in equal measure. I think that is sufficient reason to add them to your list.  Do you know where to put the oil in your car? Can you find your birth city on a map (or like me, was it news to you when the pushpin and string connected to your baby picture on the bulletin board map showed up)?

I’ve seen some of your manicures and I know we’re on the same salary schedule. If you can make your nails look that good day-in and day-out, you’re either a talented manicurist, couponer or budgeter…. Or your husband washes all the dishes. Can you parallel park? Carry a tune in a bucket? Walk in heels?

Clearly these are skills, my friends.

Including the Principal, Teachers, Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, School Psychologists, Educational Assistants, and Administrative Assistants there were about 25 of us at the staff meeting.  I loved listening to everyone’s lists. There were some funnies, including the woman who shared “I dress well…. I mean, I actually am good at putting my clothes on, but I also dress well” (I think she was trying to say she has fashion sense, which she does) and the exchange between two Mom’s of infants who recently returned from maternity leave:

Mom #2: (reading from her list) “I’m a good Mom… well, on some days.”

  Mom #1: “I didn’t even put that one down.”

Mom #2: “Well I felt it was best to acknowledge it, get it out in the open.”

  Mom #1: “As opposed to my approach, which is to just ignore the problem!”

Ahhh, Sped-ucators. How readily we dissect our own shortcomings!

What I noticed, though, is that mine was probably the only list that was 100% about things I do, and not who I am. I read the directions “list 10 things you do well” quite literally and I supposed at the time that this accounted for my relative speed in completing my list.  How much longer would it take if I were to agonize over which character traits best describe me, as so many of my colleagues did?  Their lists contained phrases like “I’m understanding,” “I’m good at saying “I’m sorry”, “I’m creative,” “I’m good at Medicaid billing” (which of course elicited a chorus of groans) and other gems. Their lists were a combination of things they do, and traits that describe them.

I have a favorite phrase. Its not one I coined, but something that one of my professors shared:  people often have their “whos” and “whats” mixed up.  I think this is especially relevant in our society today. We get confused about who we are, believing it is made up of what we do.  And if who we are is the same as what we do then any value judgments assigned to what we do (whether its cooking, writing, singing, driving, making jokes, being a family member, being a worker, etc.) reflect on who we are.  This is a problem because it means that how I feel about myself- my self worth- is subject to what I think about what I do… and especially what you think and what you tell me about what I do.

Here are some truths that I know about who we are:

1.       I am a Daughter of God.

2.       You are also a Daughter of God (unless you’re male, then you’re a Son of God).

3.       We are of infinite worth and value.

4.       We are so valuable to our Savior that if it had been only my sins, or only your sins rather than the entire world’s sins and pains, He still would have suffered and died for me. Or for you.

5.       I am an eternal being. My identity is eternal. My potential is infinite. I lived in the presence of God before I came to this earth. I came here willingly choosing to forget about my previous life to gain a body and to enter a place with both good and evil so that I would have the opportunity to choose good, an essential part of my eternal progression. Because of Jesus Christ, I will live again in the presence of God. All of this applies to you, also.

 

Mormon messages excepted, these aren’t things the media generally tells you about who you are.  So is it any wonder that we so frequently behave badly toward one another?  Not so much, no.

In my Ed.D. cohort there are 19 students. Two among our number are adult immigrants from China. Ah-Fong, who chose the American name “Jessica,” sat next to me Wednesday night during our Advanced Qualitative Analysis class.  

At the end of the class, Jessica has not been able to get her question answered and she turned to me and asked whether I thought she should do a Quantitative Analysis study for her dissertation since it would be less writing-intensive than a Qualitative study.  Of course the real answer is that you do the type of study that the research question needs.  But I wanted to be helpful, and I had proof-read several of Jessica’s papers over the Summer so I knew she sometimes struggled with the mechanics of English and word choice, but that she was engaging in higher-order thinking. She was only held back by her ability to convey in her 2^nd language the depth of thought and incredible connections she made between course material, historical contexts and her work as a Grade 1-6 Mandarin Immersion teacher and more recently as a 1^st grade teacher.  

So I told her exactly that, and concluded that I thought she had a special gift having grown up in a visual culture, speaking a visual language versus those of us who have visual thinking systems but grew up in an auditory culture and have varying levels of compensatory strategies for overcoming that cultural-linguistic mismatch.

Jessica accepted my compliment with a “thank you” and replied “And you’re very good at cutting your hair.”

+1 for random rejoinders!

I laughed off the non-sequitur, but as I thought about it later, it occurred to me that sometimes as human beings we feel the need to return a compliment for a compliment.  Or an insult for an insult. And I wonder if this is a symptom of having our Whos&Whats confused?

I had intended to end this post with some sage advice or wisdom.  But I’m tapped out. So instead, here is a meme that always makes me chuckle:

 

Not Just a Dream

You’ve had that dream before. You know which one I’m talking about right? The Dream. You fall asleep on the couch and miss your final? You walk into school and notice everyone staring at you, so you look down and realize you have no clothes on?

Good thing they’re just dreams, right?

Right.

Unless you’re me.

I have a long and colorful history of worst dreams coming to life in this regard.  Want to feel better about yourself? Keep reading.

1.       Slept through final

2.       Forgot final

3.       Missed the first day of class

4.       Forgot to get dressed

Slept through final

I transferred to Brigham Young University-Idaho as a Junior in college in 2005. My car had been totaled a few months before and the insurance payout allowed me to take my time in finding a job. It was two weeks before the end of my first semester when campus custodian positions started opening up. On-campus jobs were highly coveted and always went first to International students but non-returning students frequently quit right before finals. So when I saw a job posting for a campus job that would in no way (I thought) interfere with my class schedule and for which I did not need a car, I jumped on it! I was immediately assigned to work at the Taylor Religion Building from 4a.m. to 7a.m. Monday thru Thursday and 5a.m. to 7a.m. on Saturdays. What I hadn’t really thought about in the this-is-so-great-because-I-don’t-have-to-worry-about-my-class-schedule frenzy of excitement is the fact that up to that point, I had really enjoyed sleeping past 3:45 a.m.!!  I am not a night person so going to bed early wasn’t really a problem for me.  On the other hand, I’m not exactly a morning person either… I like sleep. A lot.

So when Sister Gordon, my Language Literacy and Learning teacher  that first Winter semester let it be known that the class final would take place at her home where she would be serving breakfast, I assumed that meant it was optional. And since the other option was going back to sleep after work, well….

Off campus + breakfast = optional   AmIright?

I was wrong. 

And let me just say that when your class starts at 10:30a.m., “I overslept” is not really an empathy-evoking excuse. 

Forgot Final

One of the things I have loved about my experience to date at University of Portland is that there has been nary an exam.  Seriously… 6 classes under my belt, one underway and I have yet to see a single “your name here” answer sheet. Instead the professors focus on our writing, which they believe best reflects our thinking and understanding. And since I rock at writing (err, so I’ve been told. Not to brag or anything. Plus academic writing is like a dry piece of toast and I do not rock dry toast) I kind of love this approach.

Last Spring I had already turned in my final paper and so all that was left to do on the last day of class was show up and claim my participation points.  Which I fully intended to do except that something happened where if time was an ant marching across a piece of paper and you folded the paper so 1/7^th of it was missing and the ant walked right from Tuesday into Thursday but thought it was Friday, then that is how my week went.

 And when I showed up at a classroom that been expecting me Friday, first thing on Thursday morning and the teacher informed me of the date, my heart went like this:

“But that means yesterday was…. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh” (plummets like the Perilous Plunge at Knott’s Berry Farm, except on this ride the track never curves back upward).

I quickly borrowed a computer and e-mailed the teacher, hoping to convey through my franticness that this-was-not-intentional-I-don’t-do-this (that one time in Undergrad excepting…) please-forgive-me-and-can-I-still-pass-the-class?

Luckily the prof wrote back and assured me all was well and offered this sage advice “I don’t recommend you miss any finals in your Doctorate program though…”  Which leads me to the time I

Missed the First Day of Class

Did you know that time is an auditory (really acoustic) property? That we learn to internalize time through the ears? No, really.  There are three properties to a sound wave.  Here they are with the psychological correlates:

Amplitude/loudness

Frequency/pitch

Duration/time

One of my professors, Dr. Ellyn Arwood, has been doing longitudinal research on the neurobiological learning system.  Over a period of about 3 generations she has noted a switch in the majority of learning systems from auditory to visual. 

By definition, a person with a visual learning system uses the properties of light and movement to make meaning.  They don’t use properties of the auditory system (which is the acoustic properties listed above + the visual properties of light and movement).  So we have a whole generation of kids whose teachers’ #1 and #2 complaints are that they don’t do their homework and that they do their homework, but don’t turn it in; both are time-based problems.  Incidentally, there is a fascinating link between  this finding and the widespread use of antibiotics, ear infections and the incredible mechanism by which a phenotype becomes a genotype.

Here are the list of evidences that I have a visual learning system:

1.       My “strong auditory memory” that grasps details and misses the big picture? Its pretty much an indication that my brain doesn’t turn acoustic information into concepts very well.

2.       The fact that Father Time and I never seem to be on the same calendar page.

What is all of this leading up to, you might ask? Well, dearest reader, the answer is absolutely nothing. I’m actually just blathering on to make a more substantial subheading.

Confession time: I missed the first day of a Really Important Doctoral Research Class.  I pretty much flipped out.  Like that feeling you get when you’ve made a Huge Mistake and you realize that there is no way to Go Back And Make It Right and all you can do is Live With This Horrible Feeling Of Despair. Forever. Or at least until the Prof e-mails you back, lets you know that your classmates vouched for your “conscientiousness” and that therefore your absence was a matter of concern for your safety rather than a judgment on your fitness for continuation in the Ed.D. program. Then you take a deep breath, look at the research books you now realize you didn’t do the reading for, for the first week, and think “well, I have 7 whole days until that’s due” and settle comfortably back into your life’s philosophy regarding homework: why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

Forgot to Get Dressed

If you used the hyperlink to jump directly to this section I hesitate to burst your bubble but this post contains no actual nakedness.

At the risk of providing too much information, here is how I get ready for work in the morning.

1.       Get dressed (including camisole)—all except blouse/shirt

2.       Eat breakfast/pack lunch

3.       Put on blouse/shirt

4.       Kiss kitty, grab keys and go

The specific reasons for not putting my blouse or shirt on until I’m ready to leave are twofold:

1.       I have a special magnetic field on my front that attracts any and all food. Waiting until I’ve finished the food prep saves on laundry.

2.       Sometimes my apartment reaches 93 degrees. With the air conditioning on.

Now walking around in a camisole is, to my mind, not much different than wearing a spaghetti strap tank top.  Sure, your bra strap shows and its not terribly modest, but I only do it in the privacy of my apartment and so far my cat hasn’t complained.

Full disclosure:  One summer I did take my blouse off every single week when I got into my non-air conditioned car and made the drive from Flagstaff to Cottonwood, AZ in the heat of the desert sun. I figured it was better to drive “topless” than arrive at my summer clinical assignment at the hospital with pit stains (TMI? Sorry).  Yes, I garnered some strange looks at stop lights when I loosened my seat belt to wriggle out of the blouse. Who wouldn’t do a double take if they glanced at the car beside them and saw a woman undressing?  I don’t think this is nearly as unsafe as driving distracted by cell phone conversations or texting, though. FYI.  Also I have a car with air conditioning now and haven’t undressed while driving since Grad school… just in case clarification was needed.

So two Winters back, I was getting ready for a normal workday in which I traveled to the Coast to consult with one of the rural districts in our ESD conglomeration. I got partially dressed, ate breakfast, prepped my lunch, slipped on my jacket, kissed kitty and headed out the door with my purse over one shoulder and keys and water bottle in the opposite hand as I pulled the door shut behind me while toeing the cat back inside.

All was well for the next thirty minutes as I drove toward Hillsboro where I’d stop in at my office for a file I’d forgotten, then pick up Hwy 6 out to Tillamook. I had noticed that I felt a little bit chillier than normal, but in my mind this was a good thing (I love cold weather) and I simply turned up the car’s heater a smidge.

It was while I was washing up in front of the mirror in the bathroom at my office that I realized: I do not see my shirt. I see my long camisole beneath my rather short jacket… but where is my shirt? I went to pull it down and… nothing. So I unzipped the jacket and came to the heart-stopping realization that

    that dream about showing up naked to school had just come TRUE!

Now one thing I can say for small towns that rarely if ever get snow and that almost as rarely have air conditioned buildings is that they are well-heated.  To the point of obnoxiousness. Or at least short-sleevedness. There was no way I was going to want to wear a fleece jacket all day long. 

And it was only 7:30 a.m.  No department stores were open. I’m not quite awesome enough at being a Mormon to have a 72-hour kit with a change of clothes in my car, and going home would mean losing an entire hour round-trip, and cutting into my already significantly limited time on the coast.  

Fred Meyer to the rescue!

Dearest reader, I am not a shopper. I hate shopping. I would probably buy everything I ever needed on the internet and have it delivered to my door if not for the detriment of having to re-package and drive to the post office any returns.  When I do go shopping, I am all about getting down to business. I don’t clip coupons and I repeat shop the same stores instead of bargain hunting specifically so I can march directly to the aisle with the item I need, grab it off the shelf, and get out. I had never before shopped for clothing at Fred Meyer however.

Looking back, this was an omen I should have heeded. Instead I marched in the front doors like I meant business, glanced around and located an employee to tell me where the clothing racks were, and headed over with the intent of grabbing the first reasonable looking dress-shirt I could find. What I found was… a disorganized clearance rack. Feeling impatient I abandoned the plan in favor of grabbing a no-need-to-try-on t-shirt off a shelf and headed for the self-check registers.

In the car I took the stickers off of my shirt, unfolded it and realized… it was a men’s shirt. And it had a gigantic “Columbia Sporting Company” logo over the front. 

Did I mention I hate shopping?

I decided to wear it anyway, with my black dress slacks and Mary Janes. I figured if anybody noticed the discrepancy in my attire, I would laugh and tell them about showing up to work topless.  But nobody did. Because on the coast most everyone is a surfer. And if they’re not a surfer they’re still the most laid back people you’ll ever meet. And they wear swim trunks and grass skirts to work in the dead of winter. Because they’re coastal people and that’s how they roll.

The Smart Girl

Have you ever been labeled “the funny one”? How about “the pretty one” or “the athletic one?” As for me, I’ve always been “the smart one.”

I remember once in my Sophomore year we were assigned seats in my Spanish 3-4 class and as I sat down next to a Junior, he exclaimed “Finally! I get to sit next to a smart person!”  What I wondered was, What makes you think I’m smart? Its not like we had ever had an academic class together before. He was my section leader during that year’s Marching Band season when I decided I wanted to play the sousaphone; I sucked at it.  He played trombone in Jazz II and I played tenor saxophone; as such, he stood directly over my shoulder and had to know I didn’t understand music theory worth beans. So why did he think I was so smart?

Last week my coworker Lisa was relating what she called “a small incident with the cake” wherein she apparently ate 3 pieces even though she was not part of the training group for whom it was designated. Lisa is always confessing her food transgressions, but since she’s naturally slender and has clear skin in spite of the incredible amount of ice cream she eats, it comes across more as funny than sad.

During the course of her story, Lisa said “and then Red-Haired SLP (she has a name, I just don’t remember it, which makes it doubly embarrassing that she still remembers mine) came up to me and was like “Duffy is so smart!” and I (Lisa) was like I don’t care”

Of course I pretended to be hurt: You don’t care that I’m smart!?

Lisa replied, “I mean, I care. It’s just that I already know that.”  Never get between a woman and her cake!

I met red-haired SLP once. Over a year ago. Not even an exaggeration. I was filling in as the AAC Specialist in ECSE last summer and she was a new-hire.  We were both meeting a student for the first time. Here are the things I remember about red-haired SLP from that meeting:

1.       At least 4 inches taller than me

2.       Gorgeous hair that doesn’t appear to frizz (I have hair envy)

3.       Friendly

4.       I was impressed at how well she seemed to be acclimating and thought that in a similar situation, as a brand-new SLP on my first job with an oober-complicated kiddo I had no idea what to do with, I would have been a puddle of pleasehelpmeI’mlost

I did not judge her intelligence or lack thereof.  Our interaction consisted of 1 part walking around the building looking for the AAC kit that nobody knew existed, 2 parts me fumbling with switches and equipment that I couldn’t make work, and 1 part discussing various intervention approaches.  On the whole, if I were to judge as an outsider, I should have come off looking:

a)      Incompetent

b)      Unprepared

c)       Not smart

Instead, this is the second time that Lisa has told me red-haired SLP thinks I’m smart… (and here is the rest of the reason) because I use big words.

Which leads me to my soapbox.

Here is the abbreviated version:

1)      Is “smart” a euphemism for “fat”? Because I didn’t start wearing glasses until… well, okay, technically-maybe I should wear them for driving, but since I’ve never been asked to read the fine print on an eye chart while operating a motor vehicle… my point is: if you can judge “smart” by outward appearances, what does it look like?

2)      Big words are not fake words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (exclamation points directly proportional to depth of feeling on subject)

Explanation of #2:

At our annual mandatory in-service last week -the day before Lisa’s cake incident- we were introduced to a new staff evaluation tool, which is Senate-Bill-290-is-the-devil cloaked in isn’t-this-a-great-new-rubric.  One thing it does have going for it is that it was developed with Special Educators in mind, unlike the previous one we had been using where much of the content didn’t apply.   So each skill has 4 possible ratings with two sub-par and one distinguished.  The target rating for IEP meetings includes this gem “Uses real words. Speaks in short, simple sentences.”

And I just want to say, dearest reader, that if the word “jargon” is too jargon-y (gasp! Made-up word alert!) for us our students’ parents to grasp, then I am concerned for the future of our society and its insistence on a “small words only” education.

In closing, this note from my visiting teacher (emphasis in original) is in no way offensive and totally feeds my ego:

Didn't get the posts automatically, but I've read them all!  I love reading them.  They are all so different which is great.  You are way too smart!  The one about the discounting machine was almost over my head, but then you brought it back down to my level :)

Maybe its not so bad being “the smart one” after all.

Memories of a 4a.m. Custodian

24 Things I Remember about Being a 4a.m. Custodian at the John Taylor Religion Building at BYU-Idaho

1.       Cleaning the bathrooms and listening to NPR on the radio; NPR is word-for-word identical from 4a.m.-5a.m. and 5a.m.-6a.m.

2.       The sickly sweet, medicinal scent of Foamy Q&A and CDC-10

3.       Finding a brown recluse spider on the underside of the toilet seat in the men’s bathroom… just waiting to bite someone on the bum!

4.       Cleaning the windows on the outside of the doors and being terrified that a spider was going to drop onto my head

5.       Professors coming in and thanking us for the “sweet feeling of reverence” we brought to the building; snickering about the music we had to turn off at 6:30a.m. precisely so that said professors wouldn’t be bothered by non-hymns 

6.       The absolute reeking stench of one Brother’s office, which he carried on his clothing and into his classroom; how much I wanted to put an air freshener in his office… and how one miraculously showed up when his wife started teaching and shared the office with him

Full disclosure:  He had some herbs from Jerusalem, not a B.O. problem

7.       Using the backpack canister vacuum on the stairs… feeling paranoid that anytime I sucked up a spider alive, it was going to crawl back out and bite me!

8.       The time I spotted a Brown Recluse from 50 feet away and nobody believed I could have seen one that far away… but I did and they found and killed it right where I said it was

9.       How incredibly many cheerios, crayons and crumpled papers the married student ward left on the floor of the chapel every week

10.   Finding out the Tanzanian man I had a secret crush on was married… and 13 years older than me; why must Africans have such good skin?

11.   Deciding I wanted 8 children someday because families with 8 children filled up the picture frames in all of the professors’ offices better than any other number; ceasing to share this rationale with friends when they consistently laughed and told me that filling up a picture frame was not a good enough reason to have 8 children

12.   After more than a year working in the same building, wondering what would happen if I left the professors notes informing them it was time to update their family picture?

13.   Dropping a delicate seashell while feather dusting a bookshelf in a professors office and worrying that it was some priceless heirloom from his honeymoon... learning he accepted my apology and that it was a priceless heirloom from an anniversary trip to his honeymoon location

14.   The time our boss started a wet paper-towel fight among all of the employees in the atrium

15.   The last day of each semester when our boss cooked breakfast for us; finishing my assignment early and getting to help cook instead of doing odd-jobs

16.   Saturday mornings when we’d all sit around on rolls of carpet in the foyer and eat donuts for breakfast or, on our "healthier" weeks, bananas and chocolate milk

17.   Seeing a test answer booklet on a secretary’s desk for a class I was taking and not looking

18.   Walking to work in the dark, in below-freezing temperatures and gale force winds…  walking at an angle because the wind kept pushing me sideways; the first time I ever saw an umbrella flip inside-out

19.   Being so dead tired I slept through my alarm clock and all of its iterations

20.   Going back to sleep after work: welcome sweet oblivion

21.   Sitting on a bench outside the Taylor building between work and my first class and seeing a spider as big as my clenched fist come skittering toward me; being unable to scream, I was so paralyzed with fright

22.   Attempting to clean outside windows in the dead of winter and watching the spray freeze instantly on the window panes; feeling flummoxed about how to accomplish this task, then sheepish when I learned you simply don’t clean windows that are frozen, an experience I’d never had growing up in Phoenix

23.   Listening to coworkers say things in various African languages and repeating them back perfectly; being praised for having a good ear for languages

24.   Annual custodian cookouts in the facilities lot