I’ve determined a good way to sum up this semester so far is that the days are long and the weeks are short. Seriously, sometimes it feels like I’ve been going non-stop for about 10 hours and although each task I’ve done during the day seems to last forever, my days end so quickly that the weeks go by even quicker.Sighhhh….okay, so now that I’ve dumped my traditional intro about how I’m so worn out (that’s usually the first thought that comes to my mind when I reflect back on weeks during this semester), let’s get going…

This week, I finished my 6th genre (YAY!) and I can’t wait to get finished with next week’s. I had to develop a pamphlet/brochure in the voice of a clinician or an expert, as if it was being offered or distributed at the office of a professional who deals with deaf children and their literacy issues. I set out to finish this genre by Sunday afternoon, but thankfully (and I don’t know how), I got ahead and finished it a couple of days ago. Again, I’m going out of town for the weekend to a concert and to see my sister, so there was definitely a sense of urgency in getting this done (or maybe it’s because other assignments are stacking up so high I can’t see anything but homework anymore….I know: poor me. :).

The processes I had to use were finding a template that would work to help me make a brochure. Cindy had given me some pointers and good starting places for the brochure, but I couldn’t get it to work initially on my parents’ computer or mine. After a few attempts, I got it to work and all I had to do was cut and paste. Nice. Although it would be fun to eventually learn to set stuff lik that up, it was definitely nice to have the layout done for me in advance. I just don’t have the time, patience or energy to deal with details right now! I did, however, have to determine what kind of information I would want to know as a parent of a deaf child, and what kind of terminology and information would be appropriate for lay persons to read it.

So, this week, I think that I definitely feel more confident about not only getting my genre done early, but I’m glad that it turned out well and looks like I put a lot more work into it than I did. I learned how, when it comes right down to finding relevant information and deciding what I would want to know as a parent or a clinician, etc., that it takes a lot of concentration to make the work high-quality. I also learned how to find and run programs that haven’t been used before on new computers. :)