Last Round of Comments

Brett
Allison
Christy

I Saw the Sign - Week 5 (Post-TEDTalk)

So I had my presentation today. I had a half day yesterday, but I still stayed up really late thinking, "Ohmigoshohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh this HAS to be perfect," but of course...it wasn't.

My Delivery
The script I wrote for this presentation wasn't bad, and I thought it was better than most of my scripts because I put a lot of honesty and passion into this one as compared to the others. I was originally going to have notecards, but I thought, "Well, if I'm passionate enough about this, then I should be able to memorize it without notecards." I thought it was a good idea - until I forgot my script. I panicked and tried to remember what I was supposed to say, but that's hard for anyone if there's an entire class staring at you, waiting for you to do something and your teachers that are grading the presentation suddenly start typing things into their computers. I had laid out my notecards on a random chair on the stage, so I took a look at that (that took a little longer that it should have), and I resumed my presentation.
I also stood on top of a stool to encourage people to "look at things in a different way," like Mr. Keating said in the movie Dead Poet's Society. I wanted to dramatize my last sentence and say "You're life will surely change" while stepping up on the stool, but I had been scared since yesterday that I was gonna fall and die, so I think the only emotion my audience saw was fear. (I wanted to wear dress shoes, but I wore sneakers so that I wouldn't fall and die.)

My Poem
I planned a lot for this. I knew that if I just signed for the class, no one would have any idea what I was doing. But if I had text on the screen, people would be looking at the text and not at me. So I decided to get my friend to recite the poem while I signed. I was disappointed that I had to use speech, but it was the only option I had.
I decided to write my poem about night. My friend recorded me while I was presenting, and I didn't mess up too much with it, so I was pretty proud of this one.
(Turn on closed captions - there's sound but it's really bad.)

A lot of people thought "Wait...that's it?" but a lot of ASL poems are usually really short, and I could only do so much with the limited vocabulary I had. I also thought if I made my poem too long, it would just have a boring effect and people would stop looking at me. I loved signing words like "fireflies" and "dream" at the end, and hopefully people were still watching me by then.
Here's a transcribed version:
When the lights are off, my world gets bright.
The stars come down and the moon shines out.
When it gets dark, don't look for me;
I won't be there for you to see.
I'm dancing with the fireflies,
Dreaming of my world tonight.

My Takeaway
I think my title sums this up: I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes. As I said in my TED talk, I used to be at the bottom of a tree called sign language and pitied Deaf people, who were always sitting on top of the tree. However, when I started climbing, I was the one to pity after all because I had been missing out on the most incredible view ever that can only be seen by climbing the tree.
I got to reference Dead Poet's Society and Mr. Keating's quote.

This movie/book is just awesome.

Climbing this tree really gave me a different perspective, and although signing was really fun, I'm so happy I got to look at the scenery by climbing the tree more than anything else.

This project is now over, and I'm not gonna be able to stay up late having fun and make excuses that I'm doing homework anymore. (When I told my mom I'm finished, she asked me, "Oh, so I won't see you doing any late-night dancing anymore?" I guess my signing is so choppy it looks like I'm dancing...) But I've only began climbing this tree, and I have a lot more room for improvement. I'll just keep climbing up, up, up...until the moment I can say to myself that I truly seized the day.

The Final Countdown - Week 4

Hey, tomorrow's d-day; I'm presenting tomorrow!
Last weekend, I went to Deutschfest, which was sort of like a German competition/festival between about seven schools around our area. Competing in a foreign language - and the fact that I'm presenting really soon - made me reflect a lot on learning sign language.

My Language Experience
Going to Deutschfest made me reflect on my language abilities. I was born in South Korea, so I learned Korean as my native language. I moved to America when I was eight years old, so I had to learn English. When I entered seventh grade, I was required to choose a language, and I chose German. For my Genius Project, I decided to learn ASL. I'm fluent in two languages and have touched the surface of the other two.
Each language has its own set of perks. Korean is probably the easiest to read, so Korea has one of the highest literacy rates. The low level of difficulty for reading Korean is one big reason why I can still read it. It's also very descriptive and you can come up with really creative ways to say things, even when you don't have "advanced vocabulary." I found a funny diagram online on different ways to say "yellow" in Korean.

Different ways to say "yellow" in Korean

As for English...well, I have yet to find a perk in English that I enjoy except maybe the fact that not all nouns are gendered. Oh, and I like that I don't have to translate Shakespeare when I read his works.
I've had a love-hate relationship with German, although now I love it. In seventh grade, I was initially not that bad at it, but from eighth to ninth grade, everything just went downhill. But now I'm not that bad, and I'm starting to enjoy its perks. I like how there's only one way to read things in German (just like Korean). The difference is, Korean is harder to figure out the spelling, but German isn't as hard to figure out (unless you've got a word like Tschechische Republik, which the teacher can't even spell). German also has a very formulaic grammar, and I'm pretty sure that has some sort of relevance to the high number of geniuses produced in Germany (oh that sounds weird...please excuse my bad wording).

How ASL Crept into my Life
Another thing I thought a lot about was how I came to learn ASL. Korean, English, and German were all languages I sort of expected to learn - English and Korean for obvious reasons, and German because my mom learned German before. I've had no connection to ASL whatsoever (which should be clearly established by now), and although I never saw myself learning ASL, I it was one of the only good decisions I've made in my life. It's a true passion now, and I don't know what I'd be doing without this passion.
Five years ago in 2010, I was in fifth grade. Being a South Korean girl, my role model was naturally Yuna Kim, the South Korean figure skater who broke the world record eleven times. One day on television, Yuna Kim said that her coach persuaded Yuna's mom to get her into figure skating by saying that Yuna was born with the right anatomy for figure skating. After hearing this, I asked my mom, "Mommy, what if Yuna Kim never started figure skating lessons for some reason?" Then my mom replied, "Then she would have lived her whole life without knowing her talent."
I got chills down my spine when I realized that people living in the streets may have the capability of becoming a better violinist than Itzhak Perlman, but can't because they can't invest the 10,000 hours into it, and they may not even have been able to touch a violin their entire lives (Malcolm Gladwell did outline that successful geniuses had an ideal environment when investing the 10,000 hours).
I am nowhere near proficient in ASL as Yuna Kim is in figure skating or Itzhak Perlman is in music, but I do have a big passion. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that I loved this topic and language so much - but I did. And I've come so far.

Mastery?
Six weeks is never a proficient time to start a whole new language (unless you're really really smart and have a lot of time in your hands), but I did try my best by pulling all-nighters and cramming as many vocabulary words as I could in my already-messed up brain. Although I still have a lot of room for improvement, I still have the basic foundation in my head that I probably won't forget. If I meet a Deaf person, I could introduce myself through sign but would probably communicate more through pen and paper. But I'm not ashamed of that. I know that I'd make the decision to use pen and paper because I know in their culture, that's what they'd prefer, and the fact that I know that is what makes me proud. I've learned so much about Deaf culture and Deaf pride, and that information is what makes me happy to have done this project.

Wish me luck on my presentation, and thank you for staying with me.

Comments 4

My computer sort of died while I was writing this post. I'll try to hyperlink the names for your convenience after I get back from my Fiddle Fest (as my art teacher refers to it)

My comments:
Allison: myftia.blogspot.com
Jessica: meanderingwithmandarin.blogspot.com
Liliana: lilgeniusproject.blogspot.com

Trying to "Han'd"le Poetry - Week 3

Hi, I'm Han', and I'm using my hands to sign poetry...Is it a crime to use two puns at once?
Anyways, I did my first attempt at ASL poetry! You can find it at the bottom of the page, but if you were cool, you'd at least skim the other stuff I wrote.

Intro to ASL Poem

This person's name is Austin W. Andrews, but he goes by Awti, and he's an ASL storyteller. He can hear, but he was raised in a Deaf family, so he understands this from a Deaf and a hearing perspective, which is pretty cool. This video basically says (in ASL and closed captions) that ASL poetry and nursery rhymes had to do with rhythm and rhyme, just like any written/said poem or nursery rhyme.

• Rhyme: Signs such as "9" and "F" have the same signs. They both look like the "OK" sign that Hearing individuals often use. Using signs that look similar or have similar movements/orientation makes a rhyme scheme for the poem.
• Rhythm: When reciting any poem, there's a certain rhythm that you read them to, even if it's not a song. When reciting an ASL poem, you should say it with a certain rhythm or pace, and depending on the poem, you can go very slowly or upbeat and fast.

Nursery rhymes and poems have a certain rhythm.

Awti went to the beat of One, two. One, two three. Also, he rhymed "diddle" and "fiddle" by making a movement in which he swung his arms back and forth. Since this was a nursery rhyme, this was very upbeat and quick in order to keep children engaged. Most ASL poetry I found were slower and more dramatic, just like how most upbeat English poems are often for children.

Example of ASL poem
Here is an example of ASL poetry from handspeak.com called "The Star Arrow". It's a romantic poem, and you can find a rough English translation here.

I personally like this poem better than the one Awti did because he had to translate an English nursery rhyme, while this woman had all the freedom in the world to make it pure ASL.

My ASL Poem
I thought that a mix of a conversation and a poem would be cool, so I chose a famous scene from Romeo and Juliet (Act 2 Scene 2). Romeo and Juliet are at Juliet's balcony and Juliet says her famous soliloquy and rose quote.
(Remember to turn on closed captions:)

This was quite the challenge - 5 to 6 HOURS! But I had SO MUCH fun with it. I wanted to wear costumes for these, but I couldn't find any, so I'm wearing a sweater that says jardin, which means garden in French (this was probably better for Les Mis but whatever). Anyways, here was my process:

1. Cherry pick necessary lines: The original script is super long, and that was beyond what I could even dream of reciting. I had to know which lines were necessary for others to understand what's going on, but not too many so it was on my level.
2. Shorten the lines: I have no idea how Old Sign Language looked like, so I had to convert the lines into general modern English so I'd be able to figure out how to sign it.
3. Translate the lines: Obviously, I wasn't gonna sign every word I saw; I'm learning ASL, not Signed English. I had to figure out which words I could make rhyme and rewrote the sentences so that it made no sense in English, but made sort of sense in ASL. I couldn't use 100% correct word order because I don't know complex sentence rules for ASL, but I dumbed it quite down so it should make sense at least half the time.
4. Figure out rhythm: I couldn't sign too fast, since I'm a beginner, but I didn't want to go too slowly. I figured that an appropriate rhythm would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. I set it at 60mph, so 1 beat per second. I set up a metronome at 60mph for both Romeo and Juliet and went along with it.
5. Perform! This was the hardest for me. For the steps above, I was being a traslator and a poet, which was hard enough, but now I had to be an actress...in not just a different language, but a different mode of language. Imagine drawing out a scene with Ancient Greek heiroglyphics. Okay, ASL isn't ancient nor that convoluted but still, that's how intimidating it was for me. 
6. Caption: I figured out how to use YouTube, whew. I still had to take the time to find the Shakespearean lines again and write the translation along with it.

I want to expand on the "perform" portion: If you notice how the above signers recited ASL poems, they were showing a lot of emotion and using their space. Awti's entire lecture is very expressive, and if one were to do that while having a spoken conversation, he or she would stand out. It was hard for me to drop all of my preset ideas as a Hearing person and act out the romantic and emotional scene of Romeo and Juliet the way a Deaf person would. There's certain portions of the video where I look REALLY WEIRD. I cringe when I watch the video, but I guess any performers - dancers, actresses, singers - can feel awkward when watching themselves express big emotions.

This is so exciting! I'll be off to a music festival for three days, so I won't be able to sign too much, but if I polish my presentation enough before leaving, maybe I could present to my friends!

Dun dun dun - Vlog!

This explains some things I mentioned on my blog as well. Vimeo is really weird with closed captioning, so I decided not to waste my time on that - the target audience is Hearing people anyways. Don't forget to turn up the sound, and I hope you enjoy!

GeniusHour Vimeo from Hanna Kim on Vimeo.

Audism

You probably want to know about my journey towards ASL poetry right now, but I want to talk about a concept that affects the Deaf community first. Please read this post, as this really means a lot.

Audism
According to Deaf authors Janice Humphrey and Bob J. Alcorn, Audism is "an attitude based on pathological thinking which results in a negative stigma toward anyone who does not hear; like racism or sexism, audism judges, labels, and limits individuals on the basis of whether a person hears and speaks." I've mentioned before that deafness is not a disability. Audists are people who hold the ideas of audism and believe that hearing people are superior to deaf people. The interesting thing is, audists can be both deaf and hearing, though most are hearing. When deaf people are raised in Hearing communities, they're often told that the fact that they can't hear pulls them to a lower position in society from everyone else, and that they should try their best to be like people who can hear. As a result, they are taught auditory-verbal communication, and they lipread to figure out what someone else is saying and try to make noises until they are told which noise is correct for which word. They constantly receive the idea that they're limited in what they can do because of the way they were born, and they start to think that way as well.
The truth is, that's completely false (that is way too soft of a wording but this has to be school-appropriate, right?). Here is a couple of things relating to Audism that people should know.

"Stop Audism" T-shirt design from handsay.com 

1. Deaf people's level of intellect is nowhere below that of hearing people's. Deaf people, although they can talk, still can't hear what they're saying; they don't have a concept of sound. When hearing people think, they think with a certain voice in their head, but deaf people can't develop that voice in their heads because they don't know what voices sound like. Deaf people who learned sign language, however, can think sign; so they think of themselves signing a certain idea, though they're not actually signing, just as how we think of ourselves talking but we're not really talking. Deaf kids who learn sign language are able to develop this method of thinking, but those who learn auditory-verbal can't develop this mode of thinking as fast as everyone, so that's why some deaf kids seem to fall behind in class. Deafness itself has nothing to do with intellect; in fact, Deaf people have better spatial intelligence than most hearing individuals.
2. Hearing people don't have the power to magically fix a deaf person's speech and grammar. Deaf people who learn auditory-verbal communication has probably went through years and years of education and speech therapy; this is the best they can get. They've been taught to draw with their feet because they don't have hands, and you can't blame them for not being able to draw every single line perfectly.
3. Alexander Graham Bell was a definite audist. In school, when told to do projects on a "Famous figure" or "Hero," many probably chose Bell for being the inventor of the telephone and the educator of the deaf. He did open schools for the deaf, but he did it as audistically (I don't think that's a word) as a human being could. He had a deaf mother and a deaf wife, but his goal wasn't to educate or enhance the Deaf community, his goal was to make deaf people more like hearing people. Why? Because he thought that hearing people were better than deaf people. He thought that there should be no deafness in the world as people think there should be no diseases in the world, and he thought that deaf children were more likely to be born from deaf parents. He broke up the Deaf community as much as possible and tried to get rid of all characteristics of the Deaf community. He even helped pass a law that banned the use of sign language, which drastically hindered deaf children's learning. People falsely credit Bell for being the "teacher of the deaf", but remember that he did it the wrong way.

Another design from handsay.com that says A.G. Bell is "not our father"

Comments 3

Here are the comments this week:
Nicole
- This post kept me on my toes!
Christy
- At this rate, her performance is gonna B Major!
Jessica
- I've taken it a pun myself to come up with a pun for everyone, but sigh, I could not come up with one for Jess's. (Es tut mir Leid Jess)...

What's Your Sign? - Week 2

Hmm, I actually don't know my exact Zodiac Sign...I was born on a borderline date between two signs, so whenever I read horoscopes, I just read both and choose whichever one I like. Anyways, here's what's happening in my world of ASL signs.

There's a saying in my native language (Korean), which - if I were to roughly translate - says that when people make a strong determination to accomplish something, that determination usually only lasts for three days. A perfect example is on New Year's, when everyone goes to the gym for roughly three days in January and then never comes back.
That loss of determination almost happened to me this week (well, it's been more than three days but still, it was a short time period) with something I least expected myself to be frustrated with: colors.

Dr. Vicars signing "Colors" on lifeprint.com - Done by fluttering four fingers on chin

Colors
Art has been a passion for me basically since I was born. I love colors, spectrums (except in Science class), color mixing, painting, dyeing,  etc. But for some reason, I just can't seem to get a grip on this! And as I said in my previous post, I've been losing track of which words I have memorized, and now I was having trouble with memorization itself. Most signs that I had trouble with, I eventually figured out. But colors? Man, I just couldn't remember these. I think it's because most signs have something to do with the word concept, like the sign for "drinking" just looks like someone drinking out of a cup. With colors, though, you can't really turn your hand into whichever color you're trying to sign. While I was drowning in the pool of hard signs and started to get super frustrated and angry at myself and at the world because I couldn't change the color of my hand like a chameleon could, help came to my way: food and puns.

Food
Food was covered on lesson 7 at lifeprint.com, and this was a beaming light of sunshine on my dying patch of flowers. Food signs were neither harder nor easier than most other signs, but I somehow got a grip on them - super fast. I still can't sign them quickly, but these were easier signs for me somehow. It got me motivated again - although certain signs are hard, sign language overall is a beautiful form of language, and although it requires perseverance for mastery, so does any other topic.
(Maybe there's some crazy science behind food. By the way, if you want to know about actual food science, visit my friend's genius project blog on Modernist Cuisine.)

Puns
Okay, ready?
This is the sign for milk:

GIF from lifeprint.com

Now, what do you think this means if you move this sign across your face?

PAST-YOUR-EYES (PASTEURIZED) MILK!
Isn't it beautiful? (Unfortunately, I don't think there are any other signs that work as puns in English).

Different Dialects of ASL
Now, onto more serious things. My friend Jessica (who is learning Mandarin for her Genius project) was awesome and showed me this article she found about different dialects of ASL. This Washington Post article, written by Frances Stead Sellers, talks about how ASL signed by the Black community, or Black ASL, is different from the ASL that more Caucasian people tend to sign. Certain word concepts have different signs in Black ASL and ASL, and the same signs in both can have different meanings. Some differences include signed by one hand instead of two and different areas of the body the word is signed at. Research shows that Black ASL has to do a lot with Ebonics, and is similar to how segregation in American history has changed some differences in language. Signers of Black ASL are proud of their language because Black ASL is a legitimate language; it just has differences like British Sign Language and ASL does. If you want to know more, just click on the link here or the one above.

Video

I said last time that I wouldn't have videos but...here it is. I thought it was unfair to not have a video showing my progress. I tried to come up with my own sentences and use at least one word from each lesson. I'd imagine this is the kind of stuff I would sign if I ever met someone who signed ASL.
In the past, I've recorded my voice during German class to hear how I sound, and I remember hating it because I sounded terrible. Well, in this video, I'm signing super choppy and slowly, and sometimes you can't really tell what I'm signing, so I didn't really like this either. However, this gave me a chance to see what I could improve on and how to sign certain words more natively.

So I tried to follow the tips on the comic strip thatdeafguy.com...

That Deaf Guy told me to use bright light when recording sign, so I tried to follow that tip. I did not realize how dark my room was before I did. I got all my lamps to brighten the view, but it still came out pretty dark. I got an extra LED lamp, but it wouldn't stay standing on my bed, so I got my Biology textbook. My computer started to get heated up, so then I got my Social Studies textbook...sorry. This took long, as I expected. It took me about 25 attempts, and in one of the attempts, I accidentally said my name was "Aana". Nevertheless, I still think this was definitely worthwhile.

Behind-the-scenes...When in doubt, use a textbook.

What do you guys think I should say in my next video? Talk more about myself? Narrate a short story? Show a few lines of poetic ASL I might use for my TEDTalk? If you want me to to something relating to poems, name a poem or a song that you really like. I'll try to do what works!

Comments 1 + 2

I commented on the blogs of these geniuses. Click on their names for the link:

Liliana
- I was mindBLOWN...!
Liliana
- I commented again because I love her.
Allison
- I'm a bit drawn to her art.
Allison
- I commented again because I guess I love her too.
Nicole
- Her post was definitely ON POINT.
Alycia
- Lettuce (let us) enjoy her blog.

UPDATE ON 3/1/15: The title of this post was originally just "comments" because I was confused with the timing, but I relabeled it as "Comments 1+2" to clear it out

Hands Are Movin' - Week 1

I know you lie, 'cause your hands are movin'. Tell me, do you think I sign?

Okay, enough with the puns (just in case you didn't get the reference: Lips Are Movin' by Meghan Trainor). I can't wait to start talking about more things I learned about Deaf culture and how my hands have been forming beautiful signs!

That Deaf Guy
I'm gonna start out with this amazing comic strip I found, called That Deaf Guy. This was created by Matt and Kay Diagle, and they draw a family with a Deaf dad, Deaf mom who can hear and is an ASL interpreter, and a young C.O.D.A. (Child of Deaf Adult). I suggest you start out by reading the first cartoon and going from there. You can follow Matt and Kay Diagle on Facebook. My favorite comic strip is below, and I think it explains the beauty of sign language very well.

More awesome strips on thatdeafguy.com!

Word Concepts 

I briefly talked about this in my FYI post that you absolutely should read if unfamiliar with Deaf culture and/or ASL. If not, I will find you...and I WILL (not) kill you! Seriously, just read the post. Anyways, a sign in a sign language does not represent a single word but rather a word concept, like the sign for "smart" can also mean genius, brilliant, etc. I've learned about 20 "word concepts" per lesson, and I've done five so far. I tried to get a firm grip on what I have memorized by repeating every sign, everyday until I get it right from memory at least 3 times in a row. I've stayed up really late signing because of this, but it's a) SOOOO fun b) something I should do or else it's really easy for me to forget a sign. I try not to wake up family members, but being the klutz I am, I keep hitting my desk with my elbow and my hands, which makes a really loud noise at 1:00AM.

Memorizing What I Memorized
Another problem I've been having with memorization is not the memorization itself - but keeping track of which words I have memorized. When you learn a language, it's inevitable that your friend or someone just goes, "OOH, SAY SOMETHING!" Or in my case, "OOH, SIGN SOMETHING!" It was a bit annoying when I first came to America and people asked to me say something in Korean, but now I don't mind as much. When people ask me to sign something now, I take the advantage to go on a full spiel about how Deaf culture is awesome and blah blah blah. When I actually get to signing though, a thought hits me hard: "Wait, what can I sign?" I had 100 word concepts memorized yet all I could remember off of the top of my head is stuff like "Hi," "name," or "ASL." This told me that if I were to meet a Deaf person, I wouldn't be able to start a conversation with them.

I came up with a solution...or Dr. Vicars did.

At the end of a lesson, he has a video "story," in which he introduces some facts about himself composed of the signs from that lesson and the previous ones. I skipped those because they were at the bottom of the page (I guess scrolling just isn't my thing?). Since Dr. Vicars is a native signer, I'd be practicing watching and understanding sign (similar to listening exercises for foreign languages), and at the end, I could make a story about myself that's similar to his story. I won't be posting videos here (sorry!) though, because then I'd probably be spending more time closed captioning than learning ASL.

Pidgin Sign English
This is something I learned on lifeprint.com this week. ASL is a language with language strucutre and grammar rules on its own and distinct from English. ASL and English are not supposed to be done simultaneously; that's improper and would end up looking like a train wreck. Signed Exact English (SEE) is sort of a combination of the two; using English grammar rules and sentence structure, one uses signs to exactly sign English word-by-word. SEE can have positive effects when used to babies, but it's not an actual language and is frequently looked down upon by the Deaf community, as it is not "true" ASL. Pidgin Signed English (PSE) is a combination of ASL and SEE, and this is not an actual language either. PSE forms a bridge between the Hearing world and the Deaf world in a manner and is frequently used by interpreters, but this is not a real language either.

Facial Expressions
This is another vital element of ASL I learned this week. Since ASL is a visual language, you have to do everything that you'd normally do with noise, visually. When you talk while you're angry, your voice tends to start to get louder and when you talk while you're sad, you voice tends to get choked up or quiet and slow. With ASL, you use your facial expressions to express emotion. When signing angry, make an angry face and when signing sad, make a sad face. This seems funny to Hearing people at first, but this is perfectly normal in the Deaf community. Facial expressions also apply when asking questions. When asking a "wh-" question like "What is your name?" or "Where do you go to going?" that requires an answer that's not yes or no, then the eyebrows have to be "furrowed down." When asking a "yes/no" question, then raise the eyebrows up.

Wow, I'm really enjoying this project! I was never into Deaf culture when I was little; I've enjoyed books and stories with Deaf people but something must have taken over me because I now have almost a burning passion for ASL and Deaf culture. I hope my blog is inspiring you at least a little bit to further understand Deaf culture.

Resources:
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/yesnofacial%20expression.htm
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/whfacialexpression.htm
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/contactsigning.htm

FYI - Basic ASL Knowledge

I realized that there are some vital information about sign language and ASL that some of you may not know. If you're a complete newbie on this topic of Deaf culture, you should probably read this post before going any further with my blog.

First of all, you might have noticed that sometimes I write deaf with a lowercase "d" and sometimes I write Deaf with an uppercase "D." Lowercase deaf has to do with the medical condition, and uppercase Deaf has to do with the culture. People who are born deaf - so they can't hear - often move to an area with more people who can't hear so that they can attend Deaf schools and interact with more people who are like them. This group of people is the Deaf community. There are many people who cannot hear but live in an environment without other people who cannot hear, so these deaf people are a part of the Hearing community, which consists mostly of people who can hear.
People who can hear are called hearing individuals, and most hearing individuals are a part of the Hearing community and do not frequently interact with deaf people. People who can hear with close family members or friends who are deaf are part of the Deaf community.
Summary: It doesn't matter if you can hear or not, if you often interact with deaf people, you are Deaf, and if you don't often interact with deaf people, you are Hearing.

Second, ASL is a legitimate language, and it's not meant to be signed simultaneously with spoken English. ASL has complex structure just like any other language and has its own rules and expression. People didn't just go, "Hey, let's make a funny hand movement for every single word in the dictionary" when they came up with ASL. Sign language does not have an exact "word" to go along with a sign; a sign can mean multiple things as a word concept, for example genius/brilliant/smart. For my brain project in this class, I researched the benefits of lerning sing language, and I basically came to the conclusion that it's more awesome than most spoken languages. But that's another conversation.

Lastly, this is a topic that many of you are going to read and say, "What?!" But it's something really important in the Deaf community that can't be stressed enough:
Deafness is not a disability.
Deafness is not a disability.
DEAFNESS IS NOT A DISABILITY.

Yes, technically deaf people do not have the "ability" to hear, so they are legally recognized as "disabled." However, people of the Deaf community do not think of themselves as disabled or handicapped. Politically correct term for deaf people are "hearing impaired," but the Deaf community just recognize themselves as "Deaf." It was at first hard for me to grasp this concept as well, but if you think about it in a certain way, it makes sense.

I think this article by Dr. Vicars says it better than I ever could, but I know some of you aren't gonna click on that link. Please be a good human being and read the article.
(Here it is again: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/disability-deafness.htm)
Here's some of the meat.
"Let's put it this way: 'Being Deaf isn't about having a disability. It is about navigating through life with your eyes and hands.'
Or how about this: 'Deafness doesn't have to be a disability. The knowledge, habits, and approaches to life used by members of the culturally Deaf community allow a person to live without needing to hear. Thus the ability or lack of ability to hear can be made to not matter.'...[Deaf people] have simply found an alternate path on this journey through life. A path wherein we (Deaf) are not broken versions of you – needing to be fixed so we can become more like you. Rather we are fine versions of 'us'" (lifeprint.com).
People of the Hearing community who are deaf often do perceive themselves as disabled because they were raised in an environment that told them they were. However, that has to end. Just because people who are Deaf are taking a different route through life does not mean they are disabled. This does not mean that they're disrespecting disabled people either. They just want everyone to know that they love the fact they're deaf and view it as an important part of who they are. Deafness is a difference, not a disability.

I think very passionately about this for someone without connections to Deaf people, but this is simply something that more people must know.

Sources: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/disability-deafness.htm

Could I be a Genius? - Week 0

A famous theory explained by Malcolm Gladwell is the "10,000-hour rule." It basically says that the key to success is to invest 10,000 hours, and most geniuses in the world who succeed in their field has, in fact, invested 10,000 hours into their works.

The teachers in my Enrichment class has assigned us a Genius Hour project, and we were told to explore and learn almost anything we want. To be honest, I was aware of this project ahead of time, and I already knew exactly what I was gonna learn: Sign language.

Over the summer, I came across a site where a college student going by the pen name "Lila" drew cartoons about her daily life and the many struggles she goes through everyday. Although Lila does not communicate through sign language but rather auditory-verbal communication where she lipreads and tries to imitate sound, I still developed a profound interest in deafness and deaf people. For the same class, I studied the effect of learning sign language on the brains of hearing individuals, which only deepened my love for this topic.

When the teachers gave my class the signal to go ahead with the Genius project, I went straight ahead to look for resources. The best one I found was a site called ASL University (lifeprint.com), and the sign language teacher was Dr. Bill Vicars.

Dr. Vicars signing "genius/smart/intelligent/clever"
(Photo from lifeprint.com)

Dr. Vicars is a Deaf professor who teaches deaf studies and American Sign Language (ASL), the most common form of sign language used in the United States. ASL University is beautiful in many ways: it's online and accessible anywhere I have internet connection; it currently has 45 full lessons that include a list of words and common phrases that use those words; throughout the lessons, it teaches certain aspects of sign language, different types of of sign language, elements of Deaf culture, and a quiz at the end. It was laid out as a semester-long course, so the lessons were already organized for me.

Another site I found was handspeak.com. This website doesn't have set lessons like ASLU, but it does have a dictionary where I can look up certain words. The perk about this website is that it lists almost every cool thing you can do with sign language! Signwriting, culture, literature...anything you can or could not have imagined!
Out of everything, the most appealing to me was ASL poetry. Although I'm not an awesome writer, I still loved it whenever we got to write poetry in class. Rhyming with words was a challenge for me every time; now I have to rhyme with my hands? That sounds so hard, yet so awesome!

Here is my timeline plan for now:
Week 1: Lessons 1-5 on lifeprint.com
Week 2: Lessons 6-10 on lifeprint.com
Week 3: Lessons 11-15 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start to get ideas for my own ASL poem
Week 4: Lessons 16-20 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start writing my own ASL poem
Week 5: Final touches on ASL poem and begin finalizing TED Talk

I hope to challenge my visual skills, which I use frequently to make art, a big hobby of mine. I also hope to improve my motor skills, and I probably have the worst motor skills in the tri-state area.
Deaf people live in an entirely different world from hearing people that I - or anyone else who can hear - will never understand. Through this project, I want to detach from the large crowd that frequently misunderstands and unintentionally almost neglects deaf people.