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.