Welcome to Open Hands Social!
Howdy Everyone,
I am pleased that you have stopped by here. We are going to introduce ourselves.
About Dean (but some of my deaf friends know me as Toby. I prefer Dean), author and administrator for blog: I am deaf. I was born deaf. I was born in Pikeville, KY, but raised in Elkhorn City, KY, about 15 miles to Dickinson County, VA. I went to KY School for the Deaf in Danville, KY, about 3 and half hours away from the hometown. I went to Gallaudet University from 1994 to 1996 but didn’t finish. I did go briefly to Montgomery College, but I left again. Of course I will finish my degree one day eventually, possibly in website design. For more than 12 years, I have been working in an office for cancer research, right in the heart of Dupont Circle, Washington, DC.
I have taught my hearing friends for years, and I have taught them very well, I believe. Just ask them. I really enjoy teaching ASL. I have a lot of patience. That is why I am here for Open Hands Social today.
About David, editor and concept advisor: I am hearing. I was born in Boulder, CO, but grew up in Ponca City, OK. From there I went to college at Hendrix College in Conway, AR where I graduated with a psychology degree in 1996. I spent a couple of years in Little Rock, AR where I worked and got introduced to Mr. Gay All-American. From there I moved to Denver, CO where I continued Mr. Gay All-American with 2 regional titles and 4th alternate to the national title. While in Denver, I mostly worked for UPS in the Marketing Department. I was nearly promoted to the regional office when I got an opportunity to move to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I lived 7 glorious months there from May 2001 to early December 2001 from which I moved to DC. Currently, I am working for an organization called Partners International as a Technical Account Manager for IT Managed Service. On October 20, 2007, I met Dean at a party call the Eye Party which is an annual benefit for the Deaf GLBT groups in the DC area. At that time, I did not know much more that my alphabet. However, one week and 3 dates later with Dean, I was no longer using a pen and paper to communicate with Dean. Now, Dean and I have to OHS to help both the hearing and deaf communities come together in an open forum for open communication.
For some of people who knows about ASL Practice for a while. You probably would see something different about the title. We used to call ASL Practice. But it is not all about practice any more, so we change the title to Open Hands Social because it can be either practice or pleasure socializing. WE thought it would be an appropriate group title, don’t you think? We will tell you a bit of history about our group, and how we revive it. But first, we want to tell you why we am doing a blog. You know blogging is very popular in these days. A lot of people do write blogs for different reasons.
For us, we feel that we should do a blog and vlog for Open Hands Social to keep you guys updates, how we are doing, and get you more involved here. This blog is not only about updates or how we are doing with our group, but we also will share with you on many stuff here, such as ASL stories, articles, links, and Deaf culture, and its history.
We will start giving 5 to 10 new vocabulary words every month. Each word will be visual in signing on video either from some sites with video capability or it could be from me showing you the sign. How cool is that? We gotta to thank for great technology today. We can do much more on Internet.
Also, I, Dean, personally will be doing v-blogging once in a while, just for your own entertainment and you also can learn and understand what I am saying. Of course, it will come with a transcript after the video. It likely wont happen so soon.
We said earlier that we would tell you how our group got started. After we were dating a couple of weeks, my friend, Jon, has an idea of doing ASL Practice together because Jon himself is hearing and wanted to learn sign language, and David is, too. I thought it was a great idea. David was very hungry for ASL learning. After a week, we decided not to write any more, we decide to sign as we go and he learn new words. He wrote down words he learned, and practiced on his own time. I was very impressed with him.
Anyway, Jon had asked us to come over to Omega, a gay bar to join him and his friends. We had like 3 or 4 people at that time. I knew Jon when Anthony and I met him about two or three months before. Jon knew ABC’s and some signs. We all learn some new sign words. It went very well, and it became ongoing ASL Practice for a couple for weeks. We had some new people coming in and joining us. Then I decide to start invitations via online. It grew pretty quickly. We had 12 a couple of times. I thought it was a possibility of growing but of course it is going slowly, which is ok. I created new lessons to give them to learn. We have a few people who have successfully known ABC’s and basic ASL. Ever since then, we are still doing it slowly. We are looking forward to grow. We are very glad to help new learners to learn ASL. Last October, we just had our first year anniversary of this group. That is why we decide to do a blog to continue our journey or learning.
In the meantime, we have added a few links for general purposes, and where you can learn ASL from. Which is the best ASL dictionary to get? And fun videos for your entertainment. It will be going slowly, but, of course, we will send you for an update when we had added something on my blog.
Well enjoy our blog when you get a chance.
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Dean and David