A couple months ago, I was confronted with the project of mastering an ability, whether it be starting from the beginning, or improving. Obviously it would take up a lot of time, so I wanted my ability to be something useful to me that I can use in my everyday life. I have always wanted to become fluent in a language, causing my influence to choose to improve my American Sign Language. At the beginning of this project, I was only a mere beginner at signing, but wanted to expand my knowledge, vocabulary, and general understanding of the language, pushing myself to increase my fluency. Through this process, I faced more challenges in learning this language than I expected to, but accomplished all of my goals, and feel much more confident in my
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In December of 2015, I flew to New York for the sole purpose of seeing a specific show on Broadway: Spring Awakening. This show was a revival of the original Spring Awakening, a show I was not that fond of. However, this revival came from a theater company called Deaf West, and half of the cast was deaf or hard-of-hearing, including most of the leads. In order to make this show accessible to both hearing and deaf audiences, the characters played by deaf actors were given “voices” who were put in the show and offered another dimension of a guardian angel or dark side of themselves. Every time someone spoke, there would be signing along with it, or vice versa, except in select situations in which only one language was used for an incredible effect. Using the show’s original theme of lack of communication, this revival was able to share the rejection felt by deaf children at schools, when they were forced to speak verbally. This show shared a lot with me about deaf culture, and inspires me every single day to learn more about it. Before I went to see the show, I practiced enough ASL in order to communicate with the actors after the show at the stage door. I was able to talk to them about how amazing I thought the show was, and actually told one of the deaf girls that her grandmother was sitting behind me during the show. Being able to share these conversations directly after watching this show really opened my eyes to how important learning ASL really is, and how much of an incredible language it is to this
In December of 2015, I flew to New York for the sole purpose of seeing a specific show on Broadway: Spring Awakening. This show was a revival of the original Spring Awakening, a show I was not that fond of. However, this revival came from a theater company called Deaf West, and half of the cast was deaf or hard-of-hearing, including most of the leads. In order to make this show accessible to both hearing and deaf audiences, the characters played by deaf actors were given “voices” who were put in the show and offered another dimension of a guardian angel or dark side of themselves. Every time someone spoke, there would be signing along with it, or vice versa, except in select situations in which only one language was used for an incredible effect. Using the show’s original theme of lack of communication, this revival was able to share the rejection felt by deaf children at schools, when they were forced to speak verbally. This show shared a lot with me about deaf culture, and inspires me every single day to learn more about it. Before I went to see the show, I practiced enough ASL in order to communicate with the actors after the show at the stage door. I was able to talk to them about how amazing I thought the show was, and actually told one of the deaf girls that her grandmother was sitting behind me during the show. Being able to share these conversations directly after watching this show really opened my eyes to how important learning ASL really is, and how much of an incredible language it is to this