Because I'm smart?

For my ASL class, my professor wants us to not only learn sign language, but learn about the culture of Deaf people as well. It's kinda cool, I think. I mean, languages aren't this solitary thing that remain the same across time and space. They differ depending on tons of things: where you are, who you're with, history. It goes on. And it's cool, I like it. It kinda comes with the territory of teaching a foreign language; you also have to teach culture.

When I took French in high school, we went on a field trip to the art museum and a French restaurant every year. In my Chinese class, our professor would tell us countless stories about things she's experienced in her 30 something years living in China. When I taught English in China, we celebrated American holidays. The fun thing about ASL is that there's a Deaf community right here in the states. Madame Guzman could tell us all she wanted about getting lost in the Red Light District at night, and she could try to make the classroom feel like a street in Paris, but she couldn't take us to France and let us experience being in France.

However, since Deaf people are everywhere, their culture is everywhere. And I'm sure it's a different culture here than it is in Africa or Australia, but it's still the actual, living culture here. We can actually experience it, and that's just really fantastic, isn't it?

To ensure that we actually do go out and experience it, Peter (my professor) made it a requirement. You have to go to a Deaf culture event and then write a one-page paper about your experience, how you felt, etc. He, then, as the semester went on, he would announce events here and there that we could go to. Plays, Rockies games, Deaf Community Days, and Old Chicago night.

Most of these things you had to pay to go to. Deaf Community Days was a free event, and Old Chicago is kinda free? You have to pay for your food, but to go is free. For that, everyone meets at one of the Old Chicagos on Thursday at 7. It's kinda nice, except that I work every Thursday, so that's not working out for me. The Deaf Community Day event was on a Saturday (which I also work), but it was easier to find someone who could cover that, and it sounded a little more interesting to me.

Well, that's scheduled for tomorrow, and I was going to go, but on Monday, Peter told us that the person in charge of it emailed him to say it's not really open to ASL students who are just starting out. It's not focused much on ASL, but more on building the Deaf Community. So it's for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, their friends and family, advocates of Deaf people... basically anyone who actually knows ASL well and wants to be more integrated into the Deaf Community. Not a young ASL student.

So, that left me out of luck. This thing that I've been planning to go to for most of the semester is now not open for me, and there's like 2 weeks left where I have to find something to do and write paper before the semester ends. The tough thing about finding someone to cover my Thursday shift is that's when the Climbing 101 class is, and there's only 4 PFS's who know how to teach it (including me), and we're all pretty busy, so it's difficult to get it covered. But, thankfully, one of them texted me the same Monday I found out I couldn't go to Deaf Commity Days, and asked me to cover his shift on Tuesday, and then he was available to switch for Thursday, leaving me free to go to Old Chicago.

It was probably one of the most fantastic things I've ever done. I met a ton of cool people, I got to practice my sign language in real life (not just in the scripted setting during class), I learned a bunch of new signs, someone gave me a sign name, practiced my reception of fingerspelling, and it was just a fun time in general. At first, I was worried it would be awkward because I'm only in ASL 1. I clearly am not fluent, or even really conversational imo, but it was alright because I wasn't the only student there. I guess kids from CU and Front Range go a lot, and there was actually another couple girls from my class who showed up. One of them is super hard of hearing, and she's really good at sign language, but I suspect she's learned some outside of class. The other girl, Tammy, is pretty good, she's probably in the top 20% of the class, but it was interesting to see how she couldn't quite understand the full scope of what we've learned so far. She still did fine, though, and she had fun.

One of the things that I think was so cool, actually, is how accepting all the Deaf people were of us as ASL students. If there was a word or a sign that I couldn't understand, they would try to rephrase it, and if that didn't work, they would fingerspell it. They were just really accommodating for the ASL impaired people who were there. It was cool. Super friendly people, really happy to help us try to learn more. One time, one of the guys was signing to Tammy, asking her what she's studying in school, and she didn't understand, so she turns around and looks at me slightly panicked, looking for help, but before I could help try to clarify, the guy she's signing with taps her and tell her to calm down, it's ok. He teased her a little for freaking out, told her it's fine, and sat there working with her for a couple minutes to try to get her to understand what he was asking, and then they had a little conversation about that.

There was this one guy, Greg, who was signing with me and he would sign pretty quickly (for me anyway, it was a normal pace for someone who actually knows sign language), and if I had a hard time following, he would slow down, then apologize for going so fast, and then tell me to ask him to slow down next time. So the next time he signed too fast, I signed to him asking him to slow down, please. He laughed, apologized again, and then told me that when he's signing with someone, if they don't know what they're doing, he goes really slow, but if they do know, he speeds up, and so with me he keeps trying to go at a normal pace.

Basically it was just a compliment that I'm good at signing. He asked what school I'm studying ASL at, and then asked where I studied it before. So I told him no where, just Metro. And he was really surprised. He double checked with me that I was just in ASL 1, which I confirmed, then made sure again he understood by asking that it only just started in January? Yes, I confirmed again, that's right. And then he complimented me for being so good at signing with such little time. He asked me why I know sign language so well (probably expecting to hear that my dad is hard of hearing or I have a Deaf friend or something) and I'm just like, "I don't know. Because I'm smart?" He just laughed and agreed, and then I told him I just love languages, and he told me it was quite an accomplishment.

It was a lot of fun, and not terribly far away. We told jokes and stories. I talked about school and animals and religion. I watched a bunch of conversations, some people were talking about a shooting, I'm not sure which, but I think Columbine. It was cool to just hang out. I'd really like to make it a habit to go after work on Thursdays. It would be kinda late, I wouldn't get there until probably somewhere between 9:30 and 10, so I wouldn't get any food, but I could get a drink or something, and then hang out with everyone for a couple hours (it's suddenly really really convenient that I don't have school on Fridays). And then when we redo the schedule in a couple months, I can ask if anyone will trade me for my Thursday shift, and I would be able to spend more time there. Hopefully someone will comply!