Jon's 1st exposure to ASL

I watched a video of Jon's story about how ASL become a part of him. As a BSL user, I completely understand his fluently ASL clearly, his face and body is so expressive! His signing is so breaktaking! Check it out!


For those of you, BSL users, translation of Jon's ASL.You can watch a video in ASL - Lenois


Hello. How did ASL become a part of me? I was the only deaf child and my parents were hearing. Their signing was awkward and not very good. What should they do with me? You know Fresno? (shows California and relationship of Fresno next to Tulare) There was a deaf program school there. I was put in it. Well, when I first saw it it was very awkward. It was SEE. So I learned and developed and practiced and as time went on (shows growing up), I went home and watched my dad standing in a group with his friends talking and laughing. I saw them, went up to my dad and said “dad, what’s so funny?” He thought for a bit and then gestured the joke. I thought yes, it was funny. Cool, so I took that experience and went to school and gathered everyone around. With SEE I set it up and signed and developed it and acted it out. When I finished, everyone was confused, except two boys over there laughed! They understood me! Awesome! The three of us joined up and stuck together. I felt connected and it was great. But, the two of them were mischevious and trouble and sure enough one day they were eliminated

Revelation
So I thought about it…what was up with those two boys? So I asked the teacher what happened to those two boys? And the teacher explained that they were bad and were sent to a big school were everyone’s sad and everyday there’s more of the same and they’re strict. I thought huh? I was scared and thought I’ll be a good boy, I swear! As things went along, I was curious, you know I missed those boys, we were together, it was cool, so I thought I’ll tell my mom I want to see them. She said “no, they are bad, go to that school” I begged her and she let up. I’m a good boy I told her, and she let up, okay. So she contacted them and it worked out! They came over and I was excited! The three of us got together and talked about the show Knight Rider. I told the story (tells story in SEE): The car, red lights flash, go fast, and the car is catching bad guys, great, and talking to his watch, yeah. The boys looked at me, looked at each other, looked at me, then signed an ASL version of the show (can’t translate this, it’s purely visual!). I watched and I fascinating but was wrong and fascinating but was wrong but fascinating and was wrong. So I thought about it and when that was over I went home and thought some more. I took my dad’s story and my curiosity about ASL and put that together and it became something more. I was excited and when I arrived at school I told someone the story, it was fascinating, “but Shhhhh don’t tell, you know the story about the two boys getting sent to the bad school. They showed me, I’m showing you, SHHH. If you tell the teacher we’ll be sent to the \”jail\” school, every day, we’ll stay there with persons watching us (note it looks as if from above like a guard tower), scary, so SHH. So cool, keep it SHH” as I felt like I\’m drug seller! I was excited and inspired. I told the story to the next person and the joke to the next person and it spread, it was cool, so it went along and was trouble and then BOOM. One day there was a lecture focused on writing English “blah blah, blah blah” . So the student saw it and said “The boy is riding bike and (cruising in ASL)” . The teacher said no, that’s wrong! English word order! It was a struggle. I saw that, it was awful. I could see it was like water in a bowl getting filled up and tipped out and ASL was spilling all over while the teacher tried to stop it and gather it up. At that point my parents said it’s time to move San Diego, so that was great.

Unshackled
So, I look back and it’s all a part of my vision/expaned idea. My dad’s story was like me getting in a car, ready to go and being stuck with the parking brake up. That’s SEE. I’m sick of it. Until ASL got intro me, the brake goes released and I take off!