Unconscious Mutterings-382

I stumbled across this blog
http://subliminal.lunanina.com/ and
decided to give it the old college try!

So what is Unconscious Mutterings? (Info
below copied and pasted from the website)
Free association is described as
a "psychonanalytic procedure in
which a person is encouraged to
give free rein to his or her thoughts
and feelings, verbalizing whatever
comes into the mind without
monitoring its content." Over time,
this technique is supposed to help
bring forth repressed thoughts and
feelings that the person can then
work through to gain a better sense of self.

That's an admirable goal, but for
the purposes of this excercise, we're
just hoping to have a little fun with
the technique. Each week I'll post
ten words to which you can respond
to with the first thing that comes to
mind.

"Rules are, there are no rules."
There are no right or wrong answers.
Don't limit yourself to one word
responses; just say everything that
pops into your head. AND you don't
have to have your words up on Sunday.
Take all week if you want!

Sunday, May 23, 2010-Week 382

I say ... and you think ... ?

Cream :: ice cream!
Be with you :: Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars)
Pancakes :: IHop (yummy!)
Believe :: you can!
45 :: records (before cassette tapes/CDs)
Eat :: now (I'm hungry!)
Background :: noise
Pane :: window/glass
Aim :: for the stars
Collapse :: like a house of cards!

Corn fritters!

Last night I finally got around to making
corn fritters, delish! All you need to do
is use is bisquick mix for pancakes, toss
in a bunch of corn (I used frozen) and
toss them into a frying pan with corn oil,
cook em till they're nice and brown and
viola, bon appetit! Thank you Baba & Mom!

Well I haven't blogged in a while for many
reasons. One was the fact I have been
buried in paperwork. With two schools
ending their spring semesters I had a ton
of final exams to grade and course grades
to compute. Plus I started a 1 semester
ASL course crammed into 3 weeks. Yep
I teach an ASL class 4 days a week for
over 3 hours a day! And while its going
just fine its still a lot of work on my end.
I normally have a semester to do grades
for videos assignments, tests, papers etc.,
etc. But I am finding that I can keep up
with the paper work. Just not the grading
the videos! I average 3-4 students an
hour. I have 24 students. This weekend
I must catch up!

Plus last week on my 1st day of class I came
down with such a nasty cold! Not fun, still
have it but its manageable.

In addition to all of this, my family and I came
dangerously close to losing Baba! It all
started with a bad dream I had a week
and a half ago when I woke up on Sunday
morning crying!

My dream was about Baba. I dreamt that she
had told me how tired she had been. That
Robbie (my uncle) would be driving her to
the doctors soon. The next thing I know I
find out she died! What? How? I was so
upset in my dream. I was back at the old
house trying to find answers! My
grandfather, Papa was alive and in their
bedroom folding Baba's things. He
wouldn't let me touch her things or
answer my questions! I got so mad that
I went into their bathroom and punched
through the wall. *in real life previously*
there had been a door that was later
covered by a wall. I saw my uncle David
furiously packing a station wagon
outside the garage. My Mom was in
the basement but I never saw her. And
I couldn't find Robbie to get any answers!
I woke up sobbing and immediately
called Baba to make sure she was ok!
And to insist she see a doctor right away
in case my dream was an omen. She
said she had just been to the doctors.
Then I said then "you're ok right?"

"Well..." she replied not exactly. It seemed
the doctor suspected a blockage in her
heart and she would have more tests
last week. Guess what? That very same
night her neighbor (also a nurse) came
over to visit Baba and immediately called
Robbie to take her to the hospital. It turned
out that it wasn't a blockage to the heart
but numerous clots in her lungs! She stayed
for 1 week so they could run ever tests known
to man to find out what's causing the clots.
They can't figure it out. Of course she's on
blood thinners etc etc.. She just came home
on Sunday recently. And is still extremely
weak! She will be see a blood specialists
soon.

Jack & I will head to see her tmw night once
I am done teaching and spend the whole
Memorial day weekend with her. It was so
scary to think we might have lost her. I can't
tell you how upset I was all last week. So
you can see why I haven't been blogging.

Despite how upsetting my dream was, I am
grateful I had it. Because what if I hadn't had
it and not called Baba. Perhaps she wouldn't
have gone to the hospital telling everyone she
would be ok till they ran the tests? I don't know
but I do know that if you ever have a dream
like mine about someone you care about.
Check in on them. Don't ever dismiss it.

Sniffles, coughs, coughs...

Fudge a duck
I got a cold! Damn damn damn. Why me? Why now?
Unhappily me

Online CC shows

You may be wondering which of the major network ranks champ for online CC shows and my findings show NBC had the most with CBS has the least available. Hulu still rules in the land of the world wide web. Here is a good online article from last year on the major networks in terms of CC.

I also recently discovered that Netflix has pah! finally added some online instant viewing with CC. Here's a brief bit on it but the sad part is there's no way to identify which of these are CC without going to each specific media title...time consuming. They need to add a CC filter as Hulu does.

Anyways while I am still disappointed with the limited options online, I am grateful to even have options!

Summer plans

This coming summer will be the 1st
summer in probably 15 years or more that I
have off. You see normally I work my pt media
tech job during the summer which I enjoy. But
after doing 2009 taxes, I am actually costing
myself money to work. Duh, that's stupid.
So, this summer will be the 1st time I can
pretty much do whatever I want. Yep, I
actually saved. Not like a squirrel right
before winter. No, more like I've saved (or
will have by mid-June when operation
Summer Break begins) to pay my rent
and biggest bills till the end of Sept.
This is extremely liberating. To have time
at my fingers and a little money to do it
too!

As of now here's my exciting summer
agenda.

1- volunteer for a good friend of mine at
Deaf-blind camp mid June
2- attend a Deaf timberfest late June
3- attend the ASL Terped Lady Gaga
concert in July
4- volunteer for a Deaf kids camp
in August

And I am also looking forward to seeing
my friend's new baby. She recently
got married too. I've known her mostly
pre, not post (marriage/kid) so I am
curious to be with her with all these
new and exciting changes.

Contemplating on seeing if my
Aunt Nancy and I could do a little
thrift shop tour over a 2-3 day car
trip somewhere within driving
distance of PA. I have this book
called "Roadside America" with a list
of all the cheesy/cult-y/campy museums
and tourist attraction id love to thumb
throw along our way. I figured some
time in July? What say you Nancy?

As you can see im pretty hyped about
having time to visit my family, friends
and do these amazing fun stuff too!
My soul sure is craving it!

A BIG Thank YOU

To my grandmother, otherwise known as
Baba. If it wasn't for her, I don't think my life
would've turned out as well as it did. She saved
me when I was 15 years old, miserable kid with
no self-esteem from years of bullying at my
old hearing school. At the end of 8th grade,
after being ganged up once again and
attacked by tormenters I was ready to drop
out of school. But Baba, like Wonderwoman
saved the day! She found out about a Deaf
School for me to apply to in Washington, D.C.
to complete my high school years.

Since then my life has been 1 blessing after
another once I truly joined the Deaf World.
I made tons of friends, got involved in
theater (I had been previously involved but
not to the extent I was in hs), also involved with
student newspaper and being a peer
advisor. At Gally I remained involved with
theater, the school paper and was even
a RA.

I worked at Deaf-based jobs such as MSD,
FSF etc etc back in MD. Then a
deaf friend of mine told me about
a program in NYC to get my masters
in teaching ASL as a foreign language.
Once again I moved and was welcomed by
some old deaf friends and made many new
ones. All of my teaching jobs have been
referred to me by other deAfies or CODAs
or signers.

All of the good times, all of my good luck,
wonderful friends etc etc, I owe to Baba!
I know deep down inside if it wasn't for
the Deaf World, I probably never would've
amounted to anything, or lived anywhere
else. I would've been as desolate as an
adult as I was a child. So Baba, I thank
you from depth of my soul for making all
of this possible. For helping me escape
a wretched existence. Not from my home
life but my life outside the home. I thank
my lucky stars the daily despair I woke up
to as a child, is all but a bad memory.

When I read about the Columbine
shootings back in the 90s, before it
became a norm. I immediately knew
the kid had gone through what I had,
years of mental, verbal and sometimes
physical abuse. No I never had the
urge to go shoot up a school, to be
honest I was too beaten down to be
that mad. But its the kids who like
me victimized for years at a time,
hating what they saw in the mirror,
thinking the worst of themselves
who later become adults with more
compassion than they know what to
do with. I feel my experiences made
me such an empathetic person today.
Its made me very sensitive of the moods
of the people I care about. I guess its
true what they say, adversity only makes
you stronger!