End of the first Semester

As my first semester in grad school was coming to an end I was faced with several projects.  One of them was a huge, two part project, that involved analyzing a child's language sample.  It was very complex.  My partner and I worked on the first half for 4 hours one night.  The next night we tried to start on the second half but hit a wall.  We set it aside until the end of the week when we hoped a new book my friend had ordered would come and help us figure it out.  Through out the week, as we overheard other students saying they had asked the teacher about specific sentences, we would jot down the sentence and the code to go with it on a pink sticky note.

The end of the week finally came, bringing with it the new book so we got together again to finish the project.  The new book was little help so we turned to the sticky note for our answers.

One big problem...

the pink sticky note had been left at home.

Thankfully my friend (we'll call her Molly) had someone (we'll call him Cody) at her place that could read the note to us over the phone.  

Molly dialed the number and explained to Cody where the note was and that she needed him to read to her exactly what it said.

Here is the conversation that followed:

Molly: It probably won't make sense and it might be hard to read but I just need you to read exactly what it says.

Cody: OK, I can't read it.

Molly:  I know it is hard to read but I really need you to read it to me.  Just try really hard.

Cody:  Molly, I CAN'T READ IT.

Molly: I know it is really messy and hard to decipher but I really need it.  Maybe you could spell it to me or something.  Please just try.

Cody: I CAN'T READ IT.

Finally, after much frustration, Molly finally realized that since she and Cody both had iPhones he could take a picture and send it to her.

When the picture finally came through this is what we saw...

In case you can't see it, the first sentence on our trusty pink sticky note is "I can't read it".

We laughed until we cried.  Poor Cody tried so hard to tell us what it said. :)  I think Molly apologized later.

Just goes to prove that being a speech student doesn't make you immune to communication problems.