Today, I officially enrolled on a British sign language (BSL) level 1 course. Yay me!

This might seem quite random to some, but if you have seen my Tumblr or Twitter in the last few months, stuff from a telly show called Switched At Birth may have shown up between the myriad of Darren Criss (he's just so pretty) and Glee posts.

My sister, Megan, introduced me to this show. It's about these two girls, Bay and Daphne, who get, surprise surprise, switched at birth. And it turns out the one of the girls, Daphne, is deaf and therefore uses sign language. She uses American sign language (ASL), which is actually almost unintelligible to BSL users but still, it's what got me interested initially. And I don't really care if it's not using ASL correctly or what-have-you, it is still introducing a culture and language to a whole new audience, which can only be a good thing (/rant).

So anyway, it got me interested in learning sign language or at least, finding out more about Deaf culture. And by coinky-dink, I found out that one of my colleagues is hard-of-hearing and actually knows and uses BSL! Now, we end up spending a good chunk of time (when we should be working... shhhh!) talking about BSL, and him teaching me some signs. Important signs like how to not to mix up f**k you with thank you. Still waiting for the sign for lemonade though...

It definitely opened my eyes to how many people are affected by hearing impairments, and how useful it could be, as a hearing person, to be able to communicate with them in their language. To me, it's no different than going to a foreign country and at least trying to use the local language, rather than talk more loudly and slowly in English.

Also, it can only be advantageous as someone going into teaching to know some sign language. I would love to be able to help out a possible Deaf student in my classroom, than have to rely on a communication support worker all the time.

In other news, I've just painted my nails for Christmas and they look awesome:

They're so Christmassy!

And also, my sister and I filmed a Christmas tag video. It's really quite hilarious so please have a peek!

Go check out my sister's other videos on her YouTube channel, MeganShaelyn. She sings and stuff.