Breathe... maybe

After feverishly checking my grades online all weekend, my persistence was rewarded a few minutes ago! The grade for processing test 3 is up and it's the highest grade out of the three processing tests so far. I also did well on my abstraction and content map, not so great on my one sentence summary... again. Those bits and pieces of written work, however, really don't carry the same weight that the processing test does. I might be holding out hope for an A in this class after all. Maybe, that is; we'll have to see how processing test 4 goes tomorrow.

I also managed to get the visualization map done over Friday and Saturday. It wasn't quite as hard as I thought it was going to be, maybe I'm getting used this type of assignment? I'm still quite glad I don't have to do another one, however!

Here's what this final full week of school looks like.

Monday: Processing test 4 and SL retell due in 1220.

Tuesday: Video due in 2010, paper due in 1200.

Wednesday: Paper, visualization map and TL salient linguistic features due in 1220. Second to last interpreting lab.

Thursday: Paper and test in 1200.

Friday: Last 1300 class (just a party, nothing stressful) and the State Exam (majorly stressful).

I'm done with language lab for the semester so that's not among the classes I'll be skipping on Friday to take the test. I'm not really *skipping* 1220, however, as class is essentially canceled for us to take the test.

By the end of this week the month of November will also be done. Seriously?

State test countdown: 5 days.

Second SL retell

Remember my post a while ago about my TL retell and how frustrating it was? Well, as we're doing our second discourse analysis, I get to do another TL retell... but first I have to do a SL retell. Because the last clip went from ASL to English, the TL retell for that one was in English. This clip goes from English to ASL so the SL retell is in English.

Anyway, I sat down to do my English retell and this time instead of trying to script and nearly memorize the whole thing before, I simply used my content map and impromptued it. Guess what? I practiced twice and recorded once! That's all it took! I'm pleased with how I did and just hope I managed to include everything. So now I am moving on to the next two steps, the TL salient linguistic features and the visualization map.

Let me say... I *hate* the visualization map. I have to essentially write the clip in pictures. No words allowed. It's like a storyboard for the lecture we watched. I am sooo not an art person, nor do I think artistically. The last one I did on the computer, which was a pain in the neck, and I will probably wind up doing this one on the computer as well simply because I can't draw. So, I'm putting this assignment off and instead working the TL salient linguistic features first even though they're both due the same day. I'll start working on it after I finish this post and my IM conversation, that is. ;)

State test countdown: 1 week from this morning! :freaks out:

Unit 19

Video one of the long weekend = done! It's far from what I would like, but I'm beyond caring right now.

Unit 19 dealt with whole-to-part, listing, comparison, and illustrating a fact. I was supposed to include two examples from each category in my video as I sold or promoted a new product. Well, I choose to "sell" air freshener and I think I managed to include everything. It's harder when I have to use a comparison as part of an overall presentation and not just isolated.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoXYPKwzVxA

Up next on my to-do list: The SL retell.

Hurry Up and Wait

Well, today is my first snow day! Being homeschooled until my senior year of high school meant that snow days were non-existent. But here I am, in my second year of college, at home on a school day. I'm not really that thrilled though, we have so much we need to cover in our classes between now and the end of the semester that I would rather be at school. Oh well.

I feel like we have so much to do, and so little time in which to do it, but we can't really get going. Today is a snow day, then the rest of the weekend we're off for Thanksgiving. We have next weekend, then a Friday off on the 10th. It adds up to this: 11 days of school (days I go in to take finals included) in the next three weeks. And really I'm only going to school ten of those days because I'm skipping school to take the state test. Seriously? I'd rather have ten days of school in the next two weeks and just finish everything. Again, oh well. I'm not the one who sets the schedule.

Yesterday we took a test in 1200 leading up to the state test in a week and a half. I was nowhere near as prepared for it as I thought I was! I'm not really looking forward to getting the grades back. I also turned in three papers. Yay for handing in 10% of my grade in one day?

I have a minimum of five more videos to record in the next three weeks, possibly more. My goal is to get three of them done between now and Monday. One today, one Friday and one Sunday sounds doable. I also have my last (!!) processing test on Monday and my last test in 1200 a week from tomorrow.

We are in the middle of our second discourse analysis in 1220. We've done the prediction, watched the clip, done the review, content map, one sentence summary, abstraction and most of the source language salient linguistic features. Up next is the source language retell, the target language salient linguistic features, visualization map, the target language retell and then the interpretation!

BTW, source language means the language that the message is originally given in and target language is the language into which the message is interpreted. For this analysis SL is English and TL is ASL.

This semester feels like it's gone by so quickly. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was introducing myself to my classes?

State test countdown: 9 days. (Ohmyword!)

The final push

I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff, teetering, about to be pushed off. Or rather, I've just been pushed off and I'm free falling, not exactly sure what I'm going to encounter at the bottom. The bottom is the end of the semester. December 16th marks the last possible day I have a final, so that's what I'm counting towards. I do know that the air on the way down is filled with homework. Lots and lots of homework.

We just started our second discourse analysis in CD&A. We received our topic yesterday, our prediction papers are due Monday when we will also view the clip (in English this time). We'll do our recall in class on Monday as well, then Wednesday our content maps and one sentence summary are due. The rest of the semester continues at the same pace. And that's only one class! The date I'm looking forward to passing is Tues the 23rd when we have two thought question sets, one portfolio paper and a test due. All in the same class. Thankfully the work for conversations class is over, as minimal as that was. However, I'm going to guess that homework in our language class will ramp up as we're probably only halfway through the material we need to cover this semester.

This is when I'm thankful I don't work outside the house!

Last night the ASL club at my school held a potluck and I went. There weren't many people in attendance, but it was fun to hang out nonetheless. I met a Deaf Olympian there and had an interesting time trying to figure out when he was teasing and when he was not. The dynamics were interesting as we had many different skill levels of signing represented!

Time to hit the homework. My priorities today are my 5 year development plan (which I'm rather clueless on how to write) and the script for my next Deaf activity video (insert stress).

State test countdown: 20 days

Deaf activities

For each of my language classes (ASLI 1010, 1020, 2010 and 2020) I am required to go to three Deaf activities. Basically pick an event where Deaf people will be congregating and go hang out for an hour or so. The idea is that in mingling with Deaf people my language and cultural skills will improve. I am blessed to live near the Sanderson Community Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Deaf Center for short) and thus have an abundance of Deaf activities mere minutes from my house.

During ASLI 1010 last year I tended to go with a group of hearing friends, walk around with them, then leave without truly interacting with any Deaf people. ASLI 1020 last spring was much of the same story, though I tried to get out of my box a bit more. This semester, however, I decided that I needed to force myself out of my comfort zone and truly associate with Deaf people. I can't say that my plan is working 100%, but I'm sure doing better than I was this time last year!

One thing I am doing to help myself is to go to more than just the required three activities. I have gone to probably 5 or 6 already this semester with more coming up. An additional twist as I have advanced from the beginning classes (1010 and 1020) to the intermediate classes (2010 and 2020) is that instead of writing a short paper to tell about my experiences at various Deaf activities, I need to relay the same information via sign language on a video.

As I might have mentioned before, videoing myself is the single most stressful type of assignment which I can be given. Read a book, write a paper, analyze a sentence, explain Deaf culture, take any form of written test, these are things I can do. But as soon as I have to set up a video camera on myself, I start freaking out. Interestingly enough, I don't stress very much if I'm being videoed in class or lab. Even though with those clips I have one shot, and that's it, whereas with videos I do at home I often have days of preperation time, and a nearly unlimited number of re-takes available. I think it's the very ability to stress for days and then to scrap a video for the smallest mistake that eggs on my perfectionist side.

Anyway, after a week of practicing and stressing, I finally videoed my first Deaf activity commentary this afternoon. It's not perfect, but I'm not re-doing it because: 1) It's really long and so it takes forever to re-do. 2) I am a student of this language, not a master, I should be expected to make mistakes! 3) This one clip isn't that huge of a portion of my grade and 4) My perfectionist side needs to be taught a lesson.

The video is posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Zc7F_zRnY

I'm not that thrilled with the lighting, but there's nothing I could do to fix it. (And I tried. The story involves taping flannel over my light, setting up my backdrop somewhere else, and stubbing my ankle. All in vain.)

State test countdown: 24 days.

CPT 3

Our third cognitive processing test was this morning and I am so glad to have it over! CPT 3 was short and sweet, we actually got out of class about 10 minutes early this time as opposed to the last CPT which wound up taking almost two class periods. I *think* I did better on this one than the last one... but again, I have to wait for grades to come back.

CPT 3 focused on paraphrasing skills. For the first part of the test, we received a list of 5 words then had 60 seconds to write a more general and more specific word for each of the original words. There were two columns on the paper, one for the more specific word and one for the more general word, but I kept getting them mixed up! I finished two words, then looked down and realized my specific word was under the "general" heading and vise versa. I think I mixed up 7 out of the 10 words. Talk about increased stress level! The rest of the test had us mostly working with full sentences.

Only one more processing test left to go for the semester. I'm very thankful we don't have more than that! These tests are hard.

I'm on pins and needles right now with regard to my grade in the C&DA class. Our teacher hasn't graded stuff for that class for a while and right now the various papers and tests we have turned in, but which haven't been graded yet, constitute about 15% of our grade, unweighted. I'm checking engrade multiple times a day at this point. Yay for being a perfectionist/OCD about my grades? :P

Counting

I'm the type of person who tends to always have countdowns going. Be it until holidays, birthdays, or any other big event, I'm the one who knows exactly how much time is left.

Here are the current countdowns for school:

State written certification exam - 1 day less than one month from today. I just got an e-mail saying they received my paperwork.

End of the semester - 6 weeks from today marks the end of finals. I will be done a few days earlier if I pass the state test.

Interpreting labs - 4 left.

Processing tests - only 2 remaining!

Written tests in 1200 - 2 remaining.

Grades due - 7 weeks from yesterday. As someone who freaks out about grades, this date is almost more important to me than the end of the semester!

The weather is most certainly fall right now, and is most certainly changing to early winter next week. Yet another indication that this semester is closer to being finished! I feel like it has positively flown.

Tests and stress

It seems like this is the season for midterms. Though we're past the middle of the semester, we are facing one test after another.

Last Friday was a written mid-term in 1220 (Cognition and Discourse Analysis). It was primarily questions regarding jargon words and terms, and things we're learning in "That's Not What I Meant" (amazing, book, btw). It was a killer, but I studied hard and felt I did well. We'll see when the grades come back though.

Today (Tuesday) was our second test in 1200 (Intro to Interpreting) and that one was nicer as it was multiple choice rather than short answer. Again, I think I did okay on all 40 questions though the two I missed on the last test were on this one again and I couldn't remember the correct answer for one of them! Nothing like staring at a page, knowing that you answered wrong last time, but being unable to recall the proper answer. I erased my answer twice before settling on what I hope was the right choice!

Tomorrow we have a written test in 2010 that was supposed to be today as well, but got postponed. It should't be that big of a deal, but I'm still stressing. Tomorrow I also get my personal evaluation from Connie regarding how I'm doing in 1220 (and probably a bit of overlap to the program in general). Though I can't study for this, nor can I change anything she is going to say, it is still somewhat nerve wracking to know that your professor for three of your classes is going to tell you if you, so far, have what it takes to succeed in your career of choice. I guess I should realize how blessed I am to have that individual attention and feedback and rest in the knowledge that this isn't in my hands, but God's. Ah, it's so hard to keep the right perspective about school work!

Monday we have our third (out of four) processing test. These tests define the word "hard." They are a combination of receptive, expressive, and processing skills. In other words, can you sign? Can you read sign? Can you remember sign? Can you remember English? You think you can? Awesome, now go do three of those at the same time. The last test of this nature which we took currently has the honor of being the lowest score I have ever received on any college assignment or test. I'm hoping it keeps that honor. Permanently.

I also have a video or two for 2010 which are due at the end of the semester that I really should be working on now.

Ah, perhaps this is the reason for my mental and emotional breakdowns when faced with my homework to-do list? It also seems that when it rains, it pours, and my responsibilities at debate club are also exponentially increasing along with the school stuff. :deep breath:

6.5 weeks to go in the semester. I think I can do this!