Skip to main content

N-O-O-D-L-E, S-O-U-P


A black bowl with white noodles
Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

September 9th

It worked! I don't know what worked, but I finally had a dream in American Sign Language.

In my dream, on September 9th, my family was at a restaurant, and our waiter was hard of hearing. Somehow, I perceived a miscommunication between her and my mom regarding her food order, and she could not hear my mom when she had attempted to communicate to her the miscommunication. This was when it clicked that maybe I could try using ASL in the situation.

I used a bit of signing and finger-spelling to communicate my mom's dinner order, "N-O-O-D-L-E, S-O-U-P" to her. Funny enough, it was the first time I ever finger-spelled "N-O-O-D-L-E, S-O-U-P."

After placing my family's order, she came back around to say, "Thank you." Apparently, she was the only Deaf person in the entire town, and she did not have the opportunity to use sign language. Instead of signing, she had to read lips and watch other body motions just to get by.


If I could pick any language to stand alongside English as the country's national language, I would totally pick sign language. I can imagine using innovative ideas like a personal ASL code to unlock your house door as you approach, or maybe you can adjust the temperature of your room by using sign language. You could quietly have a conversation in a public space without disturbing anyone; the social and technological implications are truly as endless as our willingness to engage.


However, this is just my idea. If you could pick any two languages that you think should be treated on the same level as American English, what would they be?




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Afro-American Zeitgeist

Photo by Ali Hajian on Unsplash The Afro-American Zeitgeist : A Summary of Unconscious Thoughts on Race (Part 1) July 30th, Passionless Bliss : "I am not afraid of death because death is invisible. If I can't see where it's going or what it is doing, is it doing anything at all? However, I am afraid of empty buildings because they confirm the reality of death's existence." Or, in simpler terms, Ignorance is bliss until reality hits. My dreams began by directly addressing my unwillingness to look into the deaths of African-Americans across the country. Despite my lack of knowledge, I became seriously opinionated about the nature of the incidents themselves, almost refusing to consider blackness as a factor. However, after the first dream, I began an investigation to prove blackness had nothing to do with these deaths. In the following paragraphs, I will take you through the sequence of dreams, which forced me to come to the conclusions, or at least my current stan...

Rocky Road, Vanilla Expectations

  February 16, 2022 In this dream, my family and I visited my grandparents in Alabama. When we arrived, my grandfather greeted us with a smile. Seeing him was like seeing home after a long trip. Shortly after our arrival, my dad and I began exploring the back room with a blacklight. My grandparent's house was haunted, and we were going to look for evidence of the supernatural. My father had a UV light, and I brought along flashlights, one for me and the other for him. We explored my grandparent's bedroom and bathroom as they had the most significant activity. The bedroom itself seemed quiet, but the master bathroom was not. Using the blacklight, we could see fingerprints all along the walls of the master bath, definitely not those of my grandparents. A growing sense of dread and anticipation filled the pit of my stomach. Concurrently, the door started to swing close behind us. Something sinister was making itself known. However, we managed to push through the door just before i...

Iron Egress: Beyond the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

  Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash March 29th, 2022 Afro-Latina; in this dream, I only remember that I had been discussing this kind of ethnic heritage with someone, but I’m not sure of the context. During the conversation, I even remember seeing the visage of an Afro-Latina woman with honey-colored skin and a big curly afro. The dream changed tones quite dramatically from here when a disembodied voice said, “research the white slaves of Egypt, Asia, and other countries.” In the waking world, I decided to research the white slave trade in Egypt and found it fascinating indeed.  The articles I've read speak of the Circassian slaves of Egypt from Georgia and the Barbary slave trade that involved peoples from Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Iceland, Southwest Britain, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Both of these were said by some to have lasted hundreds of years. As I continued my search, I only found more information on human trafficking that I didn't know I didn't know. Among...