Preschool meets Grad School

As I envisioned my final semester of grad school in the past, I always thought I would spend my time doing in-depth study, writing and presenting a capstone research paper, and searching for a job after graduation.  This is how most of my semester looked with an interesting twist-- I spent a lot of time at preschool.  One of my classes this semester was Pediatric physical therapy (I am actually sitting in a lecture for this class as I write this-- I have hit my peak as a multi-tasker in grad school).  For our lab in class we spent 2 hours a week helping at an early headstart program in KC's inner city.  I worked in a classroom for kids between the ages of 1 and 2.  From a physical therapy standpoint I worked with kids learning to walk and climb stairs, jumping, throwing, and kicking.  I also spent time wiping kids' noses, making sure they didn't eat woodchips on the playground, and comforting crying kids.  I almost needed to do PT on myself from kids running into my knees to hug me causing some knee hyper-extension and a sore back from lifting kids up so they could put a basketball in the hoop.  There was also the day we went after they had to evacuate the building the day before because of a bomb threat--that was interesting.  During the semester I acted like an elephant, tried to explain to 2 year olds during a water sensory play activity that if a cup has holes in it water will pour out the bottom (this explanation didn't go well), ate goldfish crackers, and blew bubbles.  Our kids were really cute and fun to play with and definitely a little different from working in a training room with college football athletes-- oh the places my career has taken me.
So after my classwork this semester has included making two collages from magazine pictures and using colored pipe cleaners and googly eyes on a project called "Harry the Hungry Monster", I think it is about time for me to be finished with grad school. So after my last class this week (hopefully forever after 7 years of school), I will be off to finish clinical internships and hopefully find a job.