Last week, I completed the very last part of grad school, my oral exams! For those of you that have not gone through this legal form of torture, it really is a crazy horrible awful thing to do to someone! After you complete your 7 objective portfolio, you print it and make it all pretty looking, and give it to your readers. They take TWO weeks to read it (it's over 150 pgs), then you get to make a power point presentation to present to your three readers at a date and time they pick ugh. During the presentation, they can ask you questions about your presentation or ANYTHING that you have learned in grad school, as well as anything that you have put in your portfolio. This lasts for TWO hours. Once the two hours are up, they kick you out of the room, and then decide if you pass or fail. This one decision determines if you graduate.
So there I was, presenting to three people, two of which are the most intimidating people I have ever met (umm I don't get intimidated very easy so if that tells you something!), sweating like a pig mind you, shaking, and cotton mouth like crazy that made speaking very hard and I must also let you know I had my hair down all curled, and this girl had pantyhose on.. yes that's right pantyhose!! They then started asking question, and it ended up being more like a discussion than a presentation and I was able to relax. Since chatting is really my forte! After my two hours was up, I was booted out of the room, and forced to stand in the hall while they talked about if I was competent enough to become a speech language pathologist, and to get the MS letters after my name :) The door opened, and Dr. Flipsen said I could come back in. Walking down the hall seemed like it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Once I reached out the door, Dr. Flipsen stuck out his hand and said "congrats" one of the best moments of my life. In a little more than a year, (after I finish my 8 week externship and 1 year clinical fellowship) I will be Deanna M. Seamans MS CCC-SLP. ahhhhhhhh feels SOOO good!
The day after I completed my orals, I started my 8 week externship and as of tomorrow I will only have 7 weeks left. During the 8 weeks, sadly, I am unpaid. I am working at Life Care Centers of Valley View and I really do like it. I am still having a really hard time with if I want to work with geriatric patients or if I want to work with kids. I do know that I am not interested in working with school aged brats um I mean kids. Just not my cup of tea! I will start putting in applications in the next couple weeks and see where that leads me! Once I get hired at another location after my 8 weeks I get PAID! Moolah, cheese, Benjamin's, the goods, dough.. cant wait.
Working real hours so far has been incredible! I come home and love the fact that I can breathe and don't have to worry about what is due tomorrow. It also has allowed some time to do a little cooking! (Here come the peppers!)
A couple weeks ago while driving home from Lewiston, my friend and I stopped at a roadside veggie stand. The little old couple that grow the produce had set up a stand this year because they weren't getting the money for the produce this year that they normally could. They were so sweet, and let me try their gold plums, and were so generous, and gave me extras of what I bought. I bought green peppers, Anaheim peppers, gold plums, and two of the best peaches I have EVER had. All for less than 5 dollars. Everything was BEAUTIFUL and you could tell that they took much pride in what they grew and sold! The only problem was the fact that I had never used Anaheim peppers, but they looked so good I couldn't resist. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to find out how to use these beauties, and found out that roasting them was the best thing to do.
I also had lots of mini sweet peppers, so they got roasted too!
Roasting peppers is SO easy, and gives them such an incredible flavor! So, I made a little tutorial, complete with hints and tips that I learned while I roasted peppers! :)
Enjoy
First you want to wash them with cool water and make sure that you get all of the dirt off of them.
Lay them on paper towels and let them dry (you can air dry them or you can wipe them dry).
Once they are dry, put them on a baking sheet.
Cover each pepper in veggie oil (don't use olive oil, it has what is called a low smoke point which means that it will burn in low temps, and since we are broiling them, it's not a good idea!) I used a baster brush, but you can dip them in oil that has been poured on a plate, or use your fingers. It doesn't really matter how, just get them covered!
Before you turn on the oven, place one of the racks at the highest level closest to the broiler element
Next turn your oven on high broil
Once the element has gotten red, place the cookie sheet in the oven
Leave them in until the skins become black, take the cookie sheet out, and turn the peppers over, leave until skins are black, and the pepper has split open.
Once the skins are blackened, take cookie sheet out of the oven, and transfer the peppers to a heat resistant bowl.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let those bad boys sweat for about 15-20 minutes
They should be cool to the touch, if they aren't, just place the plastic wrap back over them and wait a little longer
If you are using a hot pepper (Anaheim's have a little heat, bells not so much) make sure you use plastic gloves. I also learned this the hard way
Lay the pepper flat, and repeat until you have a fancy smancy pepper pile.
You can use these in TONS of recipies! :)
Enjoy and thanks for reading
xoxo
