THIS WEEK IN REFLECTION
Thanks to everyone who reached out when 6:00AM local time rolled around and this post wasn’t there. I didn’t die, I’m not sick, I’m not unhappy — and I seriously appreciate that I have friends like you! What’s happening is I have my school schedule all laid out nicely, but it’s the “4th hour” of the classes that are making me disorganized in regards to blogging. I’m not sure how college credit works where you are, but in the U.S. 1 credit = 1 hour (okay, 50 minutes) in a classroom. Two of my classes are 4 credit hours, but we’re in the classroom for 3 hours. What that means is we’re doing work outside the classroom for the 4th credit hour, which must total up for a minimum of 40 hours. At first, it doesn’t make sense. You’d think 15 weeks of classes means the 4th credit hour would be 15 hours total. But classroom instruction is valued as one-on-one time with an instructor, and out in the world at large you’re typically alone, so you need more hours to get the same value.
What am I required to do? I’m on a team interpreting a Communication Research class that meets 3 hours per week. That’s predictable. I need to attend a Deaf religious service once, observe three different professional interpreters working then interview them, observe student interpreters at the College convocation and eventually interpret a part of a convocation on my own.
But I also need 15 hours minimum of time spent in the Deaf community. Which is how I wound up at a high school football game on Friday for almost three hours! In addition, I need 6 hours of professional development, and that’s why I spent 4 hours on Saturday in a Zoom workshop that was in entirely in ASL (no English interpretation) learning about what the presenter calls “fingerwording.” The spouse took a turn working in Chicago Friday and Saturday, staying overnight in the Windy City, so I waited for him to return after I finished the workshop. We got his rental car back to its home and were in bed by 10:30. Hence, no Sunday Lowdown at 6:00AM.
THIS WEEK’S BLOG POST
If you haven’t shared your high school identity/identities with me yet, head over to see my review of Who’s Who by Francine Pascal and leave me a comment. I think I was a different person each year of high school, constantly trying something different. In my school pictures my hair gets long and short and changes color, and my clothes were always fluxed.
NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POST
Although spooky season is rapidly approaching, I would not call Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen a horror novel, or even a spooky one. It’s more like historical fiction crafted presented as interviews, court testimony, letters, and the main character traveling through her village and to her children’s homes outside the village while people speculate about her. However, never you fear (or you can fear), come October it’s going to be all horror, all month! Maybe you can’t wait and want something spooky with witches? I just watched The City of the Dead, an excellent black-and-white film from 1959.
BOOKS ADDED TO THE TBR PILE
Owned Books on TBR at Beginning of Year: 202
Owned Books on TBR Last Week: 195
Owned Books on TBR Today: 195
Grab the Lapels 
Phew, those course requirements certainly involve some careful planning. I bet some students realise almost too late that they haven’t put in the required number of hours
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Hmmm, I do believe that happened last semester to a few folks. You also have to be willing to put aside other things to do these events. I was RSVP’s to a horror movie hangout on Friday, but I told them I needed to decline to go to the football game.
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That’s a shame you have to miss out on other social events
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Nah, it’s all part of being an adult!
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That’s really complex with the hours. No idea how it works here, we didn’t really have credits when I was at university, you just had to do x number of mandatory courses and y number of ones you chose.
I did wonder when I didn’t see you as early in my feed as normal but I assumed you’d pop up and someone would be looking out for you!
There’s a programme on TV this week about the comedian John Bishop coming to terms with his son’s D/deafness and learning BSL including doing a comedy gig in BSL – I’m looking forward to watching that.
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Oh! That BSL comedy special sounds amazing! SOmethng I’ve wondered many times: if two English-speaking people had a baby and they were told it would only ever speak French — that no matter how many English language lessons they put the baby in, it would never learn English — wouldn’t most parents start learning French? (I wrote the word “French” so many times I’m now picturing the baby with a little curlicue mustache drawn on it with marker).
In the U.S> we must also take x number of classes and y number of electives, but you must also end up with a certain number of credit hours total. I believe my bachelor’s degree was 125. A lot of science classes are 4 credit hours here — 3 in the classroom and 1 that focuses only on lab work, but it’s still in the classroom.
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Wow! You are a busy woman! Love the squash. That green tentacley one is awesome! Also, the cover to the ASL Fingerwording book is the same colors and a very similar pattern to my cycling team’s kit. It kind of weirded me out for a second, why does Melanie have a Revolution Velo book??? 😀
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When I looked up the cover of the book, I found a few others with the same background. It might be a free template, or something.
Yes, the pumpkin place has all kinds of cool squash breeds that I had never seen before with names like Cinderella and Fairy Tale. I like the frosty colored mini pumpkin especially.
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Oh interesting about the book covers. You know, if they are using Canva to design them, it is definitely a free template because my team uses it quite often to make even posters 😀
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I’m impressed with all the out and about stuff you’re doing for your classes. And those pumpkins are super cool!
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I’d never seen pumpkins like that before. Apparently, the owner of the pumpkin “patch” gets them shipped in from Canada because growing all of them may not be feasible.
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Kitty’s room looks DOPE.
(Yeah, I dated myself there.)
Nick looks super pumped to be home! Does he enjoy his weekends working in Chicago? Or is it more a chore?
Your week sounds hectic, friend! I hope next week you get some more YOU time.
Rob and I recently had to make a day that after work we watch shows together. Both to spend time together and to catch up on all the shows we love that we’re seriously behind on. But just knowing that I have that one day where I don’t have to think about class after work, is great.
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Kitty’s room is pretty great, which is why we don’t feel bad that she has her own room. I was nervous about it at first.
The Chicago weekend is hard because it also includes the drive there and back, staying over night, and working with various types of clients (faculty, students, staff, etc.). I don’t think he hates it at all, but there was a small stretch when other people who were supposed to have their turn said they couldn’t go for various reasons, so Nick stepped up. I was lonely!
Jeopardy is our sacred come-together time, and we always sit right next to each other.
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That has to be really annoying when other people dip out and Nick is kind enough to step up. =/
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As you know I am in Bill country … which is 2 hours later than my country and I am completely discombobulated regarding all things blogging, not just in terms of time but in terms of reading and writing posts. I’ve written nothing for a week. I’ve also read few blogs this week. So I enjoyed this post and completely understand your own pressures.
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It definitely sounds like you had a lovely time during your travels, but I know from travelling through NYC time over to California, which is 3 hours different, can be disorienting. There is a place my folks visit out west during their yearly vacation that is in a specific time zone, but the county they to go doesn’t follow daylight saving’s time, and thus are in their own time zone. It starts to feel like The Twilight Zone.
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Oh that’s a bit weird! It can be disorienting … fortunately you can get over two hours difference pretty quickly.
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Those are some busy course requirements! Are you able to find the places/situations you need? I’m intrigued that visiting a religious service is one. I’ve been to church services where someone translates with sign language but I’ve never been aware of one held entirely that way. That would be a really interesting experience, I think.
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I’ve been to Deaf church in the past, and the part that surprised me was that they still play music. Folks sign along with a song that is played out loud (not everyone is completely, totally Deaf) and it has the words on the screen, too.
So far, I am meeting my requirements, though they all tend to want to be on the same weekend! It just makes for a long weekend, though.
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I’ve heard also that for some Deaf people they can still feel and enjoy the bass in some music so I can see still playing music. But I was imagining Deaf church as a very quiet place before you said that!
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Hands moving make a lot of noise, some people make mouth noises, etc. I once saw a poll on Twitter that asked, “Are Deaf people quiet?” And the choices were 1) No and 2) HAHAHAH no. Just this morning we were discussing in my ASL 5 class the difference between large groups of hearing vs. Deaf people and what that sounds and looks like.
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Oh, that would be an interesting conversation! Of course it would be pretty impossible to have any gathering of people in complete silence!
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Your 6.00 am is my 6.00 pm so its really easy to keep track of whether you have or haven’t posted. I went to bed early – I’m still battling with a cold three days later – and could see you dealing with stuff as you built up to pushing this post out. You’re very conscientious, I might have let comments stay unanswered a bit longer.
I read a witch book/historical fic./romance a couple of weeks ago – Philipa Gregory’s Tidelands. It was ok.
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Did you test yourself for COVID? Three days seems long for a cold, though it’s been a hot minute since I’ve had one.
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We do have an hours breakdown for our modules here (though not as direct as one hour = one credit) but most of the students ignore it because there’s no way of monitoring their independent study other than that it improves the quality of their final assessment if they do it. I’m quite lucky in my module because they have a debate halfway through where they have to work in teams using their independent work, so if they aren’t bothering their colleagues will swiftly peer pressure them into doing it! (I feel bad about this, because I was always the conscientious student nagging everyone else, but it works so I’m not changing it).
Since you asked me about it just a few days ago – I found my old kindle! I was having a big reorganisation and moved my bed to hoover underneath it (it’s a divan and difficult to move), and found it there. It had somehow worked its way entirely underneath the bed so that I would not have been able to reach it without moving the bed to a completely different part of the room. Not sure what to do with it now that I have two, but at least it’s nice to finally know where it went!
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The ghost of Kindle past! I feel weirdly better knowing where it is, lol. You’re right about the conscientious person pestering everyone else. That’s a bit of a drag because the nagging person starts to feel over-prepared, or like they’re bothering people, and then become concerned that they’re going to do poorly without a commitment from the others. Can you tell I’m talking about myself?
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Gosh you sound busy. And that donkey who wants his booty patted? I can relate!!! My october is going to be filled with spooky reading too – can’t wait!
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You want your booty patted?
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yes! Luckily my husband takes care of that haha
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