Deaf/Blind...interpreting?

Ok just got home from ASL. And it was AMAZING!!! We had a deaf and blind lady come talk to us. It was really cool! There were two interpreters...one to speak into the mic and translate what she said to us (although, I understood her without the interpreter and also, the interpreter didn't always interpret everything!) and then another one to translate to her. Her name was Jackie. She isn't completely blind...like she could see the outline of my white shirt and sort of see my face when I was sitting in the first row but even when up close to her everything is still blurry. So she uses tactile signing. That's when she puts her non-dominant hand lightly over your dominant hand to feel what you sign. So that's what the one translator was doing for her when we asked questions and such - and also describing the surroundings...people coming and going, the mic being passed around and such.

So...she was showing examples of how to sign and how not to sigh and had a volunteer come and put glasses on which made them have tunnel vision. So the first one was just signing close. The second was where they would hold onto the persons arm lightly. And then she wanted to show an example of tactile signing with one of us. So my teacher asked me to volunteer (well..not really volunteering cause I was told to do it!) so I went up front and she closed her eyes and had me sign to her and she signed back and stuff. I was as nervous as heck so I wasn't signing very well, but oh well. It worked. But it was SO STINKING COOL!!! I wanted to stay and talk with her but Peter didn't want to have to sign to her because he was too nervous to so I didn't get to stay and chat with her. But it's ok. I'll live. I'm excited for Fall quarter because I have a deaf girl in my journalism class and I'm totally going to talk to her all the time! I saw her working at Starbucks one day after just seeing her in one of our meetings. So I said Hi and asked if she was in the Journalism major and she was surprised and really excited that I could sign. And she said she remembered seeing me in the meeting. And asked which Journalism class I was in and found out that we are in the same one in Fall! So yeah. I'm really excited. If you can't already tell.

I told Peter today on the way home that if I wasn't doing Photography and Journalism I would consider doing interpreting because I love signing so stinking much. And so then I told mom that and she was like...well...you could. Cause I'm not actually going to major in Photography now. I was planning on it but when it came down to applying to the major I just...didn't feel the desire to do it. I think I'm learning a lot where I am and I think that all I need is to just get into it and be taking pictures. I've been learning so much lately and I feel if I do photography classes I'll just end up learning the same things over again and it will delay me graduating a year. But we'll see what happens. I'm going to talk to my ASL teacher about how I can stay involved in signing or where to go to take more classes or something because I want to stick with it at least for now.

Anyways...had to write about today because it was so exciting for me and I loved it so much! Now I'm going to work on my midterm for Comparative Literature! Horrray. Not. haha At least its a take home final which makes it less stressful.