Well I wont steal your welcoming glory, and Id welcome you too from oregon, however, im even newer than you here now =)
Im still at school in california for 3 weeks, but may 12th or so ill be back in wilsonville for the summer, and then im transferring to western oregon (right there next to you in salem!) to finish one more year of ASL and then start on the ASL/English Interpretation Major!
Im really excited, im switching to that from geology... haha what a jump.
To clarify, Im hearing, and just met a deaf girl a little over a year ago for the first time. she started teaching me asl, then i made another HOH friend who ive been hanging out with a lot. Ive taken two semesters of asl at school now too, and thats been enough to completely change my direction in school
I just emailed one of the faculty at WOU trying to find out about ways to meet some of the local portland area deaf/hoh people, and then i realized i could probably get some good answers on here too!
Anyways, welcome to the board (from even more of a nOOb here) :p