Chocolate + Babies = Happy Amy

Today was a long, but good day. We left the house at 7:00 AM and returned about 8:30 PM. Chrissy and Norm’s youngest grandson is a month old and they haven’t yet been able to see him, so today we made the three-hour drive and got to visit their daughter, son-in-law, and the grandkids--three under the age of two-and-a-half!

I got to hold baby Dylan most of the time we were there, and played peek-a-boo with the older two. :-D And their dad taught me how to do a Tim Tam Slam--haha. A Tim Tam is two chocolate biscuits with chocolate filling, dipped in a chocolate coating (with that much chocolate, obviously they are yummy!). To do a slam, one bites off a small bit of opposite diagonal corners, then dips one bitten end in hot chocolate while sucking on the other end. As soon as you get a bit of moisture through the cookie, you have to quickly stick the whole--now soggy and melted--thing in your mouth before it disintegrates into your drink. LOL! On the way back home, we went to Hunter Valley. I guess there are a bunch of world-famous wine companies there, but we just walked through the shops--everything from a shop filled with different kinds of olive oils, to gift shops, to lolly shops.

We took the back road home to try to avoid the highway jammed with everyone returning from a weekend away. However, the road was solid curves the whole two-and-a-half-hours, so especially after the long day, Chrissy was in pretty severe pain by the time we got home. My back wasn’t real happy, either. ;-)

But we’re back home now, writing and recovering nicely. ;-) I can’t believe that in one week I’ll be flying over the Pacific Ocean right now. Time has gone fast! I haven’t done hardly any sign language or math studying while I was here, so I guess I better get busy, lol.

More Pics here.

Blessings

Last night a local church held their women’s small group at Chrissy’s house. A couple of women at that church found out that Chrissy was pretty much housebound from a friend of a friend of a friend who contacted a woman in that church who contacted the leader of this small group. She’s been to visit a couple of times and brought the small group over so Chrissy and I could attend.

What a blessing! It’s been a few years since I’ve been involved in a Bible study group and I’d forgotten how wonderful it is. The eclectic group of ladies were very open and very real. We worshiped a little and then the leader brought us into a discussion of how we have no condemnation in Christ, and how important it is to not waste our time beating ourselves up for this or that which we didn’t do or shouldn’t have done. Instead, we need to simply ask for forgiveness and move on in God’s grace. The discussion moved on to our focus in life--how we should be living for eternity rather than this lifetime on this world. Everything we do here should be preparing for eternity.

These ladies are going to jump in and help Chrissy after I leave. The day after I fly home, Norm is going to have to leave for TWO weeks, yikes. He got a promotion to Commanding Officer in the military, which is a great honor, but is required to have this two week training time in another city. We were quite worried about Chrissy being alone, but God is working things out. Another friend of Chrissy’s is going to make up a bunch of meals she’ll just be able to grab from the freezer and heat up, so with the Bible study ladies popping in to check on her, she should be okay.

Today Chrissy and I got to meet another FaithWriter friend for lunch. Chrissy had met Karen E. before, but it was my first time. It was a lovely lunch, and so nice to spend time in real life with our friend.Yesterday I came down with a cold. Thankfully it’s not a terribly bad one, but still enough to make me want to be sleeping a bit more than usual. Between that, getting ready for the Bible study, and everything else, I got a little behind on dishes. Norm was out of town, so I was juggling dinner and hand-washing the rest of the dishes. Chrissy and Norm’s son, Ken, comes on Wednesday nights and he got off work early today. He jumped right in and helped with dinner and the dishes. It was so nice and now we’re all caught up.

Well, I’m actually letting myself write a story for the FW challenge this week, so I better go back to it and then get to bed. G’night, mates!

Experiencing Australia

Well, I didn’t get to hold the koala after all, but I did get to pet one! The three of us went to Koala Park and saw all sorts of things. Koalas are nocturnal, so all of them were sleeping when we arrived. I guess there are about thirty of them allowed to roam freely through the park. A few of them are gathered to sleep in a certain area so one can easily be found and woken for petting times throughout the day. The marsupial was more interested in the eucalyptus leaves the ranger was bribing him awake with than us, and pretty much ignored the pats and flashing cameras.

We each got a turn petting him and posing for pictures. He was quite wooly, similar to very short sheep’s wool, and a tad greasy feeling like that, also. It was quite soft. Pat, to answer your question about smell, I didn’t notice it, but someone else commented on the smell and the ranger said it was from the eucalyptus diet. So you were right that they smell a bit. ;-)

The Koala Park had a ton of other animals, such as dingos, peacocks, an echidna, kangaroos and wallabies, emus, kookaburras, and such. There was also a very disturbed wombat. Poor thing was pacing in an unvarying pattern in just a small section of his enclosure. He was still plodding blindly when we came back by on our way out, and I finally thought to throw him some of the Cheerio-like food we’d bought for the animals. The snack successfully broke the spell, and he paused to eat.

In one area we were allowed to go in and play with the grey kangaroos. They ate the cereal out of our hands and let us pet them. They are a bit wooly, too, and very soft. One kanga reached up and held onto my hand as he ate. His long nails were rather prickly, but it was worth it!
There were various birds such as roosters, chickens, and wild birds wandering around, too. One pea hen became enamored with Chrissy’s wheelchair, and followed us everywhere we went until we finally snuck out of the kangaroo enclosure without her. She managed to find us later, though. LOL!

After the park, we drove to a spot overlooking Sydney harbor’s North Head, and had a lovely picnic there. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have, because I was feeling pretty nasty for a few hours. After lunch I started feeling better after we got on a ferry across the harbor. It was quite lovely and I got to see the opera house quite close up. I got some great pictures of it, too, as you can see if you follow the link at the end of this post. When we passed through a smaller straight of the water, the waves picked up and the ferry rocked about in a delightful way--at least, I enjoyed it. ;-)

On the other end of the boat ride, we roamed through another open market in an area called The Rocks. I picked up some gifts for family, and we just wondered and looked. There were musicians and performers in that area, also. We stopped and watched a contortionist squeeze herself into a tiny glass box. She said she was the only street performer world-wide who could do that trick.

As we ferried back to Manly Harbor, I watched the sun setting above the bridge and opera house--a picture that has become rather a trademark of Australia. Somehow it really sunk in--I’m in Australia!!

Check out more pics here: http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f138/sparrowsflight/Amy%20Down%20Under/

Just a bit wonky

After I wrote the last blog post, we ate our dinner in the darkness of the backyard, under a full moon and the myriad of sparkling stars, which were slipped a little differently in the sky than I’m used to. As we ate, a dark shadow began nipping at the bottom of the moon.

I bent over the telescope, my dinner bowl in one hand, the other hand nudging the scope to follow the moon’s slow arch. The shadow bit deeper into the bright orb. Through the telescope’s magnification, the moon looked like a glowing ball that had been dipped into a puddle of ink. As the evening wore on, the shadow filled the moon, until at last the whole thing turned a dusky red. When I stepped back into the house, the edge of the ball was once again tinging a brilliant cream.

Last night we had a different sort of adventure. Norm was out of town with business, and I was washing up the dinner dishes as Chrissy finished a shower. Suddenly I heard not just a thump, but a whole series of huge thumps and bangs. I rushed for the bathroom and hollered through the door, “Did you fall?” A slight whimper answered me. “Can I come in?” I pushed open the door and found Chrissy sprawled on the floor in her pajamas, a dazed look splashed across her face.

Thankfully she was all right, though her back was jarred, and a large bruise has spread across her arm from her frantic attempts to keep her weight off her back as she slipped on the mat and fell. For some reason I was reminded of my days as an assistant figure skating teacher as I helped her up, showing her the easiest way to find her feet again.

Today Norm was back from his trip, and had the afternoon off work. Chrissy was feeling well enough to go out, so we went for a wander around Richmond Lagoon and then the Nepean River. I was glad Norm was there to push the wheelchair, because my back is still crying from getting used to pushing it on paved ground, and this was grass or gravel half the time.

(Norm says it's fashionable to take pics at a wonky angle like this. ;-) )

The sun sparkled merrily on the water, and birds swam and waddled about, looking for food and chatting to us and each other. As I spotted a couple of particularly large water birds, I asked, “What are those black swan-like things?”

“They are black swans.” Norm laughed.

Which would be why they looked rather like black swans. (What can I say? I’m used to white swans.) We even saw a pair with a family of fluffy grey signets.

Here's me infront of a wattle tree--they have tiny fluffy yellow blooms. The sun was rather bright in my eyes, so pardon my squint.

(Wattle it be)

On the way home, we stopped at Koorong, a large Christian bookstore that I hear about often on the FW message boards. A bit further down the road from there, we passed some military acreage. I was tickled pink to spot dozens of grey kangaroos grazing in the fields. One of them even jumped about a little for me.

Tomorrow we’re going to a Koala Park where I actually get to HOLD some koalas!!


P.S. Haha, check out a silly “Are you a Crazy-Creative Writer?” test I made for the fun of it: http://www.nerdtests.com/mq/take.php?id=29080

Wheeling Around

We’re settling into a bit of a routine. Chrissy has her meds at 7:30 AM, so I serve eggs of some sort for breakfast. Then I do some cleaning or ironing and wash up the dishes. After lunch we often both lay down for a nap. We play around on FaithWriters off and on, and do a bit of writing in the afternoons.

Yesterday we got the wheelchair they’ve rented for a month, so today I drove the two of us to the post office and then to the mall. I find that I adjust quite quickly to driving on the other side of the road. Chrissy was so happy to get out of the house on a weekday. We got a drink and I had a couple of donuts. We went out to an outside balcony and sat in the sun to drink and eat our snack.

The wheelchair is heavier than I would have thought, so I have to be careful when getting it out of the back of the car. There are quite a few slopes in the mall, so my back was happy to have only a short outing. Haha, once the isle to get out of the checkout counter wasn’t wide enough for the chair and as I tried to get it back out, we got stuck. There wasn’t enough room to go forward or backward. Finally the man in the queue behind us had to actually lift up the back wheels of the chair and move it to a different angle so we could get out.

Before we left, I had a lovely surprise. The doorbell rang and a man handed me a box. It had my name on it! Turns out it was an “We miss you” teddy bear gift from my family. It’s so silky soft and cute.

Chrissy’s little Pomeranian dog, Tammy, has been quite wound up lately. She’s a tiny bit jealous of me and will try to push between me and Chrissy sometimes, LOL! Tammy does like me, though, and sometimes we play fight with my foot. But I got tired of sacrificing my toes and asked for a doggie toy for her, haha. So Norm came home last night with a bright pink smiley face with a tongue and pink rope pigtails. Tammy loves it and we all had a good tug of war fight last night with lots of growls and giggles and chuckles.

A wee bit o' lollies

Yes, I know this blog title is mixing Scots and Aussie expressions--read on and you’ll see why. ;-)

This morning (it’s Sunday here), we went to a church that has a Deaf ministry. Because American Sign Language (ASL) and Australian Sign Language (Auslan) are each languages completely different from English and from each other, it was a bit of a challenge to communicate with the Deaf at that church. However, I learned the Auslan manual alphabet and a few signs before I came, and many of them knew a little of ASL fingerspelling, so we managed to communicate with only a little trouble. Australian and American Deaf culture seems very similar--I felt very comfortable chatting with them.

Those who don’t have an interest in signing, pardon me while I ramble for a minute--feel free to skip over the next two paragraphs. ;-)

I find the two-handed Auslan manual alphabet quite awkward, but I learned it pretty quickly. Of course, being able to do the alphabet in order and actually using it to spell or read a word are totally different things, but I actually did okay. Just a few of ASL and Auslan signs are the same, and quite a few are the same or similar sign but completely different meanings (which can be a bit confusing).

The two interpreters at the church were volunteer interpreters who didn’t have interpreting training. They did a lovely job. I found it interesting, but not surprising, that it seemed they were using the equivalent phenomenon to a mix of what we call Pidgin Sign Language and Signed Exact English-- which is ASL (or in this case Auslan) signs being used in an English grammatical structure. It’s a common contact language used by hearing or non-native signers who are not yet fluent in ASL.

The church was having a special celebration this morning--it was the twentieth anniversary of an American couple’s Aussie ministry in that church. At one point they set off a huge explosion of streamers. There was a Deaf and Blind lady who has a dog guide, and they actually had to take them out of the sanctuary before they could set off the streamers. I guess legally there can’t be any animals nearby when they set it off.

The guest speaker was from Scotland and he had a wonderful very strong accent. His sermon was on how all Christians are champions and we must never give up. We can’t be “to’l plonkers”, that is, losers, hehe.

After church we picked up Chrissy and went to the outdoors Heritage Market and wondered around the shops of homemade products and little knickknacks. This lovely water wheel is there, so we paused for a pic by it.

There were a number of musicians scattered around, and we stopped to watch and chat with an Aborigine, playing a didgeridoo. It makes a fascinating sound! A didgeridoo is the long wooden pipe with a bulb shape at the end, like you can see in the photo. The musician actually can breath in through his nose at the same time as he’s blowing on the didgeridoo, meaning he can play an unbroken stream of music.

The name of the instrument is an onomatopoeia. The traditional song played by has a melody that sounds like “didgeridoo.” He did all sorts of sounds with it, even telling stories with sound effects. He would tell us what the story was about, and then use hand motions with one hand while he played a melody with sound effects like a truck rumbling by, a horn, police siren, or animal sounds.

There is an Asian Noodle shop in the market that serves gluten free noodle dishes (Chrissy is a celiac). It was delicious! I got a egg noodles with chicken and vegetables, with a light hint of peanut sauce and coconut milk. The servings were huge and I barely made a dent in mine. Will have plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow! Norm was a “guts” and ate all his. ;-)

But best of all, lol, we found a lolly shop. Those who know me, tease me about how much candy I eat, so I had to get a pic in front of it. (I eat so much candy is that it’s one snack I can have without it making me sick--that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! LOL!)
After we got home, Chrissy had a rest as she was quite worn out from walking, and was hurting a lot. Tomorrow we’re renting a wheelchair for a few months, so that will make going out easier on her. While she was resting, Norm took me for a short driving lesson so I could get used to driving on the “wrong” side of the road. It actually wasn’t too hard, and I adjusted quickly. Chrissy has a small car, so that helped. Now I’ll be able to take us places if we need to go out while Norm is out of town or at work.

Here’s a link to a few more pictures:
http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f138/sparrowsflight/Amy%20Down%20Under/

Birds and tumblers and giggles

Today we went out to Chrissy’s favorite place. It’s a lovely walk along Hawkesbury River. I saw a number of birds that are very colorful and pretty, plus a cute sparrow just like the ones we have at home. ;-) We stopped at Gloria Jeans--a coffee house chain. I had a some hot chocolate. It’s a bit different than US hot chocolate--less rich and less sweet. It was very nice, though. I also discovered that what we in the US call a barbeque, they call a webber, and they often call bikes "push bikes".

After lunch Norm and I went to a small circus that has stopped nearby. The animal acts weren’t very exciting, and the animals weren’t very enthusiastic except for one monkey who thoroughly enjoyed his flips and handstands. However, the people’s acts were great. One of my favorites was a sort of Three Stooges type tumbling act. It was also a lot of fun when a six of the gymnasts’ young girls and toddlers came out and did a few tricks.

Chrissy had a rather hard evening--very painful. But she took one of her higher pain killers and now she’s quite giggly, lol.

Tonight Norm and Chrissy’s son, Ken, joined us for dinner and we ate outside with a fire in the outside wood burning fireplace. We made a late birthday cake for me, and then, apparently in Siggee tradition, Norm and Ken sang a very low, off-key rendition of happy birthday while Chrissy and I giggled.

Now Chrissy and I are sitting side by side, working on our laptops and chatting, hehe.

Sparrow's Flight

Tuesday the 21st, 10:35 PM Pacific time

I sit here at the boarding gate in California, tired of waiting already. The flight’s been delayed an hour. Then of course, is more sitting--14 hours of it. I feel like I ought to be doing jumping jacks or something now, while I have the chance. ;-)

The waiting area is filled with a lovely mix of accents, strong Australian, a faint hint of Australian, Pacific non-accent, or various other countries. A few rows over, a mother with a lovely Aussie accent is reading aloud to her daughter. I’m tempted to move where I can hear better, to help polish up my poor attempt at the accent. LOL.

I can’t get internet access at this airport except by paying for it, so I’ll probably add to this a few times before I actually post it.

Oh, they just said they are beginning boarding. Maybe it won’t be that late leaving after all!

Wednesday the 22nd, 10:55 AM Pacific Time

We crossed the Date Line some time back, so it’s really Thursday the 23rd, 3:55 AM where I am. This plane has three lines of two seats. I’m in a small area with only three rows, and one little TV for each row. The larger section behind me has one large-screen TV for the whole area. Even with my food allergies, I was able to eat at least a little of what was served so far for all the meals, so thanks to those who prayed for that.

We’re blessed because the plane is almost empty. The flight attendants encouraged everyone to spread out, so almost every person has a whole three-chair section to himself. It’s not as comfortable as one might think to lay down across them, as they are rather lumpy and the folded-away armrests are rather hard against the back.

Every seat has a pillow and blanket, so that means I have three little pillows (plus my own wrap-around-the-neck one) and three blankets to help make things a little more comfy. Of course, every time we hit turbulence and the fasten seatbelt sign comes on, those of us who are laying down have to sit up and buckle in and try to fall back asleep in some other position. But I did manage to sleep off and on for about five hours.

I think we have about two and a half hours left of flight (and only a few minutes left on my laptop battery). We have yet to catch up to the sun, and it’s hard to even spot the stars. Somehow, no matter what seat I pick online, I always manage to be right over the wings, hehe. It seems to be my fate. For a while I thought we were passing through a lightning storm. I felt rather foolish when I realized that the flashes were only the wing light reflecting off a think bank of clouds. All I can see out my window at the moment is the pale white of the wing, illuminated by the steady flashing of the white wing light, and an occasional cloud drifting by. Perhaps we’ll catch up to the sun in time for me to get a glimpse of Sydney as we land.

Thursday the 23rd, 2:20 PM Sydney Time

I’ve arrived in Sydney! It took me a while to go through customs because of the long line, but I didn’t have any trouble. They took away a trail mix because it had dried fruit in it, but they let me keep my other food and the wooden and shell gifts I had.

Norm met me at the airport with balloons, and took me the scenic route home so I could see the harbor and a couple of Sydney bridges. It's so funny--my avatar is a picture of me looking down, so Norm said he looked for a girl in a pink shirt who was looking down. Sure enough, I was! I got a kick out of that story, because both Deb and Scott from FW thought I was shy because of my avatar. LOL!

Today we’ve just chatted and had a lovely quiet day. Chrissy is in quite a lot of pain today--aggravated from traveling to the doctor appointments yesterday, probably. But good news! The surgery has finally been scheduled for her back, and they’ll only do one surgery, instead of two like they’ve talked about. The surgery isn’t until October, but at least a date is firm.

Australia, here I come!

Two weeks ago I had no idea that I’d be packing right now. I’m packing for a month-long trip to Australia, no less! That’s right--I’m going to Australia! It’s all happened so fast it’s hard to believe. I have a FaithWriter friend who has a severe back injury. I--and my whole family, really--have gotten quite close to her and chat over IM and the phone quite regularly. Anyway, she’s waiting for surgery (which keeps getting postponed thanks to the government-run health care) and doesn’t have much mobility, plus is in a lot of pain.

So just a few days before the FW conference, she invited me to come there. That sent my head into a tizzy! But in-between organizing for the conference, I figured out that it would work with my schedule, got my visa and plane tickets (thankfully I already had my passport) and my parents’ blessing, and here I am with my bags almost packed!

Though I’m not going under the most wonderful of circumstances, I’m very much looking forward to spending time with “Aunty” Chrissy and to seeing Australia! I have a few other FaithWriter friends in the area, so am planning to get a little visiting and sightseeing done on the weekends. This will be the furthest away from home I’ve been, and the longest time away by myself, so it will be quite an adventure.

I’m leaving August 21st and getting back on September 16th--one week before my college starts up again. I fly to California and have a pretty long layover there, then have a straight flight--over 14 hours--to Sydney. Ug. I’m praying that my back won’t bother me too much, and that food won’t be a problem. Because of my food allergies, I have no way of knowing if I’ll be able to eat the meals the airline provides, and I have to be careful bringing my own food into another country.

The time difference makes the flights rather amusing. On the way there, I leave on what is the 21st here in America, and arrive on what is the 23rd in Australia--seemingly a three-day flight. On the way back, I arrive here seemingly a mere five hours after I left there. LOL! Once one of my cousins “lost” her birthday on a flight to Indonesia.

I’ll be journaling regularly here on my blog, so be sure to check back or sign up on the Blogarithm (little box to the right) to receive an email notification when I post.

I’m getting on the plane and chasing the sun in less than 24 hours! I’d love your prayers both for myself, and for Chrissy. Thank you! I’m off to the land Down Under!

A Midsummer's Daydream Come True--FaithWriters Conference

Wow, what an awesome week! Most of you know I've been busy all year planning and coordinating the First FaithWriters Writing Conference. It was last weekend in Detroit and was so awesome! Those who went described it as a family reunion because so many of us have close relationships on the FW message boards--this was the first time we'd met in person. I thought there would be a bit of adjustment needed, as I connected the physical person with the cyber person I knew, but I was wrong. The connection was instant. One man described it by saying that we've gotten to know each other's souls, and the body is just the package of it.

All Friday night and Saturday I was sooo busy. Seemed like I could get about three sentences exchanged with any one person before someone else was calling for me! I was the MC as well as coordinator, and at least one person described me as "pretty much just a blur" as I rushed around. LOL! I must say, it was rather fun being famous for a weekend, though. ;-)

It's hard to believe it's all over. Things went so smoothly, especially considering it was our first conference. Even Sally Stuart, our special guest speaker who speaks at many conferences, commented on how special it was.

It's a good thing I love all the coordinating work though, because it's starting all over! :-) Next year's conference will be in Tennessee on August 8th and 9th. We're working on inviting speakers and finding the exact location, now.

To read a full account of the conference, check it out here.

After the conference, my friend Deb from Australia, one of the other conference coordinators, came home with my family for a few days. It was so special to get to spend that extra time with her, and helped lessen the loneliness of leaving all our FW friends. I loved getting to show her around my beloved Pacific Northwest!

Signing Camp: Interpreter of the Caribbean

I hope ya'll had a wonderful and blessed Independence Day (or regular ol' 4th of July for those who don't live in the US ;-) ). I laided low Wednesday because I caught a bad cold from a couple of campers at total immersion sign language camp, but it was still a good day.

Speaking of signing camp, here's some more about it. :-D

All the campers were divided into groups of four, and each group created a humorous skit and practiced it throughout the week to perform on the last night. The groups were created with varying levels of signing skills put together, making communication a challenge at times. However, our group didn’t have any big problems and the skit came together nicely.

As we were brainstorming, someone in my group mentioned a popular Deaf joke. So I changed it from a bank robber and a backyard to pirates and a desert island (arrrr!) and threw together a rough draft skit in about a half an hour, to see if that was an idea we wanted to run with. Heh, everyone was very impressed with it (including the teacher--who is an actor himself). The others in my team added some great elements to it and it was a big hit on Saturday night. I particularly liked the title, “Interpreter of the Caribbean.” Hehehe.

Basically the story (our version) is about two Deaf people who are shipwrecked on an island. They stumble upon a treasure chest, and just then spot a pirate ship approaching. They hurry to hide the gold, and then try to hide themselves, but the ship reaches the beach before they have time.

The two pirates become angry when they find that their gold is missing, and quickly spot the two trespassers who they deduce must have hidden the chest. In the shouting and threatening that follows (with the very effective means of a sword), the Deaf people finally convince the pirates that they won’t be able to reveal the location of the chest until they have an interpreter.

One of the pirates sail off to find an interpreter and manages to kidnap one and drags her back to the island. Upon the threat of death, given through the interpreter, the Deaf people quickly reveal the location of the buried chest.

They reveal it to the interpreter, that is. The interpreter, however, sees a prime opportunity to make a fortune, and announces that the Deaf person refused to tell where the chest was. Oh my. Needless to say, the pirates aren’t too happy and drag the Deaf person off to walk the plank, forgetting about the interpreter who rushes to fill her pockets with gold coins.

The original joke ends there, but our story has a twist of conscience. As the interpreter rejoices over her wealth, she hears the cries of the drowning Deaf person and gives in, throwing a rope to rescue her. Now the two live happily ever after, rich, friends, and

STUCK on a desert island forever.



..

Signing Camp: No Voice

I just got back from a total immersion sign language camp. It was great! There were about 47 adults and young adults there, mostly from Oregon and Washington, but a few other states as well. The eight teachers are all Deaf and were wonderful.

I have tons to talk about, hehe, so I’ll tell all about my week in a few different posts.

Since it was total immersion, we weren’t allowed to use our voices at all. Before I left, everyone was teasing me because I don’t tend to stay quiet for very long. ;-) But I didn’t have a problem. It was more frustrating for the beginner signers, but my skills are enough that I could generally at least get my idea across and understand what was being said. I really appreciated having five days of full immersion.

On Saturday we went to Saturday Market--an outdoors market with vendors selling all sorts of different kinds of things. We had to pretend we were deaf and interact with the vendors without using voices. I found that everyone was very kind and did their best to figure out how to communicate with me. For most of the vendors, we could use gestures to communicate, and they figured out to hold up how many fingers the cost was. Because of my food allergies, I had to do more written communications with the food vendors. The first one I tried just looked blankly at my paper asking if the meat pockets had tomatoes in them. I realized he didn’t speak or read much English, so I tried someone else and found something I could eat.

A few of the other campers had some funny stories. It’s rather funny to be able to hear what people are saying about you, when they think you can’t. One person was trying to buy something and heard the following conversation between the vendors:

“Hey, doesn’t your uncle know signs?”

“Oh, yeah, I think so.”

(since the uncle wasn’t there, this was hardly helpful information)

“Hmm… Hey! Maybe he can read.”

(LOL!)

They write a note. The camper (he must have some writing blood in him somewhere) then actually edited the English spelling and grammar of the note, answered it, and handed it back. We laughed so hard when he told us about that!

One of the Deaf teachers voices really well, and she was having a bit of trouble communicating with a food vendor at the Saturday Market. So she looked around to make sure no campers were watching and then voiced that she didn’t want onions. Ha! Just then four campers came around the corner and caught her in the act. Too funny.

On the last morning of camp we were allowed to speak. It was so funny to hear everyone’s voices. It was like, “Wow, I didn’t know you had an accent.” Or, “Oh, your voice is deeper than I expected.”

Now that I’m home, instead of being all excited to use my voice, I’m feeling sign withdrawal and keep trying to sign to my family who doesn’t know any ASL. As much as I enjoy seeing my family again, I wasn’t quite ready to come home.

Now THAT was an interesting day...

To set the stage, on Wednesdays we have three two-hour classes. This morning we arrived and were told that the teacher of the second two classes was sick.

The first class of the day went great. Then as the teacher of that class walked out the classroom door, she tripped on a student’s backpack and hit her head on the doorframe. She went home with a minor concussion.

Then when it was time for me to leave for the day to go volunteer at a Deaf School, I somehow missed the 3:00 shuttle (not sure if I was a tad late or if they left early). I was supposed to be at the school by 3:30 and didn’t even get to my car until after 3:20.

So I quickly hopped on the freeway. And stayed on the freeway. For about two hours. Uh huh. The trip from the college to the school is normally about 25 minutes. I made it today in, oh, about an hour and a quarter. There was an accident on the freeway and it blocked it up for MILES. So much for volunteering.

Hopefully that’s the extent of unusual things that will happen today.

Bittersweet Term End

Today is the last day of my Winter term. I’m happy, because it was an incredibly challenging term and now we get a week of break. I’m happy because I can feel I’m improving and my grades show that. I’m happy because it was a good term, with the good memories standing out from the bad.

I’m sad because this was the last class with my favorite teacher. Patrick is a lot of fun and gives great feedback and encouragement. I’m sad because several students, “family” members, will not be back.

I survived finals--six final tests, and several papers all in two weeks or less. One of those papers ended up ten pages long and the other was twelve pages. I’m all done with classes and have one more paper due tonight that I’ve hardly had time to even start on yet. Off I got to whip that up and then I’m free!!!!!


That is, free until Monday when I start work so I can have gas money to get to school next term. ha.

I knew it! (winning concert tickets)

My local Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) radio station has a game called “Sink or Swim” each night, where they play two songs and have people call in to vote on which they like the best. During the voting, they typically give something away to a random caller. Today they were giving away tickets to a concert.

I was listening to them as I drove home from an “Interpreting English Idioms” workshop and as I called in to vote I just knew I was going to be that random caller who won the tickets. You see, I’m not keen on really loud music (which is what most CCM concerts are, I think), and I only like some of the popular CCM music.

So naturally I would be the one they’d pick instead of some teen who was dying to go. LOL! Whadda ya know, I was right! At first I thought I’d ask them to pick someone else who would be more thrilled, but then I thought, “hey, it would be fun to do something different.” Turns out it’s the Saturday after all my finals wrap up, so it’ll be a nice beginning to Spring Break.

I don’t even remember who it was a concert for, lol, but I think they may have said Jaci Velasquez (sp?) was a guest singer, and I like her music. I’m thinking about who to take with me to the concert. Yes, Wren, you are on my list of maybes. ;-) But I’m thinking I may invite a non-Christian classmate (though I decided I better avoid the Lesbian ones lest they get the wrong idea, heh) or someone like that…

Anyway, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to a CCM concert before.

Here comes Amy the Sparrow as LarryBoy the Cucumber!!

I pulled an all-nighter last night, working on a college paper. Well, I laid down for about an hour and half, but since I didn’t sleep a wink that doesn’t really count. Amazing thing is, I actually made it through the day and had a good one to boot!

During our second class of the day, we took a field trip to another classroom to see The Illumination Project--A social justice theater project. A group of students write and perform short skits that deal with experiences they have had regarding the current topic. This term’s topic is racial prejudice. The group acts out the skit of the day about a simple act of prejudice that could easily happen on campus, but with no resolution to it.

Then they perform the skit a second time. This time an audience member can call “stop!” and go take the place of on of the actors in an effort to help the situation. We audience members were not allowed to take the place of the main person being prejudice, but could step into any of the other roles. The point of the Illumination Project is both to help people become more aware of prejudice around them, but even more so, to give them practice taking affirmative action in a safe environment where they can experiment to see what works and what doesn’t, making us all more likely to step up next time we see something, instead of just fuming from the background.

And yes, I yelled stop and joined the action. I mean, hello, improv acting and defending someone wrongfully accused? If that doesn’t have Sparrow written all over it, I’m sure I don’t know what does!

OK, so on to LarryBoy. In ASL class at the moment our topic is animation (mainly to give us experience describing and interpreting any odd and unusual thing that might come along). So today we had to pick a famous animated character to describe. Tomorrow we’ll each take turns describing the physical characteristics of a character and then add a little action. Then our classmates guess who our character is!

I considered Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Sully or Mike Wazowski… But then I thought of LarryBoy!! It was someone unusual that was unlikely anyone else in class would pick, and does he have a great outfit or what! So yes, I’m highly pleased with who I picked. And shhh, don’t tell any of my classmates.

By the time I got to the end of the school day and was working on LarryBoy, it had been about 27 hours since I’d slept and I was flying high on adrenaline and decidedly giddy. Rather a fun state to be in when dealing with impersonating a cartoon character, but I knew I had a long drive home and would be crashing hard soon, so I left immediately after class instead of practicing and working on homework like usual.

Sure thing, I’m about beat. So I’m headed off to find a LarryBoy VeggieTale to refresh my memory with and then it’s off to an early bed for me! Singing out, from Sparrow the LarryBoy Impersonator!

Deaf Vietnamese Dance Troupe

That was so awesome!! Great way to end mid-terms blues! I just got back from seeing a Deaf Vietnamese Dance Team. This is their first trip to the US. At any given time there were up to four languages going on: spoken English, American Sign Language, spoken Vietnamese, and signed Vietnamese. I think I saw just about every form of translating there is. There was ASL to English, Vietnamese to English to ASL, ASL to English, Vietnamese Signs to ASL to English, copy signing, whisper translating…I could go on for a while.

One of the dance routines they did was to use their bodies and dance moves to spell their name. It was pretty tricky to guess what the letters were, but some of the Deaf kids got pretty skilled at it as each performer did their name. The six-troupe dancers brought up volunteers from the audience and showed them some learning techniques such as following: One person would be the leader, and another person closed his eyes and put his hand on the leader’s shoulder, then tried to copy all of his movements.

Some words seem to be the same in Vietnamese Sign Language and ASL, but most is different. I could understand, however, why Deaf people throughout the world are typically able to learn to understand each other very quickly.

I learned how to count up to ten in Vietnamese Sign Language. I’ll try to describe it using ASL terms, to the best of my understanding. Of course, I was seeing the numbers on the other side of a dimly-lit auditorium, so no guarantees on minute details. ;-)

1 and 2 are the same as ours.
3 is the ASL six, English three
4 and 5 are the same
6 is ASL “Y”
7 is an upside-down ASL “L”
8 is ASL three
9 is ASL “X”
10 is similar to ASL twenty, but with only the very tips of the thumb and finger touching, similar to the ASL sign for DOT (as in .com)


*Note: there are several different kinds of Vietnamese sign systems and I have no idea what the one I saw is called, so I am referring to it as Vietnamese Sign Language.

I'm in the Newspaper!

I'm in the newspaper!

The article about me and Peculiar People is out in my local paper today! It's just a few paragraphs of a column, but still way cool. I showed the article off to all my classmates and teachers at school today. I'd hand them the paper and it was fun to watch their faces as they glanced at it with a puzzled look and then lit up when they saw my name. My ASL teacher especially got excited.

If you’d like to read the article, go to www.thecolumbian.com and in the right-hand column click on the “Bits and Pieces” Feb. 14th article under Arts and Living, “Lost star helps jewler find profits”. Then scroll down the page (to right under the advertisement picture) to find the sentence: A collective effort. The article starts there. For some reason it won’t let me link directly to the article.

I had a good day at class today. I had a sign language presentation to do that was a bit difficult and had lots of finger spelling, but I actually did my finger spelling fairly smoothly and got a compliment from a class mate saying how much I had improved on my signing skills.

This afternoon I'm going to start my weekly volunteering at a school. I'm excited, but also nervous about my language skills.

Published and Paid!

I got a special book in the mail today. It was devotional compilation by Lorna Owens, Everyday Grace, Everyday Miracles. I think I was more excited about the check inside it than about my name inside it! LOL! I've been published in anthologies before, but this is the first time I've been paid for my writing.

Mom and Dad say I should frame the check, haha! I think I'll deposit it first, though. ;-)

Watch Out World, Here We Come!!

Whoo hoo!!! I’m so pumped!

OK, OK, I’ll start at the beginning. Our local newspaper’s “Life” section periodically will mention a theme and ask readers to respond. A few weeks ago I responded to one with a story about Peculiar People’s novel, Struggle Creek. It wasn’t mentioned in the article, so I figured that was that.

While I was at school today, I got a phone call from an editor of the paper! It wasn’t even the same editor I had submitted the story to originally, which proves what I’ve been saying all along--Peculiar People is unique enough that just the concept will originate interest. We chatted for about twenty minutes and I think I actually talked coherently at least half the time. ;-) My cell phone (I was still at school) dropped him TWICE, though. How embarrassing is that? He was very nice about it, though, said he's used to it (oh the joys of the 21st century).

So PeP’s first bit of publicity will be in a few days, in a newspaper column. Hopefully the first of many. Watch out world, here comes Peculiar People!

Ending with Style

Well, you can’t say I don’t know how to end a bad week with style. Let’s see, last post and last Thursday left me with the flu. Now, eight, count ‘em, eight days later finds me still sick. I missed two days of school, including a test. Today I finally felt well enough to go back in, or got frustrated with missing school, or something along those lines…

To jump to the end of the day, and the finale, I locked my keys in the car. Now you have to understand, my school is an hour from home when traffic is good and by this point it was the start of rush hour. So it’s not like a family member can just pop right over with another set of keys. Be that as it may, Dad was generously going to drive the way anyway. (Besides, he locks his keys in the truck often enough that he doesn’t have much room to tease. ;-) ) However, imagine my delight when I discovered that campus security can break into cars, er, unlock cars. Fifteen minute wait, two second jimmy, and viola! unlocked car.

To fill in the rest of the day, I went on a field trip today. Three of us from my interpreting class went to a soil analysis class to scope it out to see what issues an interpreter would need to figure out if there were a Deaf consumer. It was rather fun.

Then after the field trip the three of us got to talking about religion. We had a rather interesting mix--a Wiccan Priestess, a Seventh-Day Adventist, and me, a Evangelical Christian. I love that we were able to have a fun conversation without anyone getting mad or defensive.

Of course, the day was wrapped up with our Thursday night family movie. It was a lame old, old musical, but it was fun laughing at it together, hehe.

One of those days

It was one of those days. You know, the kind that starts by staying up with homework until 1:15 and getting up at 5:00 and going downhill from there? (Hey, at least I didn’t oversleep.) Actually, the issues started the day before. First and foremost is the fact that I’ve gotten about 12 hours of sleep total over the last three days. That’s not something my unhealthy body can handle well.

Anyway, every week have to video-tape two interpretations, using school equipment. Nineteen of us have to use it and it is available limited hours. I did my recorded interpretation yesterday afternoon. I actually felt that I was improving and did a half-way decent job. Figures. Then I got my tape mixed up with a blank tape of a classmate’s. At first I thought all was fine and we just had two of us on one tape. But late that night I went to do my self-evaluation and discovered that mine was taped over completely. Great.

So I got to school at 7:30 AM (it’s an hour commute) to redo it. The receptionist we have to get the camera from wasn’t there. Double great. So in-between two classes I ran back and did a stressed and rushed interpretation and was 20 minutes late to my next class. So, a badly done tape, but not self-assessment. This isn’t the first time I’ve messed up my homework this week (unusual for me), so I thought my teacher would be upset with me.

Thankfully she isn’t. She actually called it “extenuating circumstances” and is letting me not only redo it when I’m not stressed, but turn it and the self-assessment in next class (normally she doesn’t take any late homework).

All through the day, even after figuring everything out, I was feeling stressed and shaky. By the end of the day I decided I have the flu (confirmed by a low-grade fever). Headed home without redoing the interpretation like I wanted, and discovered that I had forgotten to put my parking permit on my mirror. That’s right, I had it in my car and just forgot to put it up--resulting in a ticket, of course.

On the way home I stopped to get a movie for tonight and retuned some Hollywood videos to Blockbuster Video.

Yeah. One of those days. But, I’m gonna forget about the loads of homework for now, like I always do on Thursdays (no classes on Fri), and go curl up with a movie and then go to bed early!

The Music of 2006

Music is important to me. It’s a big part of my relationship with God, a big part of…well, of my life as a whole. As I’ve been looking back over 2006, I’ve realized that I have a lot of memories attached to music, so I thought it would be fun to use that for my first blog post of the new year.


Aleluia, aleluia, aleluia, aleluia!
Aleluia, aleluia, aleluia, aleluia!

Last spring we had a family reunion in Mexico. One of the Sundays we were there we attended a church that was pastured by my dad’s best friend. Though most of us in the reunion group could not speak much Spanish, there was one thing that crossed the language barrier and drew us all into one family as we worshiped--music, especially the Hallelujah Chorus. I can close my eyes and still feel the goosebumps, hearing the mixed accents of voices raised to God…


God will make a way,
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way.

The last few years I’ve been searching for what God wanted me to do now. As much as I like being able to work for Dad, I knew I didn’t want to do bookwork for the rest of my unmarried life. I applied for a few jobs, but was still a bit at a loss, not sure what to head toward, besides my writing, which wasn’t ready to support me.

Well, over the span of a couple of years, God began letting me know that He wanted me to become a sign language interpreter. There is an intensive program at a community collage about an hours drive from our house. However, it’s the top second or third in the nation, and difficult to get into. I knew that if I was accepted, it was only because that was where God wanted me.

I was accepted! Here I am, one semester into it, and loving it even if it is ever bit as hard as I was told it would be.


Ring around the rosy,
Pockets full of posy,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down!

I have three nieces now, and what fun we have! One of the last times I was over there the four of us played Ring Around the Rosy and my youngest niece (1 ½ yo) learned to fall down in the right place for the first time. Each time I visit I teach the youngest a new sign language word and she remembers and uses them!


Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name
to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

I’ve had the honor of singing and signing on the worship team of our church. This is one of the songs we often do, and one line in particular has a double meaning for me. “I want to sign Your name to the end of each day”


Would you go with me if we were lost in fields of clover
Would we walk even closer until the trip was over
And would it be okay if I didn't know the way

I catch a ride to school a couple days a week with one of my classmates. She likes western music and I’ve found a couple favorites. This one brings back memories of hours of gnarled traffic and difficult homework fading away as the two of us belt, “Would you accompany me to the edge of the sea, Let me know if you're really a dream!”


Sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly fly the days.
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.

My mom’s favorite movie is “Fiddler on the Roof”. We watch the movie a few times a year and listen to the soundtrack as often as possible. Some people have comfort foods. All I have to do to get that warm comfortable feeling is to hear any of the music and it imminently conjures up memories of all the ladies in my house singing and laughing together.


I know the plans that I have for you
Plans for good things and not for evil
If you put your trust in Me

I can only imagine what 2007 will bring. I know that Peculiar People’s first book will be published, perhaps even the second and third! I know I’ll work harder than ever at school. But what else? What other delights, trials, and joys will this year bring?

I don’t know. But I can’t wait to find out!




“God Will Make a Way” by Don Moen
“Lifesong” by Casting Crowns
“Would you Go With Me” by Josh Turner
“I Will Go Where You Go” by Elaine Califf

Watching Movies with a Face Blind Writer

Watching movies with me is interesting. For one thing, I like to talk. I talk to the characters, about the characters, about the story, and about food. A common conversation in our house is:
Amy: What did he just say?
Others: I don’t know. Someone was talking at the same time and we couldn’t hear!

Now that I’m interesting in the writing and production of movies, things get even more interesting. Like during the most emotional scene of the movie, when everyone is bawling, I’m liable to blurt, “I wonder how many times it took the actors to shoot that scene without laughing?” Or during the chase scene, I’m known to make casual remarks like, “That had to have been done with a green screen. The background was dubbed in.”

As a writer, I can often quote the next phrase correctly, before it’s been said, even if I’ve never seen the movie. After all, any writer know that’s what that character has to say.

The other thing about watching movies is that I can't tell all the extra characters apart. All my life I’ve had trouble recognizing characters in movies, recognizing people I don’t know well, and getting completely mixed up people I do know well, but haven’t see for a while, like old teachers. Of course I know that the young teacher with brown curly hair and glasses is not the older teacher with white hair. But the older teacher with white hair I had last year and the older teacher with white hair I had five years ago…well, that’s another story.

Just recently I discovered that it isn’t that I don’t pay enough attention. It isn’t that I don’t care. In fact, it’s that I have a Medical Condition. Whew! I didn’t even know there was such a thing as face blindness, or prosopagnosia. Things make a whole lot more sense, now.

Both my sisters and my dad also have slight face blindness, which means Mom bears the burden of helping us figure out movies. She endures constant questions like,
“Is that what’s-his-name?”
Sigh. “No, that’s Jon’s father.”
“Oh. Well is the lady that one person?”
“Yes. She’s the one from the last scene, remember?”

Movies like Jane Austen’s, with so many characters, are almost impossible for me to follow without help. Mystery/Suspense movies are interesting. Picture this: It’s the climax of the movie. In one quick flash, they finally show the face of the man who’s the murder. Everyone in the room gasps.

Then, from Amy’s corner, you hear a faint voice. “Um, am I supposed to know who that guy is?”

Made it!

PAH! I made it not only through the first semester of SLIP (Sign Language Interpretation Program), but more to the point, through the eight finals of the last week and a half. I got most of my grades back today and did fine on everything, even my bane, fingerspelling. PTL! Thank you all for your support.

Over my three week break I have quite a bit planned. One of my goals is to get some of my old stories that are laying around submitted to some paying magazines. Confession time. I'm scared of writing cover letters! Hehe. Well, I've been brave and actually have sent out two stories already. It'll be a few months before I hear back.

I'll also be doing quite a bit of Peculiar People stuff. This week I'll be giving the final touches to Struggle Creek, then it will be ready to send off for the final edit and formatting for publishing. Last weekend I got to see the oil painting a friend is doing for the cover of the book and I was very pleased with it. It's exciting to see everything coming together! The next PeP project, the Heirloom Chronicles, is not only in the works, but I actually have all the authors lined up and we are beginning work on writing. I'm working with seven other very skilled authors and am thrilled with how things are coming together.

Of course this break also means that I'll be doing office work again, as well as some deep house cleaning. I'll be doing practice groups with some of my classmates, also, so we don't get setback at all by the winter school break.

Hope this finds you all well. My blog is feeling a little lonely here, between me not posting much and ya'll not commenting much. ;-)

Thankful

I didn't get a Thanksgiving post done yesterday because I was too busy being thankful. ;-) We had a lovely afternoon and evening at my grandparents' farm, enjoying good food and even better company. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law and two of my nieces had colds, but my oldest sister and her middle daughter were able to join us. Young MM was the life of the party, beaming and chattering about how happy she was and how much fun she was having.

My middle sister flew from their school in South Carolina to New York to spend the weekend with my Aunt and Uncle and some cousins. It was nice for her to be able to spend the holiday with family, but not have to spend some nine hours coming all the way to Washington State. She was worried about the plane trip because of her severe dizziness and sight problems, but a friend flew with her, and she's been doing much better this week, so things went quite well.

The loveliness of the day ended around 7:00 PM when Mom was suddenly struck quite ill. By 9:30 or so, when it was time for her to take her anti-rejection medications (she's a transplant patient) and she was still throwing up every few minutes, we ended up having to take her in to the hospital. By that time she was so weak she could hardly walk. We spent about four hours there. They gave her liquids and anti-nausea meds through an IV and she was finally able to take her meds. She's still rather sick, but doing much better. Please continue to pray for her recovery (and that it's not something contagious that the rest of us will get).

Another thing I am thankful for is that Mom and I finally got the Peculiar People website up and running! Check it out for an opportunity to win a free copy of Struggle Creek!

Interpreting

We're done talking about how to interpret and are actually starting to do it now. It's exciting and scary all at the same time. This semester we're working on interpreting in it's literal sense--taking a frozen text like a video tape of signing or cassette tape of voice and analyzing it and then pausing it in spots to do the interpretation.

Our final for the Interpreting Process class (in just a few weeks, yikes!) will have a written section, a sign to voice section, and a voice to sign section.

I got a bunch of tests back this week and found that for all but one of my classes I am doing better than I thought. :-) Fingerspelling is going to be the major issue, though, that could get me thrown from the program. Even in English, if I rattled off a whole set of numbers, most people wouldn't be able to remember them all and write them down, so switching that into another language is difficult, even without my added learning problems. But I'm going to start spending even more time at school so I can work more with the tutor and other students. With prayer and hard work I'm trusting I'll pass the class (though I can't promise I won't stress out about it! ;-)

Right now I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break. Our whole class is in desperate need of a break however short it will be, tee hee!

Presentations and papers and quizes, oh my!

As you may have guessed from my poem in the last post, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the constant tests one after another and my own struggling grades. Last night I stayed up until 1:00 AM studying and such. Then I forgot to change my alarm time from the day before when I only had afternoon school. That's right, I overslept. OF COURSE the one time in my life I miss class from oversleeping was a day we had a test first thing in the morning.

I woke up around 7:10 and my class starts at 8:00. That doesn't sound too bad, until you realize that it takes an hour to get to school if you leave between 6 and 6:40, and closer to an hour and a half or even two hours if you get to the freeway after 7:00 AM, due to traffic. Also, that teacher does not allow us to enter the classroom if we are late, especially if a test is in session.

I thank God my teacher is letting me take the test on Monday! It probably would have knocked me out of the interp. program if I had gotten a 0 on this test. So, I pray I do all right on the test on Monday.

Monday I also am seeing a counselor at the learning disabilities center at school. I have some minor learning disabilities (stemming from eye problems) that, among other things, make taking tests and spelling difficult for me. I should have seen the counselor at the beginning of the year, but last year in my prerequisite classes I did just fine, so I figured I'd be fine this year.

Not so much.

I'm praying that the counselor will have wisdom to know what will help me, and that I will know what to ask for. It's also good to know that I'm not alone, for much of the class is struggling. So we are doing a lot of study groups and spending as much time as possible with the program's private tutor. It's also great to know that ya'll are supporting and praying for me.

Though I am struggling and get discouraged some, I'm still so glad to be in the program. I was never planning to go to college because of my learning styles. It was totally God that stuck me in this exclusive program, and I know He has plans for it.

This afternoon after we had been working on fingerspelling for a while with the tutor, we got off on a rabbit trail and he was telling stories on himself. Funny stories are ten times more funny in ASL because the whole scene is acted out with all the facial and body expressions of yourself and those around you. He had the group of us nearly rolling on the floor laughing. Hopefully we weren't too loud since we were, after all, in the library. ;-)

Of Tests

I see a mountain looming near
Its very shadow causes fear
Foreboding, oh how close its base
How quickly I must mount its face!

I strive all night with panicked cry
To reach the top with weary sigh
I meet my challenge right on straight
Then wait aside to meet my fate

When I have conquered that tall peak
It's now for restful peace I seek
Yet all I find is vale so deep
And there beyond it one more heap

Update

5 year old niece: Let’s tell funny jokes!
Me: OK! You start.
Niece: *giggles* How many mice does it take to rake?
Me: Um…eight?
Niece: No. Twenty-four!! *hysterical laughter*
Me: *chuckle* Did you make that joke up yourself?
Niece: *proudly* Yes, I did.

How’d I guess?

Let’s see, what have I been up to besides listening to a five-year-old telling jokes? A lot! Ha! Hence the reason I haven’t posted in ages. In the writing world, I got my first paid short story published!! Yay! I’ve also been placing regularly in the FaithWriters’ weekly challenge, so I’ve been getting a short story published that way almost every week, plus a random one now and then in internet magazines.

I think I mentioned a few posts ago that I’m one of the coordinators of the 1st Annual FaithWriters writing conference next summer in Detroit. It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work! Things are coming together really nicely. I’ve also recently been named one of the “key influential members of FaithWriters.”

OK, now I feel like I’m boasting, though that isn‘t my intention, heh. On to school. Uhhh, school. Sooo much work, but I’m learning great things and getting along well with my classmates (which is good since I’m stuck with them for two years ;-) ).

Homework is crazy, especially when you add the fact that I’ve had a conference every single weekend for three in a row (one interpreter’s conference, one Christian writing conference, and another interp. conference). One weekend I had some 17 chapters of text books to read and had to memorize a speech, short presentation, and poem.

Let’s see, on the home front… My middle sister at college in South Carolina has been struggling with almost constant migraines and some other health problems. Mom flew there last week to drive her to Atlanta for a cat scan. Thankfully the scan came back normal. However, they still need to figure out what the problem is, so prayers would be much appreciated.

The Rocket's Red Hands

Today I was sitting in my sign language class during a break, trying to absorb everything and wondering how to explain it to you all. The class of 21 of us (two were missing today) were sitting in desks along the wall in a semi-circle. Each person was focused on practicing for a presentation. A man passed by the open door of the classroom, and I pictured the scene as he would--twenty-one people staring vacantly, hands waving wildly in random patterns. To me, things made a little more sense. All around me “rockets” soared and exploded in the air with the noise of fists striking each other and air escaping puffed cheeks.

Our assignment was to translate The Star Spangled Banner into ASL grammar. We spent hours last week in groups, discussing the meaning of the song, what parts were important to the point, and what proper grammar would be.

Yesterday we performed our version of the song. It was neat to see all the different translations--every single one distinctly unique. Our teacher told us we did well, but asked us to try something different. He told us to forget about it being a song, and instead to think about the story behind the poem.

So today we tried again. This time we had the story and emotions in our hearts, and let them flow out our hands. This time, instead of performing a song, we told a story. We felt emotion.

It was awesome. But I think the best part was the pride shining from our teacher’s face.

A Whole 'Nother Animal

I’ve just finished my first week of SLIP (Sign Language Interpreting Program) classes. The first day (Tuesday) was, of course, pretty much just orientation and telling about what we’ll be studying. There are 22 people in the class. I know about 75% of them from last year’s classes. We’ve each had the equivalent of at least two years of college sign language training, and each have passed a careful selection process. There is an age range of about 19 through 50s, and we have four guys (big number, actually). Each of us come from completely different background, from the two CODAs who grew up in a Deaf home, to those of us who have only been taking classes for a few years. This is my new family. I’ll be spending much of the next two years with them.

Wednesday we will normally only have one two and a half hour afternoon class, but yesterday we had a full day. The second-year students threw a party for us, to give us a chance to ask them any questions we might have. This group of students is making a special point to take us first-year students in under their wing. Besides just the traditional party, they are setting up a Yahoo group so we can contact them to ask for help with anything, and they’re going to set up get-togethers throughout the year.

Another tradition is for the 2nd-year group to give us a box. This is a box filled with useful little things like pain meds, hair bands, cough drops, lint remover, etc. Each year the 2nd-years give the box a “personality” and saying. Last year’s box was a hatbox with a pair of disposable underwear decorating it, and the word “DEPENDS”. The saying of that class is “it depends” (how you interpret something depends on context, ect, ect.).

This is a pic of our adorable box. Our saying comes from something one of our teachers likes to say: “Interpreting is a whole ‘nother animal!”

We have four classes this semester, and three teachers--two Deaf and one hearing. Deaf Studies explores traditions, language, and basically everything that makes up culture. (For this class we actually have two interpreters--the first day of class we students were rather surprised to discover that, since we all obviously have a pretty good grasp of the language. But the teacher explained that it’s easier to discuss things like that in our native language, and the class is about culture, not about the language, so she wants to make sure we get it all.

Our next class is Interpreting Process. This semester we are learning translation, which means that we will be doing things like changing written English into sign, or a video of sign into written English. In other words, we will be able to take time with the translation and keep going over it until we are satisfied, rather than real-time interpreting. We would use translation in our interpreting jobs for things like explaining a contract to a Deaf client.

Then we have Fingerspelling. Each week or so we have a presentation to give that must include at least ten fingerspelled words (or number sequences). We’ll be tested on our receptive skills, too. Our last class of the day (and the one we have on Wednesdays) is ASL I. We’re learning vocabulary for things like politics, science, and math. My college is unique in that their interpreting program continues to teach vocab throughout.

Today the effects of changing my sleeping schedule and the busy days caught up with my health problems. I didn’t sleep well and woke feeling very sick (not necessarily unusual). I was feeling a little better by the time school started, but that added to the smell of perfume and cigarette smoke caught up to me again by lunch time, and I got a headache. By the last 45minutes of class I was pretty much out of it. I’m gonna have to talk to the teacher about that last little bit, since I was doing good just to hold my head up, much less understand a foreign language.

Despite the knowledge that my health will be a continuing struggle during the program, I am really excited about this next two years. I’ll be working incredibly hard, and am already feeling like I’m a bit in over my head in knowledge, but this is going to be awesome. I love the language and the people, and I’m looking forward to learning about and loving interpreting.

A Day with Friends and God

Well, I had my first chance to really put my driver’s license to work today, and go out with friends. A friend from school who lives several hours away was in my town today, with family events, so she invited me to tag along. Her family was so nice, and accepted me in as one of their own.

The day started at a Seventh Day Adventist church. It’s a new building, and I’ve been wanting to see inside it because it looks gorgeous and it seems like it would be a lovely place to have a wedding (no, I’m not planning a wedding! A girl can always dream though, right?).

Though I don’t agree with all of the theology of the denomination, it was a wonderful service. A men’s choir sang, accompanied by a wind instrument orchestra. The whole sanctuary trembled with the vibration of the instruments and deep voices. The most special part of the service was when my friend’s grandfather was baptized. He glowed with a beautiful peace and joy that nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Right before the sermon, my friend and I left the main sanctuary and joined the Deaf section by the interpreter. It was great to get the signing practice, and to meet some new people. The sermon was good, too.

We topped the day off with lunch at a buffet place with my friend’s family (they teased that I was taking the place of her sister, who was unable to attend). I haven’t seen her all summer, so it was a lot of fun to get to spend time with her.

Interesting Week

I was sick for about ten days (nothing like getting the flu and THEN getting a bad cold), and I’m so behind in blogging that I don’t know whether to skip some things that have happened, do it all in one post, or do several posts. LOL! I guess I’ll do a couple of combined posts.

Let’s see…interesting things started happening when I nearly fainted two Saturdays ago for no apparent reason. I think it must have been the start of some odd bug, ‘cause I didn’t feel well for about a week after that. On that Tuesday, my aunt and uncle who are home on furlough from Indonesia, and their son and daughter-in-law, came to stay overnight with us. It’s always great to see them!

Wednesday morning my cousins and uncle went out in the wee hours of the morning to go fishing. Later on, Dad and I dropped Aunt off at the doctor for routine tests (Uncle met her there). Dad and I drove on and I took my driver’s license test. Now, normally I can parallel park quite well. That day…well, let’s just say it took me about a half an hour to get out of the stupid parking space and the tester was struggling to keep from laughing. However, I did pass--just barely.

While we were out I tagged along with my dad and brother-in-law as they had their monthly lunch meeting. Then we got a call that something had happened during my uncle’s heart stress test (treadmill test), and they had taken him by ambulance to the hospital. Yikes!

They did tests and decided that his arteries and all were fine, they just needed to adjust some of his medication. Thank you, Lord. He had to stay in the hospital overnight, so we got to enjoy my aunt and cousins’ company for a bit longer.

Monday Memories: Five Years Ago

Five years. Five long years. Five oh so short years.
Is America stronger? Has she stayed close to the God she turned to in the midst of her trouble? Only God knows.


LIKE A RIVER

Shock flows over me
Like a river
Numbing me with cold
With disbelief

Tears flow out of me
Like a river
Hurting me with loss
With pain

Fear flows over me
Like a river
Paralyzing me with terror
With unknowns

Anger flows through me
Like a river
Burning me with horror
With hatred

Resolve wells up in me
Like a river
Strengthening me with power
With honor

Hope flows under me
Like a river
Buoying me with faith
With calm

Love flows over me
Like a river
Comforting me with friendship
With care

Peace flows over me
Like a river
Assuring me with belief
With prayer


© 2006 Amy Michelle Wiley



It was a normal school morning. I rose around 7:15 AM, Pacific time. On the way to the bathroom, I heard a man's voice downstairs. I assumed it was my sister listening to cassette tapes for her correspondence history college class. I don't recall why I went downstairs instead of climbing straight into the shower. Perhaps to say "good morning".

The TV was on, an almost unheard of occurrence in the mornings at our house. Little did I know that for the next few days it would be on almost unceasingly.

Sis glanced at me. "Three planes just crashed into buildings."

I joined her on the couch. "It's nearing the End Times. A lot of things are going to be happening." Yet I still thought they were accidents.

"It was done on purpose. These were terrorist attacks."

There it was on the screen before us--the Twin Towers with smoke and fire billowing from gaping holes in their sides. I began to get the tiniest glimpse of what this day was. Before that day I was only vaguely knew what the World Trade Towers even were. My education of them began.

The news switched back and forth between the Pentagon and the towers. And then it happened. The first tower fell. I watched it. Live. Right before me.

I said a prayer for all those I saw die. But I wish I had understood. I wish I had prayed harder. I wish I had grasped how many souls were perishing right before my eyes.

The next hours, the next days, were numb. They were filled with horror and heartache. But they were also filled with faith and heroism. One memory that stands out, is how touched I was when the Queen of England asked for our national anthem to be played at the changing of the guard, in a sign of support. Another is fromweree day we wre asked to take a minute of silence or prayer. How touching, strengthening, it was to see cars stopped on the side of the road to honor those who were lost and hurting that day.

On September 12, 2001, I wrote this in my diary:

This is war. Evil has come--murdered hundreds of innocent victims. They have won this battle, but we must win the war.

I knew war would probably come in my lifetime. But I didn't think it would come today. I've always wondered when war came if I would be able to stand behind my country, knowing we were right in fighting. But now I have no doubt--today I have looked evil in the eye and stood firm.

America, lead on. We, the people, are standing firm, ready to fight. For we are One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A hair off on the eyes.

As many of you know, I’m in my mid-twenties and I don’t have my driver’s license. This is because of numerous reasons, but primarily because I often feel too sick to drive, and because it’s more fun to write than it is to go driving. ;-)

This morning I went in to take the written test. Washington State’s driving test is one of the hardest in the US. They have questions like what the exact about of the fee for parking in a disabled spot without a permit ($250), and how many feet you should follow behind a school bus. I’m bad at remembering numbers.

However, I passed just fine!

The funny part came when I looked in the little black box for my vision test. There were four rows of a line of three rectangles, each containing a sequence of letters. The first row was blank. She asked me to read line 2. I read her all the letters in the second and third rows.

She told me there was another line. I looked. Nope. No more letters in line 2. We discoursed rather confusedly back and forth, her telling me to try moving my head around, etc. Finally she realized what I was saying, “The first row is blank.”

Quite firmly, “No. It’s not blank.”

We look at each other for a minute. Then a light seems to dawn on her. “Do you have vision problems with your left eye?”

Duh. “Oh. Yeah. I’m 20/400 in my left eye, and 20/20 in my right eye.” I hurry to add, “But my vision with both eyes is 20/20.” I grimace, “Will I have to get a contact before I can get my license?” I hate contacts.

She kinda grins. “No, it’s okay. You just need to tell me if you are blind in one eye.”

So, after the test, Dad and I decide to each get our hair cut. Dad took me to the place he goes to get his hair cut. (clue #1) He said they were really cheap. (clue #2) My hair cutter (salonist? Hair dresser?) couldn’t speak English well. (clue #3) I asked her to cut my hair straight across--she turned it up in the front. (clue #4) I had also asked her to give me a slight fringe of bangs. She forgot. (clue #5)

Now, after all that, one would think I would decide to get bangs somewhere more trusted, next time I got my hair cut. Right?

You would think.


She seems to have cut a random triangle of bangs in the middle of my head. No, I take that back. It’s not in the middle. It’s sort of off to the right side. After she was done, I tried to pull back part of my hair as I normally do, and it was blatantly clear that Something Was Wrong.

I showed her, and she took me back and cut a bit more of the other side. Now there were two triangles. Kind of. It was clear that she wasn’t going to fix my hair. I left. I didn’t tip her.

Uff da.

more Zoo pics

Zoo Girls

Seven of us girls went to the Oregon Zoo yesterday. It was fun! I went with my oldest sister AJ, her three girls (ages 5, 4, and 1), and my friend Beth and her almost one-year-old. My nieces were so excited that Aunt Amy was coming to the zoo with them.

It was great to see Beth. She and I were nearly inseparable during our years of homsechool Christian choir, but we haven't seen each other as much as we would like since then.

Here's a bunch of pics! Some of them turned out really great.

<<"Hi little girl!"

Hehe, the gazelles come up almost all the way to the giraffe's ankels!

I posted this picture on another site and said it was me and my friends, Jezzy and Debbie (hey, we are a bit fruity and a bit batty--fruit bats seemed perfect! :-D Besides, they are cute.)

This Lorikeet posed for all of us to get pictures taken by him. So pretty!

testing

I've been trying to make an audio post all day, and it seems to be going through fine on the phone end, but it won't show up on my blog. So I thought I'd try a post and see if it works on the text end.

Hopefully it's a temporary problem... I tried emailing audioBlogger, too, and the email bounced.

Summer is nearly gone...

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will no longer be able to post on my blog as often as I would like. You may want to sign up on the little green and white Blogarithm box on the right. It will notify you with an email when I post, so you don’t have to keep checking back and finding nothing new. You sign up for that with any blog--it’s really great!

This has been such a busy, but good summer. Struggle Creek, the Peculiar People novel we are writing as a group, is coming along well. It hit a bit of a snag when one of the authors for one of the most important chapters did not get his chapter in, and wasn't answering my emails. Just as I found someone else to do it, he showed up again! Hehe, figures. But things are moving along again, now, and looking really good!

I've gotten another couple of stories published the last few weeks, too! Welcome to Fern Springs--a story I used for a Monday Memory a few posts down, will be appearing in the on-line magazine Riders & Reapers for the Sept/Oct issue. One of the stories I entered in FW's weekly writing challenge got third place out of 200 entries, so it will be coming out in a book in a few months, along with The Unwanted, the story I mentioned in the last post. It's good to be published again--it had been a while.

I’ve also been busy helping to organize a FaithWriters conference. We’ve been dreaming about having an official one for a long time, so it’s exciting to not only see it happening, but to be a part of making it happen. The conference will be next summer on August 10th through 12th, in the Detroit, MI area. Check out this link for more information. All writers are invited! :-)

We are foreseeing this conference growing in the future to become on of the biggest Christian writing conferences in the US. This year we are aiming for at least 100 people. This conference will be unique, because so many of us have cultured friendships through the message board, though we have never met. It will be so exciting to be in a whole roomful of FaithWriters, putting together physical characteristics with the personalities we’ve gotten to know on-line.

My middle sister is back at school now, going to Bob Jones University in South Carolina. My school doesn’t start until the last week of September, so I’ve got a little bit of summer left. See you around!

I Am A Rich Woman

Today is my birthday! I feel so blessed with friendship this year. Yesterday my day started out with a pre-birthday bang. I placed in the FaithWriters’ writing challenge! I got fifth out of two hundred entries. I used to place several times a quarter, but the competition has grown dramatically and it’s been two and a half quarters since I’ve placed high enough to get published, so I was quite encouraged. Here’s the link to my winning entry, though I will warn that it is a very heavy story: The Unwanted.

Let’s see…after the happiness of winning, I received a birthday package in the mail from a FW friend, with a lovely note and a beautiful cross necklace. It’s so dainty and just perfect for me! I also got a lovely card from my grandparents.

Then another FW friend surprised me by making a birthday thread a day early, and I got lots of lovely birthday wishes. And then two more FW friends called me on the phone and we chattered for several hours! LOL! I’d never talked in person to these two ladies, so it was doubly fun.

Today I didn’t feel well, so that was too bad. But in the evening we went over to my oldest sister and her family’s home for dinner. Twas lovely playing with my nieces and being with family. Dinner was lovely, and there was an extra bonus! But first, a pre-story, hehe. Yesterday a friend asked me if I was going to have cake today, and I said no, because I’m allergic to wheat. Then I added, “But if anyone could make a gluten free cake, it would be my sister AJ.” Sure enough, she made a delicious chocolate gluten free cake!! My mom even liked it, and she doesn’t like most things that are made with special flours.

Tomorrow the fun continues. In the morning we are going to breakfast with my grandma and other relatives from Mom’s side of the family. Then Sis and I are meeting Wren to walk along the waterfront, and then we’re meeting some other friends for dinner and games.

Giddy Friday: Singing Gooey Duck

Monday Memories: Fern Springs

Come, walk with me and I will show you Fern Springs, the childhood home of a burgeoning author. It was here that love and friendship was cultured. Here that scope was given for the imagination to soar beyond the treetops that touch the clouds. To investigate the mysteries that lie beneath the soil. To spot the secrets that dance across the surface of the pond.

See, here is the sprawling neighborhood, where mothers still watched out for each other’s children. Where kids played together outdoors, not bothered with computer games or X-boxes.

Do not mind the weeds in the flowerbeds of the front yard. Notice instead the green lawn that still rings with the shouts of tag. If you hold quite still you can feel the mist of the sprinkler, and see the rainbow as a young girl passes through the spray from one world to another of imagined delights.

Look closely beyond these houses, and see the ghosts of times past, when the land was a field scattered with trees. Smell the swamp that grew so tightly with reeds that a child could walk right on top of the water without so much as getting her feet wet. Listen and hear the frogs, and the creek that gurgles merrily, yet holds a hint of danger in the poacher’s trap that lies hidden beneath the surface.

Now step up on the covered front porch, where the swing creaks in the wind. See the fancy dresses swirling as the princess flees her duties? Or the solemn judges, presiding over court? Listen, do you hear the clack of the rails, as the porch turns into a train?

Open the door, and be careful not to slip on the wood floor that still shows signs of practiced figure skating twirls. Pass the stairs, worn with marks that tell of sleeping bag bobsleds and dangerous mountain climbing experiences, and come into the kitchen. Here is where laughter and games are found. A bubble still rises from the sink where a little girl scrubs dishes. Over the clank of the glasses, you can hear the melody and harmony of children singing while they work.

Hurry and step out the backdoor before the sun dips below the horizon. Watch as the sunset casts a golden hue over the wooded hill. See how it sparkles on the tiny winding creek? Squint against the glare and find the silhouette of children, bending over the water with long sticks, guiding boats through the reeds. The boats are unusual--only raw chunks of wood from a construction site, yet painted with bright splashes of color, and names carefully lettered on the sides.

Pass the swing set now, and let the place of gymnasts and ship captains fall behind us as we cross the big bridge with sturdy railings just right for playing Pooh Sticks. The wide path on your left is still rutted from wagon trains nearing their final Western home, and the perfect launching place for a leap to the bank of the creek below. The rusted cages in the hutch beyond have wisps of long hair from Angora rabbits still fluttering in the breeze.

Watch your step here, on the hill where a business visitor tripped and became “The Funny Guy Who Fell Down the Hill.” Oh! Did you see the flash of color in the pond? The Coi fish Beaker is waiting to show you his tricks. He will drink brine shrimp out of a baby bottle, or suck gently on your finger.

We have no time to linger; dusk is coming quickly. The trail is steep here, as we climb Mossy Way. Beware of Indian maidens rushing down the path on prancing steeds, or FBI agents intent on their prey. Do not trample the tiny plastic lion cub, nestled in a child-dug cave beside the way.

Ah, here we are, to the most delightful place of all! One last steep scramble and we step out on Moonlit Way. Do you feel the childish thrill as you spot the Up-Down Cherry Tree just ahead? Grasp this branch and swing down into the shadows of the path below. Be careful! Do not touch the quicksand, but let the branch swing you right back up here. Whoo hooo! Yes, just like that!

Now come a little higher and sit here in the grass. Soon the moon will peek through the trees and bath us in its light. Stay quiet here. Listen, and let the memories whisper.