Playing Secretary

Posted on by frankwmcarr

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3, 4, ESV)

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me to transcribe his handwritten copy of a graduation speech for a phlebotomy certificate at a nearby community college.  We both agreed to have him deliver the message orally (as opposed to copying the speech from a print form).  As a primarily visual learner, this took me out of my comfort zone, yet the work was fantastic.

As he recited the words, I copied them down in Microsoft Word, and being a native English speaker (as opposed to him), I was persistent, and observed grammatical rules that would be best understood by one (in this case, me) whose top language is English.  His thick West African (Ghana) accent was another obstacle, but I still tenaciously continued to “break the barrier.”

To polish it off, I double-spaced and printed it.  He did the proofreading, which (slightly embarrassingly) led to awareness some of my own grammatical errors.  But they were minor, and I corrected them, printed the typed speech, and presto!  It was complete.

As they say, no man is an island.  This was one exercise of me going out of my comfort zone.  Whether we like it or not, this can be necessary.  And auditory input, I assume, might have been sharpened.  But I would check with a psychiatrist or psychologist on that.

April Showers Bring…

Posted on by frankwmcarr

Not just May flowers, but many awesome milestones.  I will name a few.

  1.  Watching the “Met” on PBS
    Notice I didn’t say “Mets,” as in the baseball team.  This is the opera company (namely, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City).  This time it was (I think) in Italian, but it was derived from the work of one of the Anglosphere’s greatest playwrights, the one and only Shakespeare.  The opera itself, supplied with subtitles, was Romeo and Juliet.  Subtitles can drive you crazy, but my mom, a fan of opera, she thinks the musical component of an opera takes precedence over the mere dramatic component.
  2. Potential college admission
    I hope to transfer from 2 community colleges (and some other places) and the credits earned therefrom, to West Chester U in, (you guessed it), West Chester, PA!  A rather distant suburb of Philadelphia, West Chester proper is a quaint town, with a variety of homes.  I will definitely study Biology, with a potential minor or double major (still disputed).  If they don’t accept me, I’ll just keep on testing certain options.
  3. Reading novels
    Until recently, they were (or at least from my perspective) for taking, without use (if so, not thoroughly.)  Yet, believe it or not, “pleasurable” non-fiction, including the Web, layman books, encyclopedias, and in my case, textbooks, tended to offer no better stamina than fiction.  Fiction, however, has a storyline and plot, which is a whole different dimension from nonfiction.  In the final analysis, many (if not most) nonfictional books that I have designated for enjoyment weren’t really that enjoyable.
  4. Watching (fictional) movies and long TV shows
    Like novels, they have a plot, etc.  Thus, see #3

Bottom line:  My apparent weakness has nothing to do with a learning disability (e.g., dyslexia) that you may think is the case, for I’m not learning disabled (unless you count dysgraphia).  I’m not even sure if it is from high-functioning autism spectrum disorder(which is my core diagnosis).  So,  what is this weakness?  It’s attention span issues.  I’m not going to “play psychiatrist” and decide what it is.  I leave that up to the actual doc in this case.  And while doctors may know more than you do about such issues, they are not you.  But no worries, I’m still got quite a life ahead of me, and I should do the best that I can.

Yet as a Christian, I believe anything is possible with God (Matt. 19:26)