A few weeks ago my Sunday School teacher’s husband, Brent, had surgery on his neck. During his recovery his mother Lanie came to stay with him and Cheramie, his wife. Mrs. Lanie is deaf, and since I am so interested in learning Sign Language, Cheramie invited me over to her house the day after Brent’s surgery to “talk” with Mrs. Lanie some. I didn’t get to stay very long because I had somewhere else to go. But Mom decided that she was going to invited Mrs. Lanie, Cheramie, and Cheramie’s mom Mrs. Debbie, over for coffee and cake the following Tuesday.
So, that Tuesday they came. It should be noted that Mrs. Lanie cannot speak at all. And none of us can sign fluently, so it promised to be a very interesting day. Especially since I know more sign language than anybody else present, and they were all depending on me to translate, including Mrs. Lanie.
When they first came we all ate and didn’t really talk much except for a few pleasantries, because we didn’t want to talk without Mrs. Lanie being able to understand. But we couldn’t sign everything we would normally have said. Mrs. Debbie had to leave after about 30 or 45 minutes, and after that we really started making a huge effort to talk to Mrs. Lanie and to get her to talk to us. And it worked!
We talked about school, and work, and sign language, and me learning how to sign, and all kinds of things. But of course it was all in sign language. It was tough understanding what she was saying and then translating it so Mom and Cheramie knew what she was talking about, but I was really surprised with how well I did understand her. (The day was a big ego booster for me! J)
In the course of conversation Mrs. Lanie taught Mom and me over 20 different signs, including cat, cooking, cute, hot chocolate, pecan, work, and many others!
It was a really fun, tiring time. And I hope that one day she can come and it won’t be any trouble at all for me to translate for her!
Last Thursday, September 6th, my mom, my sister, my boyfriend (Michael), and I took a field trip to the
Anybody who knows me knows that I have been fascinated with Deaf culture and sign language for a long time. And it was because of this fascination that Mom called MSBD about setting up a field trip for us tour the Deaf side of the school.
I really wanted to sit in on a class and really get to interact with the kids by trying out my newly acquired ASL knowledge. But the lady Mom talked to said she didn’t know if that would be possible, that all she could give was a tour of the facilities.
So we didn’t really know what to expect when we set out that bright, sunny Thursday morning.
When we finally figured out how to get on the grounds, and then which door to go in, we sat in the waiting area until a lady, who introduced herself as Vicky Kettleman aka our tour guide, came. She was not the original lady that Mom had talked to and, this being her first tour, she looked very nervous. Upon seeing how nervous she was, I felt quite sure that our tour would not be as exciting as I had hoped.
Boy, how wrong I was.
We started walking through the school admiring their trophies from various sports, and found our way to the gym where basketball practice had just ended. All the little girls stared at us as Ms. Kettleman introduced us to the coach. He was very nice and talked to us for a while, signing as he talked. But when I tried to talk to the girls in what little ASL I knew, they just looked at me like I had green skin and had just stepped off a space craft.
We continued walking around the school with Ms. Kettleman pointing out interesting things for us to see, until we happened upon a Science class. We popped our heads in and the teacher urged us in. She was very friendly and translated what we said to the four children in her class. They were very curious as to how I am learning ASL online. I even got to try out a little bit of it on them. And we even learned the sign for “joking”
Our tour took us around into the Blind side of the conjoined building. We walked down the hallways dragging our fingers over the signs with Braille on the bottom. We stopped in front of a Blind math class and the teacher invited us in. She then proceeded to show us how to operate a Braille typing machine. It was SO cool!
Eventually we found ourselves in the separate building for the deaf Elementary students. We saw the end of an assembly, totally in sign, and then we wandered around the building talking to whoever would talk to us. We popped into a 2nd grade class and then into a preschool class. There were three little three and four year-olds in the preschool class, and the teacher was deaf too. Let’s just say, I got to practice a lot of my signing with her! She even invited me to come volunteer with her.
After we left the preschool class we found our way to Jerri Byrd’s office, she was the lady in charge of volunteers. She seemed very eager for us to volunteer there and gave us background check forms (like we have a background that she needs to check out! J) to fill out and send back to her.
So, that was our adventure, and a few days ago Mom sent our filled out forms to the school and now we’re waiting to hear back from them, and hopefully I’ll be volunteering there once a week learned all kinds of new things!
...to be unappreciated. It feels like you're not good enough. That nobody really cares. That all your hard work was for nothing. That you're of little value. What do you do when this feeling overwhelms you? Cry. Become angry. Become depressed. Pull within yourself. Stop giving. Become bitter. I have. I've done all of those...but you know what doing all those things did to me? It made me a sad, angry, depressed, withdrawn, selfish, bitter person. Nobody really wants to be like that do they? I know I don't. And I don't want to hang around somebody like that either. And being like that fixes nothing.
So...what should we do? "...fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12:2) because He is the One we should be trying to please. Not our peers, not our parents, not our boyfriend or girlfriend, not our friends, not the people we look up to. Only God. Because He's the only one big enough to fill the void inside of you. You'll never be happy living your life for others. Live for Him and impressing everyone else, or recieving praise from everyone else won't seem quite so important anymore.
<3 Cassie
Last week we took a “field trip” to Tinsel town to see Amazing Grace. It’s about William Wilberforce, and I honestly didn’t know a thing about Mr. Wilberforce except that he knew John Newton who wrote the song Amazing Grace. I figured that the movie would be dull and boring and just another historical flick that would put me to sleep. But, I was pleasantly surprised.
From the very beginning of the movie, when William Wilberforce made two men stop beating a fallen horse, to the end, when the slave trade was finally abolished, I was interested and captivated by the story. The movie contained gruesome portrayals of how the slaves were treated which made me sick, and touching portrayals of Wilberforce with his wife that gave me “warm fuzzies”.
The movie sheds a new light on how horrible the slave trade was, and makes you appreciate the powerful song Amazing Grace much more.
So, in a way, it is a historical flick, but it is miles away from “just another” historical movie. It will make you sad, mad, happy, and it might even make you cry. It will give you goose bumps and will probably make you want to applaud when it is over.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
T'was Grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far...
and Grace will lead us home.
The Lord has promised good to me...
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be...
as long as life endures.
When we've been here ten thousand years...
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise...
then when we've first begun.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
Everyone is faced with difficult decisions in their lives. The subject of these difficult decisions varies from person to person, but for me the subject was home schooling. After careful thought and much prayer I chose to be withdrawn from public school and come home. I chose to be home schooled again because of all the drama in public schools, there would be less stress on me if I came home, I would have more free time to do what I want to do, and public school was straining my relationship with my family and with God.
Drama is all around us, on television, in books, and most prevalently in public schools. The very air is thick with all the drama. Sue is cheating on Bob with Joe, and Joe has a secret crush on Lucy, and Bob never liked any of them to begin with because the whole time he really liked Anne. That is a purely fictional scenario but not at all unlikely in
Secondly, for the year and a half that I attended
Lastly, and in a way this is the most important reason, my relationships suffered because of
So, I chose to be home schooled again because of all the drama in public schools, there would be less stress on me if I came home, I would have more free time to do what I want to do, and public school was straining my relationship with my family and with God. It was a very hard decision to make, one that took time, prayer, thought, and discussion with my parents, but I am glad I made it. Hopefully, I will make the right decision with the rest of my tough problems in my life as I did this time.
Ok, so I'm rather new to this but I'm giving it a go. So here's a little bit about me:
I'm 15. I was homeschooled all the way through 8th grade and then went to the public highschool for my 9th and most of my 10th grade years. But I chose to be homeschooled again so I'm finishing off my highschool career being homeschooled.
My mom is DreweLlyn and my sister is ClogGirl.
Can't wait to meet all kinds of new people!!! :)
.::Cassie::.