Learning ASL 101 at TMU
Learning ASL 101 at TMU - thoughts and feelings
(reflection assignment, ASL 101 at TMU September 29, 2026)
Thoughts and feelings, I have many.
Firstly, being a deaf person born from birth and everyone tells my mom and dad, "Poor you, she won't hear a darn thing. Won't she miss out on the beauties of life?" Or so I thought. I spent most of my life wearing a cochlear implant and still I felt I was lacking, I was incomplete, I was empty. I couldn’t necessarily understand just why. What did I do?
I didn’t do anything except be excluded from a culture that was meant to be mine.
I can speak, I can talk, I am thankful for those skills but language… Access to language and inclusion is what hurt me so.
I have a beautiful family who shares and shares and laughs and laughs and me. I nod, I smile, I ask to repeat, and it falters. They don’t quite understand. If I have the device, I am “hearing”. No one convinced them otherwise. Not even my parents, my mom who became a teacher of the deaf, more like teacher of oral kids with cochlear implants and hearing aids, and she occasionally took the practice home to teach her family, my family. Growing up they would say you used to hear so well, and your self-esteem is what deteriorated all that you worked for. I stopped believing I could hear. Well, I don’t think I liked hearing in the first place. It was great access to the hearing world; however, I never felt fulfilled, complete. Something else was out there for me. Chatter, chatter, chatter, overlapping sounds I started to ignore and began to watch. I loved to observe. I could understand body language; I could see through people’s masks and yet I kept losing friends. Slowly I understood the value of the Deaf community, that was a journey I had to go through on my own. I took a class at 16 and didn’t have anyone to practice with and I was shy and ashamed to want to learn sign. I should because I am deaf then why did I feel so wrong for so many years? Slowly I started being comfortable being Deaf.
I took my hearing off more, I learned to sign with my partner and one by one, I understood. I called myself disabled comfortably. I value Crip time and I enjoy Deaf Standard Time. The way the world moves differently, I felt more resolved and freer. I built up my skills with Deaf people around me, I know a lot but not the basics. Not enough of the basics. The last two weeks of taking ASL classes at TMU gave me comfort, hope and validity to thrive as the Deaf person I always knew I was. Now I can embrace it. Learning the foundations of Deaf culture and basic signs and numbers up to 15 was incredible.
I also didn’t know how to identify proper descriptions of people using clothing articles and colours. Being able to do that in the last two weeks helped me thrive in the Deaf BBQ event hosted by Deaf Services Canada that took place one weekend at High Park. I got a new sign name that was perfect for me and my personality. I felt I belonged. As a young child growing up around all hearing people, I rendered myself incapable for a lot of the academic and job opportunities that existed out there. Accessibility was difficult and I didn’t realize until I went into university, just how much I was missing auditory. There was a lot I didn’t understand! Then the world began to make more sense conceptually and lingually through ASL. Imagine my disbelief!
For the longest time, due to my family’s beliefs that my opportunities would be narrow, of course, you need to hear. I ignored a lot of my passions in medicine, in supporting people because it would be “too hard”. Even thinking it was viable and realistic. Which is the biggest myth of all. It is true there would be difficulties, but it wouldn’t be impossible. We can surprise ourselves. And, thinking that deaf people cannot drive is still funny to me, I love to drive. I have driven big U-Haul trucks and drove to Montreal and Detroit by myself. It is true we are very attentive drivers. I always had the notion that if there are different languages all over the world, there had to be the same for Sign Language. With its own structure, its own syntax and semantics. It is quite beautiful. I assume in the way you love to hear different accents. I can go on and on and on. One thing I do know though.
It is a culture that is beautiful and worthwhile for all deaf people to be a part of. I am entirely grateful I am part of this journey to be a strong and confident signer and connect with the community I am drawn to. A community who has been so welcoming to me. Taking this class is helping me feel confident in my skills in ASL as well as feeling whole in a way I never felt in my life. To gain access to a language in a whole different way has increased my understanding of the world. And loved it more.
Poofy
