Pessimistic? May 31, 2007

I was going over some of my previous posts, and I’ve noticed that more than a few of them were rather pessimistic in tone.  That got me thinking. Is my life really that bad that all I have to share are sad? Because, really, the happy and the sad balance each other out to create a joy in being alive. I decided to look for another reason for all the pessimism, and I found it in exterior circumstances, rather than in myself. The world demands that I put on a happy face at all times…for the customers, for my family, for my friends, because none of them really has the time nor the desire to listen to all my deepest desires and feelings. And, who, I ask of you, wants to tell everything to everybody? There goes your reputation!

 Hence, my blog. I can rant and rave to people online, people who I most likely will never meet in real life. Thus, I can let loose my emotions, instead of bottling it up, which tends to explode every now and then, without sacrificing my reputation.

 I apologize that I haven’t written in a while, but the WiFi was down for most of Memorial Day weekend, so I’m just now catching up on my thoughts. I hope you all have enjoyed the weekend (thank goodness for federal holidays!). I know I did. I played with my younger siblings, ate roasted marshmallows, went to Burger King, and didn’t have to work, and put off my homework (yes, I’m taking summer classes). It was an idyllic weekend

ASL national anthem May 23, 2007

I found a book at the library, called “1000 Signs of Life” by the editors of Gallaudet University Press, and it has a translation/gloss of the “Star Spangled Banner”. Keep in mind this is only one translation; you may see slight variations, but seeing as this book is from Gallaudet, it should be legit! Glossing ASL requires it all to be in capitals, so I’m not yelling.

QUESTION, YOU EXPERT SEE—–Oh say, can you see

SUNRISE BRIGHT—–by the dawn’s early light,

THAT REAL PROUD WE HONOR—–What so proudly we hailed

CONTINUE SUNSET FADE—-at the twilight’s last gleeming?

RED WHITE STRIPES STAR SPECKLE—–Whose broad stripes and bright stars,

THROUGH BATTLE AWFUL—–through the perilous fight

STAND BRIDGE WE WATCHING—–O’er the ramparts we watched,

WOW BRAVE FLAG-WAVING—-were so gallantly streaming?

HEY, CANNON RED ROCKET—–And the rockets’ red glare

EXPLODE, EXPLODE IN AIR-SKY—-the bombs bursting in the air

THROUGH ALL-NIGHT PROOF—–Gave proof through the night

OUR FLAG WAS STILL THERE!——That our flag was still there.

OH, QUESTION, OUR STAR SPECKLE FLAG STILL WAVE——O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

OVER LAND FREE—-O’er the land of the free

HOME THEIR BRAVE?—–And the home of the brave?

ASL dream May 16, 2007

I have a lot of weird dreams. Flying, falling, earthquake, etc. You name it. I’ve even had closed captioning on a few of my dreams, and I even spotted a spelling error. I’ve tasted rootbeer and marshmallows, and I’ve smelled popcorn. I’ve  read people’s minds. I dream in color. I dream like a movie, and I dream I am both the actress and the viewer. I’ve read in my dreams. I’ve yelled in my dreams. I’ve cried and prayed in my dreams. I’ve even signed in my dreams.

But for the first true time, I’ve heard in my dreams. Usually it’s a muffled kind of talking or yelling that is considered to be more of mind-reading than actual communication. But a couple of nights ago, I’ve truly heard. It was a crystal clear, nice, spiritual, uplifting kind of sound. And it was me, I was singing “Amazing Grace”, the first verse, and then “Silent Night”. For Amazing Grace, I figured out–in my dream–how to sign it. I had been thinking it over in my head, but finally figured out how at night.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see!

Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright, round yon virgin, mother and Child, holy Infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Words do no justice to the peace and movement I felt while singing and signing in my dream. I felt…peaceful. Whole. True. Loved. Have you ever felt a moment when it feels like your heart is about to burst from the love  and joy you feel and give? Like you’re one with someone else, like you’re one with God? This is the best I can describe it as.

Writing this, I just realized something. I had prayed to God one of those futile prayers I was certain wouldn’t really be answered, but prayed anyway just in case He could grant me this one prayer. I had prayed that I would have a nice singing voice, that I could truly hear music. He did grant me this prayer! Through this dream.

Another thing I should point out…I was a nun, a new nun, signing to other nuns, in a church, in this dream. Could this have been an answer to my discernation process? Or am I reading too much into my dream? I wonder.

And I should also add in this same post, I once had another similar dream. Well, it’s not exactly similar in content, but rather feeling. Here’s the post I wrote somewhere else:

***

One time, I had a dream like yours. It wasn’t a demon per se, I can’t remember what it was, but I knew someone was bad. They tried to make me scared enough to listen to them, to do what they said, but also I knew if I said some prayers, I’d be all right. It took a while, too, to say the words, so instead I thought them. I started saying “Our Father” and then sang the Hail Mary song (you know, “quiet light, morning star, shining bright, Gentle Mother, peaceful dove…”). Then I felt braver for standing up to the bad person, to evil, and I wasn’t scared at all of what that person was going to do to me when I stood up for my beliefs and morals. I can’t remember if I died, but I woke up, feeling really peaceful. I felt glad. I haven’t had that dream since.

***

Love…for worse. May 16, 2007

Sometimes, like now, I feel rather depressed because I’m afraid nobody will ever love me. Yes, my family loves me, but you can’t choose family, can you? They certainly didn’t choose to make me deaf. True, they would still have had me if they had known I was deaf before birth, but that’s not the same thing as choosing to make someone a part of your family. Like a man.

What man would ever choose to love me, quirks, disability, and all? Glasses cost a lot of money, and so do hearing aids, and so do cochlear implants. Batteries cost a lot of money, and so do audiology appointments, and so do regular old doctor appointments for certain reasons, including migraines. What man would willingly marry me if they know I’m expensive? Really, all I ask for beyond regular necessary upkeep are books. Books are my passion, and I’d gladly not get that new patriotic T-shirt from Old Navy if it meant I could spend the money on a book instead. Even then, I love used books! Really, the only books I have to get new are the Harry Potter books, and the last one’s coming out this summer.

What man would choose to love me if he knew we’d most likely would have deaf kids? It’s genetic, as much as I disbelieve that fact. So that’d mean we’d have expenses for hearing aids 3X, 4X, 8X, or even maybe 12 times over. I hate to see how much that would cost, though I’d spare no cost to make sure my child(ren) were a part of the world, through both hearing aids/cochlear implants, and ASL. I’m all for bi-bi .

On the other hand, what convent would choose to have me, if they knew they had to pay for my upkeep? I mean, the Catholic Church has only so much in its coffers, money which could be better spent on the truly needy and the most important things. I don’t mind wearing a habit, in fact, I think I’ll look quite good in one. But I get heat-sick. I wish I knew if they had lighter habits, or if it was scandalous to forego wearing one if I was working in the streets in August. There are far more able-bodied people that the convent would most likely prefer over me. It’s not like I shy away from hard work. In fact, I enjoy being busy, with the occasional down-times. I like having a purpose. I like working hard. But if I come with so many strings, work ethic becomes meaningless.

But then I look at Helen Keller, who got even a marriage proposal (until her mother scared off the prospective groom because she felt disabled people shouldn’t marry –i.e., eugenics reasons.). I guess I have to keep an eye out for the man who’ll live out the true meaning of “for better and for worse”, who’ll take the certain worse along with the certain better. The sad thing is, too many believe in fleeting happiness, divorcing at the sign of a bad time, instead of bearing through and experiencing what true joy is all about.

There, I cheered myself up a little. There has to be at least one man among the 6 billion-plus in the world today, who’ll love me. The only problem is, I’m thinking He’s not of the earth.

An update on discernation May 16, 2007

Well, even though I’m seriously thinking about becoming a sister or a nun, lately the scale’s been tipping in the other direction to the other great vocation: marriage.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a boyfriend, and have never had one, so it’s not even a remote possibility at the moment, but I feel like I’m looking forward to love, marriage, a life-long best friend, children, and a house. The great American dream, I know. I don’t want to preclude that option by announcing that I’m in the discernment process right now. The man of my dreams could think that he’ll never get me because I’m too stuck up to open up to love. Then again, I wonder, could the “man of my dreams” be Jesus?

Also, would becoming a nun scare my friends off? I have a few atheistic/you name its as friends, and slowly I feel I’m setting an example for them, showing them that religion doesn’t automatically exclude peace. And if I become a nun, I’m afraid that it would undo what little I’ve done so far. Not that nuns are warriors, but that to them I’m “so single-minded in my faith that I just had to become a nun”. If that even makes sense at all.

The thing is, like my mom just told me, my “heart is so big” and I “want to save the world”. Her words, not mine. I would instead say that I want to do my part, help out where I can, when I can. I want to help out pro-life efforts, encourage others to read, encourage cord blood stem cell research (which have the qualities of embryonic, but without the controversy and without the risk of morphing into cancer cells), help the homeless, promote libraries, write great books, etc etc. My mom is suggesting (when I told her I was going to join the homeless group that’s just forming on campus) that I pick one issue and devote my time to it. Like libraries and writing and pro-life. There’s so much to improve in the world that I want to be a part of, but maybe she’s saying the world is already a better place, and would improve even greater if we picked one way we can help out, and devote all our energies into that one thing.

 The trouble is, which one? That’s where joining a convent comes in. See, they have so many ways they help out the community and the world, that I wouldn’t have to pick. Or picking a religious vocation, which automatically makes me a part of all the other groups.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m standing on the threshold of two doors. One is marriage vocation, and the other is religious vocation. I have one foot in each room, which prevents me from taking full part of either parties that’s going on in both rooms. And, like anybody else who has been in the same place can tell you, having one foot in each place makes you very, very unbalanced at the moment.

Mother’s Day May 9, 2007

Below is from one of the email jokes that finally got forwarded to me…and I can just imagine one of my little siblings doing just that if we had a cat  

*** 

Happy Mother’s Day Everyone!

The Ellen Show was on and she read this submission to a contest from a viewer:

“So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him.  He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old.  The middle one is Eli.  Eli really loves chapstick.  LOVES IT.  He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it.  So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to
put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on.  My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box.  I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up.  Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.  We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli.  I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom.  And there was Eli.  He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . rear end.  Eli looked right into my eyes and said “chapped”.  Now, if you have a cat, you know that he is right – their little rear ends do look pretty chapped.  And, frankly, Jack didn’t seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.  And then I decided I really didn’t want to know…

And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using your chapstick on the cat’s rear end.”

The End

ASL… May 9, 2007

I’ve just started my ASL II class at my university, because I want to be in both the capital d Deaf world and the hearing world. (Never mind that it counts for foreign language for both my majors!    ) Often, when I was growing up, I would feel alienated because I was of neither ‘world’.  I knew no sign, and had difficulty understanding with my hearing aid. Plus add to the fact that I wasn’t diagnosed as deaf until age 2, and so missed out on a lot of language development. It wasn’t really until a few years ago…actually in early ‘05, if I remember right, that I realized that perhaps I am of both worlds, only if I choose to be. (That was about the time I got my CI, to be honest.)

 So, I’m learning ASL. In case you were wondering, I’ve never asked my parents why exactly they taught me to hear instead to sign. But I do know it wasn’t because “it’s too hard”, because it was hard for them to teach me how to hear. It was hard for them to get the money to buy me hearing aids, and thank goodness they got a grant for speech/listening therapy! My first audiologist said my parents should teach me sign language, but she also said that I’d never learn to talk, or hear, or speak, or read, or amount to much of anything at all. I think that was what did it for my parents…after all, what parent wants to hear that? Plus, my parents had heard about how cliquish the Deaf can be, so all these little things most likely affected their decision.

I don’t begrudge them their decision to raise me as hearing. It proved to the world that I am amounting to something! I am a “sucess story” so to speak. But now I feel like I should honor my deaf side by learning ASL, so as to not make Deaf people angry at my parents’ decision (I don’t know whether that’s an unfounded fear or not). And by being of both worlds, I hope to serve as a bridge, especially if I can help Deaf children enjoy reading! And especially if I can get others excited about learning ASL so as to bring more of a service to the community (I work at a library). So far I’ve encourage two people to learn ASL.

 I also would love to learn how to sign songs, esp. the popular culture ones, like Christmas/other religious songs, and American patriotic songs. Right now, I really want to learn how to sign the Star Spangled Banner…but have yet to find a gloss of it. So, if any of you happen to know a website that helps me do that, that would be great!

Discernation musings May 8, 2007

I’ve been thinking about this since 3rd or 4th grade, but now I’m finally at a point in my life when I can start the active discernation process. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m saying that I want to be a nun or a religious sister. I’ve been researching off and on for a while—one thing I found is that I can’t find a site that tells  me all I want to know about all the different orders and where all these different orders are around the country and world. (If you know of one, please post a reply! ).

But I am thinking of the Francisians or the Benedictines–but then, they’re the only ones I’ve researched. What I really want to do is to be able to travel the world, go to Rome, Scotland, etc., read, write, help others to discover the joys of reading, be a librarian, be around children a lot, teach, etc. A must is to be active in the community, and pro-life activity is a plus (doesn’t matter whether it’s from conception or at death). The problem is that I can’t find an order that  lets me do all of these!

But I will try to remember to start praying the Rosary to ask for help in the discernation process, and perhaps when I read the Bible over summer, I’ll find a passage that really tips the scale one way or another. I’ll probably write more about this issue over summer, so stay posted!

Worries of an honor student May 8, 2007

Well, slowly my official grades for the entire semester are being posted online. I’m still waiting for three more classes, but here’s what I have so far…A, A+, A+, A-. Apparently the A- got rid of my 4.0! I’m still disappointed about it. Why don’t they add small points for the A+ if they take away a few points for the A-? I still have a high GPA, but still…I didn’t have a perfect 4.0 in highschool, though it was still quite high. I had only one B the entire four years of high school. This is my first A-. I hope it’s my last. Maybe I’m a perfectionist, a lazy perfectionist. I do the work, I do it well, but I don’t really stress out about it…and now I’m thinking maybe I should have worried. Be a perfectionist through and through. I knew this would happen, after my great first semester. I knew  I’d feel let down, somehow. I guess my new goal should be to avoid any Bs. Get enough As and A+s, and eventually it should practically negate that A-, mathematically. I worry about the rest of my grades, that I’ll get another A-.

 Note to self: Avoid any more A-, and any Bs are discouraged. C and below are completely unacceptable.

Thunderstorms, tornados, and more May 6, 2007

Wow, what a busy night last night. Storm after storm kept coming and coming, we were under a tornado watch until 4 in the morning, and got tons of rain. The grass probably grew 2 inches overnight. Tornados didn’t hit my city, thankfully, but it did hit Kansas, Iowa, and I think on the Nebraska/SD border. More is coming this afternoon, while I’m working, but thankfully I work with easy and unlimited access to computers the entire time, and my boss is of my kind, who keeps an eye on weather and radar, and likes being prepared. We also have a weather radio that’s nice and loud.

This is a far cry from where I used to work: Panera Bread. They had no weather radio, their one computer is restricted to only other Panera Bread websites,  and the radio is tuned to pretty much the music channel the whole time. True, we get alerts, but it’s bad for radio business, so the alerts are few and far in between. One time, there was a nice storm, lots of wind, hail, and weird-looking clouds. I called my parents several times on my cell phone, while still on duty (I’d rather be fired and alive than to be dead.) The lines were busy, so I used the company (!) phone, and finally got through. My dad said there was a tornado sighting about 15 miles away from where I worked, and that our whole county was under a tornado warning. He said that we should take shelter. So, I hung up, told my bosses, and all of them were nonplussed. To them, it was just another storm. Traffic declined severely, and only one person ran in, and that was just to use the phone. The managers wouldn’t even use the intercom system to advise our few customers that we were under a tornado warning and that there was a tornado nearby.

Needless to say, I didn’t work there for much longer. Since I had the job described above, and it was a good one, I quit Panera Bread in two months after the incident. I vow never to work for another food service job, unless they have a good emergency system in place, AND a weather radio.

If you have slow computers (like the library does), go to www.NOAA.gov, and type in your city and state. It’s ad-free, so it loads quite quickly. It also has several different kinds of radars. But if you’re the amateur meteorologist, another cool website is www.wunderground.com. Type in your zipcode. It has ads, but it also loads fairly quickly. The radar is cooler there. You can see the tracks of storms, the direction, the size of hail, all the goodies the weatherman on TV has, and all for free. You can even see which storms have “tornado signatures”, too.

Be safe this spring! Take heed of Mother Nature, and take shelter, and don’t be like Panera Bread.