Wow! Day 1 was a looongggg one! But it was awesome!
So my awesome roommate Rachel happily agreed to drive me to the airport at 3:30am (what a wonderful human). I didn't go to bed till about 11:45 the night before so only got about 3 hours of sleep, starting the day tired, Oof. My first flight was from Chattanooga, TN to Philadelphia, PA, and the second from PA to Baltimore, MD. I did my best to sleep most of the time. Not too long after I got to the airport, everyone from CLC arrived, they had already begun no voice long before so I jumped right in. I got to see Sami for the first time in 2 years I think, we were both so excited! And I got to meet JG, her and Sami and I are roommates for the trip, she's so nice. We got on a bus to drive us to Gallaudet and on the way Sami and I were talking about how we were gonna document the trip through blogging/vlogging.
Got to Gallaudet! Yay!! We put our things in the hotel rooms and then divided into two groups depending on where people wanted to eat. I went with one group to the Union Market which is just across the street from Gallaudet. It was a really neat place, so many different kinds of foods all right there to choose from, I got Indian food, yum.
The Gallaudet mascot is the Bison, and their softball team had a game today. So, we decided to go watch that and it was really cool! I've never watched a softball game before, so it was totally new, but I found it so interesting to see how the deaf team and hearing team communicated with their teammates differently throughout the game. We'd see the deaf signing to each other with a large distance between and it was so neat. Clear communication despite the space. I love that. Their team was exceptional, almost always had multiple people on the bases and constantly scoring, versus when it was the other teams turn to bat they got out really fast. Gallaudet's team has a strong defense and offense. However, it was cold out and windy, so after about 1.5-2 hours we decided to head back to the dorm. When I left the score was 14-5 --Bison in the lead, and later I found out that they won 22-5! I went back to the hotel and slept for about an hour, was so tired from traveling.
Supper time! So we headed to the Gallaudet Cafeteria to eat supper. Tanya explained to us that we needed to put ourselves out there and go sit with students--people we didn't know. "Just ask if you can sit with them and they'll most likely say yes," she said. "If not then just move on and ask someone else. But that way we are meeting new people, practicing signing, making connections, interacting with deaf, etc." The cafeteria was kind of a buffet style with lots of different build-your-own options. I made a veggie wok dish. Yum. I looked around the Cafeteria until I found a table of students without anyone from our group at it, I think there were about 5-6 people. I went over and asked if they minded if I sat with them and they all welcomed me to sit. I told them my name and they all introduced themselves. We were talking and I explained that I'm an ASL student and I'm here with a group visiting. They signed really fast and I had a hard time understanding but they were super kind and accommodating and when they were talking to me they would slow down and repeat things multiple times and explain them to me. Really nice.
Then they asked me why I wanted to learn ASL?
I explained that I want to be an ASL interpreter eventually because
I have found such a love for the language and Deaf culture and I have a
heart to help. I want to be able to communicate with and help give deaf a
voice when nobody else will listen. I know that deaf individuals are not
needy or incapable of living life without help. That's SOO not true!
But for anyone in America who's primary language is not English it is
important they be understood and I want to try and help be that bridge of
communication.
As I mentioned before when the students were conversing with each other I had a hard time following their conversations because first of all, they were signing really fast, second of all there were a lot of signs I didn't know, and thirdly, I had to keep looking back and forth across the table at each of them signing and in the process would miss stuff. So for awhile, I was pretty lost. Then the girl sitting beside me (her name is Jessica) starting asking me about myself. She asked me if I was a Christian and I replied that I am, turns out she is too. She asked me if I am Baptist and I replied that I am actually a Seventh Day Adventist. I tried my best to explain that but was having a really hard time with my limited signing knowledge. I'm pretty sure I totally butchered it and was probably very unable to represent my faith. I wish I could've done better, but it inspires me to learn how to explain my faith in sign language so that in the future when the opportunity arises I can.
We had a group meeting tonight and we all shared stuff we had learned or noticed today, lots of good info.
Some specific things I noted today:
1. At my University, we have long rectangular tables in the cafeteria and some smaller square ones. I noticed in the Gallaudet cafeteria all the tables are round so that students can communicate well and all see each other for conversation. I thought that was really cool.
2. There was a lot I didn't understand today which was kind of frustrating and hard. My brain was working a million miles a minute trying to take the signs I know and register their meaning and use the context to try and figure out what might be happening despite all the signs I didn't know. Then when responding trying to take what I wanted to say and simplify it into signs I know. Having had only three hours of sleep probably didn't help but it definitely was interesting to experience that. I know many people learn second languages or move to America and have to learn English and it gave me a whole new respect and understanding of the struggle that that is. I hope by the end of the week I can understand and communicate better.
3. I'm having a really hard time not signing English. ASL is not English on the hands, it has its own grammar, syntax, and words that can't be directly translated to English and whatnot. It's different, not a direct translation. But I am having a reallly hard time not simply signing my English words. Tonight my signing was very English. I want to try and work on changing that more this week. But yeah that was hard too.
Today was a really great day, very tired though, and my eyes huuurrrttt, and my brain is shutting down haha, just so much watching and trying to process it all was definitely a lot. But it was an amazingggg and great day and I am so excited to be here and learn new things. This is gonna be great! It's so amazing to be with a whole group of people all learning sign language and communicating through ASL and helping each other understand.
Alright, If you want to watch today's video I will put it below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mzLBnAwkc0
Thank you for reading!
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Gabriella
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