It all started really when my big sister learned ASL in college. I thought she was the coolest person ever, and I wanted to be just like her. I decided to learn ASL, so I learned a few signs like cookie and the alphabet. This was in 5th grade.
Fast forward... I moved to Northern Virginia. 8th grade. In my Civics class there was a Deaf boy. His name is Chris. No one interacted with him except his uncle who was also his interpreter. I thought he was cool so I decided to make friends with him and invited him to sit with us at lunch. It was hard to communicate, my friends and I mostly wrote notes to him, and he taught us a few signs and read our lips. It was fun. He was cute too. Then we went to High School and luckily my HS had ASL classes, but because of my end of the alphabet last name I didn't get in as a freshman. Chris disappeared, I think he probably went to the Gallaudet Prep school. Sophomore year I took ASL 1. Fell in love with the language.... and then we moved to MA where there were no ASL classes. Awful...
Fast forward... college BYU. I decided instead of taking higher math I would take ASL all the way through to the end. I took all the classes offered and learned the language pretty well. I went to ASL club when I could and a few ASL retreats. I interacted with the Deaf community at BYU as best I could. The ASL retreats were really what got me thinking about being an interpreter, but I was going for a Music Education major and didn't really consider it a possibility because BYU didn't offer interpreting courses. At my first UVU sponsored retreat, they had a lot of information about their program, and I got really excited. The next semester after much soul searching because the Music Program wasn't going to let me in, I decided to become an interpreter. Problem was, as I mentioned before, BYU didn't have any classes or even a minor in ASL. Next best thing was Linguistics where I emphasized in studying ASL. I finished my entire major in 3 semesters. Graduated and set my sights on UVU.
I "transferred" (I was already graduated I just didn't have money for a graduate tuition) to UVU. ASL Linguistics is awesome. It was the first ASL course I took that really helped me learn how ASL worked. Interpreting 1 not so much. I was terrified. UVU students had a lot more ASL courses than I did and signed a lot better than I did. I could understand just fine, but I'm sure a lot of little concepts just went over my head. I went to their retreat again, and I felt a little bit better. Just a few classes were helping me improve my signing skill 10 fold. I had more opportunities to interact with Deaf people at UVU. I think that is the most important part of learning ASL, or any language for that matter (that's the Linguistics major in me talking).
Now I feel a lot better about this career I've chosen. I have done enough to pass the written portion of my certification and every day I can see myself improving towards that goal of the performance test.
Now for this blog. I will describe what I learned in each class in detail to what I think is important. Because I have already passed the written portion, I know exactly what to say with that part. Remember I haven't passed the performance part yet so just bear with me as I am learning. I will also post some interpretations so you can see my progress. I will also post some papers that I have written for classes that I think are relevant.
If you are an interpreter, please feel free to comment on my interpretations or any information you may have to add to any of my posts. If you are Deaf, please feel free to leave comments about what I can do to improve, and things you like to see in an interpreter. If you are a student, welcome to the field, and also leave comments on what you would like to know. If you are family, now you know what this whole career is about.
