Zoning Out

When I was in Elementary School and High School, a classmate of mine was hearing impaired. She's been deaf since birth but she is an EXCELLENT lip reader. Actually, it was quite disconcerting to be talking to her and having her stare at your mouth the whole time. It made you very aware of what you were saying and how you were pronouncing things.

However, her parents paid a full time translator to accompany her to all her classes. The translator would sit up at the front of the classroom on a stool and sign everything the teacher was saying. And she was very distracting. Oh, after a while you got used to her, of course, but if you wanted to, you could lose whole class periods just starting at her hands moving like lighting.

And this is the first time I realize that I repetitive motions made me sleepy. I would stare mesmerized at her translator the whole class period and then realize that I hadn't taken a single note in class. Luckily this was Jr. High: the land of handouts to take home. So you really didn't have to stress too much about it. But then as the classes got more advanced, so did the signing.

I took an Anthropology class my sophomore year and I felt so horrifically sorry for the signer. I mean, most words have a sign and are quick to do. However, words that are spelled differently or are not used frequently don't have a sign for them and so have to be spelled out laboriously. The poor woman would have to spell Australopithecus and Homo Neanderthalensis over and over. And she was pregnant too!! She would heave herself up on her little stool and go non-stop for 50 minutes. Luckily she was a nice person and the teachers liked her and would ask if she needed them to slow down. But she never did.

But my point is that she was hypnotic. The next time I encountered this was when I worked at the MTC on the docks. Yes, the MTC has docks. It was the best job possible at the MTC because #1 I didn't have to wear a hairnet, #2 I didn't have to wear church clothes, #3 I got to corrupt. . .er. . .I mean CHAT with the groups of missionaries twice a week who would come in do service for us, and #4 I got to hang out in the bakery between truck deliveries.

The MTC bakery makes almost every baked good that is served there. The only exceptions are the bagels (delivered to me at 5:15 MW&F), bread (delivered to me at 5:20 am MW&F) and doughnuts. But the doughnuts were made by BYU (you know, the Sugar & Spice doughnuts) and just dropped off at the MTC so maybe I should half count those.


But the Bakery made everything else. The ladies there (there were 3 of them full time) made pumpkin pies, cornbread, jello, honeybutter, muffins, cakes, cobblers, etc.

They had those big industrial ovens that you could shove a 6 foot tall rack into and it would lock them into place and spin them around and cook things evenly. Also, they got to listen to the radio in there. (only 100.3, though, of course. The "BYU Approved" station that they also play at the Cougareat.

Anyway, the bakery was like the vortex of hypnosis. Especially Jello making. Because they would lay out the cups on the big trays, then fill them with the Jello. This process alone was awesome to watch. And then there was the Whipped Cream at the end!! Don't even get me started on the awesomeness of those WC applicators! I think while watching Honey Butter being made one day I zoned out and had a dream about lions. Awesome Jello-making lions.

It's the only good memory I had from working at the MTC. And thinking back on it now made me wonder why I ever quit. Oh yeah, I decided that $6.95 an hour might not be the best way to support myself AND my husband before he got his work permit in the country. Meh.