Nice to meet you!
I live with my husband (Pablo), two kids (Rory, and Julian), a couple of friends, and two dogs in inner SE Portland, Oregon. Portland is absolutely the smallest place I've ever lived, since I was born in Los Angeles County, and went to college at the University of California in Berkeley.
I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I was in the seventh grade. In high school, I played football, and met my husband through the theater department.
I graduated, paid my way through community college, and then got married.
We moved to Berkeley, where we lived in Oakland. I had a daughter, Rory, and then two years later, graduated with an English BA. Six months later my son, Julian, was born. When he was six weeks old he required the first of one of his many skull surgeries (for information on that, head over to the family link).
That same period included an accident involving my daughter and my brother. More information can be found at the old real-time blog I used to keep during the period. Entitled Mostly Medical Misadventures and Mishaps, it chronicles a time in our lives where we moved a few cities, met some phenomenal people, and landed in PDX.
We then moved to Portland, where I began learning ASL in earnest and worked for a time for the Signing Time Foundation, coordinating events. I began volunteering at Oregon School for the Deaf, did interpreter training, and began working as an interpreter in 2012. More on that can be found on the interpreting tab.
In 2015, as I applied to Western Oregon University, I began to have symptoms of severe iritis. Eventually, it was diagnosed as Ankylosing Spondylitis, a condition that impacts not only my eyes, but my spine as well. It's an autoimmune disorder, and co-morbid with other conditions. Information about it, why there's a bald period, can be found on the disability tab.
Accepted into WOU's first Deaf Education cohort in a decade, I worked and attended full-time night classes to be one of the first to graduate with an MS in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education in a very long time. I graduated from WOU, then went on to do some more work at American Public University. I have completed coursework for a graduate certificate in American History at American Public University, and completed an MA in US history. It has been engaging and fascinating. The education tab will give more information about this part of my world.
After graduating, I worked for a short time at a school for adjudicated youth, and then took a job at Northwest Regional Educational Service District as an itinerant teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. In the 2019-2020 year I was nominated for the 2020 Oregon Teacher of the year award.
I also tutor and create lesson plans, about which more information of which can be found on the teaching tab.
Anyway, welcome, and check out work projects. Have a looksie.