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Lakuse also goes by jan Lakuse, Lak, raacz, and Chelsea.

Status: Whispers over the campfire at night-time.

Log

First Correction, First Homework

January 22, 2026
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Class Summary

An AEIP student was using the room to study. When we all filed in curiously, she started signing and asking questions to some of the people who came in (not to me). And then eventually everyone started talking. They asked me if I was comfortable with talking. I said, whatever (in sign, because I could).

Last week was vocab-heavy. Today was grammar-heavy. We did three activities:

  1. Tell your peer to put a random item in a random place in relation to another object.
  2. Hide an object somewhere and indicate cold/warm with only your facial expression.
  3. Fingerspelling practice with Z.
  4. Describe houses and asking questions.

It was all pretty rudimentary, but it was good to get my hands going. Here's the biggest takeaway from today, a moment that happened during the fingerspelling activity.

The teacher set up a game where there was a numbered list of fifteen words with the letter 'Z' in them on her slides. She set us up in groups of 3-4, and we each had take turns choosing a random word, spelling the word, and having people guess.

The learning moment was during the second round of this game. After the first round, she encouraged us to sign fast. So I did. I fingerspelled fast and I allowed my letters to mutate. The word in question was 'Ritz.'

My mutated fingerspelling:

I intentionally mutated my fingerspelling because, as I understood it (from Vicar's videos), mutated fingerspelling is just something that happens at the higher levels and is something that you have to be comfortable with reception-wise. I have a friend who I chat with frequently in ASL and their fingerspelling is quite mutated, and I've viewed that as a massive skill of theirs in the past.

However the instructor asked to see my fingerspelling and she immediately was like... uh. You need to sign more clearly.

I was like, you said we needed to sign fast.

She said, fast AND clear.

I was like, but contractions like this happen all the time, right?

She replied, not often. If you want to be an interpreter, you need to do your fingerspelling very, very clearly.

She demonstrated spelling RITZ fast and clearly. It was fast, it was clear.

And to be clear, I never really was opposed to the idea that ritz could be spelled both fast and clear-- I was moreso under the impression that mutations/contractions were just the natural next step in developing fingerspelling fluency. Her comments, being so different from my version of reality until that point, were hard to stomach at first. I'm so used to seeing contractions promoted.

Upon reflection, it's not surprising that different regions have different preferences for this kind of thing. There is a change that it's less of a regional thing and more of a professionalism thing; perhaps clearly articulated, minimally-mutated fingerspelling forms part of the 'interpreting' register. In such a case, even when contractions happen amongst the Deaf signing population here, it may not be something that they encourage their interpreters to do.

In any case, I was quite happy to receive this feedback. I still don't know if I'm going to abandon contractions completely (since in California, they seem to be basically necessary) but I do have to work on being able to turn the production of such mutations on and off like a switch in my head. And I need to practice faster fingerspelling that doesn't rely at all on mutations.

For the Spreadsheet

Notes

Vocab

Confirmed as Fingerspelt