Pa-pah!

Oh my goodness, could this really be the end?

I am really rather numb and not sure what to say. I am excited, I am scared, I am thinking "what next?!". It has been one heck of a ride which no one could have predicted or explained. I try and tell friends and family what this is like, you can't.

I will miss our class and even going to school. I am rather jealous knowing that Karla and Katie are going on to finish their Board of Regents, that Elisha wants to get a four-year ITP and Danielle has so many great plans of her own. Wow - what a class of strong women. Impressive!

It has been a blast and I look forward to more learning. It is sad to think the class is dispersing to the four corners, but that is okay -- we had a great run!

Fear of the Unknown Is Monumental. Sign THAT.

Monday morning begins indoctrination by fire. Not candle flame, bonfire.

For reasons I can't explain here, Kim plans on me interpreting several of the classes Monday morning. Last week April told me I'd take the hot seat on day two, now it seems to be day one, second period. Of course I am terrified. She has given me some of the lesson plans for the day which is helpful and yet I still do not believe my skills are up to doing as much as she expects of me. Well, we will both learn in twenty-four hours what I can and cannot do.

It isn't only the interpreting I am panicked about, it is the situation. I am walking into a bee's nest, and me, with no safety gear.

In the past I have joked that "I am very good at saying 'no'." I fear I will be getting better, firmer about this.

The stress which builds up before such a day is amazing. At first I thought my fatigue and lethargy were due to a sugar bomb. Now, I don't think so. It is terror. Pure, abject, terrifying, terror. Paralyzing anxiety. It is the fear of the unknown. One can combat what one understands, what one sees coming. One never sees the sucker punch, the craziness that another can spew from their mouths which they think needs answered, answered in their same twisted, illogical manner.

Do you sense my apprehension?

I will do my my best. The evaluation Kim does on me may not be flattering. Heck, it may not even be accurate from my perception. It may be dead-on. I am not there for her evaluation, I am there for the experience. The learning.

Now, if I could just put this numbness on a shelf and walk away I'd be happy.

Sure, sure, I know it will turn out "all okay". And in the end much will be learned and oh yah, experience will be gained! Today, the day before, I'd like to not think about it. I'd like to be able to gaze into my crystal ball and see the end of the week, what I'm saying about the previous five days, knowing that I did my best and I can breathe.

This coat of fear needs to be hung up. Needs to be buried. This is not me, nor shall I let it rule me. But today, I will be realistic, and I will shift and squirm around inside of it, and I will use it to make me stronger.

Nearing

It was a great holiday weekend with my family. We talked about my sister's wedding in Boston on Memorial Day weekend, my brother's wedding in Columbus and that my Mom turns seventy the next week. We cooed over my youngest brother's seven-week daughter who sleeps, eats and farts. I worked with my Dad in his yard and planted some things, most of which won't make it but we did it for him and his cousin. We talked of my "what's next" plans and options and I didn't get any further in decisions but it is nice to have support and other wheels turning for me.

I didn't miss studying but did miss signing. When with people who don't know how I often find myself flummoxed that I can't convey a request or idea silently and easily. This amuses me, especially that I have so much to learn and still feel like the toddler with unsure footing bumping into furniture. Regardless, if it is a language not known, communication still ceases.

I had a great lunch at a Thai restaurant Monday and my to-do list grew by leaps and bounds. There is still so much to accomplish! That is one thing I like about the language and about interpreting, it is constant growth and learning. It isn't "turn the widget one-quarter turn and move to the next one". It is alive, dynamic and exciting.

Now if I could just find where I misplaced my gnome to help me with my homework I'll be set!

Ouch - make it stop!

But not literally, just slow down our remaining weeks, okay?

Last week we voiced for Robyn. Correction, last week I attempted to voice for Robyn. My goodness, I have so much to learn.

And then today I signed the history piece. Oh....my.....gosh. I told April that I more fully understood why she prefers to go into a job 'cold' instead of having too much information. Up until today I liked everything we did with this piece. Turn-taking signing, explanation about what we did right and wrong, more examples on using space and processing time. Today, because I have it in my head so many times, all that went down the path of "water and sewer". During the piece I worried that I was getting ahead of myself. Immediately afterward I recognized the obvious mistakes, hours later I realized even more mistakes. And what was painful about those is that I thought I did well with them last week and completely missed them today.

Ow! I am grateful for these continuous lessons. Do they have to be so painful?!

What is next?

Well, I have been all over the board and then back again.

Key to my success is to improve as well as maintain my signing skills. One can't interpret what one can't understand/see and the same is for putting it into sign. This is so key for me. I know that Karla and Katie are staying on for their BoR and that Elisha is looking to find a four-year Interpreting program to get her bachelor's degree so she can complete the requirements for the NIC. Sometimes I am a little slow and I am still undecided where I want to put my energies as far as schooling. It is understood that I wouldn't be able to pass the NIC by next June, I just don't have the skills and am unsure where my experience will come from in one year. April, if I am wrong please let me know!! (But I really don't think I am.) I am only moderately concerned about the written exam, although I have plenty of books to read and they are on my shelf waiting for me, for the end of this program!

So, I can pass the written NIC and I need schooling of some sort and I really need sign and interpreting experience. The big thing for me is: where and how.

Even though I've never been a 'planner', I enjoy the wisdom of Karla's Five P's: Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. So now I am reaching out and looking around. What's next? I love the language and will be an awesome interpreter, with more tools under my belt. Can, that!

THE Day.

Today is the day the fear set in and clamped itself firmly in my breast. Today is the day I again heard the question: "what are you going to do afterward?" And I replied, as usual, that I did not know but knew something would present itself and things would move forward. Today, however, I did not have the usual conviction in that answer. Today is the day I wondered what the hell is going to happen after that first week of May is complete and we cut the cord.

I still firmly believe I can do this and am doing this. I know I need experience, both in signing and in interpreting. Finding the opportunities is the beginning of my quest, but I fear I have lost my compass.

Just a temporary set-back. Just a reminder to step back, breathe and press forward.

Right?

Tick, tock goes the clock.

Okay, I admit it - I must be a geek of some fashion. (Rhetorical 'why' placed here.) I enjoyed the History Lesson exercise we have been doing in the EIP class. To me this is "real world" and a great example of what we may come across in the field. I also admit to struggling with "hearing" the entire message as I try and create a full and complete product. The words that I've missed as I've been signing are scary. I know that with ASL flow comes better listening skills; I don't want to the "that one" that misses things.

On the flip side, I mostly enjoyed the voicing we did in Thursday's class. Again, it comes down to fluency. I think we did well enough with the style of voice needed for a children's story. Again - the things I missed are so key. Obviously.*

The Ethics class continues to be enlightening with various situations we may be hit with in the field. Learning vicariously this way is a bonus. There are so many subtle, yet important, aspects to keep in mind every day.

*"Obviously" was my fun word of the night when I went to Pittsburgh Association of the Deaf (PAD) Friday night. When some of my friends would introduce me to other people there they would add the "hearing" piece of information about me. I would laugh, repeating "hearing" and add "obviously!". One of my friends invited me to the Deaf Holiday Part in November and when I mentioned letting my classmates know he said, "oh no, this is Deaf only". When I queried him on inviting me he said I was okay and that I'd be his "guest", he was my "in" so to speak. That made me feel good.

And so I continue to move forward, with an open mind and open eyes, trying to soak up what I can in the short time we have together. My roommate's daughter asked me my plans for after school as they need to know if I am moving on. I told them that I was sorry that I really did not know yet. We joked that if I could have a Deaf person move in with us I'd be set! I could stay here and continue my lessons, all in one neat package!!

Oh, to dream!

Some, but not much.

This is what I know. Right now, tonight, I am physically and mentally exhausted from two long days working at Applebee's. This is my day for blogging and yet I can't think much about interpreting or ASL.
Here is what I know:
- I want to be immersed in Deaf culture and spend quality time with native signers. Not only is it beneficial to my skill levels, but I am interested.
- Not that I am prepared, but I getting excited about practicums.
- I have no desire to be in church, but I found myself intrigued by April's challenge of "if you can interpret church stuff then you can interpret anything". (And then I worry that it will interfere with my already tenuous work schedule.)
- I can easily get myself excited about taking the written NIC this summer. That seems the obviously easy part.
- I am confused and frustrated and scared about the real-world part. The experience which will lead me to the NIC Interview/Performance. How to get that experience, where to go, can I really do it before next summer when the laws change, am I going to have to leave Bud, will I have to return to school for a bachelor's degree whether it be a Board of Regents or another school providing the four-year program.
- Finding balance between life and studying and learning and living. All of which are vastly different.

Break, Over and Out!

Didn't we have an interesting time!? I am so grateful for the way I approach things, even if I over-think words and freeze on meaning - those can be learned and tweaked. It is my positive outlook which will get me through this. Goodness, what it must be like to walk through life with a chip or a blackened veil clouding one's vision.

During TERPExpo I got up on stage once in front of Wink's session and signed my part. I made it fun. Once I sat down I assessed what I did and realized that because of nerves I rushed it somewhat but I did it and did it fairly well. Next?

I didn't get to use my time to go over my notes from the NIC workshops and still need to do that. So far I have ordered one book of the several she suggested. Thank goodness some of the books are our class books and another I already had because it looked interesting. Now I need to go through both workshops and pull out what I learned and add to my vocabulary notebook.

That five women shared a suite as easily as we did is a blessing and a testament to our personalities - both strong and pliable.

Well, Spring Break is over, but we are definitely not out. Thank goodness.

Break?

Here we are, Spring Break. The half-way mark of the semester. I don't think that fact has yet settled with me. These first eight weeks have been pretty fast and so much has been learned. To be honest, I am looking forward to more learning during these next eight weeks. One complains about the things we haven't learned and how can we be accountable for those things, I see every day as a learning opportunity and try to keep my ego in check and my mind open. My strength is concepts. When discussing things during the signing portion in class and April posed a question about what a phrase indicates I understood from the lead-in that a list could be begun in signing even though we don't know how many items will be listed - the wonder of lists!! :-) Concepts in discussion is a great asset, it is remembering these very same things while listening to a message. I'd like to think I am hearing and learning the messages. Some things with me are just a little delayed.

I will keep practicing at home, I promise. I enjoy listening to conversations and mentally paraphrasing portions of them. It is the task of listening and paraphrasing the ENTIRE message which is such a challenge.

When Ruby joined our class on Monday and Wednesday I was so happy to see how she benefited our lesson. Even though I did so many awkward things in my production, she only picked out a few things for me to correct and encouraged me to be more confident. I know that every class can't be that but I am willing to take what we can get.

Seeing Robyn is excellent for me. I haven't talked to her about it, but I would like to continue tutoring even after school is over. And why not? Interpreting is a life-long learning process.

This weekend's workshop was so informative. During my next two days off I need to sit down with my notes and organize them lest I lose some of the information. It was overwhelming and encouraging. I believe it should be a requirement for each ITP class.

Recently I was asked if I was excited about interpreting. I hesitated before answering. I said that I am excited about it, even though right now I am still scared about the learning and absorbing of the information.

All in due time.

Almost break

I’m really not sure what to say this week. I am glad that Spring Break is up and coming because with our three days in Pittsburgh and then four days in Columbus I feel beat just thinking about it. I don’t mind the short spring break, just the frenzy surrounding it.

Robyn is a great help and I enjoy our tutoring sessions already. I have been watching many different signers on-line and sometimes the variations in signing has been helpful and sometimes more confusing. I am assuming regional differences in what I see. Without that direct interaction with a person and the ability to ask for clarification I make the most of it and keep on going.

The voicing and signing in the classes has been interesting. The immediate feedback as well as watching others’ interpretations of how to say or sign a segment is enlightening.

Is it repetitive but not redundant to say that there is still so much to learn, or just both? Some days I feel numb with being overwhelmed and other days I feel “normal” again. These up-and-downs are hard for me because I am an even-keeled type of person. Who knew that the interpreting program is quite like boot camp? At least here I don’t think my self-esteem is intentionally questioned, it just happens because I care so much about the product and the process and everything in between. Interpreting is not for the faint of heart.

As we saw in the movie “See What I’m Saying”. While Robert was talking about his situation with his mother we all felt his pain at her ignorance of his need for her to sign. After the movie I thought about being the interpreter he hired for the hospital visit. How would it feel to be that person, to witness someone’s suffering and inability to be heard and understood and to just walk away from it? Self-care will be so vital in this profession.

There are so many aspects to interpreting, that we are core to other’s interactions can’t be forgotten.

Oy.

I am not a moody person. There aren't the highs and lows of other people; I am even-keeled, on the happy side of neutral. I believe that it will always get better but realize that it can always be worse. Always. However, lately I've not been feeling that sense of stability and right now that is not one more stressor that I need in my nights and days. To go from a rough day being frustrated with myself and then feeling calmer the next day is what I am used to. But for the third day to feel as badly as the first day and to realize that these undulations of mood, like on a choppy ocean, are becoming a regular experience adds nothing to my sense of confidence.

I am so thrilled that I have my car! I like it very much and it seems to suit me. What it gives me now is the opportunity to grab more chances to better myself. I can work more easily having my own ride. I can get tutoring (and am) and I will make signing events happen. I have my Deaf friends and venue and now have a better chance at getting together with them. Yea!

These past two weeks have been good experiences as far as applying our skills and getting feedback. I like how we can see how others hear the message and work the meat of it. I know where my weaknesses lie - everywhere and everyday I learn new aspects of the language and of the skill of interpreting. I panic when I hear the message and am not fluent enough, and not patient enough to breathe and relax into the moment to hear, really hear, the message. Because as I feel I am hearing it, my allowable lag time seems to disappear and then panic begets panic and there I am. Heck, even now as I type this I realized I am not breathing.

In my math class one girl asked what my major was and when I told her my goal her face lit up and said, "oh - how fun!". Ha. That's what I used to think. My mom tells me that on the other side of this I will look back and laugh, I disagree. I simply hope to look back and breath a sigh of relief, pick up the pieces and move on.

That is what I do, move on, move forward. There is no going back, there is the next hill to climb, stand there and survey what I see and what I've learned, make it a part of me, then begin the journey to the next hill.

I love what we are doing and I know, more and more every day I know how real this is getting. April said she will give us the tools to be interpreters and she is. Applying them is up to me. I am trying. Thank you for your patience and experience. Thank you.

Blue . . .

I am so proud of my classmates - they continue to improve and show great progress. It isn't that I am not improving, it is that my skills are so far behind that there is no "catching up" because while I improve, they also improve. And I am not here to compare myself to any of them. I love watching Danielle sign with her enthusiasm but I don't kid myself that I should be there - she has eleven year's experience on me.

Katie went from having next to no sleep last week and missing what Ruby was signing in the Expansions segment and came right back on understood April's message about getting her tax money and going to WalMart for the bigger TV. I was in awe.

I am in awe.

Disappointing Ruby and April is hard to take. Disappointing myself is hard as well. I've never doubted myself in this program. Never. However, this week with a fatigue I am having difficulty combating I heard myself mutter "what am I doing here?". That wasn't a proud moment.

I will continue to practice and study and sweat.

This week's lessons were interesting. I really enjoyed the hand's on approach with our skits and immediate feedback. Every class seems to blur together from voicing to signing to both. And that is quite all right -- we will be doing it all.

Watching April voice frustration to sweetness to anger is incredible. I think I misrepresented myself when I said that I don't feel those things, I think it is more that I don't retain that feeling. It is my hope that when she says we will be saying the clients' words that the affect will come more and more naturally.

Trusting what I see and what I say is essential. I still feel as though I approach each assignment without abject terror because I know that that is not productive and gets in the way. I am not sure I am successful in this; I feel I am. However, I am not the best one to judge that.

This has been a good week overall. And yet, at the end of the week, and sometimes the day, I feel utter fear and the beginnings of the paralyzing effect of that.

Fight or flight? My body feels flight, my mind says fight.

Pink...

I always liked Pink Floyd's title "Comfortably Numb". Don't get me wrong, I don't fit the first part of that, only the second half! At the end of the week I was pleased with some receptive progress made but much of me still feels numb, more like 'paralyzed' actually. And as everyone in class has stress, I have my outside stressors which I don't talk about. Honestly, I think my life is easier than some since I don't have their responsibilities, but there is always some stress. I remember one woman from last summer's workshop saying she quit working during her ITP year. It sounded like a good idea and now I understand the reality of it. What we have to learn in the next eight weeks before we go in the field is daunting. The abuse we give ourselves and the reprimands we deserve from April and Ruby are valid. It takes so much to do this, to learn this, that there is little left at the end of the day or week.

I have never thought of quitting and I have never said that I can't do this. Hm, I may have stated that in previous posts, but it bears repeating. Everyday we get a little better. Everyday I learn another facet of signing and interpreting.

Progress, everyday. Look back for experience, but look up for the goal.

Can.

I was physically knocked down by being sick on Sunday and so much so that Monday I couldn't stand up without feeling queasy and dizzy. Felt badly that the girls got a virtual beating by Ruby and April without me. After all, I am part of the group whose receptive skills lack severely. I was able to slowly climb the hill on Tuesday and the lessons resumed. These lessons I refer to, are also figurative, not just those presented in class.

I know that "they" say that a person should be able to work from their B language into their A language easier than the other way around. And if so, a hearing person should find it easier to go from sign to voice, I strongly disagree. One cannot voice a message one does not understand. And my receptive is still so weak that my understanding isn't part of this equation. Yet. So I see vocabulary and yet can't piece it together to be the message, the "meat" of it. I was so grateful to Danielle for saying she could hear me trying to start to voice (Ruby's graduation class piece) but that I would just get overwhelmed.

Not once have I thought that I can't do this. Because I know I can. People are doing this every day and they didn't walk through some magic portal for their ability.

I will do this.

Frozen.

Well, it was another short week and yet I am still frazzled. As someone put it: nothing personal, but you look like sh!t. Guess I look as I feel.

I am in a panic about gaining enough experience and, even before that, the ability to improve my skills. My signing is awkward, my receptive weak, my nerves drying up. We all have our strengths and areas we need to improve. I need to stop comparing myself and begin by taking a solid inventory of my skills.

I am not turning back, I am not running away, just running (in place) and scared.

Am.

And so it begins. I have studied, I have talked with Deaf people. Before I fall asleep at night my mind insists on trying to have signed conversations with these people instead of drifting peacefully off to sleep. Self-sabotage!?! Eagerness?!? A little of both.
I understand this semester is more performance based and it makes absolute sense. I was told that previous students had difficulty with this semester. This, too, makes sense. I am excited, I am sickened, I am scared, I am moving forward. I am moving upward, but that progress is slow. And yet I do keep going. I will not turn back; there is nothing to return to. Every interpreter began at the bottom. Every interpreter continues to improve their skill and learn new aspects of the profession.
My English skills are excellent. My signing skills moderate. I know I am able to do this.
I am doing this.