Hey there, everybody! I hope that all of you are doing well and keeping warm, since we are heading into winter, cold weather, depending on where you are from. Speaking of where you are from, I would love to hear where you are from (do not give the exact location, but a region, or at least a hundred or so miles away), and how the weather is over there in the comment. Some of you already know that I am from the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, near the border with West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. The weather here in winter often surprises us; one day it feels like summer, and the next it’s freezing with snow. For instance, a perfect example of a weather surprise is the flood a day after Valentine’s Day this year, 2025, which has become the second-largest flood since 1977. The great flood of 1977 submerged most of our cities, and that happened again almost 50 years later on February 15th, 2025. It was unbelievable to witness, because where I reside, by a river, the river became pretty much a lake, with my house becoming an oceanfront. I, along with my mother, was very fortunate that my house is on a side of the mountain, but unfortunately, all of the houses below…
I have been seeing a lot of Deaf people on social media starts to use a mix of American Sign Language and International Sign Language which can be very confusing for a lot of people including myself. What is more bothersome is that some copy the signs from International Sign Language with American Sign Language, telling people that they are American Sign Language when they aren’t even American Sign Language because they are signs from International Sign Language and uses them with American Sign Language can be very confusing for some. There are some people in a group calls “ASL That!” where they would learn some new signs for some words in American Sign Language obviously since the group are all about ASL aka American Sign Language and I have noticed that some Deaf people along with other people who know sign language (interpreters or codas) in the group or even outside the group would use the sign for people from International Sign Language thinking that it is the new sign or modernized sign for American Sign Language when they are not as they are being copied from International Sign Language. To my fear that I am starting to see a lot of people start using mixture of American Sign Language and International Sign Language for the norms which would…