LESSON 3 PARTS 1 & 2

LESSON 3, PART 1

MY ATTEMPT:
I will go to law school, become a lawyer, go to ork for leal aid, and save the world!


MY REALITY/EPIPHANY:
I hated law school, graduated anyway, but lot my passion for righting social injustice along the way.

I entered law school three months after graduating from a small private liberal arts school; my law school was part ond f a large state university. The school environment was impersonal and the students' attitudes toward one another were cuthroat and competitive. I was unprepared for the chang in academic environment although I did enjoy living alone in my first apartment and embarking on a new phase of my life! I was idealistic and unbelievably naive for a 21-year old!


LESSON 3 PART 2

SAVED BY "THE BELL”



I awakened slowly, by instinct, rather than by the cacophony of cat noises bursting through the room. From tiny Ripley’s earsplitting squalls to enormous Calvin’s soft trills, and adventurous Alistair’s incessant pawing at the door, rattling it hard enough to shake the whole house, the usual wake-up noise was absent from my morning. My sinus condition had worsened and I couldn’t hear a thing! I poked my wonderful husband Rick in the ribs; presumably, he was snoring with his usual soothing roar, but this blissful, silent morning, I was unable to hear a sound! I groped in my drawer for my ear drops, and administered them; from years of experience wearing these particular ears, I knew it would take several doses throughout the day to get them back to normal!

Unaware of my temporary deafness, Rick rolled over in his usual groggy, bearlike morning state. In the dim light of the early morning, I watched him roll over and say something to me. The eerie silence suddenly settled over me like a dark cloak as I realized that I could not hear a single sound, or any words either of us said! Frustration and depression engulfed my usual sunny morning persona. I realized after a few wasted minutes of gloom that I indeed had an ideal situation and could make my needs known without argument. I began “my toilette,” as we call it. Being able to get myself up and ready is still a joyous event for me; as recently as last year, I could barely dress myself and could not sit myself up in bed, as a result of a mysterious illness, emergency surgery, and long hospitalization. Because I am stubborn and a little arrogant, that humbling episode did not sit well with me, and I still glory in my hard-won independence, limited though it is by my MS, (which actually had nothing to do with the recent illness!) This crazy morning, after a few quiet moments, I began to jabber, as I am a disgustingly animated morning person. After some awkward sign language, Rick and I managed to maneuver me into my “chariot” and out of the door to my kitchen-office, where I cook for the family from my chair, and write.

Rick collected his lunch bag and cereal-to-go in the red plastic cup, and tenderly kissed me good bye; thus starting my day of unanticipated silence. I have recently embarked on a free-lance writing career and have just landed a promising-looking assignment; in an attempt to enhance my appearance of organization and efficiency, I had a meeting scheduled today with my new boss using the Skype system of communication. To make up for this glitch in my operations, I planed to write him using that same platform to explain my predicament and inform him that we would be able to communicate using written text but not by talking directly, as had been our usual custom I successfully corresponded with my boss, projected that this condition would clear up within the week, and assured him that the only effect this would have on my productivity would be to enable me to work without interruption! As quiet is at a real premium here, that will be a good predicament to find myself in.

The quiet began to settle around me like an uninvited guest. I was getting lonely without any interaction from my usual pattern of noisemakers—a variety of Christian broadcast networks and classical music stations, all available on internet radio and cable television. I considered turning the television on just for the pictures, and finally settled on the Weather channel, as it offers a visual broadcast of pertinent information as well as audio broadcast.


By now, the silence was almost deafening! I had always heard that phrase, but couldn’t really identify with it until now! The person inflicted with involuntary silence only experiences what is running around his/her head—there is no outside input! Fortunately, I possess a photographic memory when it comes to music, so I have an enormous music library in my head to draw on—but can it get me through this awful silence today?? Suddenly, a familiar vibration seized my waist pouch. It was my little cell phone—and it was also blinking furiously to alert hearing-impaired users to its ringing as well as affording able-eared users the luxury of receiving calls even if the phone were set on the silent setting. From the number showing on the phone, I could tell that the caller was my beloved husband! I was saved from utter hopeless solitude!I quickly began to talk into the phone, telling him that I could see the phone ring but still couldn’t hear a thing; the drops hadn’t worked their magic to unstop my ears yet. Still, I considered my solitude as having been “saved by the bell”—the good old fashioned bell of the phone, reconfigured to fit my situation! I was finally liberated from my quiet hell! Normally, I would never have considered quiet as being such an undefeatahle curse! Positioned amid all this noise and commotion, I usually pray for peace and quiet—that sends home to me loud and clear the old maxim that “you’d better watch what you ask for, ‘cause you just MIGHT get it! I had wished for a ay of quiet, but not THIS much quiet!!