Finally!

I am in Costa Rica right at this moment! I have been waiting since the Fall Semester to go on this trip and now I am here!
Things here are amazing! With Spanish as the first language I had to search for the English translation. Our guides are so friendly they offered us help any time we need it and considered us part of their family. I felt so welcome, wow, things here are much different from my past experiences in other countries. In France, England, and Italy things were great but in Costa Rica things are even greater because so many of my friends are here! This makes all the difference for me, we could share, laugh, and take eachother to different places all around Costa Rica.
Just now I’ve finished eating dinner buffet at a different hotel. It took a lot of waiting in line to get to the plates and more time waiting to decide which food will I eat?! There was squash soup, salad with different dressings and shredded beets, chicken with sauce, ball shaped potatoes, and spagetti! They all smelled delicious and once I tasted some of them I knew some I would go back for more and some I would not. It was all part of the experience!
I still cannot believe I am in Costa Rica, me and my friend agreed that time seems to go slower around here. There is still a lot of days to go before this trip is done 🙂

Delta Zeta Skit

 An old basketball rival from high school asked me to go and watch her pledge skit. ‘At Ole Jim’, she said. I couldn’t say no because I was curious as well. My good friend heard about it as well through her friend and we asked our other friend to join as well. Three of us is better than going there alone!

Paid money to go in, we sat down and got settled.  There were 4 pledges going around meeting people and making sure they were comfortable, one of them pained her face white. The skit was about 17^th century vampires, ooh interesting.

When it seemed the play was about to start the pledges waited, I wondered for what until I saw the sisters marching in one line and going around the audience and sat in the front row, seriously stonefaced. I laughed, ‘Woo, must be serious. Poor pledges!’

The pledges started introducing themselves, then one person out of the four repeated all of their names first, middle, and last name in order. I could see she was haltering in remembering their names right, all I was thinking was ‘Dang she is lucky there weren’t 20 or 40 pledges!’ The play started after that.

First there were one vampire, hungry of course so she then turned 2 mortals into vampires and by her whim she planned to take over the universe by making all of us audience into vampires! Then the original vampire’s servant decided to do something about it. What happened next was something I would’ve never expected. The servant took out packs of Kotex pads, unwrapped them and stuck them on the sisters, claiming wildly that it would stop their bleeding and prevent them from becoming vampires. The vampires came to her to stop her and she took off her shirt to reveal white jumpsuit and superman underwear. The servant hurriedly took out tampons from her ‘utility belt’ unwrapped them the same, removed the cardboard tubing and flung the tampons at the vampires. She did this three times and stopped the three vampires. Yay! We’re saved!

Thus, the play ended. The sisters stood up and left in line the same way they came in… with three of the Kotex pads still on the sisters heads! It was very memorable! Something to tell to the family and friends back home ^_^

Fall Fashion Show

It seems an interesting place to go. One of my friends is modeling in the fashion show event. Along with curiosity I decided to go. It was set in the SLCC; platforms were propped and prepared in the first floor. Everything looked ready before the event, already looking good.

On the night of the event, paid the admission and checked out the seats. I picked the one in the middle with a good view of the two platforms. The show didn’t start until 10 minutes passed. A slideshow of the models in pictures of black and white showed as a warm up. They are good pictures but only a few pictures of my friend, disappointing. The two hosts came out, introduced themselves, and started the Gallaudet Fashion Show.

The first thing I said when the model gave her first pose was ‘I bet she’ll do the same pose again.’ She did and so did the rest of the models. A-one and a-two, pose n pose, predictable! I critiqued negatively many time, ‘walking too fast ’, ‘too bouncy, huge hip thrusting and ‘they are modeling not for clothes but for their body’.  There was rarely a positive note from me, ‘that is new, hmm good’, ‘original, didn’t expect that’, and ‘very model-like’. I think there were some who looked at me expectantly when I made a comment; one or two people did nod agreeably to some of it. Some models did have me speechless, ‘nice, nice, that’s nice’. I am not an expert in fashion at all so don’t take me seriously, at that time I looked like I was because I can’t keep my hands down!

There was exciting programs in between the 3 modeling segments. All songs, the first was signed and dancing. I didn’t expect this to happen at all. It was suprising to know that there is some students who, like me, can hear the lyrics of the song and sign it. There is a dancing segment for the second break. Again I made negative comments because I kept looking for mistakes, loss of rhythm and some dancers not keeping up with the others. The last dance blew me away. It was both signing and dancing, but with dance moves I have not seen firsthand. Swing dancing! It made me jealous that they could do that and it looked so good. Made me feel I should have joined, should have thought of it, should have, should have on a lot of things. It is inspiring! 

I’d say the third dance paid for the entire event and made it memorable. The event showed me variety in Gallaudet’s events. It was not academic nor did it belong to homecoming events, this is different than I expected. It also made me realize that I could be a negative critic and that is not a good thing for me.  

Where to begin…

Who am I? My name is either Patricia (legally), Ms. Covell (if you want to be formal), or Rose (my ‘nickname’ with family and friends). To be totally clear and straight my full name is Patricia Rose Covell, 18 years old, graduated Oregon School for the Deaf in ’08, living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and currently a freshman on her second semester in Gallaudet.

How did I get to Gallaudet? Lets say my family is deaf. Worse, lets say I’m a 4th generation deaf child in my family. Ooh yea lots of pressure even when it is unconsciously done from my family. In our old house in Oregon my mom decorated the den with Gally materials, a blanket, banner, picture frames, Kappa Gamma paddles from my dad and uncle, Phi Kappa Zeta owl dolls from my mom, pillow with a picture of chapel hall on it, some paperweights with ‘G’ on them. It was called the ‘Gally Room’. Then there’s the stories of Gally years from my uncles and grandpa whenever I visit them for holidays. My dad’s favorite story is when his brother took a protest that changed the way the world views Gallaudet in 1988, to me as a young girl it inspired me more than any other story. It came as no suprise to my family when I was accepted to Gallaudet. A hug from my parents and a pat on the back from my uncles (secretly telling me what pranks to do in the dorms) and I was all ready to go to this new world.

Here I am, ready to make MY mark on Gallaudet, hopefully a bigger mark than others in my family. Could be just wishful thinking, maybe not 🙂

The Family Covell: Me, Mom, Dad, and Brother