Today I feel like I’m back in college and cramming for a big exam!  I’ve been trying to review my ASL over the last few weeks and have done some, but tonight is my meeting with my former instructor, Debbie, and I want to review as much as I can.  I have spent most of the day cramming as much review into my brain as possible!   It’s actually going pretty well.  I’m not saying I have it all down pat, but I am remembering what we’ve learned and it’s staying with me fairly well.  I’m really looking forward to getting together with her tonight and having the chance to actually converse.  There are so many aspects of conversation that I need to learn and work on.  It will come.  I’m really enjoying learning a new language and I’ve never had a more practical reason to do so than now!  I suspect I will pick it up fairly rapidly.  I hope so, anyways.  Hopefully as I learn I can pass the info along to the rest of my family and close friends and it will soon become a simple and effective way we can communicate at least part of the time. 

Last night we had a ladies class at our house and it was my turn to do the lesson.  I taught my first class as a deaf person and it actually went pretty well.  I couldn’t hear any comments or input from others, but I was expecting that, so it was fine.  I can still speak pretty normally (I joke that it’s now ideal – I can talk all day but can’t hear what anyone else says!) and I always ask people in the audience to help me by giving me honest feedback about the volume of my voice, etc.  If I know I’m being too loud or soft, then I can learn how to adjust to the proper volume.  It really helps me to get that feedback.  I’m so glad I have people I can trust to help me out with that.  I wish I could have communicated better during the fellowship part of things.  I was able to participate to some extent and it was great.  Maybe I will find more solutions to those types of situations.  Overall, it went well and I was so encouraged by spending time with some of my christian sisters.  Several had small babies with them and I got to hold all but one!  That was really fun, too.  I’ve realized that my home is the perfect one for kids to bring their noisiest toys to now because it doesn’t bother me at all! 🙂

I got a notice that my new tablet is on its’ way!  Should arrive on Monday.  I’m really excited about that.  It means we can get the voice to text software up and running for church and if it all goes according to plan, it should also work in any situation where there is a wifi connection.  That means that even at flock groups or ladies events in a home, in theory, if the home has wifi I should be able to get captions on some of the speaking.  Not sure how well it will work in environments where several are speaking at once, but if people are speaking one at a time, like in a class situation, it seems like it should work.  Can’t wait to try it out!