#deaf ed

[adiwriting]

Daily conversations: 

Person: How do you [insert word here] in ASL? 

Me: What are you trying to say? 

Person: I just want to know how to sign [insert word here]

Me: Yes, but that word doesn’t have a sign so if you tell me what you’re trying to say, I can show you what to sign

Person: *deep sigh* Whatever, I’ll just fingerspell it. 

[adiwriting]

I’m so bummed guys. I teach Deaf Ed, so I always have super small classes. The nature of working with kids who have a low incidence disability is that there’s only so many kids in a school you can put into an ASL classroom. And I’ve been teaching 2 kids for the last few years. I just found out one is moving. So now I’m gonna have one kid. One. My heart breaks for him. How freaking isolating for him. I may be a great teacher and do my best to be someone that these kids can lean on. But I should NOT be the only socialization that a kid gets. I want to cry. 

For anyone that read my latest fic “Sanctuary,” this is the kind of shit that inspired that angsty piece. 

[itskathleen-doll]

When you find someone that's passionate about the same things as you and is knowledgable about the subject😍😍😍😍

[beforeisleep]

The first anniversary of my trying to be independent and a real person!

Hi team! When you last heard from me, I had just wrapped up the spring semester and was looking forward to three weeks off from classes. Since then, I’ve started up my first session of summer classes, drowned, died, and started a really fun and exciting life here in Hell.

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but only by a really small amount. I’m two weeks into the first of two six-week summer sessions. Allow me to complain for just one second. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if you’d rather not read my griping.) Right now I have 24 hours of class per week - 7 on Monday, 6 on Tuesday, 8 on Wednesday, and 3 on Thursday. I’m still working pretty much every weekend at my retail job, which has been a really great way to fill up my homework-doing time without making very much money because it’s still not that many hours. I’m also working most Thursday mornings before class, as well as Tuesdays. Tuesdays are the toughest because I work from 10:30-3, then go straight to class, which runs from 4-7 and 7-10. (7-10 p.m. is the cruelest class time). I’m already feeling really burnt out and ready for this summer session to be over, and it’s really aggressively not over yet. But I think it’ll pay off because I only have one class in the second summer session, and only 8.5 hours of class per week in the fall. Okay, griping over.

The reason I wanted to post, though (aside from the reason of “this is a blog and that’s what I should be doing anyway, I guess”) is that it’s been a year since I moved here! A year since I graduated from college, a year since I started supporting myself, a year since I started grad school! It doesn’t feel like it’s been a year, but at the same time, so much has happened and I feel so differently than I did when I first moved here.

I remember spending the first few weeks in my summer apartment (when I was taking one class and working very few hours, so I had a lot of free time and no close friends in the area) lying in my bed watching Gilmore Girls. I was lonely and kind of sad. I (think I) knew at the time that it was going to get better, and I don’t want to say that my life is perfect and i’m completely content and satisfied with the social life I have now, but my god is it different. First of all, one of my very best friends moved here, which (I know I’ve said this before) was a godsend. Second, I became friends with the women in my grad program - I’m even hoping to move in with one of them in the fall (and her other roommates seem really fun as well!). 

What’s more, slowly but surely I started to feel like I know this city. I can get around on public transportation, I have places I like to go, places to show people when they’re visiting, museums I know I can get into for free (thanks, student ID!), and places I want to learn more about. When I first moved here I felt like I had a path to school and a path to work, and I didn’t really want to stray from those paths. Now this city has become a third home. (Yes, third, because my college town will always feel like a home.)

Speaking of college, I was able to go back for Commencement 2016 and play with the Commencement Band for the first time as an alumna, which was wonderful. It’s always great to go back, but it was especially great to (1) be there for an event that was specifically for alumni, so I didn’t have to wonder whether I was overstepping or if it was weird that I was there, and (2) be surrounded by so many alumni from so many different years! It was also really great to see my friends and boyfriend graduate. (Boy, graduations sure are a lot less sad when you’re out of college.)

Watching my friends graduate also helped drive home the fact that I’ve been out of college for a year, and that I really am in a different place than I was when I graduated. Watching my friends cry and say their goodbyes, I distinctly remembered being there - the feel that something huge was at an end, and that nothing would ever be the same again. Looking back at that point from one year’s distance, I think the core of that sentiment was accurate: something huge was ending, and I don’t think things will ever be the way they were in college. But they’ll be - they are - a different way, and over the course of this year, I’ve realized that the way of my life is within my power to shape. And, honestly, that even when I don’t do that much conscious shaping of it, it still forms itself into some semblance of coherence. I’ve mentioned before that I wish I had tried harder to make friends with my classmates sooner, to get close with my roommates, to meet new people, etc. But even though I didn’t try really hard at all those things, I’ve still formed new relationships, I’ve still become comfortable in this city. I didn’t necessarily try to build a life for myself here as ardently as I could have, but a life sprung up around me nonetheless.

I tried to share this sentiment with my graduating friends, to try to ease the sadness they were feeling (or at least add some feeling of “it will be okay” into their sadness, because graduating from a wonderful school with wonderful friends is always going to be sad), but I’m not sure how well I articulated it to them. So if any of them are reading this now - I hope this makes more sense than I did when I was hovering like the ghost of years future over your goodbyes.

It’s strange to think that I might only live here for another seven months - after that, I’ll (hopefully) go out of state for my student teaching, and after that, I’ll be on the job market and I could live anywhere. That’s a little bit terrifying (and there’s a good chance I might just come back here, because so many of my friends are here), but it’s also exciting. When I was graduating from college and had no idea where I was going to end up, I hated that uncertainty. Perhaps it’s because, at the next transition of my life, I’ll at least have the narrowed-down approach of looking for very specific jobs in my field, but I also feel like I’m more prepared for that kind of transition, to the point that it’s actually something that I’m looking forward to. Before I left college, I don’t think I had ever made a big transition in my life. Of course going to college itself was a change, but I was still fairly close to home, and still being supported by my parents. In this past year I feel I’ve really come into my own, and learned what it means and what it takes to make this kind of transition - meaning that I’ll only be more skilled and more prepared when it comes to the next one. Bring it on.

[itskathleen-doll]

I MIGHT GET TO DO MY STUDENT TEACHING AT THE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF IN MY STATE IM SO EXCITED!!!!!

[pdxlovessigning]

WOU visit went well

Applied for my summer class and sent in my general grad school application. Deaf Education applications happen later this spring...so keep your fingers crossed until then. A few more tests and a few more papers to fill out. The waiting begins.

[deafedtu-blog]

Learn About TU: Travel to Gallaudet

Welcome to our second installment in the Learn About TU for potential Deaf Education majors! Today we will be talking about a unique experience available for our senior level Deaf Education majors: Travel to Gallaudet!

By the time they are seniors, our Deaf Education students have done a lot to inform their understanding of Deaf Education and their ASL skills. They have taken ASL levels 1-4,…

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[deafedtu-blog]

Strategic Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI)

Last night (Monday, September 8, 2014), we at University of Tulsa were lucky enough to have Dr. Kim Wolbers, a professor in Deaf Education from University of Tennessee, join us for a talk on her program – the Strategic Interactive Writing Program (SIWI). Not only did our Deaf Education students join us for this unique opportunity, but local teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing from K-12…

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