Lettin' My Fingers Do the Talkin'
In a good way, that is. I've always wanted to learn ASL - American Sign Language. Cat and I used to check out the books at the library and tried to learn fingerspelling on our own. I always enjoy watching people sign at church and try to figure out the words they are signing. Opportunity has presented itself and I will be taking not one, but two ASL classes a week for the next 8 weeks, one being on my lunch hour at work, and the other at church. The classes at work will be taught on Wed. afternoons, and the one at church will be on Thursday nights, so together, I'm hoping to absorb what I'm taught. Today I learned how to say "my name" and then fingerspelled my first and last name. We also fingerspelled small words. It's a start and I'm looking forward to learning how to sign. No hand jestures please!
posted by Amstaff Mom | 11:13 AM
21 Comments:
Oooh! New endeavors are always a load of fun! Have a great time and learn a lot!
That's so funny, because this is another way that you're like me and rr! I've always wanted to learn it, RR has been trying to learn it, and deals already knows it, and so now they can talk to each other from across the room and their coworkers don't know what they're saying. Of course, I think the extent of rr's knowledge is along the lines of "bathroom" and other strict necessities, so there's not much they can say. but still.
you're doing both? wow you are serious about this. Way to go, I will test you on sunday by having you tell me what the signer is saying at church
Stephanie, I had fun in my first class, hope they continue to be as fun!
JLR - See, I told you! I will have to practice with them next time I see them.
K-T - I know a couple of words she signs, but not much. Hope to remedy that soon!
well as I wrote that comment I began to think the following: hello crazy girl you can hear so of course you at least know what is being said that she is now translating into sign language so really if you tried hard you could easily figure out the gist of what she is signing
but by then I had already typed the comment so I just went with it
I took several ASL classes in college, and I learned a lot (don't worry - I've forgotten most of it now. Tragic, I know…).
Anyway, the last ASL class I took was a graduate level course that was really, really difficult (at least for me). It was my last semester in college and I spent almost all of my time preparing for this ONE class. I literately signed all of the time – just for the practice.
At the same time that I was trying to graduate from college, I was also trying to get IN to graduate school. So, I had to travel on several occasions to the various universities that I had applied to for interviews.
On one of these trips, by pure coincidence, my father and I found ourselves both in DC at the same time (this worked out great because he paid for my hotel room). Anyway, he had some free time the same afternoon that I had my interview, so he decided to go with me to the campus to look around. He wasn’t supposed to actually accompany to the interview, but – despite all of my planning and studying of the campus map – I still managed to become helplessly lost (not to mention, LATE). My father, seeing me near panic, took the map and was able to find the building that I was looking for (he used to live in DC, so he was familiar with the area and – thankfully – the campus, too).
Anyway, my dad decided he’d go inside the building with me and wait in the department’s reception area while I went in for my interview. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about finding him (and risk getting lost again) after the interview was over. He even sat down on the other side of the reception area (his idea - not mine), so the person interviewing me wouldn’t know that I had come to be interviewed with “my daddy”.
Well, as it turned out, the professor who was scheduled to interview me that afternoon was running late, so no one even noticed my tardiness.
I was ecstatic – it felt like I had been given a second chance.
Anyway, after we’d be waiting for about 5 minutes, my father excused himself to go and find the restroom. Apparently, the men's room was located in a somewhat remote location, because it took him quite awhile to find it (or so he said. Personally, I think he was trying to take awhile so he wouldn’t have to be there when the interviewer finally DID show up). On his way back to the reception area, however, he stumbled into a woman in the hallway who had dropped a lot of her papers. My dad, being my dad, decided that he’d help her pick them all up. As he did this, they got to talking and somehow figured out that they knew several of the same people. They were good friends by they time they both arrived at the department reception area where I was still waiting for my interviewer to show up.
My dad, not thinking anything of it, introduced me as his daughter and told the woman that I was at the university to be interviewed as a potential graduate student. That was when it came out that she (the woman from the hall that my father had found on his way back from the bathroom) was was not only MY interviewer, but the head of the department as well.
Cue uncomfortable silence.
The interviewing department head – in an attempt to make things, I dunno, less? awkward, invited my father to sit in on the interview. This, needless to say, did not ease my mind at all.
So, we all went into her office and sat down and the interview began.
Surprisingly enough, the interview went very well (or so I thought). That is until I realized with a kind of horror that I had been signing EVERYTHING. I hadn’t even been aware that I had been doing it. It just suddenly dawned on me – MIDSENTENCE - that both the department head and my father were looking at me…rather curiously.
I almost died right there.
My father, in an attempt to “explain away” my seemingly erratic hand gestures, told the department head that I was studying ASL in college to satisfy my minor in Special Education. To his credit, this really appeared to help. The department head let out a *sigh* that seemed to say, “Oh, well that explains a lot.”
Needless to say, I didn’t think that I had a chance of getting into the school after my performance that afternoon (this was especially disheartening because it was my first choice). Apparently, my father also thought I blew it, because he cancelled his plans for the evening and took me out for dinner at a very posh restaurant in Georgetown.
Anyway, that’s my ASL story for you. I just realized how long it is (I wasn’t intending on writing a novel when I started out).
Oh, and just for the record, this story has a happy ending. Amazingly enough, I got into the graduate program at the same university where the nightmare interview took place. I even took several classes with the aforementioned department head, and she’d randomly ask me to “sign something” just to watch me turn red. :)
The End…
thanks K-T.
Ooh, I love learning new things, and I have always wanted to learn sign language. Once you learn you must teach me some stuff!
Deals, I can ALWAYS count on you for a great story, a great email, and a great post. You didn't let me down. Do you mind if I share this story with my ASL teacher? She'd probably get a kick out of it!
Sure! Share away!
That is very exciting! Good luck!
.....
What did I just say? I just signed my comment.
Okay, I don't know sign language... I was just making useless movements in the air..
"useless movements" translates into inappropriate hand gestures, we know how you think Ben . . .
Ben: Are you confusing ASL with Morse Code, again?
man...deals sure likes to talk!!
I love sign language. Lava and I used to sign and it would drive Chuck crazy. He couldn't stand us to talk when he was watching TV so we signed and then he couldn't stand it cuz he didn't know what we were saying. lol!
now his thing is...he hates for me to talk on the phone, but when I text someone, he says, why don't you just call them. lol! Again, he can't stand it! The other day he asked me who it was and what they wanted, I asked if he was taking inventory of my phone calls. lol! Shame on me, huh! He knew I was kidding!
Deals: Can one sign morse code?
lol.
Ben: You were the one signing with dots...
:P
Actually, now that I really think about it, Morse Code probably wouldn't be an effective way to communicate with the hearing impaired, huh? Maybe if they used lights instead, though...?
Live, Love, Laugh: It's not that I like to talk. I'm just thorough...
hmm, your fingers aren't talking today, looks like they took the day off!
I think that is wonderful. I have always wanted to learn sign language. My niece is partially deaf and right now has hearing aids but if it gets worse they will be doing sign and at that time my children and I would take so that we could communicate her way!
Very cool! My parents took three classes and they loved it. They will still sign, and now they always sign to my daughter. Very fun!
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