Every Wednesday at the Starbucks down the street from campus, a group of 20 or more people meets up from four to six in the evening to chat. Quietly. They’re members of the NOVA ASL Club and the surrounding area’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing citizens. It’s a weekly chance for new and native signers to get together, chat, and get better at their signing, or just socialize. The perfect place for ASL students like me to go and hang out on a Wednesday evening and get some practice in while having fun.
My first ASL Club meeting was fairly strange and highly intimidating. I was more worried I’d offend someone than I was about making a complete fool of myself. We’d only gotten done with the first two Units in our class book and were working into our third, so I felt like a fish out of water. Thankfully I wasn’t alone, I’d gone with a classmate of mine, so we got to mentally freak-out together rather than alone. The first thing we did was introduce ourselves and gather names of some of the other attendees, then we figured out who was Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or Hearing. We ended up spending a majority of our time with a Hearing couple at first, but then spread out to the others.
During the meeting, I was slightly subdued and extremely shy to trying to sign to the other members. I worried that I’d end up offending someone with the wrong gesture or that my horrid grammar would make others less willing to talk to me. But I found an open, friendly, and willing to suffer group of people who didn’t mind that I signed like a two-year-old (as I’m pretty sure I did, if not worse). No one begrudged me of my ability (or lack thereof) with signing and everyone was patient when I had to fingerspell to get my point across.
ASL Club is the first time I’ve been able to completely immerse myself in a language I was learning, besides English, of course. It’s a weird experience because the last two languages I was learning didn’t really have a larger audience outside of the classroom. Now, it’s like I can’t get away from ASL. At school, at the movies, even in the grocery store around the corner from my house, I see people signing everywhere. I once asked an ASL II student who came to the meetings if she noticed that she paid more attention to peoples’ hands when they spoke now. She said yes and that I’d eventually get used to it.
Now I’m thinking about going into Interpreting, which a lot of the Deaf and HoH members said would be fantastic. It’s like Christmas comes early when you mention going into Interpreting to one of them. They get excited and start signing too quickly for my brain and eyes to keep up. It’s a field that has been neglected and they love hearing how people want to help them and others like them in navigating this audio world.
Then again, ASL always fascinated me because it wasn’t audio, but visual. I’ve now attended more than 5 ASL Club meetings and each one is more fun every time. I learn more signs, I have great conversations, and I keep in practice. It’s absolutely fantastic and I love it. I still wish I could convince my mom and sister to come to one of the meetings with me, but alas, still no luck. I just want them to see me having a conversation in ASL like they’ve heard me butcher other spoken languages. I guess I’ll just have to keep working on it. But until then, ASL Club is like a second home with a cooler language…and coffee. Can’t forget about that.
