Think about how many years we have been in school, how many class projects, presentations, tests, lame pop quizzes, homework assignments, final papers that we wrote the night before, final tests, awards and graduations/promotions we have had in our lives. Our teachers and parents hope that through all that we come out knowing what type of career we want and what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Some have known what they've wanted to do since that one field trip they had in 6th grade. Some figure it out from a job during high school, a role model, a specific experience, a class in college or from watching what their parents do for a living and are taking over the family business. Then there are those that are still trying to figure it out.
^^ Pre school with Miss Jolene
^^ 4th grade with Mrs. Jones
^^ Adams graduation from King 2004
^^ My High School Graduation in 2013 from KING
The one question we were always asked growing up was "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I was thinking about this question the other day and for the life of me cannot remember what my answer was! What the heck! I was probably asked this question hundreds of times while I was little and I cannot remember what I said.
Once I got to high school and the question became less playful and more serious I had more of a specific answer. I knew what field I wanted to get into, finally. I always said either Athletic Training, Physical Therapy or Sports Broadcasting. I felt ahead of the game because I knew what field I wanted and just from my observation of the rest of my classmates, they just wanted to last until graduation and they'd figure it out later. For me, not planning is NOT an option and for those of you who know me know that is the truth! I have been planning my life for as long as I could remember and sometimes struggled with things that I could not control. Now I can control what I do for my career and that terrifies me!
I have loved sports, being active and helping people all my life. I played sports growing up, played tennis in high school and also ran track all four years. I experienced several injuries during those years and in result became very close with my athletic trainer. I even took her sports medicine class and was very fascinated by that as well. Knowing that, why not go into Athletic Training? Seems pretty simple right? Its what I love to do, there are many jobs for it and heck I could even work at BYU for one of their collegiate teams or maybe even be the head athletic trainer of the athletic department, now wouldn't that be cool!!
Now lets take a little bit of a detour. Throughout high school I had always had the desire to take some sort of an ASL class or just learn more about it. I had learned some in primary from Teri, a beyond amazing woman and the best singing time director I had ever had. Teri grew up with deaf parents and was fluent in ASL and I remembered quite often learning songs with the signs attached to them. Along with that, a very close friend of mine, Nathan, who is actually on an ASL mission right now in Texas grew up very close to the deaf community because his grandparents were deaf (Nathan is Teri's nephew). He knew a lot of ASL and his Mom, Janet, (Teri's sister), a women I consider a role model to me is fluent in ASL as well.
Although I was not born yet, my parents served in a Deaf branch in our stake and I will never forget the story that my mom told me when I was younger about a girl in that deaf branch who gave a special musical number during sacrament meeting. She had a CD player with her that played the music while she signed the words to the song. The way that my mom described this musical number to me was that it was "like a dance" and "the most beautiful thing she had ever seen."
After having all of this exposure to American Sign Language in my life I finally had the opportunity to learn more and took my first ASL course during my first semester at BYU. I struggled a little bit in the beginning with finger spelling and just keeping up but I had a very specific moment where it all just CLICKED! I finally got it! It made sense! And I loved every minute of it. I then left BYU campus and attended the BYU Salt Lake center where they did not offer ASL classes and the extent of my signing was the little signing I would with 2 of my roommates that knew ASL or the fingerspelling I would do at my side while passing billboards, school signs or even just random words I was thinking. I took fall and winter semester at the Salt Lake Center then jumped at the chance to attend BYU for spring term and I took the next ASL course. All that finger spelling I did at my side sure paid off because my fingerspelling had gotten faster, clearer and had become more advanced. I do remember my first day back in an ASL class and I think the best to describe it would be "lost." I called my mom after the class on my walk back to my apartment and expressed how frustrated I was that I couldn't understand a word that my professor was saying and I felt seriously overwhelmed. I didn't know if I was going to stick with it. She, as always, gave me the best advice, just stay with it! I hadn't been using my ASL for a while and just needed to get back in the swing of things. I listened to momma...thank goodness!
My ASL professor told me, if you want to do anything with ASL, don't go to BYU, go to UVU. I have now transferred to Utah Valley University because their ASL program compared to BYU is much more advanced and prestigious. I figured that I would major in Exercise Science and do Athletic Training like I had always planned and just take ASL classes for fun. That has evolved to minoring in ASL and either try and connect the two and possibly be way too specific and work with deaf athletes or maybe just have my ASL as a hobby, just a language that I know, something I learned in college. Now the thought that has been in front of my mind is..well, I LOVE every minute of my ASL classes, learning new signs, teaching signs to my friends and learning more about the deaf culture, all of it. It just makes sense to me. I love it when people ask about why I love learning it, how I got into it or seeing the surprised face they get when I say American Sign Language. So I think about it more and more..Why am I not majoring in this!? Do I dare let go of my athletic background that I have had my entire life? Would I teach ASL? If so, who would I teach? College students? High School kids? Children? Parents with deaf children? Would I become an interpreter? Could I do this while having a family?
Who ever thought that I would be trying to make the decision between Athletic Training and American Sign Language. I thought that I could just go 'halfsies' with both of them but everything is telling me that you need to give 100% in one thing! Take it and run with it. Don't give half of your attention to two things. Pick one. But which one do I choose? The love that I have had my entire life? Or my new found love that fascinates me every time I learn a new sign? Either one would be a wonderful adventure, but which adventure do I choose?
It ultimately comes down to the BIG question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" "What do I want to do for the rest of my life?"
