Julianna heads back to school, second semester

Juls moving back in.

Well, it's that time of the year again; leaves are falling, bright crisp mornings....and for Julianna it means going back to college!  Second semester in the Cutting Edge program at Edgewood College.  Juls had a busy and fun summer spending time between Utah, California and Wisconsin.  She got plenty of travel in with her dad including Washington DC!  After all that fun I was wondering if she'd be excited to return to school or not and it turns out she was more than ready.  

Julianna moved back into the same house she was in last semester.  This time she shares her room with a new student named Kathleen that she is already fast friends with.  I asked her how the first night went and she said that they just laid there staring at each other for the longest time.  Kathleen, like Juls, is the only girl in the family but with 4 brothers!  She's one up on Juls.  So sharing a room is new to both of them, it's going fine however.  Julianna also has her other roommate from last year, Hannah, in the house as well as a new live in peer mentor, Meetra.  The house is getting along great and the girls seem to be very happy.  Pictures of roommates in future post, keep forgetting to snap pictures : (

This semester Julianna is taking three CE core courses; Resource Seminar, Safety in the Community and Independent Living.  These are mandatory classes and then she can supplement with regular courses offered at Edgewood.  She is taking for audit; Drama in Education and Basics of Singing.  

The Drama class is designed to provide the student with basics of and appreciation of the use of drama as a tool for teaching and learning within education and social settings (taken from the course description).  I believe she will be working with young students as a part of this course.

The singing class offers basic instruction in the art and craft of singing and speaking.  It is designed to increase understanding of vocal function, vocal health and improve musical skills.  Her director thought this would be a good class for Julianna to help with future speaking gigs, not so much public singing : )

So far Juls likes her classes and is very busy.  When I asked her if she'd like to meet me on Monday this week (I am mentoring Brandon in ceramics again so am there Mon. and Wed. each wk) she responded with...."I don't want to hurt your feelings...but no"  hahaha!  Good thing I'm tough!  We ran into each other anyway as it turns out and she was very happy to see me, ha!

I will end with a funny story.....see if you can get a visual going.  

Last week quite a few of the CE students attended a evening show at the school that showcased a hypnotist.  He puts on a show each year evidently and it's really fun.  Well, there are three girls with Down Syndrome in the program including Julianna and they were all at the show.  One by one each of these girls dropped like a fly just watching the show from the audience (really, someone ought to conduct a study on hypnotism and DS).  The first one rolled right out of her seat onto the floor while Juls and Kathleen just slumped over sound asleep.  Juls was following the direction of the guy on stage who was getting the contestants to think their shoes were cell phones.....Juls was trying to make a call with her flip flop! Needless to say when they snapped out of it they were scared and confused. They all thought it was pretty funny the next day.  I was thinking maybe we ought to use a hypnotist to get Juls over her fear of thunder!!

Well, that's about it for the back to school news.  More as it comes in.