Finals Finally Finished!

In case you were wondering (oh, come on, I know you were!), I finished my finals on Monday and Tuesday, and Ron is supposed to have his last one today.

Monday was my Interpreting I final. It was difficult because I had to interpret for a deaf man who uses strictly ASL. Now, you have to understand that pure ASL is completely different from spoken English. For example, if you wanted to say, "I've already baked the cookies," you would have to sign something to the effect of, "I cook cookies finish." If you wanted to say, "If you do that, you'll be fired," you would have to sign "Happen you do, you fired." Or something like that. I still have to try to learn more of the ASL sentence structure and how to form pure ASL sentences correctly.

Right now, my signing is more like Pidgin Signed English, which means I use ASL signs in English word order. That is completely different from Signing Exact English, which is not really a language. SEE is a form of signing in which you sign every single word that is spoken or would be spoken, adding the appropriate prefixes, suffixes and tenses to each word. For example, if you wanted to say, "I graduated with a degree in management," you would have to sign, "I graduate+(past tense) with a degree in (literally "in") manage+ment," wheras in ASL, you would sign, "I finish graduate with degree management."

Anyway, moving on... I know I probably got an A in that class, and I know for a fact that I got an A in my Deaf Communication Studies class. My teacher let me see my score, pre-final (which was an open-book joke, really), and I had a 99 percent in the class.

Next semester, I'm taking Deaf Culture, and am supposed to audit ASL 2 to try to improve my understanding of ASL sentence structure. I already have the credit from my undergraduate years at Wichita State University, so I don't need the credit again. However, the ASL 2 class is supposed to meet from 4-6:45 p.m., and when (if) I find a job, I won't be able to do that. Good thing I don't need the credit, huh!

Job searching is getting more difficult. I don't think anyone wants to start someone new before the first of the year. Also, I'm not finding too many positions that require degrees, let alone a print journalism one. I've applied for a few management-type communication positions; I'm just waiting on calls for interviews, which I know I'll be able to get. I just hope they're impressed enough to make me an offer I can't refuse. (HT "The Godfather") If they decide they don't want me, I'll fart in their general direction! (HT "Monty Python" series)