(no subject)
So, I should probably be packing since it's now 7:18pm, I'm dead tired, and I don't even know if I have everything I need. I really don't want to be making a midnight run to Walmart.
I'll be gone til Easter Sunday night. That's right, Danielle is getting her first stamp in her passport. It will say "Belize" on it. How exciting!! We have to be at the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:30 tomorrow morning. Bleh. So I need to be asleep in about half an hour. *laughs* Yea, right. I'll be lucky to get 5 hours of sleep tonight.
Anyway, I just wanted to make a quick post about my day in ASL today. It was really cool!! Mrs. Brightman's deaf daughter Landis, Landis' (hearing) interpreter, Mr. Brightman (hearing, but from an all-deaf family) and two (deaf) teachers at USF came to school today for us to talk to and ask questions. It was SOOOOO GREAT!!!! I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of things. I also "heard" Mrs. Brightman's "voice" for the first time today. Know when you're reading a book, and you can almost hear the voice each character has when he or she speaks? Well, it's the same when someone is signing. Every has their own voice. (This is probably just a 'hearing world' thing, seeing that we have heard voices before and know that each person really does haver their own voice.) Anyway, for the first time, I heard Mrs. Brightman's signing voice. It wasn't the same as her speaking voice, but I heard it. It was really cool. One of the teacher's from USF signed in a way that I understood. Normally I have a difficult time understanding people, even Mrs. Brightman, who I'm used to. I understood most of what this woman said, though, even when I didn't know the signs she was using. She also partially mouthed what she was signing, and when deaf people do that, (Landis does it, too) there are often small sounds they exert, like clicks of the tongue and their mouths smacking. To me, those are beautiful sounds. I just think it's all so neat. That whole world, the Deaf world, absolutely fascinates me. I also realized something about the spoken language and sign language: speaking is just a series of breaths pushed through the mouth, which is formed into different shapes. That's all is it. We've simply learned to recognize the sounds. I mean, I've always known this, but it sort of hit me today when Landis was signing to her mom and she would make sounds or little yells or breaths... We're doing the same thing with our hands. We're making a series of "breaths" passing through different hand shapes that we learn to recognize. Somehow that was a very deep and profound thing for me. I can't really explain what it meant to me, but it lead to a deeper understanding of the language and the Deaf culture for me.
It was awesome.
Okay, off to pack. Or... something. I almost feel like saying, "Eh, I'm tired. I'll pack tomorrow." But I can't... :D It's going to be so exciting. Like I said, I won't be back for 8 days, so that's why I'm not updating or returning calls.
Love you guys. Keep me in your prayers.
I'll be gone til Easter Sunday night. That's right, Danielle is getting her first stamp in her passport. It will say "Belize" on it. How exciting!! We have to be at the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:30 tomorrow morning. Bleh. So I need to be asleep in about half an hour. *laughs* Yea, right. I'll be lucky to get 5 hours of sleep tonight.
Anyway, I just wanted to make a quick post about my day in ASL today. It was really cool!! Mrs. Brightman's deaf daughter Landis, Landis' (hearing) interpreter, Mr. Brightman (hearing, but from an all-deaf family) and two (deaf) teachers at USF came to school today for us to talk to and ask questions. It was SOOOOO GREAT!!!! I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of things. I also "heard" Mrs. Brightman's "voice" for the first time today. Know when you're reading a book, and you can almost hear the voice each character has when he or she speaks? Well, it's the same when someone is signing. Every has their own voice. (This is probably just a 'hearing world' thing, seeing that we have heard voices before and know that each person really does haver their own voice.) Anyway, for the first time, I heard Mrs. Brightman's signing voice. It wasn't the same as her speaking voice, but I heard it. It was really cool. One of the teacher's from USF signed in a way that I understood. Normally I have a difficult time understanding people, even Mrs. Brightman, who I'm used to. I understood most of what this woman said, though, even when I didn't know the signs she was using. She also partially mouthed what she was signing, and when deaf people do that, (Landis does it, too) there are often small sounds they exert, like clicks of the tongue and their mouths smacking. To me, those are beautiful sounds. I just think it's all so neat. That whole world, the Deaf world, absolutely fascinates me. I also realized something about the spoken language and sign language: speaking is just a series of breaths pushed through the mouth, which is formed into different shapes. That's all is it. We've simply learned to recognize the sounds. I mean, I've always known this, but it sort of hit me today when Landis was signing to her mom and she would make sounds or little yells or breaths... We're doing the same thing with our hands. We're making a series of "breaths" passing through different hand shapes that we learn to recognize. Somehow that was a very deep and profound thing for me. I can't really explain what it meant to me, but it lead to a deeper understanding of the language and the Deaf culture for me.
It was awesome.
Okay, off to pack. Or... something. I almost feel like saying, "Eh, I'm tired. I'll pack tomorrow." But I can't... :D It's going to be so exciting. Like I said, I won't be back for 8 days, so that's why I'm not updating or returning calls.
Love you guys. Keep me in your prayers.