I didn’t want to blog again until after my chemistry exam this morning. Everyday after class I have come home and turned my notes into flashcards and studied for an hour. Yesterday I studied, cooked dinner then studied some more. When I got up this morning I picked up my flashcards from my bedside table as I stood up. My husband asked me if I had slept with them. I immediately wondered if I should have had them under my pillow. We haven’t studied osmosis but maybe it works on note cards, through a pillow and into the brain.
I left for school early and studied some more when I go there. When I first saw the test I nearly hyperventilated! What in the world was all of this stuff? Being handed a periodic table and a test and then a separate answer sheet only got me more disturbed. On the little tiny desk (maybe 10 inches by 7inches?) I had three separate sets of papers and my calculator. Little by little I worked through it, skipping areas that looked hard, going back as my breathing became more normal until I finally realized I was done. I have no idea what I did or how I did. It is like when the guy spins the marble in a roulette wheel and you just have to sit and wait until it decides to stop on a number. That number in this instance will be my grade! After looking over my notes, I could have made a 100 or more likely I did not, since I don’t remember the specific numbers in the problems nor exactly how I arrived at the answers.
The class has been good. On the day of our first lab the professor asked for a volunteer who did not have a lab partner and was willing to help him. I thought I would volunteer at the end of class and then forgot about it. After class as everyone left for a quick lunch before lab, I heard the deaf guy ask if he could be the helper. The teacher said no, he needed someone else to do this job, it involved a lot of talking, something this guy can not do. Looking around I realized I was the only person left in the room, so I asked if I could volunteer and Dr. Byrd said yes. What he needed was someone to be lab partners with the guy in the wheelchair who is blind and has almost no dexterity in his hands. I would need to do the experiment while explaining every move I make, describing each thing I touched and every reaction I got. It means I will usually be last to finish which doesn’t bother me. You all know I think people are usually in too big of a hurry in general and I make it a point to be slow when I take tests (I was third to last to finish today out of 21 people) and I usually build in extra time for everything so I don’t have to rush.
At the first lab I hesitated for only a minute when I realized I would have to ask a personal, maybe politically incorrect question. Could my partner see anything? He told me no, so I started letting him feel the beakers and tubes we were using. The next lab as I talked about colors I realized I had to know something else. Has he ever been able to see? I was telling him something turned blue and I realized that if you had never seen blue, it really didn’t mean anything to you. But he had been able to see until he was 12, so he knew what colors were. We take so much for granted!!!
After lab, my partner needed to go back to the classroom because that is where the lady that picks him up knew to find him. We were in a lab on the other side of the building. Dr. Byrd was still helping a student so I tried to get Mannie (my partner) out of the lab and to the classroom. His wheelchair is motorized but since he is limited in motion in his hands and can’t see where he is going anyway, a second person has to “drive” him. I am an OK driver but a somewhat cautious, timid driver. New contraptions really make me nervous so I am overly cautious!
The first thing I had to do was turn him around 180 degrees to face the door. The wheelchair is big and heavy and will not move by hand, you have to “give it the gas” to get anywhere. I was trying and failing miserably to turn him around. The teacher came to turn him around as I held open the door. I told him I could take him the rest of the way, but I got a very skeptical look. I assured him I could handle it and we went off down the hall. I started and stopped in fits. I would go slowly then let off the joy stick that controlled the thing. Kids these days would be so much better at this since the control was like something I have seen on my son’s video games, but it is not something I am comfortable with. So we slowly proceeded down the hall. Mannie probably now has whiplash to add to his list of issues.
And then we came to the 90 degree turn down the next hall. Slowly I turned the chair as we kept moving and I was proud of myself when we turned and headed down the hall straight to the classroom. However, the lady was not there to get him. He assured me he was fine waiting for her there, but I had him smack dab in the middle of the hall. I had gotten just cocky enough to think I could back him in between two chairs by the wall across from the door of the room. So I began to back him up and nearly plowed him into one of the chairs. I abruptly stopped and moved the chair so I could slowly back the wheel chair up without having to go forward and start over. About that time here came Dr. Byrd, but by then Mannie was situated perfectly. I really didn’t want Dr. Byrd to know I had had any problems since I had assured him I could handle it.
I was glad to see the lady come to get Mannie so I could flee out into the sunny day and head home. The second lab, two days later, was a more difficult lab but actually went easier since I had a little experience under my belt. I am not only learning chemistry but all sorts of other lessons I would never have expected.
Tim told me the other day I was “losing Jesus” being in school all of the time. He was partially joking because I have had to miss so much church, don’t feel like I have time to take a Bible study (something I always did before) and don’t volunteer at church as much as I used to. I contend you can find Jesus anywhere you are if you just look around and make yourself available. Maybe it was time for me to stop spending so much time in church and more time outside of the church, learning and helping in ways that aren’t organized by the church but are just as meaningful, in ways I could never have expected.
You ARE Jesus to Mannie.