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

Status: Whispers over the campfire at night-time.

Log

First In-Person ASL Class

January 15, 2026
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So, you might notice that some time has past since I last posted (over two weeks). There are two reasons for my abscence.

In the midst of this hesitation, I figured it would be a good idea to pause until the first day of weekly intermediate ASL courses started. I'm pleased to announce that the first class was yesterday. And, boy oh boy, my expectations for what that class was going to be were quite shaken.

First Class: Thoughts and Notes

Three misconceptions of mine were busted, and they relate to one another.

1) Without sounding too egotistical, I really was overestimating how skilled the signers of the class were going to be. Most of them are still A1.

Thinking rationally, it makes so much sense; most of these people only have one introductory course under their belts. I would like to closely examine the thought train that made me think the class was going to be at a B1 level, because I think it might reveal something about myself.

I'm still a little bit baffled that only two courses could possibly bring a person from an A1 level up to a lower C1 level. And I'm probably misjudging that. My first evidence is probably wrong. It's more likely that the first-year interpreting students I saw were so comfortable because they were already within their third month of the program, and it's likely that my standard definition of 'fluency' is vastly overestimated than actually required for this particular program.

There is a fourth piece of evidence that makes me think this; I have met interpreting students before at events in the Bay Area and online. They have all been C1, easily. But I do not live in the Bay Area. I live in the middle of nowhere.

2) I was under the impression that announcing that one wants to become an interpreter was an act not done lightly.

Basically every single person in the room said that they were interested in becoming an interpreter. That really shocked me. It's a herculean task, and you're still a beginner; how can you know? How can you have the confidence to announce that you think you can pull it off?

That was my gut reaction, and it's quite revealing about my own insecurities about admitting this in public. Maybe I am egotistical. Maybe I have severe insecurities of my own. It's probably both of these.

But their admission was shocking to me for another reason.

3) I was under the impression that there would be no English, because people showed up to learn ASL, so why would there be English?

"We have noobies!" That was the exclamation that met me as I approached the classroom. Spoken English. I was unsure if I was at the right class. But the room number was clear, and there was also a sign. And then even more chatter. What's your name?, asked to someone who wasn't me. Oh god. Backgrounds exchanged. I was not ready for English. I was ready for ASL. I was not ready for English. And I was already so scared to meet new people in ASL. I had made no plans to do so in English.

The door hadn't been opened yet. I remained completely speechless. They continued to chatter and I knew that under social rules, I was expected to contribute something, anything, lest they assume I was Deaf. In that moment, I almost wanted them to assume I was Deaf. I didn't want to participate in whatever the hell this was. We came to learn ASL, and what if any of the students are Deaf or hard-of-hearing themselves? Is this not a voice-off space?

The instructor came and opened the door (the instructor is Deaf) to let us in. When inside, they continued to chatter. Oh. My. God. Will it continue like this? There were ten minutes until the official start time of the class. They continued to chatter. There was a moment where they looked expectently at me to answer a question. I spoke the words, '25', and I didn't say anything else.

During this period, another comment was made. The students who had attended the first course all apparently brought small erasable whiteboards. Another student who hadn't attended the first course asked whether whiteboards would be needed. And one student responded in the affirmative, as if the answer was obvious. "The instructor is Deaf," was the explanation they cited.

My brain panicked. Well, yeah, but can't you just clarify in ASL? That's when I started to realize that many of these people were truly beginners, and then I even more firmly started to understand when the instructor re-entered the classtime with an interpreter streaming in next to her. Oh. Okay, so that's what we're doing.

When we were introducing ourselves to the instructor, most people took the route of a tiny bit of ASL, and then oral explanations which were all interpreted. Only one other student looked comfortable expressing a simple introduction using ASL alone.

The instructor did introduce the voice-off policy and clarified, that the room was a voice-off space, but that we could use English in the hallway. And during every single break that happened after (there were three), most students streamed into the hallway and did their blah blah blahs. I did not dare. I didn't even want to go to the bathroom or fill up my water bottle, at the risk of being approached vocally.

And so when these people, who had not signed a single sign before the instructor had started the class, all announced one after the other that they wanted to become interpreters, I really struggled to understand where they were coming from.

Not in Kansas Anymore

My expectations didn't match reality, though not in a horrible way. The class is still good, I still learned a lot of new signs. I still genuinely enjoyed myself, especially during the partner excercises where people started to actually use the language. I'm going to have to change how I use the class as a grounding tool to support my own self-studies. I now believe that the majority of the important work and study will actually come from this blog, and not from the material of the class itself.

I still need to think through the details of this.

Notes

Vocab

Confirmed As Fingerspelt