Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. ~ James 4:14
In other words....no one knows what will come tomorrow, life is fleeting, so go out and embrace the days you have with your loved ones!
These words are especially poignant as I have one full day left in sweet home Schuylkill County.
What a whirlwind of a summer it has been! Thank you to all those I was able to see while home from Gettysburg to having lunch with an English teacher from 9th grade to reconnecting with my best friends from college to doing new things with friends (thanks for invites) and seeing a friend from high school for the first time since the late 90s.
I especially need to thank my parents for putting up with me (and the taking over of the dining room as I tried to prepare for the new job and plan the wedding in the space of several weeks)...I couldn't have done it without them that's for sure! <3
Now that my car has been packed and the remaining boxes are all lined up at the door waiting to be loaded into my Dad's car Friday morning, the reality of what's about to happen has hit. The syllabi are drafted and about to be uploaded to Blackboard. The textbooks have been ordered and arrived in the bookstore on campus. I am listed on the university webpage under the faculty section. The next time I will be in Schuylkill County again will be with my love introducing him to the "Skook".
As I set out to start the 2014/2015 school year, not one thing is remaining the same. My home is changing. My job is changing. Even my license plate and driver's license changed (not without some obstacles).
But I was wrong. Some thingsare remaining the same.
The love & support of my family and friends remain...of both those near and far and Adam has been my biggest cheerleader (next to my parents). Plus I'm reminded that I already did this in the past. I already lived in western PA when attending Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I already lived near my Pittsburgh family when I student taught in Slippery Rock, Butler, Grove City, Uniontown, and surrounding areas.
Then why does this all still feel so new and terrifying in the way of change? I mean I've done nothing but face change head-on over the last several years. I'm more than ready to get settled and back into a routine and slow down the changes at this point but also have learned that change will keep on happening regardless. I crave routine and organization over the chaos as of late.
Yet, I am counting down the days to when Adam and I will be married and with each other day in and day out (oh boy, I feel bad for him..ha!) and to starting a new life together....297 days to go!
I am excited to meet my new students (all 93) of them as well as live with my housemates in our cozy new home.
I look forward to new collaboration and projects with my fellow co-workers while still maintaining ties with my colleagues in the south and beyond too.
The two conferences I hope to present at in the upcoming school year are in St. Louis (a new city for me) & San Diego (one of my favorites) so yes, there are many things to be excited about professionally, socially, and of course in the personal life. I look forward to spiritual growth as I encounter new experiences and people in Ohio & reconnect with old friends in the Pittsburgh area!
So here goes nothing.......my arms are opened wide and I'm gonna embrace it all! Rather than cling so tightly that nothing can breathe or grow, I'm changing my grip to a hug!
To my Skook friends...have you any suggestions for how I should spend my last 24 hours at home for now? :)
Gardiner-Walsh, S., Kemmery,
M., & Compton, M. V.(2014).First steps in the journey from consumers to producers
of research in deaf education.American Annals of the Deaf, 159, 59-74.
Here is my fifth publication...hot off the presses!
This one was written with a colleague at UNCG and our advisor. We conducted the study during the 2010/2011 school year and took our first stab at writing the manuscript in Summer 2011. I have lost track of how many revisions we have made to this bad boy...one of which included scrapping the original two manuscripts we had written and making it one combined manuscript.
After a LOT of work and rewriting, and a couple poster presentations in Austin, Texas & Jacksonville, Florida we submitted and found a home for the research in Annals. Voila!! Here we are seven months after it was accepted looking at the cover page of my first published deaf education article in black and white print!!! I can't wait to get my hands on the actual journal and see and touch the pages in person.
Come on mail and deliver my copy of the journal please!
With only 21 days to go until the end of the 100 Happy Days blog post I ran out of steam. For those of you who did follow along with this posting, I hope you enjoyed the days I did share. Maybe if I do it again someday, I'll actually stick it out til the end. Not all is wasted though. What I did learn from this challenge was to look for the happy in each day and to try to focus on those more than the not so happy things. Did I succeed? I would like to think that I did focus on the positive more so than the negative during these days. I suppose the analogy of "be like a dog" could be made. When I think about how little Dusty Shamrock unabashedly shows his affection and happiness regardless of the time of day or if he has just seen me ten minutes earlier, one can learn to be more joyful. I wonder what the world would be like if we could all be like a puppy and show such happiness with no reservations to one another!
I posted this picture last July but the caption I wrote then still applies today:
Dusty Shamrock has taught me a thing or two over the last 6.5 7.5 years. One I am still working on is trying to take the time to smell the roses.
Here's to all of us picking a lovely bouquet as we stop to smell the flowers. :) Happy July to you all!!
This past weekend, I presented at the Alexander Graham Bell Conference in Orlando, Florida with a colleague. It was my last official presentation as someone from University of North Carolina at Greensboro (tear). From now on, at future conferences, my title will be professor at my new university rather than as student at UNCG. It was a bit surreal answering questions from folks who asked where I was based out of now by saying Ohio instead of NC.
Attending AG Bell's conference was a first for me. There were many sessions I would have liked to attend but finances and time constraints limited those options. Two sessions I was particularly interested in but unable to attend were, "Honey, Read My Lips: Joys and Challenges in Romantic Relationships" and "Lessons from the Battlefield: Deaf Adults Share Their Tips to Success". As I listened to some of the speakers talk about their experiences, particularly in the session titled, "deaf with a Small "d": What Does it Mean?", I felt reenergized about my dissertation research on identity and hearing loss. Seeing others in my age bracket, also with hearing loss yet they grew up in the hearing community as I did, talk about their experiences hit home on so many levels. It sort of made me wish I had been coming to this conference all along, not just as a professional but as a child with my family and growing up, as some of the participants had done. It was awesome seeing so many children and teenagers reconnecting with one another and socializing. I overheard many side conversations in which parents were sharing their stories of diagnosis and gaining services for their children. I couldn't help but reflect on my own childhood and experiences (and those of my parents and siblings) and wonder what they may have been like had we been a part of this organization. When I talked to Adam about it that night he said that perhaps I would have taken a different path or be on a different "side" professionally had that happened. I guess one will never know.
It does warm my heart to think that the children who are able to take advantage of these opportunities to network and socialize with others "just like them" at events such as these. When I think back to the social isolation that I felt at times and know that my students experienced, it brings sadness. I mean we're all, regardless of hearing loss, are looking for that sense of community no matter where we are...whether it's bonding over a shared love of sports, or others who are going through the same things you are, or being interested in the same hobbies....everyone wants to feel a part of something. I've been saying that for years regarding the Young Adults and/or singles at church...there is a home for the children through youth ministry, for parents of babies going through Baptism, and for the older folks through various ministries and programs. The same can be said for those of us who dont' have enough hearing loss to be Deaf but don't have enough hearing to be "normal". Looking back, I can honestly say I got those feelings of belonging and fitting in, for the most part, from the neighborhood children, my siblings, and the classmates at school. However, I would be lying if I said that a small part of me always felt as if I were different (because I was) and no one could relate (except for the grandparents who wore hearing aids..haha). Then again, every teenager feels that sense of, "You just don't understand me" at some point in time. ;) I remember how awesome it felt when I went away to college and met a few other peers who were kind of "like me" and we could trade stories about batteries dying or the frustration of trying to read a certain professor's lips beneath his bushy beard. Then, as a teacher, my students and I bonded over tips of remembering to change your battery, the humor in pranking friends with our alarm clocks during sleepovers, and the ability to turn off our parents by switching the hearing aids to the off setting..ahem.
Now, I'm about to leave this field of education of persons with hearing loss (or deaf education as others call it) I've called home for the last sixteen years as I immerse myself in general education in my new role. However, I do hope to be able to continue my research, at least in some small way, in identity and hearing loss.
I saw this video that was published out of the John Tracy Clinic this morning. When I was little, my parents taught me to talk/listen using curriculum materials from this organization in California. How interesting it is that my first association with California was that I had "cool stuff" from there that helped me learn to talk thanks to the long hours of work my parents put in with me. We still have some of the 30 year old materials and I even used some of them with my students in the early 2000s. Now, when I think of California, I think of my future with Adam. <3 These are the things that float through my mind as I encounter references to California at least once a week and have been since mid October. I kid you not, at least once a week I see a tshirt or a bumper sticker referencing CA no matter where I am. This past weekend, it happened in the form of a little boy on Cocoa Beach, Florida wearing a California surfer swimsuit (the words were printed on his bathing suit) and the next day at the Orlando airport when I saw a girl wearing a California Republic shirt in the security line. I've quit trying to keep it all straight and simply smile and send up a quick prayer of thanksgiving for all that has been given to me through familial support/love and is coming my way in 2015 regarding my "California Boy". I digress...so back to the video. How sweet is the video below?! It's amazing what technology can do from providing access to sound and of course, connecting folks over the miles. I can relate to both sides of that technology coin..ha! The video is a bit long (11 minutes) but if you listen to nothing else, one of the parts that resonated with me was what the Mom said from 8 min. 15 seconds to 8 min. 50 secs.
So, in an effort to stick with my roots while also branching out by attending other conferences, I hope to be able to always attend the Association of College Educators - Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ACE-DHH) conference even though I won't be working with future teachers of the deaf anymore (at least for now). After this positive experience and seeing the other side that shows there is a group for those of us who don't fall in the big "D" Deaf or American Sign Language (ASL) camps, I'm thinking I might want to start attending the AG Bell conference even if just for personal reasons rather than professional...it is only held every other year and in 2016, will be held in Denver...a city I have come to fall in love with for several reasons! ;)
11 months remain until Adam's and my wedding day! Woooohoooooo!
As of this writing, all the vendors have been secured (well, almost). I need to drop off a deposit check in the mail next week when I return from a work trip in Florida.
You know what the coolest thing about the vendors is??
The majority of them are friends from the Catholic Young Adults group I was a part of before moving to North Carolina.
Our photographer is the super awesomely talented Juliana Tomlinson! I must find time to write about hers and my connection very soon. It's a neat story.
Our DJ is a pretty cool guy I got to know through attending a Haiti Benefit Dance our friend Lisa coordinated a few years ago in May 2010 *this dance was on the night I made the decision to leave A and go to school in NC!!* where he was the DJ and the Malvern Young Adult retreats in May 2011 and May 2012. I would have never dreamt we would be enjoying Jon's musical talents in a different way in May 2015.
A loving friend who attended the Haiti Benefit Dance with me four years ago will also be playing a super sweet role next May. She will be sharing her culinary and baking creations with our guests and us!
The videographer, BC Productions Entertainment Event Videography, is the only vendor I don't know personally but through his detailed emails and prompt responses, Adam and I feel very confident and thrilled with our decision to go with his services.
All this planning and excitement aside, nothing compares to the happiness that comes with knowing come next May, we will be united in such a holy sacrament. Something we learned recently is the priest doesn't administer the sacrament of marriage to the bride and groom but rather the bride and groom are the only ones who can administer the sacrament of matrimony to one another...pretty cool stuff! I'm so so so thrilled to know that I will be able to walk down such a familiar aisle from one life to a new one at the end of it. I can't help but think of the wedding mass each time I go to mass on the weekends. With each church I attend while home, whether it be St. Ann's, Annunciation, or St. Ambrose, I feel grateful for the fact that we will be able to marry at St. Joseph's. For while these churches are the churches I grew up attending and have that sense of familiarity and history from my childhood, they don't represent where I've been and where I'm going like St. Joseph's does. For this was the church where I went to my first face-to-face confession as an adult (with an Irish priest no less). This building was where I would stop by when driving from school to school to say a quick prayer then continue with my day. Those four walls were the ones that guarded me from outside doubters and critical naysayers of my faith when living in York. It was in that building where I started developing my love of volunteering, specifically at the Catholic Harvest Food Pantry in downtown York. I also subbed for Adoration each Thursday while a parishioner there. I learned about the opportunity to coach basketball cheerleading (something I did for 8 years myself) by reading the bulletin in one of the pews. Following up on the ad, I was cheer coach my last year living in PA. So many homilies, and songs, that I heard in that beautiful sanctuary spoke straight to my heart and struck a chord deep inside me. I've been in that facility during the highs and lows of my time in York. There were times I sat in the pew fighting back tears as I stayed after mass and sat in the darkened sanctuary but there were also happy days there with my little brother when he visited me and my parents when we would go to mass before grabbing a bite to eat.
Working in York during my early 20s...going with the flow...being the only practicing Catholic as had always been the case....then moving there in my mid 20s which caused me to discover St. Joseph's gave me the courage to get more involved with my faith and start branching out and meeting others in my age group who also were practicing Catholics out in Lititz, Lancaster, West Chester, and back in Harrisburg where I had left to go live in York. This was a radical departure from my college years and young adult living. I can see how these steps further helped me to make the transition to NC and branching out and joining several Catholic Young Adult groups down there and I guess you could say even prepared me for this major life change of switching from teaching in the secular world to teaching at a Catholic university.
I suppose some brides would tell you they chose a wedding location by tradition because it was where she grew up or it is where she met her groom, or some may say the church is in their dream location as in a destination wedding. Yes, York is definitely very convenient from major highways and in the middle of several airports. I love the rich cultural history the town of York has to offer not to mention my roots there. Many of my former coworkers (co-friends) and some of my best friends live there or in the surrounding areas so it would be convenient for many of the local guests but also not terribly far away for out of towners (well, except for the West Coast family...).
While distance and time away over the last four years has changed several of those relationships (some more hurtful than others), one thing has remained a constant for me. For the regular readers of my blog, you will recognize that change does not come easy for me, especially when it comes to friendships and relationships. However, the other night I read an article that stated this:
People sometimes change," says the wise sage.
No, people always change. They never stop changing. Life is change.
Everything is moving, everything is transforming. Everything is
changing, all of the time. Life is more of a river than a stagnant,
mosquito-infested puddle.
WOW...! I need to embrace change more. This author is so right. I mean...without all the changes I fought so hard against and clung to so tightly to try to keep from changing....I wouldn't be where I am today ~ eagerly looking ahead to a future with the man God brought into my life. What if I had been closed off to possibilities because I was so busy looking in one direction or trying to hold on so tightly to something I should have let go of....the quote from that article reminds me yet again of a song I've posted on this blog at least once. How ironic I should think of this song since I first heard it at the Young Adults Retreat in Malvern in May 2011 when our DJ coordinate it. Love God's way of bringing things full circle sometime!
So back to the one thing that has remained a constant for me amidst the swirling changes in life....that is the feeling I get when I enter the brown church over on Kingston Road. I guess you could say this bride chose the wedding location because of the church. Again, while many other brides are preoccupied with colors, flowers, dresses......I never really daydreamed about that sort of thing. For being a somewhat traditional gal, I've been unconventional in that regard. The wedding mass has always been what mattered most to me. So, when Adam proposed...in the days that followed, the first things that entered my mind when thinking about wedding planning were can we have it at my old church in York, can we have Father Vince from NC, and can we have Fr. Jack from Boston? As Meatloaf would say, two out of three ain't bad and we'll miss Fr. Vince. Thankfully the groom was on board for an opposite coast wedding with a bunch of out of state connections..ha! ;) While the church may not necessarily be his preferred style of sanctuary, hopefully he won't mind and will feel some of the same peace I feel upon entering that building.
Whew, this ended up being a much longer post than I intended. Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts! Pax!
It was a gorgeous sunny day today with the breeze blowing in through the windows and my Pennsylvania nephews keeping busy with playing, pushing cars, sharing smiles, and running circles around me at the dining room table as I worked on a syllabus and created eight (yes...eight!!) exams for one of the classes I am teaching in the fall. Originally today was to be spent having lunch with a friend from back home and sitting out on a patio with a dear friend in the evening. However, both of those plans had to be postponed due to not being as far along with schoolwork as I would have liked as well as having some family time with my twin and his wife. Even though I couldn't leave the table for too long, it was still nice chatting with them. I'm so glad I have this summer at my parents' to get used to being back up in the North again before heading out West! I also know the time I'm taking now to get things planned out will pay off this fall when life gets busier than ever once I start at my new job. Today was so full with schoolwork I didn't get to start talking with Adam until close to 1am...yowza! When talking with Adam tonight, I shared with him a neat story from today.
Michaelann had texted me this afternoon a beautiful picture of her nieces and said, "We're at one of your favorite places!". I knew immediately where they were in Maryland!! Then she followed up that message asking if I knew if our friend, Lisa, was there too? I texted Lisa out of the blue asking if she was in fact, at the Grotto, to which she said replied yes! A three-way texting conversation continued as I realized two of my dearest friends who have been tremendous supports over the last four years were at the same place at the same time!! The last time the three of us had a connection like this was when Michaelann and I attended the Haiti Benefit Dance Lisa coordinated in early May 2010. The reason this night is so vivid for me is because it was when I had made the decision to attend UNCG and start working on the PhD that following Fall. Michaelann was the first friend I told other than my roommate about this huge decision!
Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon, while still productive as I continued to work, also found me lost in the memories from deciding to go to NC to recalling the countless hours spent talking with both of these girls. As I told Adam and the girls today, in conversing with them via text about today I thought of something. The first time I was at the Grotto was on my way to York from NC the weekend before Lent started in 2011. I had driven by dozens of times during my babysitting trips to NC but had never stopped. On a whim that wintry day back in 2011, I pulled over, left Dusty in the car, and trekked up the hill. I distinctly recall texting Lisa from the base of the Mary statue saying I was in one of her favorite places (the same text Michaelann sent me this afternoon!). Then, that week, on Ash Wed. night, Lisa and Michael were engaged!!! I can't help but think how the last pilgrimage I went on was in Colorado when Doris, Adam, and I visited the Mother Cabrini Shrine only to get engaged that night!!
In June 2012, Michaelann gave me the Jeremiah 29:11 journal that I used when praying specifically for a spouse using the three-part prayer Lisa shared with me. I remember it being so hard trusting in God's will versus my own will. The prayer from Lisa is one that I prayed for YEARS...and looking back I'm so thankful for the pruning of the branches even though at the time I didn't understand or see why it was happening. Here is the three-part prayer:
1.) Draw me closer to my spouse, 2.) Grant me eyes to recognize him, and 3.) Repel from me anyone who is not!
What a good word that is at the end...REPEL.....deflect....turn away those who are not to be in my life....I can now see that the repelling was totally so so so good because it cleared the path to the right one! Back to the journal from Michaelann and Jeremy, life got busy and I didn't really start using the journal again until the fall, which coincided with the Year of Faith starting in October 2012 during which I renewed my prayers for my future spouse.
I also credit both women with helping me to realize I needed to clear the path, and my heart, of those who were not meant to be my future spouse...specifically a certain gentleman from my past...so much so that I ended up cutting all ties with him for good in March 2013. The days and weeks that followed were tremendously lonely and hard, some of the darkest I faced even when compared to previous years but I learned six months later in September at NCSC (through one of the speakers' presentations) that God was pruning the branches and even further preparing the way. Now, looking back, I'm so incredibly grateful and thankful for all that has happened and wouldn't change any of it...the heart break, the loneliness, the despair. When I do look back, Michaelann and Lisa both shine as especially bright beacons. Their love, talks, and support through the ups and downs helped me more than they will ever know. Anyhow, fast forward to today where the days are speeding by filled with planning for the wedding, preparing the courses for teaching, learning how to be a professor at Franciscan, moving (again), getting reacclimated to being in PA for the time being (yippee!), and of course thinking about all the changes to come next year (nerve wracking yet exciting nonetheless)....it's easy to get lost in it all. However, receiving the sweet texts from the girls and hearing they both were in such a peaceful place today makes me smile. I also realized, as I shared this with Adam tonight, that the last time I was at the beloved holy place was on St. Patrick's Day in March 2013 when I met my parents there for mass as well as took some pictures of the beautiful church. Godicidentally, I recalled that my cover photo on my profile had been the picture with my parents in front of the church...so this was one of the first images Adam saw when he checked out my profile. Pretty cool!! I had also just finished the novena to St. Joseph that week and the name of the church where Adam and I will be married is St. Joseph's! :) Anyhow, earlier today, when I was feeling sorry for myself at being stuck indoors and not participating in fun friend time, reading of the girls being at such a lovely site, seeing the beautiful picture sent to me on my phone, and hearing about their paths crossing in the gift shop, I'm taken back to my last visit at such a gift shop....the one at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Colorado! As I browsed the gift shop and purchased some prayer cards to give to Adam and our friend, Doris, later...little did I know that after mass at the cathedral that night Adam would propose! It's funny how memories and experiences can all intertwine like this!! So I'm thankful to the girls for bringing some of that joy from early May in CO back simply by texting me about today's events! I'm thankful for Adam and Doris giving me those memories of that day full of touristy fun things that ended with a bang! I am also thankful for the realization that today's hard work will pay off in the near future just like all the trusting and having faith for so many years paid off in a truly spectacular way that not even I could have dreamt up in my wildest dreams! I also hope that by sharing parts of my story...those of you who may be struggling will grow in faith and trust! Fiat!!
