Good Luck, Karina!

​Today we said goodbye to our dental intern, Karina.  She has been a tremendous help and an awesome student.  She makes teaching easy.  She soaked everything up as they were taught.  She spent her Spring Break in the office wanting to learn and experience more.  She has the determination and conviction of a super star.  We know she will go far in life.  We look forward to seeing her again and wish her much successes in all her endeavors.  Lastly, we want to thank her for teaching us ASL along the way.  She gave Teresa a sign name of "Beautiful Teresa" and me a "Sassy Dr. Vu" and we both love it.

We would like to say we will miss our interpreter, Janelle (in green), as well.  She has been a fun companion on this journey.  I call her my "private tutor" in ASL.  Because of her, my signing skills have improved tremendously.  She was very gracious with my, "I-don't-want-you-to-interpret-for-me", "wait, what did she say?", "did you get that?", and "how do you sign this/that?" determination to learn ASL fluently.  Our conversations typically go like this:

Me: I don't want you to interpret for me. I want to learn.  She has to learn how to communicate with me without an interpreter.

Janelle: Okay, sorry.

A few seconds pass by and I'm still trying to see what Karina is saying.  Janelle looks at me to see if I got it.  I sign back to Karina.  I turn to Janelle and ask, "Did you understand that?" for confirmation.  When she says yes, I move on with a huge smile of satisfaction on my face.  Then I turn back to Janelle and ask, "How do you sign this/that?"  So, thank you Janelle for putting up with my extreme eagerness to learn ASL within 3 hours/day for 3 days/week for 3 months.  Thank you for also always telling me how good I am.  I know the truth but I appreciate a little fluffiness as well.  We hope you do drop by often to say hi and check on my ASL skills.  Good luck on all your adventures as well.