Beginning of the 2nd Year

Hello everyone!

I arrived back in Washington, DC on August 25 to begin my 2nd year of graduate school. This year I am living in the dorms but with 3 good friends of mine. We all met last year and have remained great friends. I have the best suitemates ever! They are Nicole (my roommate from last year), Heidi (a Deaf Education major from New Mexico), and Krystin (an interpreting major from New York). I think I can speak for them when I say that our suite is the best! We have gone shopping and bought decorations and other necessities for our suite. The picture below is us with all our purchases from a long day of shopping!

My suitemates & I! (Me, Krystin, Heidi, & Nicole)

School started last week on Aug 31 and I have already been so busy! I have only night classes (most beginning at 5:30 or 6pm and lasting about 3 hours each). I have a different one each night, so that I only have each class once a week. I will have internship during the day and classes each night. The classes that I am taking this semester are Aural Rehabilitation 2, Organic and Swallowing Disorders, Informational Counseling and Interviewing, and Cochlear Implants. So far I really enjoy the classes and find them fascinating! I hope I stay as excited as I have been this past week!

Me & Allie hanging out

I begin my internship at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School tomorrow morning and I'm very nervous and excited. It will be a new experience to work in a school for Deaf and Hard-of-hearing children where I must sign most of the day!! I hope to improve my American Sign Language (ASL) skills this semester.

This past week has been fun meeting the new kids ("First Years") and getting back in touch with all my friends. We played kickball this past Friday with the First Year Speech-Language Pathology students. It was First Year vs Second Year...we got stomped! The First Years are really good at kickball apparently!

These are the First Year SLP students after winning the kickball game!

I am also proud to inform you that I have passed all of my Written Candidacy "COMP" exams!!!!! I studied so hard over the summer and knocked them all out! This is a huge accomplishment for me because you must pass these in order to continue in the program! I found out right before the kickball game but apparently it didnt help me win the game! Hahaha

I also had the joy of hosting 2 of my friends here this weekend. Maggie (one of my best friends from UNC) and her boyfriend, Blake, visited me in DC this weekend!!!! I had a total blast and enjoyed every second of seeing them. We toured around many museums and the zoo and they got to meet a few of my Gallaudet friends. I really had a fantastic weekend and was so happy they came to see me! Here are a few pictures of our weekend together:

Me, Maggie, & Blake in front of the Washington Monument

Maggie & Blake showing some love

Maggie holding a red panda stuffed animal at the zoo!

Erin, Me & Maggie petting a cow at the Zoo!

This semester will be a difficult one because of the amount of work and classes that I have all together. Many of my days, I fear, will be 13 hour days. I do already feel more calm than last year just because I have friends here, I know Gallaudet and how the system works, and I can communicate much better than last year at this time.

It was really interesting to compare my first day on campus last year with my first day back on campus this year. Last year I showed up and had no idea where anything was; this year I know exactly where everything is and can get there easily. Last year I could not communicate with anyone and even got asked if I was at the right school; this year I carried on conversations with strangers and checked into my dorm room with ease (even having a conversation about UNC vs Duke with the Residential Advisor-RA- in the office). Last year I was really really scared and worried about what I was embarking on; this year I'm still nervous, but I feel much more at ease. Last year I knew absolutely no one on campus; this year I called my friends on the way to school and got so many hugs when I arrived that I felt very loved!!! There are many more instances of the differences that a year can make, but those are the most significant to me.

If anyone has any questions for me, please send them to me by posting a comment on my blog here or by sending an email to melissa.perryman@gallaudet.edu . I still have few unanswered from last year so I will try to answer them as quickly as I can when I find time! Let me know if you want to receive an email from me when I update my blog and I will add you!

Please also visit my mom's website at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mwperryman for more information, pictures, and updates on my family's life.

I am very excited to begin this 2nd year!

Busy Busy Summer

Hi ya'll! I apologize for the longggg delay between the last post and this post, but a lot has been going on! I took 2 summer courses at Gallaudet, took 4 Candidacy Examinations, my brother got married, I moved back to NC for the summer, a family reunion, and I'm currently interning at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, NC! WHEW! Big summer!

The summer courses and candidacy exams were incredibly stressful and I rarely even saw my friends or spoke to my family during those 5 weeks. I had a lot to do at all times and the intensity of the classes and the exams was a bit overwhelming, but I made it! I was so relieved to be finished with all of that but then had to move myself home to NC. It has been very nice to be home and spend time with my family. We enjoy watching Jeopardy together every night and some nights a few other important shows (So You Think You Can Dance and Atlanta Braves baseball games, just to name a few).

Many of my fellow SLPs after finishing with our candidacy exams! We are so happy!

My brother also got married while I was still in summer classes in DC. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding!!!!! I cried entirely too much for my own good because everything was so perfect. I don't think we could have asked for a better wedding and reception. To see many, many, many photos from the wedding go to THIS WEBSITE and enjoy!

Vickie & David getting married!

Dad & I dancing at the reception

We also had a Matthews Family Reunion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this summer over the 4th of July weekend. There were 36 of us total, which makes for a lot of chatting and catching up with everyone! I think I can speak for my family when I say that we all really enjoyed ourselves and loved being together in such a large group. We got a lot of time to talk and see the city over the weekend. I love going to family reunions to see how my cousins have grown up and visit with my grandmother and her 4 siblings! I feel so fortunate that we can all meet up like this about every 2 years. It is such a blessing!

Dad & Mom in front of the Pittsburgh skyline

I'm currently interning in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center and Outpatient Rehabilitation Center at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst. I will be there for about 8 weeks working with patients after strokes, traumatic brain injuries, articulation difficulties, language delays, autism, deafness, and voice disorders. It has been very interesting to work "in the field" and see how speech-language pathologists really work! I get to do therapy sessions with the patients along with many other things. I will not say that this summer has ruled out my potentially working in a hospital, because it has been so interesting!

As many of you know, my mother has also begun chemotherapy again. This has been a bit of a struggle this summer, but we are taking it day by day, hour by hour, and hoping that we can knock out some more of the cancer! You can follow her updates by going to her website at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mwperryman . You can also get an email reminder of when my parents update that website by checking the box under Journal where it says "I want to receive journal update notification emails." Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as the chemo kicks in and makes her feel very sick. We can all feel the prayers and appreciate the notes, cards, emails, and guestbook entries. Thank you for all that you've done for us!

I have taken some time to visit with my NC friends this summer and reconnect with all of them. I have been to Chapel Hill several times to see some old college friends and got to relax in the mountains of NC with some of my best friends for one weekend in July. I have been so blessed to have time to visit with friends despite my busy and hectic schedule.

Maggie, Julie, Carrie, Me, & Jenny getting ready to go whitewater rafting down the Nantahala River in the mountains of NC!

As I'm sure some of you know, my brother and Vickie already have a child...a dog! His name is Fu Manchu (or as we call him, Fu) and they loved him dearly. I think they would like to show him off so I'll do the honors and put up a picture of him for everyone to see!

Isn't Fu the cutest?

Next up? I move back to Washington, DC around August 25 and begin classes and internship the following week. I will be interning at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School, conveniently located on Gallaudet's campus. I will be working with a variety of children, all of whom are deaf or hard of hearing. I am very nervous and excited about this and know it will be challenging!

Please pass along my blog website to anyone you feel would like to read it. Unfortunately, I do not have a box to check where you can receive email notifications when I update, but I will work on figuring out how to do that.