! Jessica Carter Dr.

High SLIN 320 May 2, 2013 Deaf Event Journal Spring 2013 Deaf Coffee Night - March 7, 2013

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Tonight was the monthly Deaf Coffee Night at BRCC in Boiling Springs. In the past this has been one of my favorite events around campus, but it has gotten to be such a different crowd. Anyways, I came to this event super excited and nervous about the news that the play was coming up, and I would need to prepare to interpret. I took some time to show Lynn some of the line that I was concerned about in the play and as she laughed and pitied me, I realized I was going to have to figure this out on my own. After I was over the excitement for the play I sat and played a few games of UNO. I had started bring UNO to Deaf Coffee Night last year, and it is cool to see that it has continued, and that people are still cramming around one table to play card games. Most of the people I played with were from CPCC or were in 202 at GWU. So many people crowd around this one table to play UNO that a single game can take 30 minutes. It is so much fun to see how competitive people get, and how the game is played slightly different at a deaf event. GWU ASL Table - March 21, 2013 I walked over to ASL Table with Lara from our weekly student interpreter meeting. The past few weeks it has been pretty bare in the dining room. Lara and I sat a table with Bob, and the three of us spent the whole time chatting. Since it was registration time, Lara and I talked

! about our plans for next year, and what we are thinking about internships. She and I also talked about what our housing plans are for next year since we are both living with graduating seniors. Later on once we started talking to Bob; I took the moment to ask him who was teaching Deaf

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Community. When I looked online to register I had noticed that some professors were TBA, so I took the opportunity to ask now. I was amazed when I heard the news and so surprised to have not heard it before registration time. I am looking forward to the adjunct professors for next year, and the classes that I will be taking. EIPA: The Ins and Outs Workshop - March 23, 2013 The professional workshop that I attended this semester was held at GWU to explain the ins and outs of the EIPA. This is a topic that I dont know much about at all, but that I have always been nervous for as an interpreter. All of the evaluations and constant testing of skills that comes with the territory of being an interpreter is quite frightening. This workshop helped to ease all of those fears and explain something that I will not have an opportunity to take a class on. The workshop focused on eight aspects of interpreting in the classroom: Language Development, Culture, Education, Interpreting, Literacy, Linguistics, Professionalism, and Technology. This information ranged from discussing IDEA, how to conduct oneself in the classroom, all the way to who interprets an audiogram. All of this information was really good for the possibility of interpreting in a classroom. During this workshop I found myself much more interested in the processes of having a disabled child in school. I think that I have always been more interested in the education of people with disabilities in general, rather than a focus on deaf education. Often times people see my skill set, or know that I m in an interpreter training program and assume thats where I want to be and stay. However, thats not the case at all. I see myself more as a leader, someone who is

! a part of the planning and coordination of a disabled persons education. I am most interested in the rights of the students, and the roles of the team surrounding him/her. The last part of the workshop focused on the EIPA, the test itself. Here in NC there is a 30-minute warm-up period, 1 hour of expressive testing, and a receptive section. It really eases the nerves of taking this assessment to know that it is set up for someone like me, who has studied this professional, to pass. The assessment includes things like lesson plans, and a dictionary, and gives the interpreter an opportunity. There are various sources for practice materials for this test, and it is something you want to be ready for because it costs a chunk of money! GWU Deaf Movie Night - April 19, 2013 This week is Deaf Awareness week at GWU and tonights event was the movie night. I come to the movie night with some of my lab students who were in need of deaf event hours.

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The movie that was shown was The Versa Effect, a freaky Friday type of movie that was in all ASL. I was surprised at how funny the movie was, and how much I preferred to pay attention to the signers rather than the captions. After the movie was finished I helped some of the girls from Deaf club clean up, and talked with them for a while. I am not a member of Deaf club so I do not spend much time with these girls, aside from those I interpret with. It was nice to have some time for chitchat and girl talk after the movie. GWU ASL Table - April 25, 2013 I walked over to the ASL table on GWU campus with a few of the other student interpreters. While I was there I sat with at a table and spent most of the hour discussing a way that students could show Lynn how grateful we are. Stephanie, Caitlin, Bob, and I threw around ideas about different types of things that we can do to make Lynn feel special before she leaves.

! As we were chatting a few other students chimed in with ideas, and we were able to get a pretty solid plan for what to do. Right before I left with Rachel to go to an Advocacy Workshop in the

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Noel Program I noticed a student that lives in my apartment building. He is in 101 and I had met him at the end of the year meeting for our apartment building. I am so surprised sometimes by the students that take ASL as their foreign language. There are so many male athletes that take ASL for their language requirement and dont ever seem to learn the language. Anyways, I just started signing to him like I would any other student, and he never stopped me or looked overwhelmed. When I finished signing he just signed NOT UNDERSTAND and smiled. Bob got a kick out of this, I got my paper signed and headed off to the Noel Program Noel Program Advocacy Workshop - April 25, 2013 The Noel Program sent out e-mails about an advocacy workshop that was being held on campus. During the workshop we got to meet the speaker, Sydney, who graduated from GWU in 1984. Sydney has a physical disability and took the time to tell us his story. What made his story so important was his experience at Gardner-Webb. Sydney took the time to tell us all about how the ADA changed everything. When he went to school at GWU there were no elevators, ramps, Noel Program, nothing. However, he talked about how he had to self-advocate and learn how to ask for what he needed help with, long before there were laws about it. It was good to hear the history of the schools disability services, and most importantly to me, to learn about what services the disabled have rights to. I decided to attend this workshop for very specific reasons. I have become very interested in not only services for the deaf, but for all those who are disabled. After the workshop Sydney asked me why I came, and what I thought about the hour I spent listening to him speak. I explained to him that I am a student interpreter and my interest in advocacy and disability rights and services. Sydney taking a moment to ask me more about

! myself, and interpreting, was special to me. His story about the football players carrying him up to class in Lindsey before the school got an elevator his senior year, and all of the trials he went through to get a job showed me how important this all really is to me. Something about stories like these, and people like Sydney light a fire inside me to continue on my path, and trust this calling.

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