Week of 2/25

Class this week went really well. We worked with note cards and I learned a myriad of new useful signs with Olivia. Most of them were phrases I didn't know or recall. Evaluations were Monday also. I really need to work on things more often.

More specifically about class Monday. (I got to class and there was no class today. 4 hours of transit for a cancelled class...) I acquired knowledge about signs for more professions, descriptive signs I can use for classifiers, things of that nature.

Freesigning!

Hey, sorry this is posted at freakin' almost midnight... just.. so happy right now! :D

Week of 2/11-2/15

This week in ASL, I got to practice signing in groups using bunches of note cards. We signed the words and sometimes signed whole thoughts using the words we were going over to help them stick better. It was really fun and interesting. It helped everything stick better. I really like using conversations to practice ASL. Using the information you just got always helps it sink in better.

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

I don't have many people I can practice with and me friend Vincent, I used to practice with just moved down to California today. He'll be gone for the next three months so I won't be able to converse with him for a while. It's less than ideal for everyone involved in his life, but it's for a career opportunity that will be pretty great for him. So as much as everyone, including his girlfriend up here, will miss him a bunch and he doesn't want to be away for that long. He's really stoked about the opportunity.

I've been looking into groups for people learning ASL to get together to practice up here in Portland. It's an exciting venture. Hopefully it'll work out. Who knows, maybe I'll make some new friends at the same time.

Mid-Term ASL Video - Merpeople

Mid-Term Essay

Watching my midterm video was rather... enlightening. I screwed up a couple signs, I got married and wedding mixed up. I didn't name the LEGO princesses, which is just confusing if you aren't in my mind to follow the same chain of thought I had. I did mermaid wrong and I accidentally signed VARIETY instead of ARGUING. A lot of the signs I did get right were muscle memory though. My vocabulary is way better now also. I've gotten better at not being an expressionless robot while signing in videos. I have a lot of growing to do, but it could have been a lot worse.

Two types of deaf people I've met...

Over time I've been learning a bunch about people who are deaf or severely hearing-impaired, and I've found there seem to be two groups that they can be grouped into on some level.

• There seem to be deaf people who accept their deafness, who they are, their culture and themselves in society. They use sign language to communicate and think that deaf people can do anything anyone else could do except for hear. Which is right, deaf people can do anything they want to or that they put their minds to except for hearing.
• Then there seem to be deaf people. People who are hard-of-hearing/hearing-impaired or may even actually be completely deaf, but don't accept themselves as such and don't communicate with sign language. These deaf people don't involve themselves with other deaf people or the deaf community either.

There's a rather clear difference I've found because deaf people are proud of who they are, they aren't ashamed of being deaf and they darn well shouldn't be ashamed either. It's who they are and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Deaf culture is fascinating and wonderful, and really great to learn more about all the time. I really enjoy learning about it and I really enjoy signing with people that I met.

Freesigning