This week....

This has been another busy week. I know, surprise, surprise! Right? I've been trying to find time amidst all the busyness to practice some techniques given to me by Cindy Farnham. She has pushed me in healthy ways and even if I don't totally get it while I'm here, I will be able to continue these exercises at home and continue to improve. For my ASL friends who might be interested, I'm working on a sentence level, breaking it down to pick out the nouns (who/what) and then the verbs (action) and trying to map it out to train my brain to see the parts, how they interact, and then how to set it up in space. As you all know, visualization is a struggle for me and I've never understood the point to mapping until now. So believe it or not, I'm willingly doing in depth mind maps!

I'm also doing some other things to try to improve my skills such as spending at least 10 minutes every day pulling up an ASL video online and interpreting it into English. I'm also trying to use ASL as much as possible to communicate instead of English. Some days end up being too draining for me to do that or it's just hard when roommates/other interns are talking. But I'm trying my best to use ASL and hoping that maybe it will encourage some of the others to do the same. I'm hopeful that by using ASL for my everyday conversations I will start to think ASL which would tremendously help my interpreting!

The rest of my week is a little lighter thankfully! I got 11.5 internship hours in on Tuesday and almost 8 yesterday that was spread throughout the day. So this morning is homework and practice time, meetings with mentors this afternoon, short job tonight and another mentor meeting late evening. Class tomorrow and then the weekend is here! :)

This is the end of week 10! So I have four more to go......I want to learn as much as possible in the next four weeks so I definitely don't want to wish it away. On the flip side though, I see my body responding to stress that honestly I'm not really even aware is there. I perform well under stress. I've been eating well and working out when possible, getting as much sleep as I can, and in general trying to take care of myself. So I don't necessarily feel stressed. But my hair is falling out, my nails are brittle, I wake up throughout the night (never have done that even when first arrived here), I notice little things getting on my nerves, and have some aches and pains in my lower back. I mention these things not to complain because nothing in and of itself is that bad. But I want to give a picture of what's going on. So if you would, please pray about my stress level and my physical reactions to that as well as my brain's ability to continue stretching and learning new behaviors. BTW.......I do have an appointment for a one hour massage this coming Tuesday! :)