(no subject)
So I'm taking ASL this semester, and I have to go to 2 Deaf events and write a paper about each. Tonight I went to a cookout at the Deaf Club of Buffalo, and I met famous comedian Keith Wann! I didn't know anything about him until last week or so, when my professor showed us one of his videos on YouTube. (I tried to tell him that in sign language - he's hearing, but he was talking to us only in ASL and all his skits are in ASL - and he thought I said he'd been in my class in person, and asked what I'd been smoking.) He was really funny in person, but I had almost no idea what he was saying because school only started three weeks ago. So of course, what do I say to him? I tell him, to illustrate how much I still have to learn, the only complete, grammatically correct sentence I can say in ASL besides "What's your name?": "The women's bathroom is across from the candy machine." Yup. I'm brilliant. I learned that today, btw. He was very nice, and said that we actually know a lot for only being three weeks in . . . but that didn't stop him from making fun of us for not knowing what he was saying. :P
The night was really fun, actually. I talked to this guy named Amar for a while (and by that I mean mostly watched him sign to a student who was much further along than I am). He taught us a few new numbers and some new words, asked what our majors were, etc. I tried to tell him at one point that our teacher really liked Keith Wann and wanted to get him to come to UB, but I only know the words "Keith Wann," "like," "want," "teacher," and "UB;" yet somehow, with a mixture of those words and a lot pointing and gesturing, he understood what I was trying to say!! So he's pretty much amazing. He thought at first that I was saying Keith Wann was my teacher, and then after trying to explain a couple different ways I got really frustrated and stamped my foot, and he was really nice about it and told me to slow down and take my time because practice is good. So eventually he figured out what I was trying to say, even though 90% of the words were missing and I said it completely ungrammatically. The other ASL students and I had to laugh at ourselves because whenever we learned a new word, we'd practice it several times. So imagine a group of people standing at the back of a bar, repeating out loud to each other, "Day . . . day . . . day . . . birthday . . . birthday . . . month . . . month . . . 33 . . . 33 . . . 33 . . ." etc. Because that's pretty much the equivalent of what we were doing. It was fun, but it left me tense and uptight, worrying about being rude to these nice people and worrying as well about the fact that I can only communicate minimally in their language. I'd like to be able to at least have a normal conversation with a Deaf person.
The night was really fun, actually. I talked to this guy named Amar for a while (and by that I mean mostly watched him sign to a student who was much further along than I am). He taught us a few new numbers and some new words, asked what our majors were, etc. I tried to tell him at one point that our teacher really liked Keith Wann and wanted to get him to come to UB, but I only know the words "Keith Wann," "like," "want," "teacher," and "UB;" yet somehow, with a mixture of those words and a lot pointing and gesturing, he understood what I was trying to say!! So he's pretty much amazing. He thought at first that I was saying Keith Wann was my teacher, and then after trying to explain a couple different ways I got really frustrated and stamped my foot, and he was really nice about it and told me to slow down and take my time because practice is good. So eventually he figured out what I was trying to say, even though 90% of the words were missing and I said it completely ungrammatically. The other ASL students and I had to laugh at ourselves because whenever we learned a new word, we'd practice it several times. So imagine a group of people standing at the back of a bar, repeating out loud to each other, "Day . . . day . . . day . . . birthday . . . birthday . . . month . . . month . . . 33 . . . 33 . . . 33 . . ." etc. Because that's pretty much the equivalent of what we were doing. It was fun, but it left me tense and uptight, worrying about being rude to these nice people and worrying as well about the fact that I can only communicate minimally in their language. I'd like to be able to at least have a normal conversation with a Deaf person.