{"id":42381,"date":"2013-08-15T00:08:18","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T07:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=42381"},"modified":"2013-08-15T00:08:18","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T07:08:18","slug":"languagesculture-merit-badge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/42381","title":{"rendered":"Languages\/Culture Merit Badge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/a>, now with 5,518 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,301 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> former life<\/a> \u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this week\u2019s Each Other\/Languages\/Culture Merit Badge<\/a> (Level Two \u2026 you heard it here first!) I brushed off my American Sign Language skills. They had gotten slightly rusty from disuse, but since all I had learned earning my Beginning Level Badge was the Alphabet and how to count to 10, it didn\u2019t take long to jog my memory.<\/p>\n

I had recently connected with a girlfriend\u2014a Sister, if you will\u2014who was learning sign language too, so we decided to meet for coffee and earn the next level together.<\/p>\n

\"MBA_Jane-8480\"<\/p>\n

Solidarity, sisters!<\/p>\n

That’s where it\u2019s at.<\/p>\n

And if there\u2019s a grande, full-fat mocha with a shot of caramel, a drizzle of hazelnut, whipped cream, and a scone involved, then that\u2019s where I\u2019m<\/i> at!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

$7.45 later \u2026<\/p>\n

We were enjoying our silent communication, although I confess to it being slow going at first. We had decided to limit our talking to that which could be done with our hands, but since we were both still beginners, it was harder than we thought! My pal was trying to tell me about the influential person she had researched (this step is required in the Intermediate Level, dontcha know?) and I was getting baffled. A side of bacon that had traveled the Earth, singing songs of America? Either my friend was a terrible speller, or I needed to focus more on sounding things out! Turns out she was talking about Heather Whitestone, who was the first deaf Miss America. To this day, I have no idea if she travels with a side of singing bacon though. I just smiled and nodded a lot.<\/p>\n

Then it was my turn to tell about MY influential person (funny how learning about someone makes you feel like they are now a part of you and kind of belong to you). My person was LeRoy Columbo.<\/p>\n

Never heard of him? Get it? Heard <\/i>of him? Haha, just a little hearing-impaired humor there for you!<\/p>\n

Anyway, LeRoy is my new hero. He was a deaf lifeguard who\u2014get this, brace yourself!\u2014saved 907 lives!!<\/p>\n

That was a two-exclamation-point sentence right there.<\/p>\n

He was even in the Guinness Book of World Records<\/em>!!!<\/p>\n

That one deserved three.<\/p>\n

I got so excited telling about LeRoy to my friend that my hands got fast and carried away. She obviously had no idea what I was talking about, so we had to break our little agreement for a few minutes and fill in the gaps in our stories as we sucked down the last of our mochas. We got a little immature over whose hero was the greatest, but I\u2019m still pretty gaga over LeRoy.<\/p>\n

I was surprised at how just an afternoon of speaking with my hands carried into the rest of my day and week. I found myself signing occasional things as I spoke, out of a new habit and muscle memory, which I thought was pretty cool! I tended to talk with my hands a bit anyway\u2014it\u2019s that Italian side of me, very dramatic\u2014but now my flailing and\u00a0tossing and gesturing actually means something!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty neat.<\/p>\n

Like a secret club.<\/p>\n

We just need a secret handshake.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,518 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,301 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ Wondering … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}