Relaxed in the day. Restless Heart in the night

Hi everyone!
It's Saturday! After spending Friday night with the Kentucky Crew watching Blazing Saddles, we got to sleep-in this morning. I certainly enjoyed having the morning off and waking up late! Once us girls were awake and ready for the day, we went over to Berea's dining hall for lunch. The group enjoyed sandwiches, soup, fruit and some homestyle Southern Jambalaya. This was a new and interesting dish to have. After lunch, we went back to the dorm and relaxed for a while. After having a busy schedule this past week, us girls enjoyed the much needed down time. During the day, we spent time together in our common room. The girls painted their nails, curled their hair, and did their make-up. It was nice to get all dolled-up for tonight's adventure. Once 5 o'clock rolled around, Ted picked us up in the family truckster to take us to a Restless Heart Concert.

On the way to the concert! May 18

The EC crew made it to Renfro Valley where the concert venue was located. Before the concert, we walked around the shops and had dinner together at a local Restaurant. We were all ready to enjoy real Southern food.

Hailey, Haley, and Jill at Renfro Valley Lodge

The gang at dinner. We enjoyed fried chicken, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes and more

Us girls had a fun time walking around RenfroValley to see the local shops and take pictures. Although it was raining a little, it did not stop us from having a good time.

The girls ready for some fun!

Awkward prom pic!

Hanging out with a man and his banjo

At 8 o'clock Restless Heart came on to perform. The band was celebrating their 30th anniversary with all original band members. Although we did not know much of their music, we enjoyed the concert. They had some true country music, some slow and meaningful songs, and they did some covers of rock and roll, too! We had good seats in the balcony and we just relaxed and enjoyed the night. I especially enjoyed how much the band mates interacted with the audience. They were funny guys! 

Restless Heart. They were great!

The Kentucky Crew sat together and enjoyed the show. Some of us even got up to dance! (Ashland and Haley)

A close-up of us at the concert

Restless Heart had many Number One Hits throughout the past thirty years. Some of them were moving, and hit home for many of us. They received a standing ovation and the audience did not sit down until the band came out for an encore! These country fans can really get wild. 

Restless Heart after the encore. What great guys.

After the concert, Ashland and Haley were determined to have a Meet and Greet with the band mates. The girls ran over to the tour bus and managed to get some cool pictures. 

Ashland and members of Restless Heart ."Bluest eyes in Belfast"

 

Haley and her "Bluest eyes in Westfield" 

After a long night of entertainment, the EC country sweethearts and Ted went back to Berea and enjoyed some DQ ice-cream. This was a yummy treat for us girls. We ended the night in the car with a karaoke session. The singing wasn't as good as Restless Heart, but "whatta ya gonna do?" 

Stay tuned for Sunday's adventures at Churchill Downs!  =)

~Bre

 

University of Kentucky and a little shopping!

Hello all! 

This morning us girls started our day off with yet another yummy breakfast at the schools dining hall. After a morning filled with delicious bagels, bananas, cold cereal, and organic strawberries we were ready to head out to take a tour of the University of Kentucky's Communication Sciences and Disorders program. We were all very eager to visit a program that is so large in size. Coming from our small school and our smaller Speech and Language Disorders program it was exciting to see the options that are available for graduate school.

The observation area at the University of Kentucky

The view into one of the therapy rooms

After arriving to the schools very impressive clinic our gang was introduced to Dr. Anne Olson, an audiologist at the school who kindly gave us a very informational tour of the department. We had the opportunity to tour the entire Communication Sciences and Disorders department. We viewed the classrooms, therapy rooms, research rooms, observations areas and much more. During the tour Dr. Olson took us into the rooms in which the materials for therapy were stored. All of us were amazed at the amount of toys, therapy games, and different activities were available.

After our tour we parted ways with Dr. Olson and took a moment to take a few photos!

After our very informative tour we had worked up an appetite and decided to try out the "Hugh Jass Burgers"! The name of the restaurant really resembled what we would soon experience. None of us left there hungry that is for sure!!!

 After a lunch filled with laughter and delicious food we ventured off to the book store to take some pictures and to of course purchase some UK apparel.

The day continued with a short car ride back to Berea to visit to Artisan Center At Berea. Here, different artists from the city showed off their craftsmanship. There were many different items to look at and purchase such as glass blowing, wood carving, weaving, paintings and much much more!

Hailey, Bre, Dr. Johnson, and Ashland doing a little shopping!

 The Artisan Center showed just a sample of what the local artists could make. After seeing the beautiful hand blown glass I was very interested in stopping by Michelle Weston's Glass Studio. Her pieces were amazing in their color and the amount of detail that was involved in each.

Our night ended with a nice dinner at a local pizzeria "Papaleno's" and movie together. Tonight Ted chose the movie! We watched Mel Brooks 1974 comedy western,"Blazing Saddles"! This classic comedy kept us laughing all night.

Personally, I really value the opportunities that were presented today. This was my first time visiting such a large university and seeing what different programs have to offers to their students at both the undergraduate as well as the graduate level. I think it's safe to speak for almost all of the crew when saying that as a group of undergraduate students we were very fortunate to have to the chance to tour such a fantastic program this afternoon. I now have a better idea of what type of graduate programs are available and what I am interested in. So, after a wonderful day it is time to say....

 ...Goodnight! Check back tomorrow evening for some more Kentucky adventures :)
-Ang

Peacocks, Billy Goats, and KFC... Oh My!!

Hey Y'all,

On this beautiful Thursday morning, us girls got to sleep in a little bit because we were not going to do hearing screenings.  Instead we learned more about the Appalachian culture by visiting some museums.  So we enjoyed a late breakfast before heading on the road to The Museum of Appalachia in Clinton, Tennessee. 

At the museum, which was similar to Fort Boonesborough, where there were original cabins from the 1800s and 1900s that have been refurbished and filled with original items.  These items ranged from farming equipment, weapons, furniture, and household items.  There was one particular cabin that we found interesting... The Mark Twain Family Cabin, since Mark Twain is such a profound figure in the Elmira College history and traditions.

Along with the cabins, there were many, many, many cute little animals from Peacocks to Billy Goats.

We then headed to Corbin, Kentucky to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Colonel Sanders Museum, which is where KFC was founded with the establishment of a cafe and motel.  We enjoyed our fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and baked beans.  At the museum we were able to take some photos with Colonel Sanders himself.

The girls ended the night with a lovely hike through Berea College Cross Country Trails, while being eaten alive by mosquitoes.


 Tomorrow we also have a free day away from hearing screenings, so we are headed to the University of Kentucky for a campus tour.  GO WILDCATS!!!

-Jillian Colon

Let's Get Down to Business

Good evening ladies and gents and welcome to the next installment of Kentucky Adventures, staring all your returning favorites from previous posts.

Today their was a certain excitement in the air as us girls were getting ready this morning, because today would be the first day in which we were working on hearing screenings in Berea College's Child Development Lab, better known as the CDL. We headed off to the dining hall for a nice breakfast; Berea's strawberries are just to die for! After our light breakfast we headed over to the CDL where we met up with another couple of our lovely hosts, Wilma Chambers and Melissa Rediford, who we met on Monday. After some initial greetings we made our way upstairs to our screening area in a huge conference room upstairs. 

We were greeted by this lovely message as we entered the building. :) 

Once upstairs we set up all of our equipment and got the room ready for our kiddos; we even drew a cute little picture on the board for them to look at while we took over their ears. As soon as we finished setting up we had some of our first clients come into the room. Most were shy at first, but after we played around and won them over with our smiles they relaxed enough to cooperate with our screening needs. 

Now the screening system we use starts off with Otoscopy. This is where we use an otoscope (pictured below) to look into the child's ear and make sure the ear drum and ear canal are intact and not blocked by any pesky cerumen (ear wax). 

an otoscope, similar to the one we use for the screenings

After making sure the ear drum and ear canal are all set, we move on to Tympanometry. This is a test that measures how well the ear drum is working. The typanomenter is a handheld machine with a soft probe tip at the end that is inserted into each ear and takes only seconds to calculate. Most of our children showed Type A or normal tympanograms, which was great. A couple of children's tympanograms were Type B, a flat tymp, which suggests that they may have some middle ear pathology. In this case we noted it on our records and will be sure to refer where necessary. 

This is what the tympanometer we use looks like.

After Tympanometry we move onto Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE). This screens hearing in a range of sound frequencies critical for normal speech and language development, in a quick and painless procedure. A soft tip (like an ear plug) is rolled up tight and inserted into the ear and then the machine tests the child's hearing without needing a behavioral response (a raised hand or ball in a bucket). The hardest part of this test was getting some of our more chatty tikes to keep quiet long enough for the machine to do its work. 

This is what our OAE system look like, its only missing the cord that attaches to the piece that goes in the ear.

Last, but not least, we do Pure Tone Audiometry. This involves conditioning the child to respond to beep like sounds that comes at different levels of loudness and varying frequencies. The hardest part of this test is teaching the child to raise their hand/wave at us or, for the littler ones, throwing a ball in a bucket, when they hear the sounds, and only when they hear the sounds. Overall, this went really well and we only had one child who could not be conditioned to respond to the tones. 

Our portable audiometer looks like this. 

We spent the morning screening some of the younger preschoolers, 3-5 year old's, and then after a lunch break and nap time for the not only the little ones, but also us college girls, we screened the hearing of some of the CDL's school age children. 

So after an eventful and busy day screening some of our new friends at the CDL, Jill and I took a nice walk back to the dorm and then met up with the rest of the group before we headed off to dinner. We found a BBQ place off the main interstate and tried some of the local pulled pork, pulled chicken, ribs, and vegetables. It hit the spot and we left feeling pretty full. Now us girls are all hanging out and tucked into our home away from home for the night. 

Make sure to keep reading for our tails from Kentucky!

Night Y'all,

Hailey