In lieu of a traditional blog post, I made a vlog instead this week! Come learn why there is no written post this week.

For my d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing followers, I’ve included the transcript for the video below. Please bear with us as we figure out how to put captions in. We’re still learning!

TRANSCRIPT

MARIYAM:

0:00      So, this week’s edition is special. Instead of doing a traditional blog, I am doing a video post.

0:09      And you’ll see more of this as we go into a new exploration and adventure of podcasting and YouTubing down the road.

0:20      But, here’s a first crack.

0:23      So, I don’t often talk about my day job but my day job definitely is a part of my life, and my day job requires me to move sometimes around the world. This time, I’m gonna be moving to South America, and what you see is me surrounded by chaos.

0:46      No, it’s not actually chaos, it’s controlled chaos. It’s a mess of boxes that need to be organized, and when I move I’m a little extra picky because you have to be.

1:01      So, I document, I take photographs, I need to write down and catalog usually a nice Excel spreadsheet: what is going, what it is, how it’s going.

1:16      In other words, is it going with me? Is it going by air separately? Is it coming by ship? In a longer, household effects shipment?

1:25      All of this is the work I’m engaged in right now, and that is why you don’t get the traditional written posts.

1:35      Now, your question is: “How on Earth does this blind Hijabi woman do that?” Great question. It takes a little village. So, in my village, first and foremost is my darling sister.

ZAINUB:

1:53      “Hello!”

MARIYAM:

1:54      And, my husband, and my parents are coming and they will be part of the village, and we have friends, and they are part of the village.

2:04      But, a key part of the village is someone who has been assisting me who’s not gonna be on video who is working with me currently in my day job, and because this is happening for my day job, this individual who is a reader assistant helps with the photographing, the documenting, the writing down, the cataloging, because otherwise, how would it all get done?

2:29      But I still have to do a lot. Picking up each item, figuring out what it is, sometimes using a tool called Aira: A-I-R-A, you can google it.

2:40      It’s basically a reader on-demand by phone. So, when my reader assistant isn’t available and I’m working in the wee hours of the night, sometimes I’m using Aira. When my sister is helping me, sometimes she’s doing that.

2:52      Here’s a little taste of some things that we have arranged already. These are things that are going in a container, and it’s several shelves of food items, consumables is what we call them, things that might be a little harder to get overseas.

3:08      Um, also things like my pots and pans, those are all things that are gonna go, and get there when they get there.

3:16      A couple of examples of things I haven’t even arranged or documented or cataloged or looked at yet: here’s my shoe closet.

3:24      It’s a closet I love dearly because I love these shelves, I love my shoes, I’m a big shoe person. Anyway, I have a lot of shoes. And my husband has, well, fewer shoes, and then there are some shoes that are my parent’s shoes and my sister’s shoes, that are down there that, you know, some of which will come with us, some of which won’t.

3:40      Anyway, here’s a closet I haven’t even touched yet! And here I’m about to show you another closet I haven’t touched yet.

3:48      These are all the towel sets and sheet sets, and hopefully today we’ll have a chance to tag them and say “H-H-E, U-A-B”

3:59      As you can see, this is one big closet! And this closet has a lot of sheets and towels, and a good chunk have to go with me because I’m about to move into a place that has, mm, 3 bedrooms that are gonna be full bedrooms, a couple of office rooms, and 4 and a half bathrooms.

4:23      So, we’re gonna need a lot of this stuff. And it’s still work that has to be done, at least in terms of pictures and marking and all that good stuff.

4:35      So that’s a little window into why you haven’t seen a nice, thoughtful, cogent write up this week.

4:44      If you look around kind of this area, you’ll see tags. You might see different color-coded tags and you might see from a distance something says H-H-E or U-A-B.

4:58      That’s the kind of shipment it’s going in, and especially the frames, that’s the thing we’re trying to figure out. How do we make sure it doesn’t get broken? Is it better to send it by air and make sure it arrives quickly, or would it be safer coming by boat in a container?

5:12      Well, we don’t know how much is gonna fit with us, so I guess that’s a To-Be-Continued, but we do know this:

5:21      We are about to embark on an adventure, and I’m really glad that you’re here to experience a little taste of it with me.

5:31      Hope you guys have a great week! Guys and gals and everyone in between, and I will perhaps write to you, perhaps talk to you, next week.