Forgotten Language

I nearly wanted to bury my head in the ground. Again.

While having dinner with SM and Jen at AMK, I met one of my ex-students at the deaf school. I used to be a tutor at the deaf school during my university days. To be a tutor, we have undergone crash course in sign language. We also constantly practised in class when we were interacting with our students. After lessons, we also put to practice sign language by learning how to sign a song. The song signing session was usually led by a team of people - different teams and songs each week.

7 years had passed and I truly lost touch with sign language. Even signing alphabets become an issue. Signing alphabets was the most basic way of signing as if you are unfamiliar with certain words, you can choose to spell out the words to the person you are communicating.

When I met this student, he immediately signed to me. It took a long while for me to figure out what he was trying to say. Hence, for simple chit chats on how we were getting on, it took us 15 minutes to get through. Stupid me, I forgot about my mobile phone or I could have easily typed out the message to him on my phone and he could do likewise. It would have been easier than he signing several times to say something to me and I pausing a long while to decide how to reply to him.

I felt so guilty for losing touch, not just with the students but also with the only bridge of reaching out to them. I was one of the worst signers aong the tutors then. I was sure I would still remain the worst signer today. How could I forget one of the most important language I have picked up? How could I also forget all these students whom I once had so much fun with? I felt low for concentraing the last 7 years mostly on work. Maybe it is time I become reacquainted with sign language. Maybe it is time I should do more for the deaf kids.