Lesson of Gratitude

If you know me well, and hopefully, if you are reading this, you do! Then you know that I tend to like to deviate from the traditional, etc. I am all about the originality! Which is why I have decided to share a story when gratitude was more difficult for me, rather than all the things I am automatically grateful for...

Since I attended most of high school in the Philippines, and my coordination was awful (knowing now it was from the brain injury) I was driver license-less until the age of 19, almost 20. To make a long story short, two days before my 20th birthday, having only been driving for about 3 months, I had a car accident in my parents car (they were still living in the Philippines) and I totaled the front end beyond repair.

For some, or most, this may not be a big deal, but for me it was huge. The initial experience felt like a nightmare for me and it was years before I was able to drive again. I had finally gained my vehicular independence and it was gone- fast. I was frustrated that there didn't seem to be some grand reason why I'd had to experience that. I got through it the best I could but it was far from easy.

Rewind to a year ago- when I was asked to give a talk on gratitude in sacrament meeting. Thinking about what I could say, I thought first about having to withdraw from the teaching program 3 months shy of graduation. However, this was followed by "but if that hadn't happened, then a,b,c,d may not have happened." Displaying a lack of humility, I declared myself to be pretty good at being grateful.

Then the humility kicked in.... and I realized that I didn't have much gratitude in spite of the car accident. I wasn't fully driving yet, but I'd had a lot of practice by then. It was a start. I decided that it was a great time to make a list of car accident gratitude.
Here is the list:

• Right after the car accident happened, neighbors surrounded the car and started asking me if they could call someone for me. I started giving them names and phone numbers- and they started making phone calls
• They were able to get a hold of my Uncle Russell, and he came to the scene just as they were loading me into the ambulance on a body board. (Not trying to be dramatic, that's just how it happened!) I will always be grateful that he was there, and even though I couldn't see him, just hearing his voice gave me comfort.
  
• My Uncle Russell also followed the ambulance to the hospital, waited with me while I was waiting for a doctor, kept me company since I was immobilized and could only stare at the ceiling, and wiped dried blood off my face- not too much blood, though. Just scratches and a very fat lip.
  
• Grateful that at least the EMT's in the ambulance were calm- I was hysterical! Not a result of their efforts to try and calm me, though....
  

• I did hit another car, and there were people in the car, but no one was seriously hurt, nor was I.
  
• When the airbag deployed, I got chemical burn marks on my clothes- my sister Jenn, cleaner extraordinaire, got my clothes clean again!
• Jenn also arranged for me to get to the towing yard (after several phone calls) and retrieve my personal items from the car.
• Another thing she (Jenn) did, seriously an act of love, was that since I didn't have my insurance info with me at the hospital, so I started getting bills. She arranged to have them sent to her house, so I didn't have to worry about it. (I was stressed enough without bills.....)

• I did have to go to court- I had never even been to the princpal's office before and there I was pleading guilty to "failure to yield?" Yeah, it was a bit surreal.... but the fine I had to pay was small! ($95.00, I think) And again, Jenn was there with me!
  

I am sure there is more but for now.... I love how the scriptures teach us that to "live in Thanksgiving daily" and "be grateful in all things" Not just when we feel like it, not just when it's convenient, or when things are going well. And we are not alone to face those times when it harder to be/feel grateful.
P.S. Unrelated to this post... due to the fact my current schedule is intense and time consuming, I will be taking a leave of absence from grad school until I take one class in the summer, back at it again in the fall. It won't delay my graduation, it will make next year's spring semester more full, but I would rather have one really hard semester, knowing that this is the end, then keep going year round and have 3 consecutive kind of hard semesters. Besides my brain needs a break!

Happy holidays, Everyone!

Recent Accomplishments

Indulge me for a minute in talking about myself.......
Here are some of my recent accomplishments:

• I had a several-hour long work training on Friday and managed to stay awake for all of it! That rarely happens, trust me. Of course it helped that we all got up and walked outside in the middle of the training- due to a random fire alarm!
• Went for a walk in the neighborhood during our lunch break- got temporarily lost but managed to find my way back
• At our ward Relief Society Retreat, I was not the 1st one asleep! I think I was the fifth.... OK, so in the grand scheme of things does it really matter when you fall asleep? Still, it was nice to see how far I have come "sound asleep before midnight sleepovers" and was spared waking up in the morning and hearing, "Oh, darn! You/I missed it!"
  

• Did not come in last at the Litster family speed scrabble game. It does not matter that I was 2nd to last, the important thing is that I wasn't last.... We were discussing family competitiveness and I think I am definitely on the lower end, I like winning, I especially like BYU winning, but mainly I think "I'm" just in it for the fun. (Correct me if I am wrong, dear sisters) Or perhaps the food.....
• And, the crowning glory..... I have started regular exercise again!!!! By regular, I mean more than 2 days a week. This has been goal I have been trying to get off the ground for sometime- since August, I think. There is a small gym at my apt complex that I assumed I could use, but as I going to sleep last Sunday the thought occurred to me:

"Self, if that gym really were motivating to you, you would go there more than 1-2 days a week. Perhaps you should find a new medium."
Thankfully, my work is close to the river parkway trail, so I still go into work early but I use the time to explore the parkway trail before work. This week I managed to go 5 days in a row- and it feels incredible! For me, I think exercise brings me more respect to yourself- you know that you are trying to take care of yourself and that you are worth it!!!!
I am scheduled to run my first 10k in Moab, december 6th, but now feel much more at ease about it.....

• Lastly, the first in my family to update my blog! Jenn, is there any kind of prize/special recognition for that? Or just the satisfaction that we/girls beat our brother to it? OK- I didn't say I was 0% competitive.....
  

Favorite picture!

From the family pics we had taken in July- me with all of my nieces! Lots of love to: Jessica, Katie,
Annie, Sara, Allie, Sadie, Ashley, Madeline, Lauren, Emma and Grace....

My Story

January 11, 2002. There were a lot of highs that morning, my Mom and sister, came to College to have lunch with me. My sister brought her week old baby and I was thrilled. However, the main purpose of the trip was so that my Mom could take me to a psychologist in Salt Lake. There were a lot of the forms to fill out in the car and some of the questions and answers made me cry. I had laughed with friends earlier in the week about how “Mom was dragging me to a psychologist” but suddenly I was terrified.
Some of my fears abated when I met the psychologist, and he seemed nice enough. Forms in hand he had said he just finished reading about me. My response? I hope it was fascinating! He assured me that it had been. He talked with my mom first and then called me in. He said my mom had told him that when I was 2 years old, I had received a vaccination and that night had been stuttering my speech and walking a bit crooked. To my knowledge, that was the first time I had heard about that, and I was thinking, “OK, but what does that have to do with anything?” He then told me that I been suffering from a brain injury, likely since that time.
I felt immediate relief when I heard that news. When you live for 21 years and have challenges but you don’t know why, you tend to assume that it’s all your fault. If I tried harder, if I changed this. Suddenly I felt like not everything was my fault! My second thought was how far I had come, and been blessed, in spite of a disability. I had survived a move to the Philippines at age 16, I had struggled in school but was preparing to graduate from College with Honors, I had served as a student body officer. At the time I wasn’t driving because of a previous car accident, but I knew that I could drive again. I said to myself, “If I have made it this far, maybe I can help someone else.” And I have tried to do that since then.. My overall opinion of the day? One of the happiest days of my life.
For sake of explanation- my brain injury situation is unique. In the public eye, it is often associated with someone getting in a car accident, they lose skills and have to regain them. I didn’t lose any skills, I just didn’t have a lot of them to begin with! Skills that most people learn automatically, I didn’t learn because they had not been specifically taught to me. This is obvious when it comes to finding my way around. I can go to a place 10 times but unless I know specifically, turn left here, right here, it will difficult for me to find my way there again. Since my brain doesn’t “self-calm” the way most do, I have anxiety and telling me to calm down can be like telling Tigger not to bounce. I have been through psychotherapy, speech therapy and Neurofeedback therapy which requires electrodes attached to my head that monitor my brain waves. I have medication. But I am not embarrassed about any of these treatments. I see it like having a broken leg. You would do all you could to fix it. You wouldn’t think if I just tried harder or wanted it bad enough, I could make my leg heal better or faster. In my case, progression is very real, but I can’t “make it go away.” It’s with me every day.

The next few years were fairly uneventful, I did start driving again, my sister was kind enough to take me practice driving in her car, I was progressing in the early childhood education program with dreams of a teaching license and helping children with learning disabilities, like myself.
But teaching with my kind of disability was challenging, support from the university was minimal, and my dreams took a detour about 6 weeks into my final semester, when I was called into the Dean’s Office, told I was failing student teaching and recommended that I withdraw from the program. Withdraw I did, and graduated with a degree, but no license, which basically is the purpose of majoring in education. Still, there were so many blessings even at this trying time. I was finished with school! I could enjoy this last time in college without the stress of homework. My previous employer took me back, and I wasn’t sorry that I couldn’t student teach anymore. Plus, my new schedule gave me a lot more time to spend with my grandma. My biggest challenge trying to analyze what I could have done better in life so that this wouldn’t have happened to me. Maybe I should have read my scriptures longer in the day? Spent more time in service? However, challenges in life plentiful. Explanations and answers to why- may not always come.

With hopes of regaining my confidence I left the country for a year. But I did it legally, working as an English teacher in Taiwan. It was challenging and rewarding and there was much to learn. One of my favorite lessons was learned was learned due to my 94 year old Grandma passing away while I was still in Taiwan. I was spared any regret of time not spent with her, and she had been without my grandpa for many years, but I missed my family desperately and was afraid that now that my Grandma was in heaven, she would be busy that she would forget about me. However, I remember feeling privileged that I was able to face this trial. I knew that God had faith in me that I could grow from this and that he trusted me. For me, our trials are a testimony of God’s love for us. He loves us so much that he gives us exactly what we need to grow and become more like him.
Returning home from Taiwan, I started graduate school, studying special education this time and in my second semester was blessed to be a 4.0 scholarship student. For someone with a learning disability who had endured school for so long, this was HUGE. I also started a new job, working as an aide with 4-6 graders with special needs. But at the end of the school year, the kaleidescope of life shifted again when the school chose not to renew my contract, working with 4-6 graders was just not a good fit- age/personality or height wise. I had not seen this coming and it was devastating to me. I thought to myself, “Haven’t I already been through this?“ I entered a state of discouragement I didn’t know was possible. I was pulled out of my discouragement by remembering how excited I had been to take this job, to start grad school, I saw it as a second chance, a year after student teaching. I asked myself how I wanted to feel in a year? I knew I wanted to feel excited again. Plus, God never leaves us alone, and that same day that my job ended I was talking to a friend from grad school. She worked for head start and encouraged me to apply. I was hesitant at first, Head start wasn’t my plan, but I took the plunge and was hired. I was reminded that life is to continue taking small steps forward because you never know when the next step will turn into a leap.
However, yesterday I had the worst day of work I have had since I started, summed up in one word: meeting. I kept telling myself, “You can’t quit. You need this job to pay for school. I wasn’t sure if I could come and share my story of trials and triumphs tonight when I felt so un-triumphant. But thankfully, a good friend, named Marchelle, knew about what I was doing tonight, told me not to quit, and I decided that triumph in life is not how many bumps we can avoid. Life will always bring bumps, but our triumph comes in how, with God’s help, we rebound from those bumps.

Laughing at Myself...

Laughing at myself is something I have been doing a lot of lately- here are some of my favorite, recent examples

• Last week was end-of -month paperwork, I was so proud of myself for getting my immunization records in on one time- except..... I sent in last year's immunizations, instead! Thankfully, no harm done!

• Ingrid, a girl in my class has a goal w/ Mom's support to learn/speak more English. I also got a new head start student last Thursday, and today they both wanted to play with same type of toys. I prompted Ingrid with, "Can you say, my name is Ingrid?" She looks up and with all sincerity, says, "Can you say my name is Ingrid?"
  

• For one of my classes this semester I need to do a play-based assessment. Basically I am filmed playing with a student with special needs, watch the tape and analyze it. My teaching supervisor came last week to film us, but the minute the camera went on, I got nervous, thinking "This is my grade! Am I doing it how my teacher wants it?" So, of course I was less than natural, which didn't help his behavior. After he saw girls doing a puzzle he wanted to do- they didn't want to share- I suppose it was inevitable that despite my best efforts, a few minutes later he started screaming, loudly, "I DON'T CARE!" followed by throwing puzzle pieces. I looked up at my supervisor and simply said, "Cut!"

• Since it is fall break at the U, I took some time after work today to run some errands. It had been a long day, and I seriously debated back and forth about whether or not to drop of my ink cartridges to get refilled, because she is going there later this week. I finally decided to go, an 18 minute walk from TRAX (folks were not at home) and as for the ink cartridges???? Well, they were still at my apartment! What else can you do but laugh????

Someday, when I experience my dream of being a motivational speaker for those with disabilities and other life challenges, I will say to the audience- "Laugh at yourself for as long as and as often as you can!"
It sure beats guilt and embarrasment.....

Emotions Exposed!!! Oooohhh.....

So I can home from work today, emotionally overwrought (how's that for vocabulary, huh?) and thought that maybe I would express my feelings via blog- it's got to be good for something, right? Perhaps it is something you wanted to know about me, hopefully it's not more than you wanted to know.... But I would rather that people know me and love because of my flaws/emotions, etc, and not in spite of them. But if it is major TMI, feel free to let me know! OK.

• Regarding my assistant sometimes I want to say "I want to be the fun one!" The one that spends a lot of time one-on-one with kids. A fabulous idea in theory- but in reality there are 17 preschoolers in the class. My assistant, with lots of potential, but little experience, is great at being compassionate and loving the students, she is great at keeping kids engaged in small groups, seriously. The only challenge is, she has a habit of focusing on just one or a few kids, that the rest of the kids, well, are left to me.
  
• For example, the new student today got plenty of love and attention, but who was chasing kids around the room or making sure they cleaned up after themselves? Yeah, it was me. She is great at stepping in and discipling the kids (when I am trying to take care of it myself) but I would rather have her support from the beginning. Nor can I, want I, to give them tangible items, or invite them to my house to play. Again, she has tons of potential and compassion
  

I would love to have more time to sit down and play more individually with the kids, but I feel like I spend more time putting out fires and it frustrates me when parents come to pick up their kids, and often I have little idea about what to tell the parents about how their day went.
Here are some options:

• Truthfully, I can't feel sorry for myself, find a way to make it work so that I can play more with the kids.
  
• Try to be more compassionate with students, perhaps?
  
• Hang in there 'till I get my new assistant- supposed to be coming next week

• Next Item: Job security!!! Even though I have gotten great feedback about my job, sometimes I am concerned about job security. I wasn't able to finish student teaching and then my job at Jordan District didn't want me back for another year. I tell myself that this year is different, and it is a completely new job/field, and I have much improved in "seeking feedback" but when both previous opportunities ended- I didn't see it coming! Hopefully I will be at ease with job security soon....

• I think often I am in denial about how much I can reasonably take on, manage to the degree that I "feel" successful and maintain good health and well-being. That is the only explanation I have for working 40 hrs a week, class 2 nights a week, 45 minute commute to work each way and.. then agree to: tutoring, baby-sitting, very-part time work for Parks and Rec- sure! A friend said it best when he said, "You are the ultimate poster child for optimism- you think you can do anything!" There is truth in that, I am sure....

• Dating- no I am not obsessed with dating and/or marriage- but a date (where I didn't have to ask) would be nice. I haven't had one in almost a year.....

• School-I feel almost guilty for saying it but I am just not enjoying it this semester. I remind myself what a blessing it is to be in grad school, but the classes this semester are reading logs/journals (which we never discuss in class) and then telling us how to do the many assignments. Where is the teaching new concepts? Where the learning? Sigh..... a 10 pg paper due in two weeks that has yet to be written....
• And my apt complex has a gym, 2 minutes away, accessible 24/7. Why, I can't seem to make it there more than once a week is a mystery to me....
• Living with a disability every day is both a blessing and a challenge
  

As the saying goes, "to know me is to love me," right? Well, in this case, at least I love myself!

Smiles for Today 10/7/08

Another day of Smiles!!! President Monson's talk inspired me.....
As a sidenote- not every day is blissful, not every moment is one I want to smile about, but the growth that comes from challenging times- does make me want to smile!

• Provided referrals to family for clothing and food
• Class got out early
• No students ran in the hall after outside time (they saved it for the classroom, but hey- it's progress!)
• A phone call from my cousin
• Chatting with a good friend on facebook
• Getting my sandwich maker (mostly) free of dried food debris
• Clean laundry
• Finished more paperwork
• 3 accidental phone calls from my mom (her phone was being weird- I eventually left class because I figured it was important... Here's our conversation:

Me to Mom: So, what's up?
Mom to me: Pause. Well, I just bought a bunch of daisies...
Me to Mom: So, is that why you called me 3 times? (I said it nicely!)

• Watching my students use their breakfast bananas as telephones
• The ploys of a 5 year to get a second bag of chips for lunch (when that was all he'd eaten) and then trying to convince his mom that he could take them home with him (since we are a federally funded program- no food goes home).
• Hugs from children
• Sunshine!