back to school.

So, school is in full session and I think I'm finally starting to remember how to be a student (you know, note-taking, homework, all of those things I so anxiously erased from my life about a year and a half ago...). The work load hasn't really exploded yet, but don't you worry, it most certainly will. While I'm nervous about handling the academic stuff in addition to my part-time work-study job, I'm also thoroughly enjoying myself so far and don't think that could change too much. Yes, some classes are easier than others or more interesting than others, but all in all, everything I'm learning is connected. This is a totally different experience than at UVM when, for example, one English class about 18th century poetry would have nothing to do with another English class about post-modern short stories.

And while the overlaps and connections make everything easier to understand and remember, I'm also interested in the topics at hand. Each class is an hour and forty minutes long and yet, I only rarely find myself checking the clock too often because I'm anxious to get out of there. I learn so many new facts everyday which I know I'll remember because not only are they fascinating, but because a lot of them hit close to home.

Perfect example: One of my classes is about language development; how it works, the different ways people develop language, the different stages in which they develop it, etc. Yesterday, we went over the process of how the average child goes from crying to cooing to babbling to talking. My professor showed us this hilarious video of a baby babbling despite the fact that she seems very certain she is actually communicating. This video struck me because I have my own home videos in which I'm doing the exact same thing but at an older age because my parents hadn't yet discovered that I was hard-of-hearing. Of course, being the first child, my parents had no idea that I was past the age in which babble should have progressively turned into full communication.

Another video I thought I'd show you is called "Mountain Dew Man." This was shown in my ASL class to demonstrate the use of space in order to tell a story that involves different characters. Most of you won't understand a word that's going on here (even I can only understand maybe half of it), but I wanted to show you how story-telling can be a beautiful and fascinating thing to watch in ASL. Sign language doesn't have to just be about communication, it can be an art form too.

You'll need sound for the first video, but not for the second.