Special Olympics

My roommate, a recreational therapist major, invited me to join her on an extra-credit field trip to the Special Olympics. I thought, “Sure, why not?” and took her up on her offer. Now, I know that the Special Olympics aren’t the first thing someone thinks of as ‘fun’, but it was something I had never experienced, and I’d love to cross that experience off my list.

So, last Saturday, a bus picked my roomie and I and a few other people and took us to Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. It was about an hour and a half drive, but very scenic, it made me miss home, seeing all the cows and farmland.

Upon arrival, we were told that there were four events going on: soccer and track were outside while power-lifting and tennis were inside. It was a bit chilly outside so my roomie and I chose to stay in the gym and watch the power-lifting event. It turned out to be fascinating, there were a few teams, all competing by bench pressing various weights. I saw some amazing feats, like a 120 pound man bench pressing 180 pounds! I also saw a man bench pressing 340 pounds! I did get pictures of a few people, but they turn out really crappy on here. 

Later on, it started pouring outside, so we stayed inside, shivering, and eventually moved over to the tennis area, which was interesting also. All in all, it was a pretty cool day, I got to see a lot of things I had never seen before and I got to meet new people who brought a new perspective on life. I highly encourage everyone to do the same thing if the opportunity ever arises.

Cheers,

Heather

A Little About Myself

Hey,

      My first blog i’ve ever done so this should be interesting. I’m going to start of by introducing myself and letting you know some stuff about me. Well…. i’m from Farmington, Arkansas and that town just so happens to be about 5 miles away from my favorite college in all of america, the University of Arkansas. I’ve loved the Razorbacks for God knows how long. My favorite sport is football and if you ask any of my friends that question, they will tell you that i’m obsessed with the sport. It is somewhat true because i always find myself watching it on tv or trying to start up a conversation about the latest football news. My great passion for the sport has carried me all the way to the college level at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. I’ve played my whole life but never thought that I would’ve gotten the chance to become a college football player. I’m now a freshman here and i play linebacker.

      I’m one of nine total kids in my family and yes we all come from the same mom and dad. Life has been really interesting and challenging for me. In a lot of ways but I think the main reason is because I am the “only” hard of hearing person in my family. I don’t know why or how but i’m the only one and there have been many obstacles. That is one of the reasons why I came down here to D.C. for college. Gallaudet University is a college that specializes in the deaf community. It’s definitely a new experience for me but it’s also something i look forward to. Most of the students here have experienced the same as me growing up. I was mainstreamed all my life and never signed growing up so that is the main reason why it will be challenging. All the challenges and obstacles i get while i’m down here will also come with rewards. I think the biggest reward for coming here was getting to meet so many nice and open people. No one here has judged me for talking once so far and that’s a very good thing for me, it takes a lot of pressure off me. I’m still learning to sign to this day. I’ve had about 2 months of practice so i think i’m on pace to knowing how to sign fluently within a couple more months.

You Know You’re From Minnesota When…

The most annoying thing happened to me last week. My dorm turned on the heat. 

When this happened last year, I was pretty shocked. 55 degrees and you gotta turn the heat on? Then I realized that people in DC are babies and can’t take a little cold. Ok, this might be deemed a little offensive by some, but I assure you, I’m not trying to offend. I’m just stating how proud I am to be from Minnesota.

Minnesota’s got long harsh winters and pretty short summers. So most of us build up an immunity to the cold, we’re just simply used to it. In fact, I remember playing basketball outside with my family when it was -10 degrees. When I moved to DC, I couldn’t stand (I still can’t) the long summers! Last week it was 80! In October! That isn’t normal in Minnesota terms.

So now that it is finally cooling down, I got excited. But that quickly faded one day when I walked into my dorm room and was BLASTED with heat! Wouldn’t Gallaudet save money if they allowed students to choose the type of temperature they wanted? The only option you got now is to turn the heat on, turn it down, or turn it off. There’s no cool air! As I stated before, it is cooling down, so fortunately, I haven’t had long, hot, sleepless nights. But I am uncomfortable, and for me, that’s enough reason to complain.

I always get a kick out of “You Know You’re From Minnesota When..” lists, so I’ve put together a list of my favorite facts that apply to me and maybe even you!

 

You know you’re from Minnesota when…

You call highways ‘freeways’.

You have gone trick-o-treating in 3 feet of snow.

You’ve not only walked across a lake, you’ve driven across one.

You laugh every time you hear about a blizzard shutting down the entire East coast. 

You feel warm and toasty at-12 degrees.

You think that deer season is a national holiday.

“Down south” to you means Iowa.

 

Cheers,

Heather

Not Homecoming

I was the loser and I decided that I didn’t feel like attending homecoming bash this year and I promptly chose to go home for the weekend instead. I needed to grab some things from home in the first place and needed (terribly) to get away from campus.

It was FUN. I got a new webcam, new sweater, and a pair of jeans out of the deal. I was quite pleased to see sleeping without meds work after spending two days drugging myself to sleep after two days worth of insominia. It was nice to not eat the Gallaudet food (and then equally unpleasant to return to the Gallaudet food after eating food that Mom made or I ate out), and it was fantastic to see my friends. One of  my friend was visiting Chicago the same weekend and I managed to squeeze in a hour with her catching up on life, her ex, and teaching more signs to her. Shortly afterwards, I ran off to see another one of my friend. After eating Chipotle (HEAVENLY!!), we headed off to the mall. We wrapped up the night at a halloween store where we snuck photo-taking opportunities under the nose of the staff:

Pleasant weekend! I do admit I’m glad to be back in DC. It has wormed its way into my heart. Aww. Now, what to do for Halloween… hmm.

the most amazing movie

The most amazing movie I have seen is Gracie.

It is based on a true story about a girl who wanted to play soccer on a boys’ soccer team in a high school in New Jersey. It was prohibited during the 1970’s for girls to play on boys’ teams. It is about the diversity between women and men. and I could relate to this movie. Thanks to this girl who fought for the right to let girls play soccer. If it wasn’t for her, our girls soccer team wouldn’t exist.

I recommend you watch this movie, Gracie, because it is a really good movie. There are also some inspiring moments in the movie.

homecoming weekend

Homecoming spirit week started on Sunday, the same day we had a game against Medgar Evers. We lost the game. I think we did better in the second half of the game and we should have prevented two scores and ended up with the score 4 to 2 instead of the final 6 to 2.

My day on Friday started with my ASL class then my math class. I had nothing else for the rest of the day until soccer practice from 3-4:30. I didn’t practice because I was injured from the other day at one of my soccer games. After soccer practice, I ate dinner with the girls and got ready for the pep rally and the women’s and men’s basketball scrimmage. At pep rally, we did a lot of activities and in the end of the pep rally, there was a basketball scrimmage against each other’s teams (women and men). After the pep rally, my soccer team and I slept at the Field House (gym).

Saturday morning, I woke up pretty tired but excited for our soccer game for my first Homecoming. It was my first time playing soccer game for Homecoming. I ate breakfast with my soccer team  breakfast then we checked out a lot of the booths on the street between Hotchkiss Field and the SLCC and SAC. I didn’t stay there for long but I watched the first quarter of the football game and our Gallaudet football team was killed by other the team 21-0 in the first quarter. It ended up with Gallaudet football team lost to other team from 44 to 9. I never saw so many people in the stands before.

We had a soccer game against Kings College and we lost the game 6 to 0. after the game, we went out to dinner with a high school player who might play for our Gallaudet women soccer team next year. Overall, it was a blast, but it would be better if we actually won our soccer game for the first time in the soccer season. The last time the women’s soccer team won a game was on October 4, 2006.

women sports

Have you noticed that not a lot of people attend women’s sports games in college and in high school? I am wondering why it is that not a lot of people going to watch our women’s sports game? A lot of women are complaining that not a lot of people attend our games. For example, we had a soccer game and only 10 people watched us play compared to the men’s soccer game, where more than 10 people attended. My question is why men sports games have more attendance than women sports games? Have you noticed there are not a lot of women college sports or professional sports on TV? I think it is not fair for us, women, that we are not as noticeable. Unfortunately, not a lot of men care to watch women’s sports. Not a lot of women watch sports because they may not be involved in sports or see no visual aids with women sports on TV or in college or in high school.

I want to talk about my experience back in high school related to women sports. In my senior year in high school, I played varsity basketball. When we had games, not a lot of people showed up for our games even though we won games. Some students think it is not a big deal to watch the girls’ basketball games because it is boring and dull games and they also think it is pointless to watch girls. Some people says it is better to watch boys basketball game because it has dunking, 3 pointers, and awesome ball tricks. There were not a lot of people attending our games. I went to boys’ basketball games and the gym was totally packed. Is it because the boys’ basketball team was good? Does the boys’ basketball team have a lot of entertainment? Who knows the answer?

I think it is better way to get  other people to support women sports is to recruit them to come and watch us play. It would be cool if we have a lot of visual aids at Gallaudet University to come and watch our womens’ soccer games. I wish there is something we can do differently like give away free shirts to support our girls “Bribe” people to come in a good way.

Today in the United States, not a lot of people attend or watch women’s sports. People would rather watch men’s sports instead of women sports. I think it would be better and easier for people to come and watch both men and women sports game to show their support. It would be cool if Gallaudet University students come and watch all sports including soccer. Someday, it will eventually change and a lot of people will watch and support all sports including women sports (volleyball, soccer, swimming, softball, and track).

Busboys and Poets, National Cathedral, and the oh-my’s

Ok, call me crazy for updating on homecoming week but I finished my assignment for tomorrow so I thought why not bother to update the blog. So, here I go!    On my birthday which took place two weeks ago, I wanted to DO what I want. Last year it was on a thursday and it was not ideal to celebrate on a school night but I did anyway! Ever since I took Art History, I fell in love with the subject itself even though I had a beginning hate relationship with it. Taking Art History requires lots of memorizing and that’s a very “traditional” learning method which I didn’t like. One of our projects was to go to the National Cathedral and observe the cathedral structure, so I went and met my soulmate: Washington DC National Cathedral. Basically it is a HUGE cathedral standing proudly in the DC area.  Lovely huh? This time I went with my friend: Alicia and my trusty digital camera instead of carrying around a textbook and a thick worksheet to be filled out. We took the metro and got off the Tentleytown/AU station and took the 30 digit bus to cathedral avenue. Before we did that, we stopped by Whole Foods supermarket which is full of organic eats! We got ourselves a light cheese lunch and a drink. We arrived at the cathedral and went inside- amazingly we bumped into Art History students who were doing their project! We went to the top and I began my photo-taking frenzy. 

Posing in the front of West Facade 

On the top of the world, well not really; on the top of D.C. probably. 

I love how the rays sink in 

One of my favorite details on the cathedral

The structure used: The Flying Butress 

Do you see what the lens show? Ok enough with pictures- I laid on the grass and went on with my Art high. I slept, ate, and took pictures with Alicia. I was very satisfied with what I did on that special day- the day my mom screamed while giving birth to me! Later that night, I went to a hookah bar and enjoyed hittin’ it down with my girls at Adam’s Morgan. We ate at a joint named Tatsu, this restaurant has its own style of setting. The restaurant is designed with many different tables from places and antique furniture which was cool, we got to seat ourselves in comfy couches and order our food. The only con is that the place gets full at night and its harder to have the option of having your own table so you end up sharing with strangers. After that- hookah bar then my girls kidnapped me to a surprise party, another one this year! Again, I enjoyed this! 

Several days after my birthday, I went out to eat with several of my friends to Adam’s Morgan again. I don’t think I can ever get enough of Adam’s Morgan. We ate at a restaurant called Busboys and Poets, oh boy I love that place! It has a bookstore full of poetry books, political books, and environmental books. We waited for our table as I observed the place (Pardon my being, it is an inner-nature of Art History minor) and noticed that they had many powerful artworks on Obama. Since I’m a Democratic, I felt right at home instantly- the environment was very dark yet they used bright curtain fabric (lime green) with white lamps. We got our table and the room next to our seating was a slam-reading room, which was decorated with lots of vintage “peace” spelled out in many languages on the wall. The food there is very good, you must try the bruschetta. I’ll go back there and try some more courses for sure.

 

Other than this, life’s good as usual. Maybe a bit too fast.

 

Until the next time I blog!

 

Cheers,

 

-C

Insomnia

*eye twitches, roll over to escape the evil sun, attempt to sleep only to keep hearing thoughts running through your head about the lack of sleep you had*

I’ve been suffering from insomnia for the past two nights. Both nights I have been unable to sleep until appoxmiately 7 or 8. Thankfully I had no classes today that I was skipping for my three hours worth of sleep. Today was Enrichment Day and instead of attending Enrichment Day activities (which I wouldn’t anyways, haha!), I was being incredibly lazy and not doing homework while creating lists on DIDDIT (the ultimate homework avoidance thing, thanks to Meredith!) and checking activities off.

I’m so frustrated with the lack of proper sleep I’m getting. A quick inquiry to Mom revealed a possible solution//tylenol PM. So tonight, I will take some. And I hope I do because i need some proper sleep that lasts longer than four hours!!

A Fishing Cat and a Capybara

Ever been to the National Zoo? No? Good, don’t go. Unless you like being jostled around by bratty kids and their parents who think their kids are the world and will stop at nothing to get a focused, well-lit picture of their kid smiling with sticky fingers, clutching their stuffed animal they begged Daddy to get, with a panda in the background.

Yep, you guessed it, I don’t like little kids. Probably why I want to teach high school students instead of younger kids.

So the National Zoo was probably not a good choice for my weekend outing. But hey, I had nothing else to do, and I like animals. I think I forgot that little kids like animals too. But I immediately regretted this decision, first of all, it was hot. Too hot. Second of all, I couldn’t see any animals with the swarm of people that constantly gathered around the cages or windows. I was only able to get pictures of two animals.

I think we were at the Zoo for a total of an hour and a half, it was just too hot, there were too many kids, and I didn’t get to see much of anything. I’ll probably go again sometime in the future, but I’ll sedate myself before going. If you wanna go, the National Zoo has free admittance, it’s pretty easy to get to, Woodley or Cleveland Park stop on Metro’s red line.

Oh, here’s the two animals that I was able to capture with my trusty Canon… The first one is a Fishing Cat, the second is a Capybara. The Capybara is my favorite, it was so polite, sitting pretty for photos. Better behaved than most of the kids there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that… I just mailed in my absentee voter ballot, I voted for Obama, thank you very much. I’m not gonna go into this tirade explaining why Obama is better than McCain, you’ve probably heard it all already, I’m just going to simply state that Obama IS better than McCain and I encourage you all to vote, regardless of your opinions. What’s the point of complaining about our world if you don’t even try to make a difference?

Cheers,

Heather