In October, I went to Cornfest with a few other people from my class.

This year, I

brought my fianc, Jacob. This is the first time that I have ever brought a mostly-uninitiated

hearing person to a Deaf event. The previous year, there were second-year students present

working specifically as volunteer interpreters. I assumed that this year, some of the volunteers

would be acting as interpreters, as well. However, when we got there, we realized that that was

not necessarily the case. It appeared that all the volunteers had other, pre-assigned jobs that were

taking up their time and none of them were there as interpreters. I wasnt expecting to go to the

event as an interpreter, so when I saw that there were no interpreters there, I had a choice to

make. How was I going to communicate with my mostly-uninitiated hearing fianc in a Deaf

environment? Luckily for me, Jacob is very sociable and wanted to interact with people other

than just myself. He and I were both involved in a conversation with a Deaf couple and I made

the choice to use only ASL, signing a bit slower that I usually would in an attempt to allow him

to follow what we were talking about. He does know a few signs and can carry a very basic

conversation, but not much more than that. Where my fianc lacked, my roommate stepped in to

interpret.