Introductions

Hi, it’s nice to meet you all.

Posted on by micheleas

Who am I?

I’m Michele. I live in Yeppoon, a small coastal town in Central Queensland, with my husband and 3 children.  I grew up in Brisbane, and spent my young adulthood there, but I could never go back to Brisbane after living in Yeppoon. I work as a speech pathologist and I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s something that I’ve done for a long time, so I am pretty good at it, but it can be hard to summon enthusiasm and energy for it on a day-to-day basis … and that’s why I am here, thinking about a new career.

Where I’m up to in the course

I am in my fourth semester, part-time. I started this unit last year, but dropped it in the first couple of weeks because my life got pretty busy. You see, our house got wrecked in a cyclone up here in early 2015.  Luckily for us, our insurance covered it, so we knocked down our old house and starting building a new house last year.  Who knew how long this would take?  Not me, that’s for sure.  Anyway, our new house is finally finished, and we have just moved in! We are all feeling pretty lucky and happy.

What kind of library or information organisation do you see yourself working in when you graduate?

I am not limiting myself to a particular library or organisation. Up here in Yeppoon, I don’t think there will be too many librarian jobs going … but who knows? It’s a couple of years away yet.  Someone might retire.  (See what I did there? That’s a reference to the aging population of librarians 🙂

What is my superhero superpower?

My superpower is being able to put all my energy into a project for about 6 months.  Unfortunately, that’s when I run out of steam.  So, if you’ve got a 6 month (or less) project, I am your girl.  If it goes longer than that, you’ll need someone with a longer term focus than me. So, how come I’m still here, in my 4th semester, you ask?? That’s longer than 6 months! Lucky for me, semesters seem to chunk nicely into my 6 month window, and then I get a holiday to recharge. Sadly, I have realised that I will never be able to do a summer semester – ever.

My other super power is getting really good at addictive tablet games; especially when I have really important other things to do.  I have put a few 6 month chunks of time into a few games, which I will never get back 😦

Something I am really good at is running really long distances really slowly. You can fit marathon training nicely into a 6 month chunk of time.

What would people who know me say my superpower is?

I have been called “Supermum” by people at work because I work and have 6 kids (I know I only mentioned 3 kids before, but I have another 3 who are all grown up and moved out of home now).  If you asked my kids, I’m not sure whether they would say I am so super.  My 10 year old daughter asked me to change out of my pjs last Sunday afternoon at around 2 or 3 pm so she could ask her friend over because she didn’t want her friend to see me in my pjs – I mean, they don’t even really look like pjs … not that I would wear them to the shops or anything… Anyway, I certainly don’t consider my mothering ability to be a super power; it is more like good organisational skills, which I have developed through trial and error over the years, with many late arrivals, forgotten library books, and missed parent-teacher interviews.

What would my super power be if I could choose one?

This is a hard one. No actually, it’s easy. I would definitely choose to be able to clone myself.  If you’ve seen X-Men: The Last Stand, there’s a mutant in it who can split himself into as many clones of himself as he wants.  How useful would this superpower be? I could send one clone to work, one out running, one to sleep (this would be me), one to be that supermum, one to be an awesome wife, and one to just sit around and catch up on Game of Thrones, and all the other TV I’ve missed over the last 10 years. Now, that would be the life.

Introductions

Posted on by micheleas

Hi everyone,

I’m Michele, and I am back in my 2nd Year of the MIS(LIP), studying part-time externally.  I live in lovely, sunny Yeppoon in Central Queensland.

I am a long-time speech pathologist, looking to change careers.  I have worked primarily with people with disabilities during my career.  I have learned a lot; about communication, speech, language, and behaviour; not to mention different approaches to therapy, including person-centred, relationship-based approaches through to didactic behaviourist approaches.  I have a special interest in the development of intentional communication, which occurs at  around the 8-10 month mark  in typical development, but may not occur at all in some people with profound disabilities.  Intentional communication is great, because it is at this stage that someone realises that they can use their behaviour to communicate a message to someone. This is where you see a whole host of communicative behaviours occurring (before the development of speech), including joint attention (this is very important – this is where a person shifts their gaze between something in the environment, to a person, and back to the something again), reaching for things, gesturing, leading people to what they want, giving and showing items, and pointing.  I love to see pointing. If I see pointing and joint attention, I think “woohoo! I might be able to teach some signs here, and this person could have a symbolic way to communicate”.  I love to use play and super-motivating activities to develop communication skills.

I could go on and on, but I won’t, because I understand that my particular area of interest may not necessarily be interesting to others.  If you have stuck with me for this long, I will wrap up by saying a little bit about what I like to do in my spare time. Actually, I don’t really have spare time. When I am not working, I am usually being a wife, mother, house-cleaner, runner, and now part-time student.  I do love to read and listen to music, and sleep.  I don’t get enough sleep.

Looking forward to the semester. I hope to have some fun playing with technology, while I am also learning.