Perfect Day

I am a teacher of mentally/physically handicapped. Everything from the Autism spectrum to Down syndrome. I enjoy what I do. I had the perfect day yesterday, I am more determined than every to become an interpreter. I am currently teaching a summer class and I had a woman come in yesterday to tell me that she would LOVE to take the class, but she works during the day(my class is offered in the morning) and wanted to know if I could offer it in the evening during the Fall. 

 I would love to offer it during the fall, but my commute is about an hour and a half long(I take public transit). I wrote my syllabus under the assumption that my students would take a while to understand the topic...boy did I underestimate them. This is only the 2nd week and they have gone through the entire alphabet, some numbers and I am teaching them grammar. I am sooo proud of my students.

Fork in the road

I should write on my blog alot more.

Recently I found a job as a teacher's assistant at a community college program for adults with developmentally disablities. One of my students is Deaf and uses an interpreter, so I have had a chance to chat with the interpreters a few times. They are pretty nice, they give me friendly advice.

Sometimes when I have to help this particular student, instead of using the interpreter, I will just sign to her. The times when I am using the interpreter are when I am across the room and am helping another student, but want her to understand.

I am still looking for an ITP and received friendly advice from one of the interpreters about finding an apprenticeship and freelance work.

First comes the application

I am at Gallaudet university right now. I found out that I MAY be able to get into the program I wanted this fall. I will keep you posted as to how that is going.

The woman I met was telling me how interesting this program is..how it's basically 95% hands on, which is great.

:)

The Apple Revolution + Sign Language

So after 3.5 years of college(GW’s finest :) ) I have joined the apple revolution. Yes, I know it scares me too. I swore by my red Dell that I would never do it. But I did. Why? Two reasons...two very important reasons. One, I am studying to become a sign language interpreter and needed a way to communicate with Deaf/HoH(Hard of Hearing) friends without lugging around the VP(Video Phone). The second reason is that my Dell was falling apart anyway and I figured,after lots of research and this article I read about interpreting and the Ipad 2, that I should make the switch (http://www.signlanguageinterpreters.com/blog/88-video-interpreting-via-the-ipad-2) . 

So since this is my first blog, I will introduce myself and my sign language background. I started off at Kendall(at Gallaudet) when I was 

a child, I am hearing but at the time my mother worked at Gallaudet and they provided a huge discount on daycare. So, she would drop me off, go to work and pick me back up after work. The interaction with the Deaf/HoH children was amazing, I learned so many signs. My mother has told me that I would often sign while I talked. Eventually I aged out of the system and since at that time(in the early 90’s) there weren’t many opportunities for Hearing children to learn ASL, I went without it. That is, until I got to college. 

One of the foreign languages offered at my university was ASL, I took it and fell in love with it again. So much so that I did an internship with the Metropolitan Police Department(MPD) Deaf and Hard of Hearing division. I tutored students learning ASL while I was in college. Also, I was a teaching assistant to my Deaf college professor and helped him teach my fellow students ASL.  

I would love to become an interpreter for 3 reasons. First, I want to help people, not just Deaf/HoH but ALL people. Maybe there is a child who wants to learn ASL but isn’t sure how to go about it, maybe this blog will inspire people. Second, I love the language. Everyday I learn a new sign, a new way to improve my structure or my fingerspelling, my grammatical tactics. Third, I live in D.C. and interpreters are in extremely high demand with little supply. 

Vlogs in ASL will come soon. Promise.

Love,

Tiffany