One Month til Philly

In just 30 days, I will be at the National Association of the Deaf’s 50th biennial conference in Philadelphia!  As I previously posted, my Grandma Jean made the incredible offer of funding my entire trip, so all I’ve had to worry about is reading up on Deaf Culture, practicing my ASL, and deciding what workshops I’m going to attend.

I’m two-thirds through with reading A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD, halfway through Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard, and yet to start A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America.  Still a lot of reading to do!

The list of workshops is up, and I’m really excited about a lot of them.  I have a Graduate Certificate in Public Health, so I’ll definitely be attending “Working with the Deaf Community in Public Health Research,” and I would like to learn more about being an advocate, so I’ll probably go to “Leading a Successful Advocacy Campaign.”  I’ll also attend workshops on Newborn Hearing Screenings, Deaf civil rights, ASL, and Deaf Culture. 

Unfortunately, the two workshops I most want to attend are being held at the same time: “Advocating for the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act,” and “Deaf Babies’ and Children’s Human Rights to ASL and English” by The Deaf Bilingual Coalition.  Both of these issues are very important to me, so it’s going to be a very tough decision to pick just one.

The NAD has posted a signed and captioned video of some of the sights around Philadelphia—it’s great practice for watching Deaf people communicating in ASL: