Saturday Night Live at FCOP

Hi All!

Just a quick post for today.

Last night I ventured out to the city of Mesquite (home of the Mesquite Rodeo) to attend Saturday Night Live at the Family Cathedral of Praise. This is not something that I would normally attend but, it was for class.

You see, this was an activity primarily for Deaf people. For my ASL class, we are required to attend various Deaf activities and one is due on Tuesday. That means that I needed to go somewhere and . . . this just sort of "fell" into my lap. It turned out that four of the five people who are in my ASL class were there (including me!). It was an interesting experience.

The whole evening started off with dinner (sloppy joes, chips, and cookies) and then the fun for the evening started. The people were divided into six groups and then the groups rotated through various workshop stations. This was basically a church function so some of the stations were religious - learning how to witness to children, learning how to give your testimony, etc. However, some were just fun - learning to mime certain songs and learning to dance to certain songs. It was fun!

Speaking to the different Deaf people who were attending was a neat aspect of the evening. I ended up connecting with several Deaf young adults - guys who were all about 18 - 19 years old. They were fun to talk to!

At the beginning of the evening, I was nervous about going and meeting people I didn't know. By the end of the evening, I felt totally comfortable. Learning sign language is something which has opened up totally different worlds to me and I am enjoying everything I am learning!

There were many hearing people at this event. Most knew sign language (like my classmates and me) but some didn't. There was always someone willing to "voice" for these people so they could enjoy the events also.

Maybe you will hear about some Deaf activity through your church or neighborhood. It might be worth your time to check it out. You might meet someone great to be friends with. Friends with differences only enrich our lives!

Trisha

Voice Update: My voice is doing well. My throat is still a bit tight but I am still working on that. I was a bit frustrated yesterday because my voice had more breaks than it has for a while - I know that having SD is really a roller coaster but sometimes I just want off for a while!