After my accident, I was partially paralyzed on my right side and I was unable to speak. I began to question my fate. What did I do to deserve this fate? I had gone from somebody who cares for others, to someone who now relies on others for some of the basic activities of daily living. This threw me into a depressed state for a long time after my incident. Then one day I read the above quote and it hit me. God has a plan for all of us. I had heard my parents say that hundreds of times before but until then, I didn’t really understand what it meant for me.

Fate is a funny thing. I never would have guessed that I would be living on my own again and working as a consumer representative. It makes me proud to say that I am still able to help others as an AAC user. Fate may have thrown me a curve ball but there is a saying that is very true for me.  It states: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

As it always goes, the first time had a few kinks that needed to be worked out.  For the first half hour of the meeting the leader’s microphone wasn’t working. But with some help he was able to get it working.  Then we were having trouble getting one of the web cams up and running. The only other problem that we had was the amount of reverb that I would get whenever I would increase the volume on my DynaVox V. 

Besides those few small hiccups the meeting went pretty well. I can’t wait to get a chance to use this platform to present to as many people that I can.

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me.  It makes me feel good
when I can help to spread the word about AAC. I am happy to think that I may
have just made a huge change in some family’s life just by taking a moment to
demonstrate how I use my DynaVox. I always say the man upstairs has a plan for
all of us. If I can make that difference for one person, then I did my job.

There is one aspect of body language, however, that may be more prevalent than all others is eye contact. Human eyes are said to hold the key to the soul. In the professional world, as well as in the dating world, understanding how to convey messages through your eyes, as well as read the minds of others through interpretation of their body language and eye contact, will go a long way in interpreting what may not be said through verbal conversation. My family says that you can read my eyes like a book and often I don’t even have to say anything.

As a nonverbal person, I understand the importance of eye contact during personal and professional communications. The eyes, for example, can say a lot about you during a presentation. Eye contact is essential when giving a presentation. This is something that I know that I need to be aware of when giving a presentation. People will tend to lose interest in what you are saying if you are staring at the screen or looking at the floor. 

In a personal conversation it is just as important to remember to make eye contact whether giving a presentation, talking with coworkers or just speaking with your family and friends. Eye contact can relay our innermost thoughts and desires. It can let the person we are speaking with know our emotional connection and interest in what we are conversing about. Failing to maintain eye contact during a conversation can send mixed signals to the person with whom you are speaking. It is often construed as a lack of interest or an indication of a short attention span. 

All of us, regardless of whether we are augmented communicators or not, are equipped with a powerful tool in eye contact. It can be used in positive ways to effectively express confidence, intellect, honesty, and more.

We made it to Texas around 3:30 in the afternoon to the surprise of Tasha, my girlfriend.  I sent her a text message and made up a story saying that we were having car trouble and that we wouldn’t be arriving until late that night.  Needless to say, she was surprised that we arrived so early.  She was very happy to see me.

We unloaded the truck until the next day.  While we were loading the truck in Florida, we had about six people helping out and we finished in a short time.  In Texas it was just my dad and Tasha’s sister and brother-in law to unload so it took a little longer.  I was amazed that Tasha had all the boxes unpacked and put away before my dad flew back to Florida a few days later.

Even though I am all moved in, I am still adjusting to my new life.  It is such a big change for me.  I never realized how much I relied on my parents since my accident.  My parents spoiled me as many parents do with their children.  It doesn’t matter what age you are, you will always be a child in the eyes of a parent.  I am lucky to have two wonderful parents who will always be there for me.  I am so grateful to them for all they have done for me.

I am looking forward to starting my life with Tasha and I am thrilled to finally be out on my own again. This was a huge step in my life. We are still working out the details of living together. There are things that I am not able to do for myself and I need to ask for help.  I am sure that with time and a little bit of patience, we should be fine.

After months of waiting for the housing authorities, they finally approved us to move in to our new apartment. Man that was such a hassle. It is hard to believe how many times we had to fax and refax the same things to them.  Between the department of housing and the apartment management, I must have faxed my photo ID and my social security card at least a half a dozen times each. First the copy was too light to read; then it was too dark. Then they needed another copy because too much time had passed since the last time we had made a copy. It seemed to be an unending cycle.

Finally they got it straightened out. Tasha moved into our new apartment on the 1^st of March and I finally moved over to Texas on later that month. This is a huge step in my life, one that I couldn’t make without the love and support of my family. I will miss them very much but it is time for me to spread my wings. Tasha and I will be very happy together once we’re finally all unpacked.

There were 35 students in attendance during the presentation. Since I had already presented to graduate students the year before, I didn’t have to make a whole lot of changes to make in my speech, which was good due to the time crunch. The students were very attentive to what I was saying many were taking notes during my presentation.  They responded well to the humor that I had interjected in my presentation.  There were several questions asked after the presentation to which I was able to respond.

Overall, it was a great experience and I really enjoyed being there.  Perhaps it was the fact that there were 33 young ladies present. It felt good when they gave a standing ovation when I was finished.

With an overflow crowd, I would have to guess there were about 175 people in attendance. It was standing room only. This was by far one of the biggest crowds of people that I ever had the privilege to speak in front of. The audience consisted of all kinds of people from the parents of AAC users, speech-language pathologists and university teachers, to software engineers. The moderator got the meeting started by laying down the ground rules. He gave each of the panelists about 3 to 4 minutes to introduce themselves. After the introductions Richard had asked Gail VanTatenhove and me to talk about some of our interests that we would like to discuss during the meeting.

My interest was in the use of cell phones and the latest AAC technology.  My question was where do we go from here? I explained that nowadays, just about everyone is carrying a cell phone, including most AAC users. It will only be a matter of time for the AAC user to be able to make phone calls right from their devices without the use of a cell phone or vice versa. After Gail and I spoke about our interests, Richard then opened the meeting up to a question and answer session. It was interesting to hear the different points of views on the topics that were talked about.

Altogether the town hall meeting lasted a little over an hour. Although a lot of the topics which I had preprogrammed into my device didn’t ever come up in the discussion, overall it was a good meeting in which I was proud to be able to participate.

Because of the fact that this party was mostly my parent’s friends, there where people that I didn’t really know.  As AAC users who have been in this situation can attest, it can be a little awkward meeting someone for the first time and not being able to communicate to them. The worst part was it was so loud in the restaurant that what little voice I had was drowned out by the background noise. It was so frustrating not being able to respond when people would try to talk with me. I felt as if they thought that I had intellectual disabilities or was unable to understand what they were saying to me.

I did have my cell phone with me so using text messaging I was able to type out what I wanted to say. The only problem was that the people that I was speaking with didn’t know that what I was typing into my phone was for them. Until my parents would tell them that I had a message for them, they just saw me texting on my phone and would walk away from me.

I hadn’t felt so powerless to communicate in a long time. It brought back memories of how I felt before I was introduced to AAC.  I was reminded of just how difficult it was to effectively communicate without the assistance of an AAC device. At the same time it reminded me of just how lucky I am to have found a voice with the help of an AAC device. This isn’t something that I will soon forget.

No matter how stubborn a habit you’ve developed, there are ways to break those negative patterns and keep healthy resolutions throughout the year. The trick is to keep everything in perspective – focus on realistic goals with measurable results. The best way you can do this is by breaking things down into smaller steps that you can manage. For example, instead of trying to lose 50 pounds try starting off by losing 5 pounds, and instead of 5 pounds a week, try losing a pound a week. Create smaller jobs that you’ll be able accomplish. If your goals are too big, you’ll feel defeated before you even get started.

One of the most important things to remember when setting goals for is that while we certainly always strive to better ourselves, it is healthier to think in more positive terms than to focus in on when we fall short of our aspirations. People often make goals that aren’t necessarily meaningful to them. Your goals should be something that you really desire to change or achieve for yourself not what society or your family says is good for you to do. If you are not self-motivated then you will not succeed with your goals.

Like many other people, my New Year’s resolution was to diet and exercise. This year – unlike others – I made more specific goals than just to diet and exercise.  It sounds much more manageable to say, my plan is to stop snacking at night before bed and start to get back into shape by riding my bike twice a week. A resolution should be easily obtainable and, most of all, fun to do. And on that note, may all of you have a safe and exciting New Year!  And I hope that your resolutions haven’t fallen by the wayside.  Remember, every day is a new day; you don’t have to wait for a new year to make a resolution!