Take Pity on my ASL Teachers

Tonight on Halloween, only seven people showed up to our ASL on the go community education class. With only four teachers, this meant we had plenty of time to ask questions and practice. We met at Barnes and Noble at the Apache Mall, and Denise, David, and I started with the interpreter and Julie in the music section. We did not really learn about music so much as park ourselves down in the corner and learn signs such as "school", "educate", "chemistry", "history", etc. that have to do with education.

After that, my group of three was sent to Stacy and Greg over in the children's section where Greg sat in the King Chair on the stage, and the rest of us sat on the teeny-tiny benches around him. We practiced verbs and whatnot dealing with communication. Then, Greg read us a story about a Frog and a Toad going sledding. It was kind of cute.

At the end of class, Greg was going to sign and perform a song with the music (for the benefit of us hearing people), but we had to find the other group before he could start. As we were wandering around, I decided to try to talk to Stacy, who seems like a nice person. Unfortunately for Stacy, I am not at all good at sign language. Fortunately for me, Stacy is very patient.

Our conversation went something as follows:

Me: Where work you?
Stacy: (something) work (something something)
Me: Work where?
Stacy: (something something) not work (something) live farm (something about parents) work students one on one (something) hearing (something something)
Me: Ok. You have what farm A-N-I-TNM-A
Stacy: 2 (something)
Me: 2.....
Stacy: 2 (something.....something....SOMETHING)
me: D-O-N-??? H-O-R-GHA-S.....H-R-.... H-O-R-S-E?
Stacy: Yes. (something something) dead (something) horse (something) sleep (something) horse.

Me: (Sad face trying to express regret at what I think is the loss of her two horses)

Stacy: I have 14 farm cats. They live outside (something something). (Something something something).

Me: I like cats. You more cats. More cats?....not more cats....A-L-O-T (What I meant was, "you have a lot of cats.")
Stacy: I have chickens. (Something)

Me: Chickens? You eat eggs? Eggs?

Stacy: Yes. I eat the eggs. They are delicious.

Me: You eat chickens?

Stacy: I eat chicken eggs. (something)

Me: You eat chickens?

Stacy: I eat chicken eggs. Chicken (something something something) brown not good white good (something something) chicken (something something) egg (something) Eggs are good.

Me: I like chicken. Eat chicken.

Stacy: I have cats in the house and two dogs in the house.

Me: I have one cat. No more. I have one fish. No more. No more. Not noisy my house. Me. No more.

Stacy: (something) house (something)?

Me: Restroom? No....R-R-......Rochester?

Stacy: house? Apartment?

Me: Apartment. Me teacher. (Remembering I think she lives with her parents or maybe her grandpa) Two happy new years before me live mom dad house.

Stacy: That saves money. Apartments are expensive.

Me: Yes. But now not mom dad house. Me. No more.

Stacy: Living alone is expensive.

Me: I teacher Rochester. Mom Dad house Twin....(something, probably something obscene)

Stacy: Twin Cities?

Me: Mom Dad house Twin Cities.

Stacy: That is a long drive.

And so on and so forth. Poor Stacy was probably wondering why I was asking her these questions and telling her these inane details of my life. Really, I just wanted to practice, and I love watching her expressions as she signs. Also, she is pretty low-key and patient. Maybe I will practice and prepare some sentences and questions to bombard her with next week for the last class.

At the end of class, Greg performed and signed along with "Hotel California", which was really very cool. He is very dramatic, and it was exciting to see signs I knew and try to catch new ones. His rhythm was really quite good, and the whole time I had a huge smile plastered on my face. When I wasn't watching Greg, I was watching Julie as she smiled and showed her delight in Greg's performance. I have heard this song several times before and know it by heart. Julie has never heard it before.

Adventures in ASL

In an attempt to be more social, work fewer hours, and keep my mind and body active, I am again participating in the wonderful world of community education. This semester, I am taking Yoga I for an hour and a half every Thursday and American Sign Language on the Go ever Monday. Let me assure you that this combination has my mind and body increasing in flexibility already.

The ASL class is basically an introductory class to get people interested in the real, more expensive, academic course. Over the course of six weeks, we go on mini-field trips around the city and learn specific vocabulary. We have gone to the mall, Fleet Farm, and Hy-Vee so far. We are going to go to a book store, Best Buy, and somewhere else that I forgot.

These locations lend themselves to fun, hands-on learning, but it also means that I have a very bizarre vocabulary in ASL. I cannot say basic things like, "How much does this cost?" Or even, "I am hungry." Or, "How old are you?" However, I can say things like, "I must rotate my tires and change my oil today." And, "I don't like that ugly, grey, fake squirrel fur coat." Or, "I want a diamond belt buckle for my dog." When I would have to say these things to a Deaf person, I have no idea, but I can say them.

Whenever one of the four teachers shows us a sign, we all repeat it, then they move on to the next part of the store. Behind them, we're all mumbling to ourselves and signing a bunch of signs. For example, last week at Fleet Farm, one of the teacher showed us the sign for "furniture", then turned her back to us to lead us to the furniture section. She turned around to make sure we were following, and we were all practicing. If I were her, I would have laughed because I would see a passle of adults all saying, "Furniture. Furniture. Furniturefurniture. Furniturefurniturefurniture. Furniture." And today, we learned a bunch of random signs in a row, and I was practicing as I was following one of the teachers. How he managed to keep a straight face as I said, "Bear. Pillow. Popcorn. Bath. Diamond ring. Coffee. Make more coffee now. Squirrel. Ugly. Ugly belt buckle. WOW!" is beyond me. I bet the four teachers go home and tell their families about their crazy, rambling students.

Now I am going to go talk to myself in the shower.

Furniture. Bubbles. Soap. Cheese. Paper. Paper towel......

Am I Liz Lemon?

As I sit in my apartment with my cat, drinking tea in my pajamas and watching "30 Rock" on NBC, it has come to my attention that I am very similar to Tina Fey's Character, Liz Lemon. Whether this is good or bad is yet to be decided. It should be mentioned that my female celebrity crush is Tina Fey. So when my friends Dani and Kyle started watching "30 Rock" and mentioned that Liz Lemon reminded them of me, I didn't know whether to be flattered or not. Love the show, love the character, love the actor, but do I want to be Liz Lemon? I think I'd eventually like to have my life together. Maybe not, though. Constantly being flustered and eating sandwiches does seem like a pretty fantastic way to go through life.

The following are ways I might possibly be similar to Liz Lemon:

1. We're both single working women
2. Liz Lemon works with actors that act like outrageous children. I work with children that are outrageous.
3. We both like sandwiches. (However, I most certainly do NOT like egg salad sandwiches. Could a sandwich get any more disgusting?)
4. Our clothes don't always match.
5. People we don't know assume we have children because we may have spilled some food on our shirt. It is really difficult to eat soup with a plastic spork, ok?
6. We're both usually flustered.
7. We're both clumsy.
8. We both participate in adult community education classes. Liz Lemon has her adult co-ed dodgeball, I have my tennis, work out, and dance classes.
9. We both have glasses.
10. People make fun of how we don't brush our hair.
11. Liz Lemon is apparently a big nerd. I am a big nerd.
12. We both have to deliver bad news to coworkers.
13. We make strange sound effects when frustrated.
14. We both enjoy sub-par television, but despise reality shows.
15. FOOD IS SO IMPORTANT! And the popcorn store DOES sound amazingly fun. And all the advertising suggests it is a fun place to hang out with a group of friends.

Conclusions? Thoughts? Additions? Funny jokes or riddles involving bad puns?

*VOTE ON THE TEA SURVEY NOW*

Tennis, anyone?

In an attempt to be more social, meet people who don't work for the Rochester Public School System, and meet people in their 20's, I have signed up for another round of community education classes. As I may have mentioned in my last post, one of these classes is swing dancing on Thursday nights, and while I am meeting non-teachers, and I am being more social than if I were staying at home, I am not any closer to meeting potential friends who aren't teachers or people in their 20's. And last week I kind of got groped, so there's that. Still, the next few classes should be fun.

The other class I enrolled in in an attempt to be more social is an adult tennis class. I was rather nervous that everyone else in the class was going to know what they were doing, and I would stand out as the uncoordinated girl who had no business being there. My other fear was that it would be me and middle aged men, which would still make me the uncoordinated girl who had no business being there.

Luckily, (or unluckily?) the entire class is females. Still a little intimidated (especially by the one wearing a real tennis skirt!), I inched out onto the tennis courts and prepared for utter humiliation. When the tall, skinny instructor asked who was a beginner, I leaped at the opportunity to announce my incompetence. One other woman in a pink sweatshirt also waved her racket at the man. Then a woman with wavey hair looked at us and declared that even though she had taken some tennis lessons, she felt more comfortable with the beginners.

The three of us were put on the other court with the shorter, dark haired instructor. He has an accent (possibly English?) and a nice smile, so that makes the time a bit more enjoyable. He also is extremely patient, which is probably why he is teaching us beginners. His name is Mark, and I remember this because he told us his name, then he spelled it for us, which I thought was unusual. The wavey haired lady is also named Ivy. We have the same name, which is how I remember her name. The last lady didn't do anything interesting when telling us her name, plus we don't have the same name, AND no one addressed her by name during the lesson, so I couldn't hear it again. So, for now, we'll call her Pink Sweatshirt.

Pink Sweatshirt and Ivy (the tennis player) both work for Hormel, and they know each other from work. They must have signed up together, because they seemed to know a bunch of women in the more advanced group and, when leaving, told them they'd see them tomorrow. Pink Sweatshirt and Ivy (the tennis player) seem like perfectly nice women who may be close to my age and can be potential friends. We'll have to see how the next four lessons go.

Expecting complete humiliation, I was delightfully surprised by the tennis lessons. With our patient and cute-but-not-too-cute instructor, friendly women at about my level, and small class size, I didn't feel embarrassed by my complete lack of hand-eye coordination at all. Also, we're moving at about a pace I can keep up with, but when we do drills, we don't focus on one thing for too long so that I get bored, feel pressure, or get frustrated. Also, we move around enough that I am getting some exersize and working muscles I don't while dancing and playing with my students, but I didn't have to use my inhaler, pegging me as the geek I am.

All in all, I think this tennis thing is going to be fun.

In other news, the robot song I wrote about in this blog post and said I was going to teach my students has been a big hit! Unfortunately, I am already getting tired of it, and have started to roll my eyes as students beg to sing it again. I need a new song, and fast!

But while looking for new songs for my kiddos on youtube, I instead found this, and I think this is a fantastic video and really hope that some adults somewhere are using this "energizer" in their team meetings!



And OH MY GOSH! This also turned up! AHHHH! What on earth is this? Who made it? Why does it have so many views?



Are you as disturbed and confused as I am?

On that note, the new poll is ready in the top right hand area of my blog. Did you ever read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler when you were a kid? Did you ever read it again as an adult? Hopefully, the answer to both of those questions is "YES!" So, if you were going to run away, where would you choose to live? Take the poll!