So, yeah. :)

Still alive and kicking. Just haven't been up to updating and such. I'm a lurker, mostly. But I'm involved in the Veronica Mars fandom through vm_navigator, the Veronica Mars version of daily_sntich, as editor. It's a lot of fun and takes a lot of work. But hey, anything to keep me from going crazy. :D

Anyway. So. I have a video blog, thanks to ninamalfoy, who wanted me to do a video blog. You can view the video blog here! I, of course, included a translation in the post for all of you who have no sign language skills. :) The video blog is boring, it's just a autobiographical piece, kind of, that I had to do for my First Year Seminar last semester.

Give me ideas for what to talk about for my next video blog! :)

Nothing much happened during my weekend, really. There was a funeral on Saturday. My great uncle (or something)'s mother died. Lived a century basically, really. She was ninety-nine years old. Never met her in my life. Mom wanted me there as a sign of support. Gah. Can I just say I hate funerals? Anyway. Afterwards, we went out for lunch, just me and my mom, which I paid because I'm nice that way and apparently likes spending all my money on stuff. Good thing I don't have bills and such yet. That's four or so years in the future. Heh. :P

We also went to Sears to look for televisions for university, which I'll be leaving in like three weeks from tomorrow. Eeek! Haven't bought one yet. But we do have a eye on one. And we need to buy a laptop too, we're thinking of going with Helwett Packard and use the monthly plan to pay for now because my parents can't afford it right now. That reminds me. I'll have to get mom as soon as she gets home to the computer so we could order the laptop by the end of tonight because I want the laptop before I go to university to test it out and such.

And for the record? I absolutely hate doing laundry. :P Especially when the dryer's not working properly! Gah! I have to do each load in the dryer TWO times because it hasn't dried up enouch. So annoying. I better see some kind of compenstation out of this. :P Heh.

The forums are progressing well. Got someone to do the headers and such. Got someone to work on the avatars. Got someone (I think. Hopefully. Will cost me quite a bit) to install hacks because I'm no technical person even though if I wish I was. :P Working on getting someone to do the color schemes. We'll see what happens. I'm hoping for a grand opening on August 5th. We'll see then, I suppose. :)

So yesterday, I took the Compass placement tests for reading and math. Went not too badly. Finished in about an hour. More reading questions than math questions (and I knew how to answer at least half of them, I think). Now I only have to email Gallaudet tomorrow to make sure they have my scores and such.

Gallaudet also emailed me about an orientation for new students with disabilities starting four days before the NSO so that means I have to be on campus earlier than planned. On a weekday, too. My parents and me talked. We decided to just fly to DC (as we planned to drive there) and send the fragile stuff (the TV, etc) via postal mail days before so they'll be there when we arrive. So, I'll be on campus on the 17th. Yikes! So soon! Around four weeks. Less than a month. *whimpers* I'm anxious as hell, dude. There's stuff that needs to be bought like bedding, laptop, clothing, etc. We also have to get the forms in asap after VR gets the contract finalized. I still have to apply for SSI and get my state ID (as I don't have a driver's license and use my passport as proof of identification). Gah. So busy.

( ONSWD - August 17th to August 19th [The Schedule] )
---

I was talking to Karene last night (btw, sorry for disappearing on you! MSN sucks for me right now. Keeps shutting down for no goddamned reason. AIM officialy hates me, can't even open the program. *sigh*) about books. She recommended a fucking hiliarious book (haven't read it, but gave me a link to get the gist of the book). It's called 'The Return of the Bunny Suicides' - the link leads to a page that was in the first book. She says that the second book is even more hiliarious. Shall be searching for the book when I get to Borders next time. Bwah!

---

I officially love CBS right now. :D They will be airing four episodes of Veronica Mars to get the audience interested in the show and would follow it to UPN. *loves* CBS is a huge network so that means it can help the ratings next season and help the DVD sales especially (the S1 DVDs comes out on the 11th of October). Here's the announcement and schedule for the episodes at NeptuneSite.

I'm still working on getting the VM forums up and running by August 1st but at this point, I don't know if it will be completed (at least ready for the general public) by then, but I'm being optistmistic at the moment. :) I'm working with a designer to make schemes for the forums (as I'm no graphic nor technical person. :P) and trying to contact the hacks person to see what's up. I think I'll post asking for help in some VM communities for the forums this weekend or next week if I don't get much progress from the people already on board. :)

I was bored and was looking through google based on my name and found this article about me that was written a few months ago. Thought you guys'd like to read. :)

--

For deaf senior student, 17, all signs pointing in the right direction
By Daysi Calavia-Lopez
G. Holmes Braddock Senior High

February 4, 2005

Carolina Hidalgo, 17, a senior at G. Holmes Braddock Senior High, is like any other teen in many ways.

"I'm really just like a regular student, I just can't hear," Hidalgo said.

She has been profoundly deaf since birth.

After a very loud noise in the middle of the night did not wake her, Hidalgo's parents knew something was wrong, so they took her to the doctor.

"The doctor, an audiologist, told them I was deaf and immediately they went out and bought sign-language books to learn how to sign. At age 2, I started in a special school for deaf called Debbie School," Hidalgo said.

Hidalgo's parents communicate well with their daughter. "We're still learning sign language, every day we learn new signs," said her mother, Conzuelo Hidalgo.

"When we don't know how to say something, we spell it for her, and she shows us how to sign it. We learn right along with her," she said.

Hidalgo's parents always made sure her schools had deaf programs, but eventually Hidalgo began taking regular courses. Getting into such courses was a fight, though.

In 10th grade, Hidalgo was in the Deaf Program at Southwest Senior High. "At Southwest, I wanted to take honor courses but there were not enough interpreters, so even though I had recommendations from teachers, they wouldn't let me take honor classes. My parents and I were mad because we didn't think it was fair, so I transferred to Braddock," Hidalgo said.

During her junior year at Braddock High, Hidalgo was the only deaf student. Although she was allowed to take honor classes there, she still didn't have an interpreter.

"I got used to it. If I didn't understand something, I would simply ask the student next to me by writing the question on a paper," Hidalgo said.

"The other students at Braddock are nice. They never make fun of me, they're always interested in learning about ASL (American Sign Language) and the ASL class here is really large, so I socialize with them and the teacher, who is also deaf," Hidalgo said.

Hidalgo was recently invited to speak to interpreter training program students in Miami-Dade County. "I was very impressed with her lecturing and her stories," said John Paul Jebian, an ASL teacher at Braddock. "She's an excellent role model to other deaf people and to people in general. The fact that she spent one year without an interpreter and that she's the only deaf person to have passed the FCAT is great."

Hidalgo is used to overcoming. When she was 5 she got a cochlear implant, but it did not help her to hear. "The surgery didn't work, but I don't care. It was just a huge waste of my time, and anyway, I like the way I am," Hidalgo said.

Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

I had a meeting with Vocational Rehabilition this morning. Went pretty good. They will pay my tuition, room and board, books and supplies, transportation to and from Gallaudet at the start of the school year and at the end of the school year, housing deposit, admissions fee, health service fees, and my NSO (New Student Orientation) fees. But I'm asking for transportation from and to Gallaudet for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, too. But at the moment, they're trying to find a loophole that they could use to back out of paying those. Heh.

It's really good for me, my parents, especially because Dad just quit his job (which I think is stupid when you don't have a job lined up but whatever). But it isn't a formal contract yet. We'll be signing the contract to make it legal and binding next week, because the contract needs to be pre-approved first by the supervisor.

Tomorrow, I'll take the Compass test in the morning. It's for Gallaudet. They use the test results to see what kind of english and math classes that match my skills so they can schedule my classes first semester. I just hope I'll do well on the test because taking tests? Always bad results for me. Especially evaluations. I'm not too worried about English, though. I'm a bit worried about math because I really don't want to take remedial classes because that would mean just more math classes overall. But I guess we'll see. :)

----

Just happened. Someone apparently broke the window out in the front of the house. Scared my brother like hell. Scared me too. But there weren't anybody outside when we went and checked. Danny called the parents. He was really panicked, while I just felt like indifferent to the situation. Didn't really feel anything. Danny went to talk to the neighbors and he told me that they said that it was most likely just some random kids throwing rocks at the house.

But when my parents came home, we went looking around for possible causes and we could not find any. Danny said the other thing that could of scared them off was that when Danny heard the window breaking, he really ran down the stairs. So, it may of scared them off. We don't know. I feel bad for my brother because he told me that he heard on his phone while talking to mom, in the background, dad was angry with him because he thinks that it was Danny's fault. It was the last time but I know he was watching tv this time around because I had just checked on him and a few minutes later, this happened.

I think Dad's just angry that the window's broken, which means we will have to pay someone to get it fixed and seeing as he doesn't have a job at the moment. So yeah.

Reminds me of what happened to me when I got home early from school. Scared the hell out of me. My interpreter had dropped me off. Anyway. I walked in the house and put my backpack in the family room then I headed to the computer room while I stopped in my tracks, because there was two strange guys looking around the house. I didn't panic, strange. But later on, when I think about it, it may be because in the back of my mind, I saw the badges they had on. They tried to talk to me, me pointing to my ears and shaking my head to indicate that I was deaf, then they started to speak to me in Spanish (apparently they thought I spoke Spanish, but whatever), showed me the front where there were coffeemakers, so I thought they was asking where my dad was and I just nodded and told them that he was out somewhere. Then one of the guys showed his driver's license to indicate he wanted to see mine. I didn't have one so I went and got my passport (stupid, I know. :P) and gave them the passport. Asked for paper and pen. Asked "Su Casa?" and I said yes, I knew that much Spanish, good thing. :P and finally, they got out of the house and left. Immediately made sure every door and window was locked.

Went to call my mom and told her what happened. Obviously my mom was upset and angry because I did things that I shouldn't do (like letting the guys remain in the house, showing them my passport, etc). Later, we found out that they were indeed detectives and was just looking in the house because there were a report of the window being broken in (in the front, my brother broke it the day before). They told my mom that they tried to not scare me, good thing because if they had their guns out? I would panic and run, that's for sure, which would be bad in the end, because they would think that I was running away from them. So yeah. Crazy day.

Dude.

No one ever tells me anything. The important stuff, man. I noticed that Danny, my brother, wasn't in the house. Didn't think much of it. Thought he was outside playing basketball or something. So I made a sandwich for myself. Figured that I should ask Danny if he wanted something.

Turned out he wasn't outside. Okay. Must be in his room playing video games. Nope. I get a little worried. Looked in every room. Nope. Not in the house. Okay. Time to text Mom. Turns out that Danny went with Mom to buy uniforms and is now at Publix, buying groceries.

Gah. He could of told me before he went with Mom or even mom could text me, letting me know. This happens all the time. Gah. *shakes head*

Amazing book. Definitely the best book so far in the series. I'm going to bet that the next and last (wah!) book will be amazing too with how JKR ended the damned book. Gah. Couldn't JKR just wrote all the books in the series THEN sent them to the publishers or something? But then, we wouldn't have all this anticipation for the next book and such.

We came back to Borders around 11:00. I got roped into a costume contest because well, I dressed as a Hogwarts student. :P Didn't win, though. Heh. But the coordinator gave me a wand because supposedly, I was her favorite or something. Heh. I think she took pity on me or something. :P Maybe I just looked really cute. It was fun. Got a red lighting bolt on my forehead. Got a HP tatto on my waist. Heh. Fun. Fun. Around 11:50, we got downstairs where they were going to sell the books. The place was PACKED! Crazy people cramped in a small place. I believe there were around 250 people there. It was crazy. The crowd went INSANE when the booksellers were bringing the boxes out to the counter. Everyone was pushing and pushing. I was just happy that I was in the first group. I got my pretty book at 1205am and got out of there as fast as I could. Heh. Here's a picture of me in costume.

( Me in costume )

Took me around six hours to complete the book. I started reading at 1am (unbelievable, I know. But mom and dad was having fun with me, wouldn't put the lights on in the car. So I had to wait to get home to get my greedy eyes on the book!) and finished around 6:30am. Was still wide awake. Too shocked to feel tired. Really. Not at all. Even though I had been awake since 10am Friday morning. I spent the next three hours on the computer, going through my flist, reading reactions and discussions there and there. By that time, mom had woken up and told me to get my ass off the computer and get to bed. So off I went.

Now. I know you guys on my flist isn't stupid. But just a warning. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LJ-CUT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK!

( SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! I REPEAT, SPOILERS! )

Dude.

I'm currently at a small internet cafe right next to Borders. Because I'm bored as hell and my mother won't stay with me and chat mindless stuff about Harry Potter. She wants to be with the 'adults',

I wasn't about to stay at Borders by myself in my outfit and be all bored with my Harry Potter word search and have people come up and comment on something on my outfit and I all smiles. No thanks. :P But mom promises to be with me at 1045 until it is time to get the BOOK!

OMG! It's like a couple of hours now! So exciting! :D We got a number and it's 47, not too shabby and it also means we'll be the first ones in line to get the BOOK so I shall have the BOOK in my hands by like 1205. :D

Expect a long-assed post in the morning FULL OF SPOILERS. I'm going to write my comments in a lj post as I read along, because it will hold me in not to read WAY TOO FAST. Because like I want to rush TOO fast. I mean, I'll read it like five times this weekend but still! I WANT TO SAVOR IT AND THE PRETTY DETAILS! :D

Okay. Final batch of pictures! :) I'll be putting various lj cuts to specify places and such. So that everything is in an organized fashion. :) Just for your information, I didn't take a lot of pictures but my parents did but they're mostly scenry, but they're pretty. According to normal people, anyway. Heh. :)

We spent our first day in Escazu where the majority of my dad's family lives. It's a town quite close to the capital, San Jose. We mostly just went to see family and unpack our luggage. I, however, spent practically all day sleeping. Fell asleep at 530pm local time (730pm Miami time) at my grandmother's house. Was so tired. Had no idea why.

We spent the weekend in a small town called Pursical, a town near the mountain. My aunt Maria and her husband has a house up in the mountains. So we spent time there. However, it was a tiring weekend for me. As apparently, I got allergy attacks. Couldn't breathe at various intervals. So I basically stayed in the house while the others went to play in the pool or horse riding. Was frustrating. Really. Good thing I had bought books. Was hard to sleep, though. Kept turning around because of my allergy attacks and no air conditioner.

Here's the pictures of Pursical.

( Pursical )

On Monday, we stayed in a town called Arenal Volanco, I believe. Wasn't too bad. Went to some hot springs. Nice hot water. Much better than the pool at Pursical. Heh. Still had allergy attacks, but not too bad. We also went to a place called Arenal Volanco: Hanging Bridges (or something of the sort). They had a hiking trail so the group wanted to take it.

Absolutely exshausting. According to a packet, the trail normally takes about one and a half hours to complete. Took me another hour more. :P Bloody hard to walk through that. Was SO happy when I got out of there. Gah. And it wasn't even worth it, for me. Because it's just miles and miles of forest. So not my type of fun. Give me a picture of some kind of natural scenry, and I'll be completely satisfied. :P

Liked the hot springs, though. Was nice. Made me a bit dizzy for a few moments there, though. Because it was HOT, but still not too hot. I'd rather be in a hot spring rather than on a hiking trail or standing out in the blazing sun. :P

Here's the pictures of Arenal.

( Arenal )

On Tuesday, we went to Sky Trek near Monteverde. They had a tram going up in the mountain. It was cool. As we get there, there was also a short trail. However, Aunt Maria, Sofia, Tio Leon, and me who didn't buy Trek tickets because I started my period that day and I was feeling really crappy and a bit dizzy and Sofia was too young to do the Trek and Aunt Maria, I guess she didn't want to do it. :)

If I didn't have my period, I would of GONE on the Trek. Looked so much fun. Unfortuantely, I wasn't feeling that way that day, gah. We then drove to the town of Monteverde and omg, the roads SUCKED.

A really bumpy ride for three hours, practically. SO NOT GOOD FOR ME. GAH! Wasn't so nice. :P We stayed in a hotel/cabin, it was nice, though. No air conditionor, still. :P Wasn't used to that kind of thing. Didn't sleep all that well during my vacation, actually. Anyway.

We went to the Cloud Forest. ANOTHER HIKING TRAIL! It was fucking worse than the hiking trail in Arenal. SO MUCH WORSE! I actually CRIED because it was SO frustrating, damnit! The trail was SO rough. No real path. Just piles and piles of rocks you have to step on to get ahead. GAH! SO AM NOT GOING TO ANY KIND OF HIKING TRAIL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

In the cloud forest, there was also a hummeringbird garden. The birds was adorable. So many different colors. It was cool. Okay.

So, here's the pictures of Monteverde.

( Monteverde )

We came back to Escazu Wednesday night. Rough roads. Took around four hours. Luckily for us, the rain started AFTER we got out of the horrible roads. Still bumpy but NOT AS BAD. Went to my grandmother's house.

On Thursday, a group went to water rafting. I didn't go. Because my mother thought it was too much for me. Too hard for me or something. :P Maybe she just didn't want me to fall out of the raft or something. Heh. From the conversations, everybody absolutely loved it. Said it was a lot of fun and at the same time, hard. Mom, as a result, got a HORRIBLE sunburn on her right leg. REALLY BAD. Had blisters and all. *shudders* It's getting better now, though. Anyway. While everybody was at water rafting, I was at Laura's hair salon to get my hair dyed black. It's awesome! :D I really like my black hair than auburn hair. It's cool. :D

Here's some pictures of me in my new hair color.

( My new pretty color )

Anyway. The rest of the weekend, we just basically hung out with family in Escazu. We went to the mall on Saturday. Tia Lucy, Tio Leon, and Sofia went to a butterfly garden nearby as Tia Lucy adores butterflies. They says that it was a lot of fun. I bought some shirts and skirts. Pretty. Orange! :D Pretty cheap, too.

And that's basically my vacation to Costa Rica. Hope you had fun on the ride! ;)

This batch of pictures is kind of random. I'm just hogging the camera, really. :D But hey, if you want, go see under the lj-cut! :)

( Father's Day Pictures )

I had some old pictures still on the digtial camera where all my vacation pictures are stored so I decided to do some separate posts. Help with loading times and all. :) They're all hosted by http://photobucket.com/ - bought a premire account for three months just so I could use FTP to upload pictures. So much easier, dude. It's all new and pretty to me. Yay for me learning new stuff!

Anyway, get on to the pictures! :)

( My new hair )

Heh. I'm quite proud of my hair. Took a risk. Once upon a time, I wouldn't let anybody cut any more a bit below the shoulder. But now, I quite like it, actually. My family says it gives more resemblance to my mom. But it's still pretty. :D

Is there any way that I can force an image to fit the layout/entry?

I'm working on a post of pictures from my Costa Rica vacation last week. But the pictures is HUGE, I mean, really HUGE!

Thanks!

As you all may notice, I renamed carol_snape to deafcarol and no, this does not mean that I'm out of the Harry Potter fandom. One will have to take me away while I will be kicking and screaming. No way in hell. Just wanted to make a fresh start.

This time of my life is truly a new beginning. I graduated from high school a month ago. I'm about to head university in a month, give some days more in Washington DC. About three hours by plane from Miami. I'm nervous as hell. But it will be an awesome experience, or at least I hope so. Because I'm going to Gallaudet, a liberal arts university for the deaf. It will definitely be a cultural shock, as I'm accoustomed to being around in the hearing world. It will be like a world within a world. And it's pracitically free. One of the advantages of being deaf. Vocational Rehabilition (they prepare disabled people to enter the workforce. they provide a variety of services, such as job training, budget consuelling, etc. they help to pay schooling if you promise to get a job within a year of graduating from university. they'll help with the job search and such) will be paying most of the expenses (tuition, room, board, and transportation). My parents basically will just pay for personal belongings such as bedding. I'm lucky. Because most of the time, VR pays half of the expenses but mom says it may be cause I have multiple disabilities. I have Usher's Sydrome, which is a combination of deafness and blindness. It is a genetic disease, so we now know what caused my deafness. But the doctor says that my vision should decrease slowly over the years, and maybe even in the later years, I'll still have some vision. I'm hoping that will happen because you know, it's hard for me to imagine being in total darkness, unable to see people. It's really a freaky image for me. It's just night vision that I'm really having problems with. I can't really see in the dark all that well. I can see shapes and such under small lights, but other than that, not really. I have been learning to write Braille, only first grade, though. Nothing complex yet. Hah.

I'm working on a project that I'm hoping to see to get off the ground by August. First time I'm really interested and serious about doing something for fandom. For Veronica Mars, though. Absolutely adore the show, even though I haven't seen all the episodes yet. Am working on that, though!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out tomorrow, well, kind of! I'll be getting my copy at Borders where I pre-ordered ages ago. Will be lots of fun! :D Will definitely commenting on the book in the upcoming days as I read it. And don't worry. I will be using lj-cuts. I'm not that mean. :P I'm SO excited about this coming out! NEW INFORMATION! NEW EXCITEMENT! AHHH! You know, I'm hoping that the next book would come out like in three years just when I'm turning twenty-one. That would be great!

I'm currently working on a post recounting my vacation to Costa Rica last week. I'll get the pictures that we took uploaded as soon as I find the damned USB for the camera so I can download the pictures. Hopefully, the post, at least, will be done in a couple of hours.