Dreamy Times

Flying by, this week.  The car search has started in earnest which is absolutely nerve-wracking and doesn't have that wave of excitement associated with a car montage in the movies because I won't be getting one through a sugar daddy or a crazy sweet sixteen party. No, instead I shall purchase whatever car myself. I am a grown up. I am a grown up. If I repeat this mantra enough times, eventually it becomes true--yes? Fingers still crossed on the sudden lotto win.

Sometimes I envy Annie for her ability to overcome her "hard-knock life"--she could have a new car , for sure, from her "Daddy" Warbucks. I do not envy her hair. Girl, get that coif fixed. You've got money now. 

Have found myself exhausted with the attempt to balance all: social, work, school. Difficult. I'm not sure how people do this exactly. By living with a planner? I have gotten so very obsessed with mine that it is almost pathetic. Yet it keeps me on track, on goal, and this is what I need. I am not so busy to the point that I feel I've lost myself, I swim alone and this activity keeps me level in a lot of ways.  It's easy to tune everything out when you swim. Focused solely on the burning of my lungs, legs, and propelling myself forward...it is lovely, until some kid decides to dive into your lap lane. The rhythm, the solitude, the daydreaming while keeping track of lap number and knowing I'm still being productive. What a pleasure to multitask in such a way.

Have we become a society of multitaskers? When do we give our undivided attention to anything? How often are we not thinking of at least 3 other tasks we must achieve at the moment we're working on the current project? Right now, as I sit here in front of my laptop typing this--which, I will admit, is a pleasurable task and one I do for myself, I am also listening to music (Camera Obscura- Keep It Clean), eating watermelon, and taking a break from homework for my Sign Language Interpreting class, the class DVD paused on a Mini-dialogue and surrounded by my books. What a ridiculous run-on sentence the last was. One which I do not feel like altering.

ASL continues to be challenging and I must study, study, study. I need to interact in the community and find an event to go to, partly for class credit and partly to practice. The idea of going out into the Deaf community when I am a beginner is--honestly--terrifying, exciting. Especially since I've learned that I accidentally signed "make-out" for "coffee" the other day. Ha ha. I said, "My favorite drink is make-out."  Ooops! It's all about the turning the wrists clockwise instead of counter-clockwise...or...was it the other way round? Oh, God. I'm going to accidentally sign "make-out" again when I mean to sign "coffee." We have learned so much in class and it can be a bit much to remember everything. I was excited during Wednesday's class though to get to ask our professor how to sign some things and so we learned some weird signs such as...hot dog. Of course I asked that one! It's my favorite, after all. I will now be constantly signing, "Hot dot my favorite my." YUM! Also, the sign for hot dog cracked me up because I just keep picturing old timey sausage links.Hot Dog!

Last week I watched Children of a Lesser God for class--which I thought was great and also enjoyed seeing how taking SLIP class is paying off as a lot of the signs are becoming familiar, even without explanation. I will be writing an opinion piece on the movie (for class) but if you want an interesting movie, one which shows a depiction of a School for the Deaf in the 80's you should watch this. Also, Marlee Matlin won an Academy Award for her performance and she is stunning.  I've found myself thinking of the movie a lot this week and without spoiling anything for you--if you do happen to watch the movie--the speech therapy scenes were a bit unbelievable. Therapy, of any kind, is something which must be attended to daily with a regiment and while I know this is a movie it was hard for me to believe these Deaf students would be a) as easily accepting and willing to learn to speak as they were in the movie and b) as quickly capable of learning as displayed I still found myself scoffing. Obviously, a movie is not going to show the struggle it takes to learn how to say an "s" when you can't hear one or the absolute challenge of learning the letter "r", which is the most difficult according to speech pathologists--those are hard sounds and take months (often years!) of practice but whatever, just little nitpicking moments. I may have experienced slight nostalgia for my own speech therapy and Mrs. Bay, my speech therapist of 8 years, with her terrible Tab and/or coffee breath; close talking as she taught me to "see the difference between a 'b and a d." Memories are fun.

Tomorrow I'm off work and I plan to continue reading and working on homework. I will probably spend a crazy amount of time practicing sign language in the mirror (at least an hour) because I have to work on my facial grammar and this involves making sure my eyebrows are going up and down at the right parts of phrases--and even though this makes me feel silly, I'll do it. I feel very Evil Queen from Snow White when I practice in the mirror, as if I'm just adoring myself and I would be fibbing if I didn't admit to fixing my hair while I worked on ASL...

Oh snap. There is some serious facial grammar happening here. She is about to make a statement. It's probably "I'm the fairest of them all." or "This crown is awesome." maybe even "The mirror face doesn't scare me."

xo
Glynnis