This post is rather stream-of-conscious so please bear with me...
Midterms are around the corner! If I knew "exam" or "test" I could sign that phrase, thanks to ASL I. Classes are going well with the exception of some pop quizzes in Hearing Science. That ish is not fun. The tests aren't so bad, it's the pop quizzes that'll kill you. This messes with my mind more than I can say. But, that's college for you!
ASL has also been a bipolar course for me. Some days I really consider withdrawing (I think with five courses I'm easy to despair.) And then on days like today, I think about taking higher courses later. Perhaps what I'll do is stick to free online stuff or go to meetups, etc. It's a really fascinating course and I love it except for the actual communicative acts. I know that must sound insane. I love learning about communication but I hate communicating.
This is because I'm still quite shy when it comes face to face. Or on the telephone, I hate those things. So, you would think Speech Pathology would be a rough future but here's where I go all multi-layered and human, I am fine when it's a professional setting. I have no problem as long as I have some kind of purpose. But, Kate, isn't every exchange purposeful? Be it to gain knowledge or foster kinship? Yeah, it totally is. But still. I don't like it most of the time unless I know you well. And I like it all the less when I have limited ability and/or am nervous about it. And what I don't like about ASL courses is that it's totally making me face my fears and address this shortcoming. It's making me grow and I'm not into it. Har.
We're reading Oliver Sacks' Seeing Voices in class and it's, no surprise here, wonderful. I find the grammar difference of ASL fascinating and frustrating all at the same time. I have the incredibly unfair and down-ruight disrespectful impulse to expect ASL to conform to English. I am learning to separate the two and treat ASL like it deserves: as a fully functioning language. I thought I knew that before, I really did, but I was wrong. I was biased. This class and this book are making me think about how I think and how much of thought is encoded versus not. I'm no neuroscientist, obviously, but I'm fascinated. Bonus points: since I am so busy these days, pleasure-reading has fallen by the wayside and Sacks writes in such a pleasant way. His footnote use reminds me of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I admit, I never finished because I lent it to Dad after Stroke Number One.
In other class news, since I don't have much pleasure-reading time, I'm trying to combine Tolkien and classwork. Last Friday I started transcribing The Hobbit into IPA. (/ðə hɑ́bɪt/) I'm hoping I can use a recording of either The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings and transcribe it for my final project. My other idea, which I think would be way too hard, is to transcribe a Bob Dylan song.
Midterms are around the corner! If I knew "exam" or "test" I could sign that phrase, thanks to ASL I. Classes are going well with the exception of some pop quizzes in Hearing Science. That ish is not fun. The tests aren't so bad, it's the pop quizzes that'll kill you. This messes with my mind more than I can say. But, that's college for you!
ASL has also been a bipolar course for me. Some days I really consider withdrawing (I think with five courses I'm easy to despair.) And then on days like today, I think about taking higher courses later. Perhaps what I'll do is stick to free online stuff or go to meetups, etc. It's a really fascinating course and I love it except for the actual communicative acts. I know that must sound insane. I love learning about communication but I hate communicating.
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| Dante: You hate people! Randal: But I love gathering. Isn't it ironic? |
We're reading Oliver Sacks' Seeing Voices in class and it's, no surprise here, wonderful. I find the grammar difference of ASL fascinating and frustrating all at the same time. I have the incredibly unfair and down-ruight disrespectful impulse to expect ASL to conform to English. I am learning to separate the two and treat ASL like it deserves: as a fully functioning language. I thought I knew that before, I really did, but I was wrong. I was biased. This class and this book are making me think about how I think and how much of thought is encoded versus not. I'm no neuroscientist, obviously, but I'm fascinated. Bonus points: since I am so busy these days, pleasure-reading has fallen by the wayside and Sacks writes in such a pleasant way. His footnote use reminds me of reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I admit, I never finished because I lent it to Dad after Stroke Number One.
In other class news, since I don't have much pleasure-reading time, I'm trying to combine Tolkien and classwork. Last Friday I started transcribing The Hobbit into IPA. (/ðə hɑ́bɪt/) I'm hoping I can use a recording of either The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings and transcribe it for my final project. My other idea, which I think would be way too hard, is to transcribe a Bob Dylan song.
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