1st Day At SEE Conference

Tonight was the first night of the SEE conference and then tomorrow it is early in the morning and all day long. Tonight we were evaluated to see what class we would be assigned. I filled out the sheet that asks why are you hear "mother of Deaf child" and how long have you been signing "since Octoberish". I hand the paper to the lady and she asks how old my daughter is and I start signing back to her that she is 10, we are adopting her etc. She looks down at the paper and then back at me and says - you've only been signing since October. I reply yes and she tells me to stand over there and they will get back with me on what class I should be in. Technically, since I have only been signing for less than a year I should be in a beginners class, but she says I do not belong in a beginners class. So, I am put in a classroom with 32 other people and we are evaluated further. The first assignment we are broken up into groups of 3 and asked to tell out ourselves. The first person goes and she's an interpreter - ok....the second person goes and she's an interpreter - feeling nervous. It is my turn and I'm only a mother - no interpreter. We are then broken up into groups of 11 and are told again to tell our story. Interpreter, interpreter, interpreter, speech pathologist, interpreter, itenerant, interpreter...etc. Once again, me just mom!

Am I in the right class??? My signing in my opinion is not that great. It's okay and I have continued working on it for 7 months but it is definately not at an interpreters level. They give us a large workbook and most of it is about interpreting in the classroom and interpreters responsibilies, etc. OH MY GOSH - I am so overwhelmed! The people teaching these classes are linguist with PHDs and masters in this and in that! Again, I am just a mom. I am only taking these classes so that I can better help my child with her homework and building her language skills.

Anyway, I will try to post again tomorrow on how day 2 goes if my head has not exploded!