The most important part of interacting with people is communication. Our main way of communicating is language in the form of words and sounds. How much different would this world be if all you could use to converse was hand signals?
As a freshman in college I had a choice: I could keep learning the language that I was taught through high school and earlier, or I could drop it for a language that is literally and figuratively foreign to me. American Sign Language is what I chose to pick up in order to fulfill a graduation credit. Little did I know, I would become obsessed with all things ASL and be non-stop hungry to learn more.
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On the first day of school, I walked into Lori Britt’s ASL 1 class. A new school, a new group of friends, a new living situation, and a new language were all coming at me at 100 miles per hour. I am not sure what I expected, whether there would be an interpreter or not, but there was. Thank the Lord up above. Everything went fine until 20 minutes into class when Lori told us that this would be the last time we would have an interpreter in class. Great. How is this woman going to teach me anything if she cannot hear what I’m saying? That question was soon answered when Lori, who I’m thinking cannot possibly be deaf, is pulling down the screen for the projector. We had a simple slide show with an apple on it. A bent finger twisted to your cheek means apple. While she was coming around to each student, behind her, the screen slammed shut. There is no way that anyone who is hearing could have missed that heart wrenching sound but I continued to watch her not even miss a beat.
First question was answered: this woman is totally, no doubt about it, deaf.
Without even realizing it, I was learning the language. And ASL is a language! It isn't just hand movements, like I initially thought. It uses space, movement, and emotion to express complex ideas, as opposed to being just a dummied-down version of English, like others may think. I am nowhere near fluent in ASL but I could carry my own conversation if I wanted to, and I am able to communicate with my friends who also know ASL. I never have been passionate about anything so deeply and so quickly.
Hopefully, by the time I graduate, I will be fluent in this special and expressive language. I feel that this has helped my writing be more descriptive and accurate with my descriptions. I hope to be able to be a sign language interpreter in the future. There is nothing right now that makes me happier than signing.
