Warming up words & simmering down chances

Feb 21
Today was awesome and awful.
Awesome because Evelyn chatted with me all day long! Our morning ride to school was proceeding uneventfully as usual (as in, little communication), when we passed the ocean and I asked her, expecting maybe a nod or a shy smile, “Have you swam in the ocean before?” Instead, I got, “I’ve gone swimming, but never in the ocean. One time I went to Miss Marshal’s and we swam in a pool and I had a suitcase and I spent the night. And Sulmi and I slept in one room, and Hipolito and Alejandro in another room, and Miss Marshall and Katie in another room.” This was by far the best swimming story I’ve ever heard!:D I was so surprised by her sudden torrent of words, but I tried not to show it. I asked as many pool-related questions as I could think of and we kept it up all the way to school, even venturing on to other topics. Woohoo!

Awful because here I am, gaining Evelyn’s trust and bringing her into a new environment she’s loving, but I’m only going to see her 10 more times and after that she’s back to square one. Today I brought a calendar and explained to the kids that I’m leaving in 7 weeks (2 of which are vacation). Carlos understood that I was leaving in April, but asked if was coming back in May. No? So I’m coming back after the summer, when school starts, right? Ayayay.

Then we started practicing for the National Deaf Spelling Bee, which is a huge deal I haven’t blogged about yet because it’s kind of a long story. Basically, the kids participate in an annual spelling bee, which is one of the main things I’m supposed to be helping Evelyn and Carlos prepare for. Except the words this year are nearly unattainably difficult for the kids. The organizer, who does not have a background in elementary ed, thought the words were too easy last year, even tho it took the kids 4 months to learn them. Also, a lot of the signs themselves aren’t even ones the kids know, so they have to memorize a new sign before they can even start trying to memorize the spelling, and a lot of the signs from the model on the DVD are just wrong (They have a book of the words and definitions, and a DVD of the signs. They will see the sign and then fingerspell the word at the Spelling Bee). I don’t mean wrong in the sense that I’m being uppity about “my way” of signing, it’s that she signs things incorrectly. For an English example, it’s one thing to say “lift” instead of “elevator,” but you can’t say “laft” or “alleviator” if the thing you are describing is a people-moving mechanical box. So now we have to teach the kids the wrong signs, b/c they have to be able to recognize at the competition, and that’s really frustrating when you’re working with kids who don’t have that large of a sign vocabulary anyway. We’re talking 300 words-- It seems like an impossible task considering that they only get to practice with me about 3 hours a week, and when I leave they’ll be almost totally on their own. They get discouraged b/c it’s so difficult, and I get discouraged because I won’t be here to see them through it (and even if I were, they’re at a severe disadvantage compared to other Deaf students in Deaf classes who will practice everyday and already know the signs at least). It makes it hard not to be defeatist about the whole thing.

To keep the boulder cruising along through my mood, none of the other kids from the other schools came today b/c the principal decided ther'es not room for them at Mary Hill (there would have been 13 extra kids, not 7!). That was a relief in some ways (I’m not ready to be a teacher) and tragic in others cuz it means the kids don’t get extra help, and I also think I have ended up in the middle of some district conflicts about this issue.

To cap it all off, Evelyn’s dad said it’s too far for her to come to Orange Walk, even for just one day a week, so my small hope that my time with her wouldn’t be a total loss (if I could at least help her transition into a long-term better environment) was dashed for the time being. And it occurred to me that even if I did convince her parents to send her to OW, it would still leave Christopher & Carlos and Mitchel & Leisha with no one to sign with.
Heavy-hearted sigh.

New Vocab
Shrimp (crustacean): 2h p-facing I, pinkies wiggle. We’re going to have shrimp for dinner. (Who knew they were grey gelatinous-lookin things before you cook ‘em?)