So this last weekend I went to a Silent Weekend activity up in the local mountains. Not sure how high up it was, maybe 6,000 feet? Just above the treeline and up a rather convoluted mountain road.

I hadn’t been up here in a while and it was very good to smell the trees and see the stars in the sky at night! We bunked up in mall cabins of about 12 people each.

It was a lot of fun, although it was very much oriented toward hearies (but then I’m used to that) learning ASL. I wasn’t quite sure where to classify myself, since they split things up in terms of ASL 0-1, ASL 2, ASL 3 (I guess years or semesters or something) but encouraged us to move around if we were not challenged enough. I very quickly went into ASL 3-4 activities, which I found interesting, as you all know I started learning sign about 3-4 months ago. There were about 100 people, and 10-15 staff members.

I think I found the socializing, especially with other deaf and CODA (I’m guessing) plus accredited interpreters, of the most benefit but in general I had quite a bit of fun just soaking everything up. The workshops alternated between “ice breakers,” plus games with a practical aspect: the rules were all given in ASL so it was a way to practice that while having fun with the games. There were also a variety of workshops tailored to the different levels ranging from a videotape explaining about service dogs to a detailed discussion of the issues in certifying as an interpreter (California law has some interesting wibbles at the moment).

For Saturday, I basically took out my HA but quickly found in many of the workshops there was a fair amount of talking, or music involved (one of the activities was signing the lyrics to “Star Spangled Banner”), and so I wound up needing some of the more advanced students to interpret for me, which I thought was pretty ironic, but it was good practice for me, and they got a chance to practice interpreting.

There was also a “deaf panel” in which several people (working there) told their stories. Some kids (who performed later) who are part of Extreme Magicians were very fast in signing, which made me chuckle. This was for the hearies, “what’s it like growing up deaf,” etc. That evening we did skits including a hilarious rendition of “Wild Thing”:

Saturday night got exciting because I (and others) had parked at the bottom of this dirt hill (mess hall and camp entrance along the top) and it STARTED SNOWING! So, before the hill got all slushy and muddy and unnavigable, we got out and got our cars up that hill. My car (Honda CRV) was slipping around too much, and it took three guys to help push it over some of the bad spots (the dirt road was rather worn away in the middle from previous water drainage)! Quite an adventure, although I had more fun describing the process later on — maybe I’ll post a vlog describing that Here’s the hill: I swear it is much steeper than it looks in the picture, the snow makes everything look so flat and benign…

It snowed the entire night and I wound up with 6-8″ of snow on my car…I was very glad I had moved it! So, now I know all the signs for snow, snowball, snowed in, etc

I had a bit of a surprise on Sunday…there was a second deaf panel scheduled, but they had me come up and tell my story…! I did not sign it…I was rather tired by this time, the excitement of moving cars around, and worry about the drive back down off the mountain (since it was still snowing) etc, all contributed. But I gave a quick summary and answered questions from the audience. I found it interesting they had more questions for me than for most of the people yesterday. Ironically, most of them did not know I was deaf, precisely because I had removed my HA — oh the irony — and when I’d had interpreting help, it was in the smaller groups, so not everyone saw that. In the larger groups, there was interpreting going on already for the deaf staff members which I made use of as well.

Anyway, that was fun… what I want now is the equivalent for deafies

Well I finally got to see Through Deaf Eyes this morning (actually half last night and half this morning; it’s been a busy few days). I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. I should note that my perspective on this is as an orally educated deaf person; I have been largely ignorant of deaf culture and history until now.

While I knew the general outlines of the history presented, there were still many details I didn’t know. And I was fascinated by the glimpses offered into that past, especially through the NAD movies made about a hundred years ago (which are, by the way, found in the archives at Gallaudet, to which I’ve linked on the right sidebar). Watching this made me feel like a kid with her nose pressed up against the window to the candy store. It’s a whole other world there.

As for the oral versus deaf educational models presented, it fascinated me to see the bits of deaf schooling, from the small children being filmed looking a little lost, to the woman discussing the differences she saw in signing between black students and white students and how she tried to conform to the “white” model when she went to an integrated school, to all the memories shared by the different people they interviewed. When they showed the oral education clips, I had to laugh. While I didn’t go to an oral deaf school (I was simply mainstreamed into the local public schools) I certainly had much of that damned speech therapy, which is as useless as it looked on the screen! Would it look that way to hearing people or would they see that as what “should” be done? Would they look at that little girl being asked to repeat “airplane” said from behind that piece of paper, and think that was a dirty trick to play on her? I hated it with a passion when my speech therapists would cover up their mouths. I liked how one of the interviewees made it clear how it was such a waste of time — “I could have been learning other things, real things!”

The information on Stokoe also interested me. I had not realized the extent to which his work was pooh-poohed at Gallaudet…that blew me away. I thought he had to work at convincing the hearing world that ASL was a bona fide language, but it turned out he had to convince everyone. I also loved seeing the snippets from the NTD productions, I had no idea. Plus the technical institute and the development of the TTY…all new information to me. Plus, seeing it in the clips and such is much more immediate. The clips from the DPN — wow, what energy! And I was floored at how Zinser apparently did not know any sign language, or at any rate showed no attempts at signing in the clips I saw — having an interpreter present at all times. It didn’t surprise me as much that Gallaudet had hearing presidents in the past; I’m very well aware that hearing people patronize deaf people all the time. But that they wouldn’t sign blew me away. I also found IKJ’s comments interesting, given that the very first time I heard of him was in the October 2006 protests!

I thought the presentations of both Bell and Veditz were a perfect balance of destruction and construction; the one sought to tear down the deaf world, the other constructed it, preserved it an din the end showed us how indestructible it all was. I would have liked to see more specific information about Milan especially how deaf educators were excluded from the discussions and votes.

The present day segments on the various different people, representing different “kinds” of deaf people and their thoughts, I loved that. We are a very large and very diverse group, but in the end, all of us are deaf and all of the people interviewed came back around to that. (Yes, I thought it was very strange that the one boy with the two parents where only the mother signed once in a while and the parents talked mostly, despite knowing how to sign; I got the impression the production had everyone who could speak, speak which makes it difficult to sign at the same time I suppose. I think it would have been more effective to have had them speak at times and sign at others, more of what the mother did, I think.)

The people who discussed their cochlear implants confirmed to me a parallel I’ve made in my mind: CI’s are just today’s modern hearing aids (albeit destructive hearing aids). HA did not drive children away from sign language and deaf culture, and CI will not either. As I’ve said, deaf is deaf, and even the most clueless, orally functioning deaf like myself will eventually realize that. It was a trip to see Gina Oliva of Alone in the Mainstream several times and her DEAF WOW comment is absolutely spot on.

One thing about this movie overall for me — I kept watching all the signing and picking up what I could. It just glued me to the screen picking out what they were signing along with the captions. I’m at the point where I see that the captions for the signing have the same issues as captions for the speaking: things are rephrased and shortened up and so on in both! I can see I’m going to watch this again and again until I understand all the signing This movie captured me from the start and didn’t let me go. It may be that for the Deaf, much of this was old hat, and they wanted to see other things, and it may be that for hearing people, it’s long winded and not of that much interest unless they happen to know deaf people, but for people like me, it’s a wonderful tidbit of a world I’m learning about day by day.

Someone uploaded Through Deaf Eyes (with the captions turned on) to GoogleVideo! I’ve just safely downloaded the little sucker to my laptop at 909M — since I suspect it will get yanked shortly for copyright violation or somesuch. (NB to you nasty DRM folks - I have preordered the DVD so your dirty little pockets will be suitably lined, tyvmngaabse.)

But YES!! I can’t wait to watch it! AAAAAAND! It is an avi file which means it’s dead easy for me to convert into an ipod format to transfer there of course then I won’t be able to read the captions without a microscope probably…

Oh yes, here’s the link… [Edit: don't bother, it's gone now...]

So now I will finally post a review, though probably not in time for DeafRead’s TDE review competition Ah well…

I’m seeing various comments around the ‘net indicating that for some, “hearing loss” is a reasonably acceptable umbrella term for all deafies, at least as used by hearies. I’m not that convinced, and I’d like to explain why…

One thing I’ve noticed in reading through blogs by deaf people (and “deaf” I do consider an absolutely umbrella term) is that the biggest difference I see between all the various “types” of deaf people is that between those who were born deaf (or deafened very young) and those who became deaf later in life. There is a (very understandable) sense of loss among the latter group. They used to do hearing related activities and can no longer do so. They used to depend on hearing in certain situations and feel uncertain and off balance now that they cannot do so.

I understand that feeling and certainly sympathize! I only have to think of how I would feel if I suddenly could not see or walk. Nevertheless, these reactions and feelings do not apply to me.

I read about one late-deafened adult who writes that he no longer drives as much, because he’s afraid of overlooking or missing something he would not have before losing his hearing and thus get into an accident of some sort. This is legitimate for him. But it does not apply to me, because what is really at issue here is that he has a habit based on hearing that is hampering him. It is a habit that I never acquired.

Now, this is all well and good, except for one thing. We will have hearies who look at this man’s statements and say, “See!! Deaf people shouldn’t be allowed to drive, they’re a menace on the road!” and point to this for justification. Where can we even begin with this kind of mixup?

This is why I don’t care for the term “Hearing Loss”. It has implicit a number of assumptions including that a person with “hearing loss” MISSES THE HEARING! Misses their hearing! In other words, it is not a neutral description. It presupposes a particular mindset or way of looking at one’s deafness.

It’s like when my last audiologist, upon hearing that I don’t always wear my hearing aids out in public, was shocked and warned me about the hazards such as maybe getting run over by a car. She stopped speaking when she saw the look on my face, I wish I’d seen it myself. But honestly! Getting run over by a car? I never had the habit of listening for oncoming cars, puh-leeeeze! But a late deafened person? Yes, that might be an issue for them, absolutely.

The problem is that late deafened people tend to reinforce what hearing people think about deafness, because late deafened WERE hearing. And they NOW miss their hearing and go through difficulties exactly as hearing people would imagine, because they share the same starting point. This is also where you have people who reject the term deaf because they didn’t start out deaf, and they may also be in denial about the consequences and extent to which they are now deaf.

Born & early deafened people don’t share those traits. We never started out with the same worldview and assumptions. But hearing people still assume these same things apply to us.

So in the end, I have many reservations about the term “Hearing Loss”. Let me make it clear, that I welcome all people who are deaf, whatever the cause, and whenever it happened. But just as I, an orally educated deafie, have some different issues than other deaf folk (such as no knowledge of sign language), a late deafened deafie will have some different issues, that I think are very well described under “hearing loss”.

I don’t know if there’s a simple across the board description for us all that we would all accept. I mean, I think little-d “deaf” is perfect for all of us, but as has been pointed out on DeafRead, late deafened people (and perhaps also a number of hard of hearing (HOH) esp. late HOH) don’t always identify with that term.

I dunno. As I understand it “Deaf and Hard of Hearing” evolved to address issues the HOH had, but “Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Those With Hearing Loss” is one hell of a mouthful! Which is what keeps bringing me back to the nice, simple, one syllable, term “deaf”.

What do you all think about an umbrella term that’s inclusive, neutral, and doesn’t reinforce inappropriate stereotypes. Does such a term potentially exist?

I think there’s also another issue of what is acceptable to hear coming from hearies versus fellow deaf, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic of its own…

P.S. I realize this is a post that could be characterized as lots of talktalktalk and little progressive action (which is really the sort of thing I prefer as well to be honest) but in sorting out what I really do want to call myself, and as a part of my own deafhood journey, I have been considering these things. And I keep coming back to “deaf” which is what I called myself as a child and for reasons which are still perfectly valid to me even as I re-examine those assumptions…

One thing I’m noticing, when I go out to deaf gatherings, when I’m asked where I went to school, is that I’m having trouble conveying that I went to a plain school, no deaf or oral program at all. How would I best explain this? I sign school, mainstream, all children hearing, I only deaf child, and then they always ask for the name of the school and then they’re puzzled because they never recognize it. Of course not…it’s just one of a thousand similar schools in this state, let alone country.

I get the feeling they think it was a school that had a specific program of some sort for deaf children and so that they should know of it. But I had an itinerant tutor from JTC that came by for the speech therapy stuff back when I still put up with it. How do you sign itinerant tutor? Actually now that I think of it, maybe I should mention JTC — I hadn’t even thought of that till now. (John Tracy Clinic in LA.) Ha, maybe I just answered my own question…

Also, it seems like they ask more about the high school than the college, although the questions will come around to the college eventually which they’ll recognize since it’s the local university :-). But anyway how to best explain this? I get the feeling I’m not clear about it. I’m also wishing I went to a high school with A MUCH SHORTER NAME…fingerspelling it is killing me

Thanks for any help or observations…

OK, so I’m easily amused

Hey, y’all! I decided to move my deaf related posts on LiveJournal to deafread’s WP-MU blog, for a variety of reasons. First, I do know WP very well and like using it, second while LJ suits my purposes for a personal journal, it blows chunks with comments, especially from non LJ folks, and y’all have a tendency to leave lots of comments on my deaf related posts :-). Finally, I’m very appreciative of the contributions that DeafRead has made to the deaf community.

I’ve imported all the posts, and am (by hand, sigh) importing the comments as well. Plus putting shiney new categories on everything. It’s getting there!

I have a couple of new posts churning away in the back of my mind, so I’ll be posting here soon. In the meantime, see you around on the ‘net!

The author of the Alone in the Mainstream book was on, talking about finally realizing others like her out there…very cool! The music stuff’s on now, and I had to laugh when the guy was talking about how they make the music loud loud loud so everyone can feel the music…and he wonders Gosh, what does that sound like to the hearing people…HAHA!

Very much fun to put faces to names…

So, I’m trying to watch Through Deaf Eyes…and it appears that my cable provider IS NOT TRANSMITTING ANY CAPTIONS FOR **ANY** OF THE CHANNELS IT IS BROADCASTING.

Oh, boy, are they going to get an EARFUL from me first thing tomorrow morning. IT HAD BETTER BE BACK ON BY THE NEXT BROADCAST. Yes, according to my local listings, it shows again Thursday night same time, and Friday morning at 7.

ARRRRRGHHH.

Still, I do understand a fair amount of the ASL, which is great. And the AVT segments showing the teachers covering their mouths, oh boy does that bring back memories…

But I’m still fuming…

I went to a local meet & greet for deaf folks last Friday. Most of the people seemed to be hearing (interpreters in progress I suppose), but there was one guy there who was a real story teller (told a couple of hilarious stories, including one between a dad and his little son, who beat the pants off him at video games). I didn’t get all of it, but the gist of that and other stories, and he was really quite good. He was at the other end of the table from where I sat, though.

Next to me were a couple of hearing people: one very nice fella who has been signing for about five years and is working on getting certified as an interpreter, a rather quiet girl who’s ASL was a bit more basic than mine (for all I know she knows more signs, but I know about languages and I will jump in and yap away even not knowing too much, because that is the only way to learn; a lot of people especially on their first new language, don’t want to say anything “wrong” and thus don’t really get anywhere until they get past that roadblock), and another older woman who knew more, but was mostly watching everyone else talk.

There was one other deaf guy there, who was mostly fond of talking about himself, his background, and the various different programs he works on. Y’all probably know the type. However, he and the other guy talked a fair amount, and clearly enough for me (especially as I think he was talking [aloud] while signing, though I left my HA in my purse this time) to not only follow a good deal of it, but pick up a number of signs: experience, events, interested, “pop up” or “show up”, knives, lemons, sweet, sour (we did get into a culinary preferences discussion ) salad, chocolate, etc.

Further down the table was a woman with a dog. I think they told me she has Usher’s, but she struck me mostly as blind or becoming blind than deaf; she made a verbal announcement at one point about a fundraiser next month and I didn’t see any typical deaf pronunciations. I also saw her watching some people sign, but then also tactile signing with the storyteller — perhaps practicing that for when she needs it. A woman was there with a young girl about 8, but I only saw the girl chat verbally with her mother, and the mother seemed to only watch the storyteller. There was an older couple across the table from the story teller, who seemed to be HOH if anything, and not entirely fluent in ASL. A few young teenagers at the very end who said/signed little but signed away as they were leaving. A couple of older men dropped by after I came in, and they mostly spoke, while signing a bit, I had NO idea of waht they were saying (very pronounced speech) and I was told they were HOH. Maybe late deafened, I don’t know.

Still in all a fun evening. I would like to meet more people who are actually deaf, but I realize I’m not exactly in any kind of deaf mecca here. I want to try attending the larger meet & greet that goes on in a local mall on the first fridays, but my schedule is crazy enough I never know when I will have fridays free…

But I was very pleased, I followed a good deal of what was going on, picked up a bunch of signs, got to say some things myself and got some compliments on having only 3 months of ASL under my belt.

The really fun thing is I’m picking up more and more of the vlogs, too