Lauren's Happenings

Last Monday I woke up sick, and feeling awful. I texted me supervisor, hoping she could find a sub for A Hour. I also had to wait for her to respond, then we were going back and forth. Once we got it all squared away, I was ready to go back to sleep.

School has officially started back up for me and I have a new school/student I'm working with.

Tuesday we had a big group meeting with all the interpreters. They taught us how to use the new time clock, ate some food, met the new supervisor, then were let loose to meet the teachers we'd be working with plus get parking pass, etc.

My teacher was out at lunch, so I didn't get to talk to her until the first day of school. Which made me kinda nervous but I decided I'd just show up earlier than my clock in time, and talk about my role/how an interpreter works.

I interpret at a high school for A hour. I knew it would be early, but I didn't know it would be 6:30 AM KIND OF EARLY. YIKES. That means I leave my house at 6:05 everyday. Luckily the first day of school fell on a Wednesday, which meant no A hour. So instead of clocking in at 6:30, I clocked in at 8:15. HOLLER.

I showed up early, and the teacher wasn't in the classroom til right before the students showed up. So we had a quick chat and then I met my deaf student (who was of course late).
She is a sassy little thing full of ATT-I-TUDE. But I love her. She is fun.
We've experienced a learning curve, figuring eachother out, but things are good now.


Thursday I arrived on time for A-hour and I was ret to go. My student was a no-show. I waited the 15 minutes, then sat outside the classroom. Mind you, I didn't know who I was looking for, so I was hoping if she came in late, she would recognize me as her interpreter and start signing to me. Haha.
Typically if a student doesn't show, we text our supervisor and then go interpret for another student. But since it's A hour, things are different. We just wait until the bell rings.

I eventually had the thought that maybe her schedule was changed. So I went to the office and the lady was SO RUDE, until she realized I was not a student. When she finally pulled up her schedule, she said, nope her schedule still says english. I was like WHAT?? No it was history before. THANKS FOR LETTING US KNOW STUPID OFFICE PEOPLE/COUNSELORS.

Luckily I caught it early, so she only had one class without an interpreter and they could rework her interpreters for the rest of the day.



Friday I finally met my student. (also currently regretting not taking a first day of school pic. Just now remembering). I LOVE HER. I have this pet peeve that students are often not very grateful, and quite demanding. I guess it's just a part of their life to have an interpreter, so they don't realize how accommodating we try to be. Like literally, their wish is our command. But at the end of this class, the student said "thank you, thank you, thank you". I wanted to hug her. It meant the world to me. She literally tells me thanks everyday and I love her. And she's the cutest thing. Thank goodness, I actually LIKE my a hour student or it would be rough waking up at 5 everyday.





I chose to do A hour, because I figured it would mean I could get out early and head to the office. Unfortunately, that was not the case, but fortunately, I'm working more hours-which also means more pay. I don't make it into the office until about 3:20, so if I want to hit my 15 hours, i have to stay til 6:20. That's a 12 hour work day. Plus once I'm done, I hurry and eat, then head over to see Taylor. So literally no time in between to breathe. It's getting easier though and I figured I could take it day by day. If i have a ton of errands to run, I'll either not go into the office, or use my time with Taylor running errands.







Some happenings...


On the 12th, there was a back to school dance, hosted by the Gilbert Stake. It was a SAD turnout and the music choice was the epitome of a church dance. But we still got somewhat down (even with the lights on and music low). Even with the simplified dancing we did, we got real sweaty (okay i got real sweaty), because it was a freakin sauna in there. The highlight of the dance was having Sarah there, my dancing buddy. It's always fun feeding off of eachother.

on the 13th...

I was asked to interpret for a stake auxiliary meeting. It was only 2 hours, so it wasn't too bad and I made some fun connections with the deaf people. TBH, I often dread interpreting church things (they just talk sooooo slow), but in the end, I'm always happy I went.

Right after the meeting, I met up with Taylor, Elise and Sarah at the temple, my temple posse.

As soon as we were done at the temple, Taylor and I sped over to a wedding reception for a "mutual couple". The boy is in my ward, and the girl in his, so we've become friends from bouncing between the two wards. When we arrived at the reception, Taylor told me his friend was having a surprise dinner at Cheesecake factory and it was happening RIGHT THEN. So we ended up being like 30 minutes late, but we made it to both activities, so I'd call it a success.

We ended the night watching a movie called, eddie the eagle. I was a little skeptical at first, but it was actually really good and quite funny. I recommend it.


The following week, my computer would not let me log in. It was having some difficulties. I tried googling my problem to see if there was a way to bypass it, but I had no luck. So I took it into the apple store on Thursday. I was there for 2 HOURS, and the lady still didn't really know. Luckily, I know of the employees and he told me a way to still save everything, and then come back Saturday to restart the computer.

Taylor was also sweet and came and hung out with me while I waited all stinkin evening.
We eventually got out of there and went to his sister's to swim, and eat hot dogs as the last little hurrah before Heber left for school.



Saturday was my parent's anniversary. So on Friday they went to the cabin for a little stay-cation, and I spent the night with the kids. It was a crazy afternoon for me. I tried to back up everything onto a external hard drive, but turns out someone had already tried to sync it to their computer, so I couldn't upload anything. I was exhausted (running on 4 hours of sleep), so I took a trip to Fiiz, while also getting a new hard drive from Wal mart. The backup went speedy fast. I still saved one document individually that i really needed just in case all else failed.


Saturday was a busy day. First I went to Jena's bridal shower. It's always fun going to a bridal shower for a non-member because they go all out. They had it at mi amigos (all the food was catered/paid for) plus margaritas and a dessert bar. We thought the pitcher was lemonade but luckily Kelley is smart and told us it was for the margaritas. Haha.
Since it was a non-member bridal shower, that also meant it was an all day ordeal (not stop and go).
I still left at the last hour to catch the end of another bridal shower.

Once I was finished, I met up with Kel and Sher at San Tan Mall before my appt at the Apple Store. It felt like old times spending time together. I wish Sheridan could live here. CROSSING MY FINGERS HE GETS INTO A LAW SCHOOL IN AZ.

Then I spent another 2 hours at the apple store trying to get it fixed. The guy wasn't as nice and did half the job, and then told me to call customer care to figure out how to do the rest #thanks.
I went home and was ready to transfer everything.
I soon realized that the hard drive was not "compatible" to my computer. So the files wouldn't transfer. YIKES. I was so overwhelmed trying to get it to work, but had no such success. I lost EVERYTHING except that document I was smart enough to save.
The only upside is my computer has all the updated software and it's like a brand new computer, so that's exciting!

Once I finally made it over to Taylor's he told me his family invited us to Outback. That quickly changed my attitude. After we went to a game night, although no games were actually played, just messing around and admiring his BEAUTIFUL home his dad built.




Monday morning I woke up feeling sick, but started getting ready anyway because I often feel sick in the morning...But then I threw up and started feeling worse, so I decided a sick day was in order.
I ended up not going into work Tuesday either.
My mom was a sweetheart and picked me up, bought me soup, scratched my back and did all my laundry. She's a saint.

August 1st

July 17th-23rd

This week mostly consisted of me being sick and a bum. I do enjoy the art of doing nothing, but I was also ready to get back to work by the end of the week.


Wednesday

Remember Taylor's sister that moved into a new house?? Well now it was time to paint, so they had a "painting party"! Taylor's family are all pros because that is a part of their everyday work. So I was doing the "kid jobs". Hahaha.



Thursday


I went to the temple with a friend, then met up with some others for dinner at Kneaders. I have a confession...I don't like Kneaders. I have given it a try 3 times, and I just never leave impressed. EXCEPT FOR THE DESSERTS, THOSE ARE HEAVENLY. But the food doesn't do it for me. Maybe I'm a soup, salad, sandwich snob? Maybe I like my paradise bakery and zuppas too much?

We all ended up staying and chatting at Kneaders for 2 hours. Haha. When we finally left, Taylor said he still needed to workout, so I ran (drove) home and changed then met back up at his house. He of course ran and I rode a bike. It's "our thing" now I guess. We actually ended up running into some of his friends playing Pokemongo at discovery park. Lolz.


Friday


My dad's team went to "feed my starving children" for a "service project". I had never been, so I was pumped! It was so fun! People have been posting about going for months and I was a little leery about serving kids to sad kids. But I eventually learned that we are just packaging the food. I don't think my heart could take seeing the kids in real life.







 Our last full day, so we met up with everyone for lunch. We went to Sizzler (my dad's favorite).

I can't remember what we did next. I think we went to Morgan's until they had to leave for Idaho.


That evening, mom, Alie, Nate and I drove to a town outside of Provo for another open house. It was more an ice cream social. When we arrived, they told Nate there was a kid his age downstairs. So alie and I went with him so he would actually go. The kids down there were INSANE. At first they were scared of us, then they showed us "magic" then tried to hide all our stuff.

We didn't last very long downstairs.

The drive back made up for it by jamming to our music.

I planned to go to sleep early since we were leaving the next morning. I plugged my phone in but left the sound on so I would hear when Taylor responded (he was seeing the Bourne movie with his family).

Sure enough, when he answered, I jumped out of bed and was up an extra hour and a half.
Holler at that 3 hours of sleep!!



Saturday

The drive down was so much faster! Leaving early makes all the difference.
We left early partly so I could pick up my new glasses. The kids were mad until I suggested they get pizza. Then everyone was content.

I got ready real fast so I could meet up with Taylor.

We semi studied for his realtor's license, watched nacho libre, went on a walk, and stayed up too late talking and catching up after a long week!



Sunday

Alie received her young woman's medallion (she can finally get her license)!!!! I was supposed to interpret, but 10 minutes before church started, he cancelled. I still decided to go and see Al get recognized.

Apparently every week my family steals the baby that sits in front of them. I only paid attention about 5% of sacrament meeting thanks to the cute 1 year old. She was such a happy girl.


After I met up with Taylor for church. We went to my ward to hear Sarah speak (she rocked it) then rushed over to his ward for the last 2 hours. I've said this before but I love church PDA.

2nd hour was combined so that was nice! Then 3rd hour (the "family relationship class" aka marriage prep) we had a good discussion about communication.

We were kinda matching so of course we had to take a picture.