a more silent world

My daughter knows a couple signs now, but it is still hard because she often doesn't realize I am identifying something. It should get easier soon, as her spoken language is taking off like a rocket now.

So I kicked my old car to the curb this week and bought a Toyota Prius. After just over 200 miles on the odometer, I am averaging 48 mpg in fairly cold weather, which should mean 55 mpg during warmer weather. Today's new about Exxon beating their previous profit (which in itself was a corporate record) confirmed my decision to buy my Prius. I am tired of padding the pockets of these money-grubbing bastards. I am tired of not having a choice. Sure, my car still uses gas, but I am using 320 gallons less per year, and my old car got a lofty 25 mpg compared to big SUVs. Man this pisses me off. Where are the fuel cells? Where is solar energy? I'm not a tree hugger, I'm just tired of making other people rich...

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year! I am getting excited because my ASL class is starting up again in like 3 weeks. I swear I will post a vlog before the level 1 class ends in June. I am on vacation until the middle of January, so I will probably catch up on reading vlogs. My oldest daughter really loves the way ABC tells stories and jokes. Cheers everyone!

Can someone help me out with a curiosity I have please? My ASL class has been going now for about 4 weeks and I am thoroughly enjoying it, but I don't understand the use of AND and OR in ASL (or if they are omitted). Are they used, or is the meaning conveyed otherwise using non-manual markers or different syntax? For example, in English I would say something like "Would you like coffee, soda, or tea?". In ASL would I sign somthing like "You want coffee soda tea which?". Can any native signers tell me how you would phrase this in sign please? I appreciate any help!!

I was really happy to see so many people in the class tonight--I think 16 total. Teacher seems very nice, with a good sense of humor. My penchant for learning ASL over the past couple months made tonight basically one big review, but I am very sure I will be much more challenged in the coming weeks. I was happy to see that she incorporated signs that were not in the text and then found ways to explain them--after all, this is what a class is all about. So fun, so exciting! Cheers!

In the past couple months, I have been watching an increasing number of vlogs with variable hit rate on comprehension. At the same time I am studying a couple books, one which delves heavily into ASL syntax. One thing I notice is that there SEEMS to be quite a bit of acceptable syntax variability between signers. Do signers all fall somewhere on a continuum between ASL and SEE? Or is there a certain amount of variability between ASL signers and a huge chasm between ASL and SEE? (i.e. two distinct groups with variability within themselves only) Maybe an example. Seek Geo's Hell's Kitchen recaps seem to me to be in a somewhat English word-order. Do I just notice this because he captions his vlogs and my high comprehension of his ASL then seems to come more easily/naturally to me? I'm really confused here. Can't wait for my ASL class to start in 5 weeks!

I had to travel coast-to-coast yesterday returning from a very short-duration trip. For this reason my packing was extremely light and not well-thought-out. When I first arrived at the airport, one of my ear batteries died...doh. Oh please please please don't let the other one die. I checked all the stores in the terminal, and of course they don't carry ear batteries. Of course, security cannot be bothered to have any written instructions posted anywhere. Do they want your shoes on or off this week? The people calling out boarding instructions couldn't be more unintelligible as they scream into the microphone they are presumably trying to eat (why else would they cram it against their mouth?). When exactly are crucial places like airports going to become more friendly to those of us who cannot hear? I won't be forgetting spare batteries for future air travel, that much is certain.