@RufusRyan and I have designed this happening to be fast-paced and fun. Rather than a classroom lecture, we want to expose you to a wide variety of signs and concepts in a short amount of time with the hope you will pick up a few signs you find interesting, and leave with the ability to practice and learn more throughout the weekend and beyond!
Expected material focuses primarily on signs likely to be useful to a beginning signer:
Paw (finger) spelling
Basic question and answer signs: the “wh” words - who, what, where, …
Most used vocabulary
“Manners” signs: Please, thank you, etc
You can also expect a few ahem colorful vocabulary words and phrases peppered throughout, as well as CFT related vocabulary.
@RufusRyan and I will be available throughout the weekend to practice and teach beyond the happening. @RufusRyan is conversationally fluent in ASL and has an extensive lexicon. I have only been studying with him for a few weeks, but should be able to comfortably review anything covered in the class.
WHEN: We are planning on doing this Saturday after breakfast.
ILY sign.
Even if you can’t make it to our happening, I want to leave everyone with one special sign. The ILY sign is a cute, informal way to say “I Love You.” It’s like a visual hug. I already know I’m going to be using it a lot over the weekend because all of you wonderful animal people mean a lot to me, and I hope you’ll reply in kind.
OOOH! I get to concrete ASL I’ve learned? I’m actually stupidly excited for this! Having people to practice with and teach me more would be awesome so I look forward to seeing you guys there! :3
So, we’re looking to likely be doing this Saturday shortly after breakfast. Though, as Morse has said, we’ll be about all weekend for practice, answering questions, and whatnot.
Oddly enough never heard of any of this til now. Someone was like, “hey, is this commission right?” No clue why it mattered O.o real easy to find the asl alphabet online.
If it wasn’t so soon, coulda passed it around to get promoted and bring more curious people in. Maybe drag in a few willing Deafies to help you guys help others practice and learn. This campfire event sounds cool in general.
Remember it’s called ILY cause of the handshape evolving from those letters from old traditional ASL. (I’m weird. Can’t resist fixing things. Imma go back to staring at a beach now.)
I appreciate the interest. It was a bit of a last minute idea to put this on, but I may encourage @RufusRyan to host a similar event if we make it to any of the other West Coast Cons. Do you have an FA username or Twitter handle?
You’re quite right about the ILY, of course. My source had it written out correctly, I just mis-wired it when I learnedi t. Fixed that in my post. Thank you!
A huge thank you to everyone who showed up. You made this awesome. I hope that you continue to learn and practice.
But seeing how many of you all were interested, and how excited you were, makes me fear going deaf a lot less. At least I’ll have tons of awesome campers to talk with.
Thanks again.
~R
