After recently rewatching ER and SVU and watching Waterloo Road & The Pitt air, seeing deaf characters completely isolated really hit me. As someone who has felt isolated by the world and feels the world is inaccessible for disabilities, I thought it was time I filled the silence and learnt BSL.

Learning BSL is something I’ve wanted to do, we learnt some signs as a kid but not enough. I hate barriers in society, I’m not going to be one of those barriers. I downloaded the app “Intersign BSL” I knew some of my friends already sign so I’m joining the club.

I learnt the whole alphabet in under 24 hours. I’ve learnt colours, numbers (they’re hard), emotions, greetings, signs for family and some food. A few adjectives too.

Given my Grandad is practically deaf and my Grandma is losing her hearing slowly, I want to do something. I don’t want to lose communication. On another note, being in public can be so loud that you can’t hear, however, you can sign to each other. The metro’s here can be incredibly loud, now I’ll be able to make jokes to my friend Lee. My jokes are kinda iconic in the friendship.

Okay so I completed the whole app of “Intersign” the girl who does the clips on there, she has Tik Tok, I will be following. I’ve followed some other creators too. I’m going to practice by signing what I know already with what I say every day, like “morning,” “tea,” “tired” and much more. I say a lot.

I think for me the hardest to learn were colours as there’s so many and probably foods. I’ve learnt there’s also multiple signs for the same items, some which are easier than others.
The good thing is I can always go back to the dictionary and go over what I need.

I recently found when searching for a specific sign that BSL was banned as it was “inferior.” That’s so upsetting. Society really hated disabilities, although I can’t say we’ve made that much progress given the attitudes I still see all the time.

In about a month, I’ve learnt so many signs that I can integrate into everyday life to communicate. I definitely want to bring it to dance and choreography.

The thing that confuses me the most is that when I’ve tried to record me practicing, it tends to flip around and then it’s confusing. I also don’t think my memory is what it used to be in comparison to previous years. I’m going to keep going and keep learning.