A Moment of Frustrations
So, tomorrow at eleven a.m., I will be meeting with the director of Disability Resource Center to fight for CART for one of the classes, Fundamentals of Speech. I love giving speeches and I want to know what students are saying. What they are saying is the main reason why I need CART–as I am tired of being left out. I am hoping it goes well tomorrow and my step dad will be coming with me for moral support. But he won’t be saying anything since I’ve got to get it for myself so I can learn from the experience, and get a backbone while I’m at it. If things look grim, I’ll give him a signal to help me out (and likely take over for me since he likes to argue/talk a lot until he gets what he wants.) So, wish me luck. =)
In other news, earlier this week, I had a big disagreement with someone that I thought would never cause a debate. I thought him to be intelligent, that he might at least understand some of the Deaf Culture. First of all, he said that ASL isn’t a language, that it is still essentially English, like Braille is (my analogy).
That there isn’t a Deaf Culture and it is wrong to capitalize d in Deaf. I admit, I said some stuff on the side that was unwarranted and I had apologized to him for it. However, I am still angry that he doesn’t agree that ASL is a real language and that there is no such thing as a Deaf Culture. Initially, I couldn’t remember other than the language itself that makes up a culture, my mind went blank during the heat of argument. Not always a good thing since my mind likes to blank when I’m arguing.
It’s not fair that I then remember some of the stuff of what makes up a culture when I got off the computer. They were (other than language): traditions, norms, mores, and folktales that binds people together into a culture. I didn’t know more anything about it than that at the time. I was relieved to see a blog created recently on this very topic on DeafRead, and that I wasn’t very far off, which made me glad. [From: Patti Durr]
What makes up a Culture:
Language
Norms of Behavior
Values / Beliefs
Traditions / Heritage
Possessions / Artifact
I also enjoyed reading the blog entry about bilingualism and biculturalism, because that is the direction I am taking in the road life that is mine. I will never forsake the Hearing world because it’s what made up the first twenty or so years of my life. But now, I will also take up the other part of me that I felt was denied to me.
With that in mind, I will go through with getting a second Cochlear Implant because the major number one reason why is so that I can detect sounds with both sides due to my failing vision. I do not know when I will not be able to see, but I’m tired of not being able to find the person who called out my name for about ten to fifteen seconds when it really feels like a minute. I also look in the wrong direction when someone is talking to me, and I hate that.
I do wonder, is that prevalent with cochlear implant users too (or for anyone who can hear in one ear only)? Not being able to look in the right direction. Because right now, I’m blaming that on my status as a (legally) blind person. It’s frustrating, because I went on the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom at Disney World today, and ‘lo and behold, the snapshot of the riders on the roller coaster, was me, looking in completely different direction than what everyone was looking at. -sighs- I left there right away, I hate not being able to locate sounds.
One last thing, when learning to sign, how do I let others know (and, if necessary, teach them how) to limit their range of signs because my peripheral vision is very narrow. For example, my friend Zenn was teaching me the sign STAY where we use two Y hands together. I did not know it was Y hand because I didn’t see the pinky and thought it was in the A hand formation. That also gets frustrating.
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We can get your school a free CART system and introduce a CART program that will cut the costs of a CART interpreter from hundred thousand to a couple hundred dollars per year. Our federal grant isn’t limiting our CART scope to California. And we just have 2 more schools to do this to meet the terms of our grant.
Richard
Comment by Richard Roehm — January 3, 2008 @ 1:20 am