I stayed at one middle school all day, and the last class I interpreted was Speech. I was surprised that the teacher knew very little sign - I had previously thought it would be an important tool when working with deaf students. I realize now, though, that the emphasis is supposed to be on oral communication, so teachers may not want to use ASL much for that reason - but still, it would be useful.

The two girls with hearing aids worked on a packet independently, while I sat with the teacher and the girl with a cochlear implant; they were working on training her to recognize and interpret the signals from the implant. The teacher had an opaque black card she held up to hide her mouth, and the girl had to determine which sound the teacher was making, and then duplicate it. They went through mmmm, buh-buh-buh-buh, ssss, oooo, ch-ch-ch-ch, and all the rest; the girl (who was very sweet and friendly) frequently guessed wrong. Her vocalizations were okay, I guess, though she had problems with tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh. From her voice now, I fear she will turn out to be one of the less-intelligible deaf adults - though she may also do very well and develop a clear voice.

I can’t imagine how difficult the speech-learning process must be for her or for any deaf child. What comes so naturally to me requires grueling effort and endless repetition on her part - and even then she knows she may never speak clearly enough for hearing strangers to understand.

Okay, so, adventures in interpreting. The first story is from the elementary school, where I work from 10-12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The gym teacher started to break the class into groups for a written assignment, and put each of the four deaf kids in separate groups. She then turned to me and asked, “Is that going to make your life hard?” I immediately said “Yes,” and she began to rework the groups. This time the deaf students were only in two different groups, but I was still uneasy as the teacher continued counting off.

I finally approached her and said “Is there any way all of the deaf students can be in the same group?” Her disapproval was written all over her face, so I explained. This was a written assignment, which requires language exchange; normally when she splits up the deaf kids it’s for something physical where they all watch as she demonstrates and I interpret the explanation. For this, though, they would require back-and-forth dialogue with the hearing students.

The teacher countered with the suggestion that her aide (an adult) could work with the other group, but I insisted that my job was to interpret for the deaf kids, and it’s not appropriate for an aide to act as interpreter. I’m perfectly aware that it happens all the time because schools can’t afford both employees, but when an interpreter is present, the aide can do their job of actually helping the students.

This situation is well known among educational interpreters, I think. The simplest (but not the only) reason is that aides rarely have the ASL skills to function effectively as interpreters. In this particular instance, that was proved to be the case: later in the class period, the aide came over to me and said one of the students was trying to tell her something, and she couldn’t understand. When I went over there, he was saying something fairly easy (for me) to understand.

The teacher was very definitely peeved by my reaction. She let the deaf kids work in a group together, but told me “that’s not what [she] was told to do with this group.” I assume she meant there are expectations that the kids interact with hearing peers, and I understand that. I even agree with it, and every other time kids were in groups, I was fine because it was all physical. I should have mentioned to the teacher that I wasn’t trying to avoid the job - I still worked with the students on the assignment - but rather that I physically cannot interpret for two different conversations simultaneously. Nobody can, and it’s not fair to the students to deprive them of participation because of absent or inadequate interpreting.

Aha! I finally worked up the nerve to mention using the free computer next to the deaf students in Keyboarding I class. One of them said that other interpreters do it all the time, so I asked the teacher if it would be okay. She said yes! She told me I could ask one of the two deaf students if I could use their login ID, and one of the girls was happy to share. So I finally have something to do in this class besides sit around watching time pass! There’s essentially no actual interpreting to do, the students just do timed writings and copy exercises from a keyboarding textbook.

It’s the first day of classes and I didn’t want to be late, so I ended up getting here an hour early…I’ll have to fix that for next time. I had some trouble logging into the computers, but a friend from last year showed up and helped me out. It turns out I do have a login for the Gallaudet system, but I was never told what the password is, so I requested a new one. I can’t find the classroom I’m supposed to go to - the only posting in the window of the building where class is usually held just gave locations for the Saturday classes. My friend said ASL classes are always held on the ground floor of that building, though, so I will just wander around until I find it. There’s a PFLAG meeting in the student center tonight at 7:30, but our class doesn’t end until 8:30…I’m hoping they’ll let us out really early so I can wander over there. And I still have to write for Dykewrite today, but I’ll probably do that on the way home and post it very quickly, then log off so A can call and let me know she’s ready for me to pick her up. (Or I could just do it after we get back, I suppose.)

I made it! I got my books just in the nick of time.

The clock inside the Union Station metro said 5:18 when I passed it at full run, and I know I made it up the escalator and around the corner inside of two minutes…but the 5:20 bus was just pulling away. I waved frantically as I chased it, hoping somebody on the bus would be looking in my direction, but nobody got the driver’s attention. I kept chasing it and was about to give up when I realized it would be going right past the break in the hedge (sometimes the driver takes a different route), so I ran over there. When it started forward from the red light I started waving again but the damn driver just cruised right past me. I was so upset and exhausted I just started whining quietly in between gasps for breath, but all I could do was wait for the next bus.

The 5:35 bus came right on time, and it seemed the driver was about to pull away when I saw a kid waving at us. My window was open so I pointed out at him and he nodded, and I called out “wait wait!” to the driver. He said he understood and was just pulling up so a car could pass, but the kid thanked me all the same when he got on and sat down. I was so nervous as we rode over to campus, especially when I realized we were going the long way - sometimes the bus goes up 8th Street NE and right in the front gates, and sometimes it goes up 6th Street NE and stops at MSSD and Kendall before making it around to my stop at Benson Hall. I had some gum in my backpack and was chewing it frantically, and when the bus stopped at Benson I took off running.

The Student Academic Center was still under construction when I was here last spring, but it’s open now. This threw me off a bit as I wasn’t sure whether to go in there or go around to the entrance I was familiar with, so I headed for the usual entrance. It turned out going through the SAC would have been the right thing to do, but I made it into the bookstore just in time. Not seeing the book-service window that was in place before the bookstore moved into the SAC, I asked one of the cashiers where I could find the books for ASL 5. She was confused, which confused me, but when I mentioned Signing Naturally she led me over to an aisle and said she didn’t know if that’s what I was looking for. It was indeed - she had been confused because I was purchasing Signing Naturally Level 3 and yet I had said it was for ASL 5. I thanked her and said I’d look around a bit, but didn’t find a shot glass suitable for my collection (I like to have them be mostly the same style) before the lights went on and off indicating it was time to close. I looked at the keychains very quickly and then grabbed The Book of Name Signs because I’ve been wanting it for a while anyway. I snatched up a soda too (amazingly it was the same price as from a vending machine) and paid for everything - just under $85 total, which I guess isn’t bad for a semester’s worth of textbooks.

And now I’m sitting here in the SAC’s spiffy new Harkin Digital Learning Center, marveling at the speed of this connection and catching my breath. The shuttle service takes a break from 6pm to 7pm, so I have a few more minutes before I can catch the bus back and take the metro home.

Added This is odd. I can’t get to the LiveJournal server to put this entry up. I wonder if it’s down, or if maybe Gallaudet has it blocked from this public terminal.

I wasn’t surprised to see that robozilla had flagged a lot of the links in the McDaniel College category. The school is struggling to get its website updated, and I can tell some of it has been subjected to a search-and-replace to get rid of most references to “Western Maryland College.” I was able to find the new locations for nearly all of the flagged sites, so it’s mostly fixed now.

While I was looking at the site, I came across the page for McDaniel’s Deaf Education program. That was what I had planned to finish before I had to drop out; it makes me kind of nostalgic and wistful to read about it. I don’t remember having seen that on the WMC site before. They even have an ASL immersion dorm now, I would have loved to stay there; there was an article about it in the Baltimore Sun last December, but the link is no longer valid and you have to pay for the full article from the archives.

My friend R just called me to ask if I wanted to go to lunch, he’s very excited about some distance learning program offered from a community college in one of the Carolinas. He indicated that you can go through the full interpreter training course online - I suspect he’s going to talk about the program at Central Piedmont Community College, which I had e-mailed him about a week or two ago. He sounded thrilled to have discovered this…I’ll be amused if it’s the same program.

I’m looking into financial aid for either NoVA’s interpreter training program or the one at Gallaudet. The financial aid page at Gallaudet gives this depressing information:

The statutory definition of an independent student is one who is at least 24 years of age by December 31 of the award year, an orphan or ward of the court, a veteran of the Armed Forces, married, a graduate or professional student, or one who has legal dependents other than a spouse. Students who do not meet one of the above criteria are considered to be dependent and must provide parents’ financial information on the FAFSA.

So even though I’ve been financially independent from my parents for more than three years, I still have to list them?! I’m only 21, I can’t get married, and I don’t have any legal dependents. I might be able to sneak in as a graduate or professional student, we’ll have to see. Apparently there’s also a space on the FAFSA where you can list special circumstances, so I’ll do that.

Well, it’s happened. As of today, my college is now known as McDaniel College. I went to Western Maryland College and I’m sure I’ll never call it anything else. I wonder what happens to my @wmdc.edu e-mail address now that it’s mcdaniel.edu. Thanks to my mother for the story link.


Lots of chores to do, blah.

I had a good day today, probably because I got out and actually did things rather than sitting around in front of the computer.



This morning we went to Hillwood, the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post (heiress of the Post cereal fortune). She was an avid art collector, and when she moved into the Hillwood estate had it gutted and its interior rebuilt with a very museum-like design. It was a museum even while she was alive, and today they have docents to show you around the place. I had expected to be intensely bored the whole time, but I ended up liking it well enough - she had a lot of fascinating pieces.



I encountered a lot of traffic on the way to the kayak rolling class because of two major accidents on major artery roads. The class itself was really great, though; I stayed in the beginners’ group the whole time and practiced hip snaps. At one point I heard myself saying a prophetic “oh, shit” and then found myself upside-down when I hadn’t planned to be. I quickly did a wet exit (that’s when you get out of the boat while you’re flipped over) and when I came back up everybody was looking at me…I don’t even know how I managed to capsize! I thought I didn’t do very well, but after the class I passed my instructor on the way out and he said that I showed a lot of promise. Hooray! I’m a bit sore now around the neck and shoulders…the boat wasn’t a good fit for me so the movements were probably harder than they should have been. It’s a good kind of sore, though.



They’ve announced that Western Maryland College is now McDaniel College. This Is Not A Good Choice. It sounds like McDonald’s, for pete’s sake. And is it called MC? MDC? McDC? There are so many other names they could have chosen, and they picked that?! And they claimed they had a toll-free number set up so you could learn about the new name, but it turned out it’s only valid in Maryland. Gee, thanks. (I looked it up on the web instead, of course.)

I got a higher grade in ASL than I’d expected for this semester, though no higher than last semester. In the fall, I got about an 89% for ASL 3 - I was one point short of an A, and I didn’t study very much. This time, I got an 89% again even though I studied, but what really hurt me was the final - which was difficult to prepare for. Here’s how it broke down: