5.8...or uh 5.4

"OMG, is it an earthquake?"

Nowadays, we're never sure if it's an earthquake or not. But this time, I was certain! My day was packed with stuff, but in dropping by Bro's office, I got suckered into having lunch with him and FBIL across the street at Dinah's for their anniversary roll-back pricing. I was excited b/c 1) I haven't had Dinah's before and 2) I've never jumped on roll-back pricing deals!

The line was ridonkulously long but Bro and I waited while I oohed and aahed at his new 3G. While I was being typically nerdy and telling him how to use the features, the earthquake hit while we were standing outside. We all kind of stood there not sure where to go (certainly didn't want to lose our place in line either). Bro and I were mesmerized as we looked at the swaying chandelier inside the diner. I noticed that Bro kind of gently pulled me closer to him (away from the building fixtures) twice. I guess I'm not one to take accidents/disasters as cautiously as I should.

Sidestory: when we went white-water rafting, I flew OUT of the raft and laughed hysterically while my bro completely freaked out! I've never seen such a look of fear (and love) on his face while his adrenaline rush yanked me out of the roaring rapids in a matter of seconds.

After the quake was over, we tried to call our loved ones. FBIL was driving so he missed it but caught up with us about 5-10 minutes later. BF had called me but I had missed his call. I was finally able to get through by calling the land line, and we quickly exchanged status checks. He was fine and nothing was broken at home, but the turtle was big-time freaking out like he's never seen before. Water from her tank actually splashed out on opposite ends. Our building swayed for some time (we live on the top floor, which is just the 3rd floor). He quickly ran over to our neighbor, as she has MANY valuables hanging around. Fortunately, nothing broke on her new (gorgeous and authentic) wood floors; just a few pots and pans fell.

Typical life resumed and we got our seats in Dinah's about 15 minutes later. Dude, we had the lunch/dinner chicken plate for $1.60 and fries and drinks for $.15! How crazy! We couldn't even finish our meals. Anniversary roll-back prices rules!

Surprisingly, I still ended up completing everything on my schedule. I went to my BCBA Supervision meeting and unexpectedly got individual feedback on my first video recording of J320 and I. It was only 6 minutes long, but my supervisor and I talked about it for 1.5 hours. Long but incredibly helpful. I really didn't want to show it to this supervisor (he's so good but almost too brutally honest), but he wasn't too brutal with me. Although I'm on his accepted list, I have my own contentions with him as he often insinuates that a lot of speech-language therapy is not based on applied behavior analysis principles. So I felt like a champ when he said after the first view, "Well, that was pretty good." And then we broke it apart minute by minute...

The funny but sad thing is that my supervisor knows J320. He has worked w/ him and his family ever since the kiddo was 5. Every few years, he gets this kid (or supervises someone working with this kid) again. So it was funny. However, when I commented, "It must be kind of neat to see how he's grown..." (thinking physically, but subconsciously cognitively and behaviorally). He said, "Actually, it's kind of sad. I knew him when he was 5 and he's 13 now and I still see a lot of the same behaviors like throwing a tantrum when he was 5...Even though he has learned over the 7-8 years, it's not like he's grown and developed 7 years worth." True. Unfortunately, that's the nature of severe autism. :(

Anywho, I rushed to the gym for a quick work-off-the-fried-chicken-and-fries run and then rushed back for BCBA class. After tonight's class, we get a two week break before we have 2 more classes for this session. After that, I just have one more session and then I'm done! (Although, I still have the national board exam to study and take.)

Class was good in that we all got a lot of help on our individual final projects of doing a functional behavioral analysis. I needed the assistance b/c my project is challenging; I'll be assessing and experimenting with my chosen client's smoking habits (function of behavior: internal stimulation -- harder to modify). I think modifying my turtle's behavior (i.e., splashing at 6 AM every morning to tell me it's time to feed her) is probably easier than that!