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A Connection Is Made
Nov. 3rd, 2004 08:05 amI'm going to stay away from the obvious this morning. There's plenty of time for that later.
Last night I had the pleasure of having dinner with James (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jamesbeary), who was in town helping a friend move and gain citizenship. James drove into town, and text messaged me a few times with updates, forcing me to learn how to use the feature to message him back. It's a chore to have to type using a numeric keyboard. I don't know how those kids do it. I think it took me 20 minutes to type in how to get from Ikea to the House of Pies.
I'll admit I was a little scared of meeting James for dinner. I love James, he's incredible sweet and woofy, but I know in previous meetings the communications barrier had made it a little difficult to get to know him.
People say that I'm a good listener. I don't know if it comes naturally, or from training, but what I am is a good contextual listener. i may not concentrate on every word, but I pick up on feelings and meaning. Occasionally it leads to a misunderstanding, but more often than not, I get the idea. This kind of listening is good, and allows me to be responsive and ask good questions or be able to develop good statements in response.
Unfortunately, from a reporter's position, it's really bad when you're trying to accurately quote someone. I would always have to be furiously be writing down notes, or carry a tape recorder to make sure I got the quotes right. I never had the recall for that.
With James, you really need to listen to the words he's saying. Along with this, you're watching his hands to get the context. For better or worse, I found myself being much more expressive with my hands speaking with him, again, to help with context. I became self conscious about it, worried that I would accidentally say something in ASL that was totally unintended, or worse, inappropriate, but I'm sure that James deals with that every day.
When we sat down, and the waitress took our order, James ordered "cold tea" both saying it and motioning a shiver, and making a "T" with his hands. I saw the shorthand immediately, while our waitress did not. She looked at me, and I told her "iced tea". Still, it was one of those little moments that set me at ease for a different mode of communication.
I figure that speaking one-on-one with James made it much easier than the other times we'd interacted where there had been a bigger crowd of people around us, distracting me. Once you take away the other things and concentrate, it becomes so much clearer. I'll admit the goths next to us caught our attention for a bit, but really, we were about to talk about a lot of things, his trip to Alaska taking up the majority of the conversation.
So a barrier was breeched, and now I feel much more comfortable speaking with James.
Last night I had the pleasure of having dinner with James (
jamesbeary), who was in town helping a friend move and gain citizenship. James drove into town, and text messaged me a few times with updates, forcing me to learn how to use the feature to message him back. It's a chore to have to type using a numeric keyboard. I don't know how those kids do it. I think it took me 20 minutes to type in how to get from Ikea to the House of Pies.I'll admit I was a little scared of meeting James for dinner. I love James, he's incredible sweet and woofy, but I know in previous meetings the communications barrier had made it a little difficult to get to know him.
People say that I'm a good listener. I don't know if it comes naturally, or from training, but what I am is a good contextual listener. i may not concentrate on every word, but I pick up on feelings and meaning. Occasionally it leads to a misunderstanding, but more often than not, I get the idea. This kind of listening is good, and allows me to be responsive and ask good questions or be able to develop good statements in response.
Unfortunately, from a reporter's position, it's really bad when you're trying to accurately quote someone. I would always have to be furiously be writing down notes, or carry a tape recorder to make sure I got the quotes right. I never had the recall for that.
With James, you really need to listen to the words he's saying. Along with this, you're watching his hands to get the context. For better or worse, I found myself being much more expressive with my hands speaking with him, again, to help with context. I became self conscious about it, worried that I would accidentally say something in ASL that was totally unintended, or worse, inappropriate, but I'm sure that James deals with that every day.
When we sat down, and the waitress took our order, James ordered "cold tea" both saying it and motioning a shiver, and making a "T" with his hands. I saw the shorthand immediately, while our waitress did not. She looked at me, and I told her "iced tea". Still, it was one of those little moments that set me at ease for a different mode of communication.
I figure that speaking one-on-one with James made it much easier than the other times we'd interacted where there had been a bigger crowd of people around us, distracting me. Once you take away the other things and concentrate, it becomes so much clearer. I'll admit the goths next to us caught our attention for a bit, but really, we were about to talk about a lot of things, his trip to Alaska taking up the majority of the conversation.
So a barrier was breeched, and now I feel much more comfortable speaking with James.
