Dad, understand me.

 Here’s a bit of history before I show you my letter to my dad. He is, you could say, an audist. He once said that a friend of his whose son is deaf, that it was a shame that he didn’t learn to speak and the only thing he could do in the hearing world is point at something in McD’s menu, order and pay for it. (I got angry when he said that but I couldn’t say anything since I had no further knowledge of how Deaf dealt with daily things at the time.) He is immensely proud that I can speak and listen so well. Well, not that well enough, but speaking is one of the things that I mastered superbly well.

Another thing that I want to add before reading the e-mail letter to him, is that I have full scholarship to any college or university in the state of Florida without paying a cent, except when repeating a class, then I have to pay for it. He’s happy, really happy about that, and doesn’t want me to go out of state where it would cost me where I have to take out a loan.

Lately, he is now wanting me to go to Ringling School of Art  which is a private school and costs far more than the state is willing to pay for, and the left over, we would have to pay ourselves. That’s when it all happened, if we had to pay some of the schooling ourselves, why not other schools? I began looking at Gallaudet, thinking the schools in Michigan were out of my reach. Until I went back to Michigan where I lived and met my two old teachers and we talked about funding from the state and that the process is the same way as Florida’s. Just as long as I had to be a resident for six months, then I have the funding.

Lastly, I haven’t told my dad about the CART situation and that I’m fighting for it.

And well, that’s all the information you need to read this letter. Without further ado…

Hey, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to you when we had the Christmas dinner about school in general.

First of all, I am about to file lawsuit to MCC for not providing CART (Real Time) when they said it was too expensive. It is their responsibility for providing such services for people like me, despite the costs, as it is said in ADA and they are liable to be sued. I am going in for an appointment with the director of the Disability Resource Center on Jan 3rd at 11:30. If that doesn’t go through, I’m going to appeal. Yeah, this is a first for me, alright, but at least I’m really fighting for it.

Secondly, about Universities and what not. USF, Gallaudet and MSU are now all possibilities. Ringling School of Art, I don’t know, but I don’t have the hots to go there. As for MSU, I talked to Sherry [LastName] and Catherine [LastName] about scholarships in Michigan and they said I need to be a resident for 6 months in order to have the money for school as I do now in Florida.

Now, I realize that you might want me to save money during those six months, but I have another agenda besides just Graphic Design, but learning American Sign Language (ASL). Which is why I wanted to go to Gallaudet. But also, Florida is a terrible state for persons like me and I speak from experience as you well know. I had not known that CART services were even available locally until few weeks ago, and you can imagine how angry I was. And MCC had the gall to say that it was too expensive when it is their responsibility to provide such services, and as Case said, “smells like a lawsuit” to boot.

I am sick of Florida for their not providing what I actually need, not some note takers when they didn’t help at all, and not some software that is full of errors and is trained only for one voice, not the student discussions. I want to go to a state that has high reputation for providing services for the deaf in schools, and that is Michigan. If CART here does not go through, that will say how much the quality of education really is here. Look at [Name] High, then FGCU and now MCC… they all didn’t provide services that I needed, and how little knowledge I had about that sort of thing either (like CART I found out is available locally). I want to go to a school that will provide quality education that does not make me feel like a Classroom Ghost (which is a good article that echoed scarily close to my own experiences so that you could understand.)

I will tell you this now: I am sick of communicating only in oral. I don’t care how much more opportunities it gives me, if I learn ASL, even more opportunities will be given to me because interpreters are easier to get than CART. But really, I loathe feeling like a classroom ghost all my life and I’m just now fed up with it. So please, give me this opportunity to learn actual ASL. When I took the sign language class here, is a joke. It’s not even ASL but pidgin/SEE sign, which is a ‘made up’ language so to speak. So you can’t tell me to take some so called ASL classes here in FL where quality isn’t guaranteed.

So, I started looking for universities in Michigan for some sort of Graphic Design and I found, to my surprise, they have it at MSU. And tuition there is 8,400 a year, after I am a resident for a year. Now, I know it’s a long time to wait to be an in-state resident, but I can take this intermission as a way to take the time to learn the language at LCC, which is one of the best schools in the nation to learn ASL. I can’t beat that quality elsewhere, and you know how strong the support for the deaf and blind is there in Lansing, right? Or at least, the entire lower state of Michigan.

Besides, comparing costs between Gallaudet and MSU/LCC, MSU/LCC is far cheaper, and with getting free education at MSU, it’s a better deal. With Gallaudet, I have no guarantee right now that I would have a full scholarship and probably have to get loans. Not to mention that by the time I get B.A., it will cost me 40,000 some dollars to go there without scholarship. That’s for only two years.

USF does not have any ASL classes or anything that will help me survive out in the real world with my deafness. I need to learn skills that will help me on the job when dealing with clients and perhaps meetings.

I hope you understand, and if you want to discuss this further, let me know, as I know you will want to. =)

-TIffany

Now, forgive me if I have made some fact errors in the letter, but I have reasons for some of the exaggerations if you spot them.

CART, DBC and Identities topics

Yesterday, I pretty much came to the conclusion that I am not hearing and never will be. I understand now that all deaf people are among the hearing community, and that whatever the level of deafness we all have, we are deaf. For a long time, I considered myself to be in the hearing community, even though I didn’t get a lot of the information I received.

Lately, as I probably mentioned in my previous blogs, I got fed up with not being able to getting the missed information–namely, the student discussion. Coincidentally, I was reading comments in a blog and came across a link. Classroom Ghost

I couldn’t believe how much of her experience echoed my own. I also read how many had to battle to get CART, and I had already found myself in that situation, needing a CART. Thanks to some of the comments made on ADA and Audism blog entry, and my friend, Zenn–I was able to put together an e-mail, and with Zenn completely rewriting it, and sent it to the director of Disability Resource Center of my college, saying that I would appeal if they didn’t listen to my simple request.

Few days later, I got a phone call, saying that I am to go in for an appointment on January 3rd at 11:30 with the director. I do hope that is sufficient time to get CART as classes start on the 7th. One thing that makes me nervous is intimidation. That I would give in, but I have to be strong and demand it. It will be the first time that I will be actually demanding anything with the threat of a lawsuit. So the experience will be good for me.

I will update once the meeting actually have come to pass.

(more…)

ADA and Audism

You know, I will have to admit, I used to be one of those brown-nosed deafies, an audist. But that was when I was young and didn’t know better, much less about the Deaf culture. I thought I knew what consisted of that culture, but as I grew up, in college, I grew to realize that the ‘culture’ I was in, was purely made up, a cult more than a culture (if the terminology even make sense).

While I was in middle school, I learned some skills about self-advocacy. I’ve been to several camps for the blind and deaf blind, and learned the general stuff about ADA. But there was one thing I was never quite taught in school or in camps I’ve been to. How exactly do you even initiate ADA laws on those who are not following through.

Especially the people who cite that they could not pay for the services I need.

I am both angry and frustrated with this aspect, how then, can I expect to succeed? There’s a plethora of information online, but where to start is tricky. I could go blog-hunting, but that’s almost like trying to find an ant in a pile of beetles. Compared to the number of beetles, they’re easily hidden.

I talked to my mom yesterday about how I felt as a deaf blind person, and that she wished that she could understand how I feel and doesn’t know what to tell me. I think that’s the first time I’ve seriously talked to her about my experiences as a deaf-blind person. I think there’s a momentum building up soon after that. Today, I somehow came to the conclusion that I have got to go to Gallaudet University. I found that the university has my major and minor, and that’s when I decided that I needed to go.

My vision isn’t causing me problems right now, at least, not on a large scale where I need to start reading large print (I might never need to since large print usually overwhelms me). What is giving me problems is my deafness. I requested to have Real-Time captioning to the disability resource center, and she said that it’s a no go, saying that no one can pay for it. Yeah, that pisses me off. But I don’t know how to shove ADA in their faces, and that’s an issue. I’m also too nice, and rather not want to deal with a tedious process that would force them to pay.

So, she offered a solution: a course waiver or a substitution course. I felt like saying “F*** that.” Actually, that phrase have been repeating in my mind for the past two days, particularly towards my dad. He was the driving force in reason why I was an audist. He’s your role model as the ultimate audist, so I guess he’s the stuff of nightmares and horrors in every Deaf cultured persons. He divorced my mom three and half years ago and with each year, I slowly moved out of his audistic ways.

So, I guess in all the controversy with cochlear implants and what not, about robbing of one’s identity, is true, because I honestly do not know what to call myself. I mean, most strangers I mee thought I was not at all afflicted with hearing loss until the first misunderstanding on my part that I missed, then I bring up the fact that I’m hard of hearing. I never said deaf because I felt that I don’t belong in that category at all. That deaf is only reserved for people who can barely speak or listen and probably relies a lot on signing.

I read some blogs that made me understand and take a new perspective on being a cochlear implant user. That I actually had to memorize, apply what I hear and speak over the long period of time. I wondered why I couldn’t recognize familiar songs except when the lyrics are obviously heard. It’s just that my braing cannot comprehend, or somewhere along the line between the microphone and the brain receiver signal. That I did have to memorize the lyrics or at least, follow along the words as it is being said, and I was able to hear the words.

Why couldn’t I hear it without the reliance of lyrics in front of me? I guess music is that complex to break down for me to hear if I didn’t have anything to rely on for interpretation. For that reason, I highly enjoy instrumentals because I didn’t have to worry about any of the words being sung. And why I know a very limited amount of songs I know and can sing by heart. Actually, I know only three songs.

That aside, the reason why recognizing and comprehending sounds are hard for me is that I have to sort out the sounds of pitches for each word as well as syllables. I really liked the analogy I found on one blog where being a CI user, sounds I hear sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher that goes ‘yak gawao obahack’ etc. I thought of Sims, when they talk to one another, and that really describes how I hear sometimes when people speak.

I always have felt a need to hear exactly what the hearing people hear, and when reflecting on the blogs I have read, I am conflicted. Is that considered a betrayal? I know my hearing will never be cured, short of stem cells growing cochlea. Now that’s going to be even more of a danger to Deaf Culture when that becomes possible, I’m sure. What will the Deaf Culture do when that day comes, when getting a new cochlea is as easy as getting breast implants? (My mom got them… and made me realize how easy it was to get them.)

…

Well, that’s something to think about, I’m sure.