Last week I was chatting with my young nieces about writing and drawing, when one of them commented, “Maybe when you grow up you’ll be a writer.” I had to laugh, but I also still get a little thrill sometimes when I realize, I am all grown up and I am a writer. Last month I got published for something like the fifty-fifth time, and last month I also started working professionally as a freelance editor. Of course, I’ve been doing small editing projects for friends and for PeP for years, but not full-sized manuscripts for strangers for pay!
This term I’m not taking any regular classes—just mock interpreting in one class and doing a Human Development correspondence course, as well as continuing with a little interpreting training with tutors. It’s a quiet schedule that seems just about right for my body, and lets me do occasional writing or editing in the evening.
I feel like my Fibromyalgia is finally as under control as it’s gonna get. My overall fatigue and especially pain levels are a little lower, and the cognitive problems aren’t as severe or as frequent. The only problem is that I’ve discovered in order to keep things that way, I have to limit my active activity time to about three hours a day, most days, with some rest days and lots of naps. So it limits things a lot, but I’d rather have a few hours I can do things well than have almost no good hours like happens when I push myself too hard.
On November 16th I have the next attempt at the Qualifying Exam for my interpreting program. I have to pass it in order to get an internship next term, graduate in the spring, and begin working part time as an interpreter. I feel fairly confident that I have the skills, I just have to pray my body will let me access them. It’s a performance exam, so not really something I can study for—just need to keep practicing.
Today I went to the DeafNation Expo. I took a couple of friends with me, one of whom doesn’t know much sign, so I got to do a bit of interpreting for him. Real life practice is always the best. We saw tons of people we knew at the Expo, so it was a lot of fun.
.
Showing posts with label Deaf Expo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deaf Expo. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Monday, September 24, 2007
I’ve been home for a week now, and a busy week it’s been, for sure! I tried to concentrate on getting rested up and ready for school. On Monday after my flight, I slept and rested all day and hung out with family. My family keeps mentioning how quiet it was while I was gone. ;-) They missed me a lot, and of course, I missed them, too.
On Tuesday I called up a friend I met a few months ago who will be a classmate this year to see if she wanted to work on fingerspelling with me. Breezy is really an answer to prayer. She lives about ten minutes from me (surprising, considering that our school is an hour drive away), she’s around my age, a Christian, and has free enough of a schedule that she’s been able to meet me at the last minute to practice signing quite often through the summer.
On Wednesday the language tutor managed to work me into his schedule. During much of the summer I would leave my tutoring sessions very discouraged because I was struggling so much. The last couple ones before I left for Australia were going much better, so I was hoping that I hadn’t lost too much during the month of little to no practice. My tutor actually said that it wasn’t obvious I hadn’t been practicing and commented on how much I’d improved since he started working with me.
On Thursdays whoever can from my class last year meets together for dinner and signing time. I’m impressed that we’ve been able to keep that up over the whole summer. It’s been really great for practice, and nice to keep in touch with friends, too.
Saturday I went to a Deaf Expo. That was awesome. Over two thousand people showed up throughout the day. There were 80 different booths offering various products or serviced of interest to the Deaf--everything from video relay services, to T-shirts with signing graphics, to free videos of the Gospels translated into ASL, to adoption agencies.
There was also a stage with productions going on all day. One of my teachers, Patrick Fischer, did some dramatic storytelling--he’s a professional actor as well as an ASL teacher. The performances were anything from the adoption agency explaining the details of adopting Deaf children, to fun things like Patrick and a magic show.
There were a ton of people there I knew from class, church, and other Deaf events. It was great just hanging out all day, browsing the booths, watching the performances, and chatting.
On Sunday my family went out to lunch together, and had a lovely time. Then in the evening we had a FaithWriters cyber party. We had 15 people chatting on instant messaging! How fun! Confusing for those not used to it, though. ;-)
On Tuesday I called up a friend I met a few months ago who will be a classmate this year to see if she wanted to work on fingerspelling with me. Breezy is really an answer to prayer. She lives about ten minutes from me (surprising, considering that our school is an hour drive away), she’s around my age, a Christian, and has free enough of a schedule that she’s been able to meet me at the last minute to practice signing quite often through the summer.
On Wednesday the language tutor managed to work me into his schedule. During much of the summer I would leave my tutoring sessions very discouraged because I was struggling so much. The last couple ones before I left for Australia were going much better, so I was hoping that I hadn’t lost too much during the month of little to no practice. My tutor actually said that it wasn’t obvious I hadn’t been practicing and commented on how much I’d improved since he started working with me.
On Thursdays whoever can from my class last year meets together for dinner and signing time. I’m impressed that we’ve been able to keep that up over the whole summer. It’s been really great for practice, and nice to keep in touch with friends, too.
Saturday I went to a Deaf Expo. That was awesome. Over two thousand people showed up throughout the day. There were 80 different booths offering various products or serviced of interest to the Deaf--everything from video relay services, to T-shirts with signing graphics, to free videos of the Gospels translated into ASL, to adoption agencies.
There was also a stage with productions going on all day. One of my teachers, Patrick Fischer, did some dramatic storytelling--he’s a professional actor as well as an ASL teacher. The performances were anything from the adoption agency explaining the details of adopting Deaf children, to fun things like Patrick and a magic show.
There were a ton of people there I knew from class, church, and other Deaf events. It was great just hanging out all day, browsing the booths, watching the performances, and chatting.
On Sunday my family went out to lunch together, and had a lovely time. Then in the evening we had a FaithWriters cyber party. We had 15 people chatting on instant messaging! How fun! Confusing for those not used to it, though. ;-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
