Week 1 at the Michael Palin Centre

This week has been my first full week at the MPC (http://www.stammeringcentre.org.uk/) and I have loved every minute of it. The clinicians here are *amazing* and I am learning so much.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to observe two different preschool therapy sessions – one a more straightforward case of a 4 year old who is stuttering; the other a more difficult case of stuttering with lots of behavior management issues to boot.

I participated in the screening of a 4 year old whose parents are concerned that he is stuttering, but the unusual aspect of the screening was that the family was Muslim and from Somalia, so the screening was conducted in Arabic with the aid of an interpreter. This was an eye opening experience for me, and really neat in that it confirmed that parents everywhere are concerned when their children begin to stutter. It was also interesting to hear stuttering in a language like Arabic.

I also got to help out yesterday with a follow-up appointment from a consultation for a 12-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome by assisting with collecting and analyzing his speech sample. In addition, I sat in on an intervention session with a 12-year-old girl who has trouble formulating her ideas in addition to her stuttering. I was able to show the clinician some strategies for making it easier for this girl to decide what and how she wants to say something by drawing out a story on paper before she tries to tell it. Not only was the girl able to tell a better story, she was much more fluent when she did. That made me feel pretty good that I was able to teach other clinicians something while I’m here!

Today was the first day of a 2-day workshop on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. It’s a way of having a conversation with clients that focuses on their strengths and what they’re doing right rather than trying to pin down what their deficits are. We did role plays with it this afternoon and my head is spinning with all the ways I want to incorporate this approach – not just into my clinical work but also in my teaching/supervision and in my personal life. For more information, check out http://www.brief-therapy.org/.

I’m finally posting pics of the MPC and my Tube travel points. The clinician eating soup in the picture is Willie Botterill – she wanted me to take this picture for those of you who have visited here – once you visit, you find out that they all eat the same soup EVERY DAY for lunch and it’s kind of a long-running joke. So Joe, Kevin, whoever… this one is for you! Ha. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606077602975/

I take the Tube each day from Paddington station (about a block and a half from my hotel) to Farringdon station (6 stops away). The Tube ride itself is about 15-20 minutes as long as there are no delays; the clinic is about a 10 minute walk from the Tube station. This makes my entire commute approximately 45 minutes. The only times I haven’t really liked it so much are when the Tube is really crowded (more in the evenings than in the mornings) and when it’s really raining a lot.

Speaking of weather, it’s rained from Sunday-Wednesday in London; today was the first day that it really didn’t rain for any extended period of time. It’s also cool – about 68 for a high. I love it.

Last bit of info… I caused a bit of drama last night here at the Rhodes Hotel. When I got back to my room last night, my internet connection wasn't working. I rebooted my computer and did everything I knew how to do, but still no luck. This was about 9 pm my time. I called downstairs and spoke with Maria (the co-owner), who told me there’d been problems earlier in the day with the internet but she thought it had been fixed.

In the meantime, I needed to charge my ipod and wanted to play some music at the same time. I brought my JBL ipod speaker system with me so I got out my UK plug adaptor (to adapt my 2-prong US power cord to the UK 3 prong system), plugged my ipod speaker into it… and… ffffffffttttttt brown smoke started coming out and all of a sudden POP! I blew the circuit or fuse or something. Eeek, oops. Apparently, I needed an adaptor AND a voltage converter. When this happened in my room, it also blew out the tvs and some of the outlets in the other rooms here on my floor.

Pretty soon, I hear Chris, Maria’s husband, up here talking to my neighbor about the tv problem, so I opened up my door (after I'd opened my window and tried to fan/air out the burning electrical smell and any evidence of brown smoke) and said, “Wow, Chris, I’m having the same problems, WEIRD!” No way was I telling him that *I’d* caused the problem, I was too chicken and I have to live here another month yet. So, Chris fixed the fuse and all the power came back on but I was still having an internet challenge. Just so happens that Chris’s nephew from Hilton Head, SC was visiting and he works for Dell or something so he got me all fixed up.

About 15 minutes after he left, the light over my bed burnt out but I'm going to wait a day or two to ask for a light bulb. Don't want to push my luck up here in the "canopy" (being in my room is like being in a forest canopy -- all I can see out my window are the tops of the trees).

I have to say, Chris and Maria are here about 18 hours a day -- from 8 am until at least 10 pm or later every day. They're as nice as they can be. Even though my room is small, this place is starting to feel a bit like home. And I'm only sucking wind after the 4th flight of stairs now -- I take a little rest then go the last 2 flights. Chris is hilarious, he's Greek and has this booming laugh and will laugh longer than one would normally expect when you tell him something funny. It makes me laugh just to make him laugh.

Last but not least, today’s random observations:

-- Notebook paper in the UK is, from what I can tell, 8 x 12. It’s also either 4 –hole punched or 2-hole punched. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t use 3 ring binders here but they don’t – the ones I’ve seen have all been 2 ring binders. This is wrong, in my opinion. Everyone should know that 3 rings are God’s plan for binding looseleaf paper.

-- When someone tells you not to buy a $3 Walmart umbrella to use for a month-long trip to England, where it rains pretty much every day, you should listen to that person (Ned, you were right). Picture me walking down a very busy street in London, tons of traffic and lots of people walking too, with a broken umbrella. Half of it was fine, the other half hanging down in my face and flapping with every step. I’m not sure what a Florida Cracker would look like in London, but I’m relatively certain it might have been what I looked like yesterday.

-- If you are analyzing something, breaking it down to figure it out, trying to sort a problem out, you are “unpicking” it. As opposed to picking it? This doesn’t make any sense to me.

-- People aren’t smart, they’re “clever.” Actually, you can be smart but it’s referring to how you dress and present yourself – “Well, YOU look very smart today!” It cracks me up to hear someone tell a little kid that he’s a “clever, grown-up little chap!”

-- I have seen more linen clothing here that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not sure what the reason is for this, but everyone wears linen. Even the guys wear linen suits. And for some weird reason, it doesn’t look as wrinkly as linen does in the US.

-- By the way, it’s not the US. It’s America, and I’m an American. If you say you’re from the US, they will ask you, “America, you mean?” However, when you say "Yes, I DO mean America," hardly anyone says “Brilliant!” I guess you only get that if you specifically say that you are from Florida (see previous post).

Love, Lisa