Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Message from Diane
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Ellemeno on November 27, 2006, 11:37:02 pm ---When I was sick as a kid, my mother always said that getting bored was a sign of getting better.
--- End quote ---
Once as a kid I was home sick from school long enough to read a biography of Helen Keller and teach myself sign language (not the whole-word kind, but the single-letter kind). Sometimes I wonder how I could have been well enough to do that yet not to go to school, but ... Anyway, the sign language came in handy, years later.
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on November 28, 2006, 11:39:13 am ---Once as a kid I was home sick from school long enough to read a biography of Helen Keller and teach myself sign language (not the whole-word kind, but the single-letter kind). Sometimes I wonder how I could have been well enough to do that yet not to go to school, but ... Anyway, the sign language came in handy, years later.
--- End quote ---
I'd love to hear how the sign language came in handy. And then I'll tell you mine.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Ellemeno on November 30, 2006, 09:00:51 am ---I'd love to hear how the sign language came in handy. And then I'll tell you mine.
--- End quote ---
Well, it's a short story, Elle. Only one night I was usin that sign language. In college, a girlfriend and I went out to see a band in a bar, where we met three men who were deaf. After the bar closed, the five of us went out to breafast together, and spent a couple of hours in a really fun conversation, partly in our clumsy sign language (my friend had taught herself at some point, too), partly writing on the paper placemats, partly lip reading and talking a little. Finally my sign language had come in handy! The guys were interesting and I had a great time. And that Christmas, one of the men sent me a Christmas card, which was nice.
And that's the story of my sign-language career. :)
Your turn!
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on November 30, 2006, 07:12:08 pm ---
And that's the story of my sign-language career. :)
Your turn!
--- End quote ---
You weren't no angel like me, myself, and I:
I've always been into languages, quite ferociously when I was young. If I had an opportunity to learn a language, i would suck it down as fast as I could. So when I was about 20, a friend of mine in medical school decided to take a sign language class and I decided to join her. The class went too slow, so after a while I just studied it on my own, and my friend and I would sign to each other the best we could, laboriously finger spelling when we didn't know the sign for something.
One night I was walking down the path to my house in the dark and tripped over a tree root. I was pretty sure I had wrenched my ankle. It hurt like hell and seemed scarily out of whack. My friends who were in the house drove the car as close to me as they could and then supported me to hobble one-legged into the car and drove me to the emergency room.
I got put in an examining room, up on an examination table, and then was left alone for a long time, with my scary ankle that felt weirdly crunchy when I tried to put any weight down on it. Eventually another woman was brought in and put on the other exam table in the room. A doctor came in to examine her. Well, turns out the patient was deaf and the doctor was a moron. He quickly started exhibiting impatience for her communications limitations, and she was close to tears. So I spoke up, or, I guess, signed up. I signed to her that I could sign a little and that I would be happy to interpret if I possibly could. I still remember her look of relief and gratitude, probably only partly because I could help with the communication, but mostly because I was just nice. So anyway, I did actually wind up helping them quite a bit.
Right after they were done, someone finally came in to examine me (I had been on that table for what seemed like two hours, waiting). He gingerly rotated my scary ankle, and, for some reason, it didn't hurt anymore. Hunh. After a bit, I carefully stepped down off the table and tested my weight on it. My ankle was completely fine, just felt a little weak. But the scary pain and crunchiness was just not there. I walked out 95% fine. Hunh.
Fast forward 23 years. My daughter was born, and I had been reading about signing with infants. I got a couple of books, and found that the dormant signing was still in me. I started signing to her when she was about 6 months old (as the books suggested). I focused on the baby basics - eat, drink, more, all done, bottle, change (diaper), etc. One day, in her high chair, I suddenly realized that the spazzy knocking of the backs of her hands together was her signing "more." Holy shit! It was like the dog had just spoken English. I couldn't believe it.
She and I signed together a lot. Several of our mommy & infant buddies were too. At one point, right before she got really verbal, I counted 47 signs that she herself had used. Just like the books predicted, as she began to talk, the signing faded away as she didn't need it anymore. But she still has strong interest in it. We still sign together now, for fun, and use signs for more sophisticated concepts than we could when she was an infant. I consider it her main secondary language, more than the French and Spanish we also mess around with. The cool and unique thing about sign, is that you can speak it at the very same time that you are speaking English, so it is very easy to impart meaning.
Anyway, sorry for hijacking your thread, Diane. [Elle rubs palm over heart in circular motion.] :)
serious crayons:
Wow, Elle! Not just one but two very cool stories. Thanks for telling them! I know kids who are bilingual because of having bilingual parents or schools, and unfortunately I'm not fluent enough in French or sign or anything else to provide that opportunity for my kids (my younger son was so impressed that I was able to clumsily respond to a French-speaking docent/reenactor on a field trip -- little does he know my limitations!). So they'll probably be stuck where I was -- learning a language at a ridiculously delayed age of 13 or so. What a great opportunity for your daughter. And for you!
:D
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version