I Have Compromised HQ

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Armed Forces Day
Eliza Doolittle Day
Weights and Measures Day
Anniversary - Charles Lindberg Solo Flight
Birthday - Cher (singer/actress)
Birthday - Dolly Madison (First Lady)
Birthday - Jimmy Stewart (actor)
Independence Day (East Timor)

 

One of the big disadvantages to having hands that ache when it’s hot is that ASL becomes markedly more difficult. Which was a problem on Thursday because we held a big ol’ (relatively) ASL festival which was located in the IRC, next to Liz’s ISA headquarters. Figures. They’re always after you to wear dark solid shirts to contrast with your hands (unless you’re dark, at which point you wear light solids, but I am not), and then you show up to the party and they give you your complimentary bright white ASL T-shirt. But hell, free T-shirt.

 

I like to tell people that I’m very good at languages—that is my one indisputable talent. But it still takes practice to be able to converse properly. And due to a combination of factors that could be summed up as “a crazy junior high Spanish teacher, my developmental linguistics studies, The Complicated Orchestra Airplane Incident, and countless humiliations,” I have learned that the most effective method of second language practice is a kamikaze-like tendency to CHARGE! I was in full CHARGE! mode as I walked across the plaza to the Secret Entrance to Liz’s Headquarters, in anticipation of a number of embarrassing missigns. Thus, when I beheld two women walking in the direction of the main entrance, it was with no more than a mental BANZAI! that I dashed after them.

 

“Hey!” I said, in ASL. “Are you going to the ASL celebration?” (At least, that was the idea. What I actually said was “You-two ASL?” which was possibly correct, but also might have been pretty simple.)

 

They confirmed it—huge surprise—and I said cheerfully, “I know where it is! Come with me!”

 

I led them along to the Secret Entrance, discovering in the process that it’s very hard to lead someone and keep looking at them at the same time, especially if the Secret Entrance has a bit of a drop next to it and you don’t want to walk backwards for fear that you’ll plunge to an undignified death on the cement below.* We had a conversation in which I possibly told them that I have taken a year of ASL here and a few in Utah, unless it turns out I arranged a stargazing expedition for next Thursday. But I proved I wasn’t a total doofus, because I got them into the IRC a lot faster than they would have gotten otherwise given our convoluted student center that was designed by an insane lemming.

 

And that turned out to be a good thing, because the two turned out to be a friend of Professor ASL’s, who was going to be giving a little lesson on Israeli Sign Language, and her interpreter. It was a lot more interesting than the songs people kept performing—while I myself will sign along to my iPod,** it seemed rather weird that so many presentations were songs. I much preferred the lesson, as well as the later lesson on animals because there were little kids present who got excited and started asking questions for animals they wanted to learn. Now I can say ‘shark,’ ‘monster,’ ‘rhino,’ ‘unicorn,’ ‘penguin,’ and the most adorable sign ever, ‘llama.’

 

I also talked to a few teachers, including the one I had shown the way to, about linguistics. I found out that sign linguistics are the hidden hobby of EVERY SINGLE PROFESSOR IN THE LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT HERE, which is awesome. I got the e-mail address of one of the teachers, who I liked the moment I saw the Amy Brown-esque tattoo on her shoulder. I did finally have to cave and get Professor ASL to interpret for me, but I got a lot of good information and practice, and learned of a few places to look for other sign languages. I didn’t tell anyone that part of my interest was due to my crazy conlang hobby, because that would have been a bit involved.

 

And I managed to plunder a pile of dark chocolate Milky Ways from the snack table. Most successful.

 

I have given up on the ASL club. They have managed to shun me until I finally decided I didn’t need that kind of cliqueing.*** I’m instead going around them to make friends in this field. It’s working so far.

 

BANZAI!

 

 

*Which would probably be less gory than the amphitheatre was last week, when the Dead Baby People came to visit YAY and festooned the center of campus with traumatic images of, you guessed it, dead babies. I should have been righteously indignant at them for a number of reasons, but the truth was that the Dead Baby People have entered the realm of Fred Phelps for me, which is people who have heard everything I have against them before and won’t change their minds and thus I leave be as a rather comically thickheaded waste of time.

 

**Which can be difficult to do on the fly: Now I found/having come the long way round/I am closer---closer than before/Here and now is all that it's about/Let's use it or we'll lose it//Go and ask anybody/They will all say the same---everyone/Love is contagious/We are part of a chain.  Music is good, but stupid.

 

***It’s an English verb now, bitch!

Comments

[tiryn.livejournal.com]

Hrmmm...clubs and their cliqueing. The very reason why I'm not in Hawaii Club.

my crazy conlang hobby

What be this hobby you speak of? Out of curiosity. I'm all for crazy hobbies. =D

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Constructed languages!

[tiryn.livejournal.com]

Woog for more geektastic information! :D Your icon makes me go, "Yay!"

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Indeed, my esteemed fellow geek has beaten me to the punch. Conlanging is the slightly insane process of inventing your own language. I explain my interest in it here.

Here's a good site on it, with tons of examples and resources. And I can refer you to a few samples of my previous efforts, including Luamavan, Hu*eetp, Luxorndilpo (aka Spoken Galactic Common), :rimulet, and Yōyōtī Kuitē. Right now I'm getting interested in constructed sign languages, but they're in the very early stages, and I keep shying away from them.

[tiryn.livejournal.com]

And all these years I didn't even know there was a proper name for this. My (EXTREMELY) feeble attempts at creating various languages pale in comparison to yours, I must say. I think I've got a grand total of something like five sentences in this one story...and I don't even have a proper grammar going. They just follow the same word order, which I suppose is as good a place to start as any. Constructing a sign language would be way cool, I think. Especially since I remember the time my taiko group went to a high school for the deaf in Japan and there was utter confusion until someone realized writing on the damn chalkboard was a good idea. =P