Hey guys, I’m going to DeafNation this weekend and I’m really excited to go. I’ll be meeting my friends from the Orlando deafblind retreat. I’m also hoping to meet some new people from DeafRead [and perhaps practice more of my signing ;)]. This will be my first deaf convention so I’m excited. I also got a haircut because I didn’t want to deal with long hair anymore. Thanks for watching!

Hi everyone, my name is Tiffany and I am learning to sign and I know I sign clumsy (but that comes with time!). I describe my upbringing as an oralist and having CI since three, and reimplanted at five because it broke for some reason that not even the researchers knew why. I love doing sports and I enjoy swimming, biking, running, snowboarding, triathlon… well, thanks for watching. =)

Note: I tried to keep try to ASL syntax, but please be patient as I continue to grasp the language as I have no one to practice signing with except via VP (I got it last Saturday as a matter of fact).

Second note to editors: I have no idea what is going on with my vlog because it’s not exactly showing up so I apologize for the repost. I understood the error now so it’s fixed.

Internet really have changed the face of the world in many ways, allowing us to talk to anyone at any time we choose. The Y! Live chat is one example for us. If not for the internet, I would have been unable to research the issue about CART and then finding deafread, learning many different types of issues and people with variety of interests and personality, and being able to communicate with my former teachers that led to going to a deaf/blind Retreat in Orlando.

At this point, I really can’t imagine what life would be like right now–well, actually I can imagine, I probably would be continuing to try and interact with other people and bombing, failing that like whoa and sticking my nose in a book all the time. I probably would use the phone more as well, but with great reluctance.

Without the resources online, I wouldn’t have met so many amazing people, hearing, deaf, blind and deafblind alike due to my varied interests like anime/manga, sports, art, and generally making friends. However, I do agree that moderation is needed to not allow internet take over your life.

That’s happened to me a few times, I admit, but right now, I am finding a good moderation so I am pleased, though I am still struggling to find that moderation as I still stay up late to be online and get up early next morning to go to school. Not good for me.

Just a friendly reminder from me to you if you also spend inordinate amount of time online–don’t forget to go outside and smell the roses, online will still be here when you get back. smile

So, why is this still being an issue? Obviously, people are still claiming that people aren’t inclusive enough. I can see some of the reasons why for that, for example, the current hot issue in the blogosphere is the subtitling and using DeafBlind people as one of the reasons.

Let me remind/inform you–I am a person with Usher’s. Not only that, but also, I am learning ASL, so there’s two reasons already for me to wish for you to subtitle some of your videos. If you are in a hurry, then provide a nice, meaty summary of what the video is about. I don’t want to see one or two sentences, and rely on comments to gauge what the video was really about, I don’t think those two is a whole lot to go on when watching the video with some context in mind. Maybe a paragraph or two would be nice (four to six sentences a paragraph). And that would be a lot quicker than subtitling the entire video, wouldn’t it?

If we all think about it, it takes us few minutes to sign to the webcam/video camera, then upload it and then open up our blog to post the video. It should take five minutes to write a paragraph or two about the video, and if you’re up for it, transcribe roughly what you said. I know ASL and other languages are practically impossible to transliterate, so, transcribing some of what the signers would go a long ways.

It’s practically a win-win-win-win situation. The DeafBlind community wins, the people new to ASL wins, and people googling wins,  and this brings you even more viewers, which makes you a win too.

I really, really don’t understand the mentality of not wishing to summarize, subtitle or otherwise tell more of what the vlog is about than the title itself and the comments (and the occasional one or two liner sentences.

I have subtitled my videos and it’s not all that hard. I found it to be quite fun actually. (Unfortunately, my videos are really of poor quality and was just as means to learn ASL, nothing concrete.)

What does the vloggers have to lose by writing a paragraph or two about the video? Ten minutes at the maximum if you hurry it, and maybe about 5 minutes at the average. Just some stuff to think about.

Now, back to the topic at hand about DeafRead… Since, as far as I see, we want to be inclusive as much as possible, we ought to be more understanding–but since most of us seem to be understanding enough, how can we move forward from here on out? This is pretty new to Deaf Community, not really used to having to deal with CI users and other groups in general.

Here, I wish to share something on how to organize DeafRead better than it is now; I commented at DeafRead Take a Stand with the following comment:

As a relatively new reader to DeafRead (mid-December), I liked what I saw on here. For the first time in five and half years, I found a place where I thought I could make some long lasting commitment with a community.

It saddens to me to see the state of DeafRead is going through. What I realized that could work is that we create one or two more buttons under: All, Blogs, Vlogs, and Extras. Maybe one could be designated for topics relating to Cochlear implants (and their success stories and the like dealing with sounds.) Perhaps the title could be “New Sounds” or something along that line, maybe something more politically correct than that, I don’t know.

A second button could be for all things related to ASL or ones who do not speak, or maybe related to ‘culturally Deaf’ though that line is kind of blurry. Maybe if the editors and a poll/survey for all people on DeafRead.com and see how to correctly define the term, Culturally Deaf.

I feel the same way that I am getting sick of seeing success stories that is totally flat and I tend to tune out b/vlogs that deals with cochlear implants. So I think this type of category would be really beneficial to everyone else.

The tag system under each aggregated entries is all and good, but I think the intended use for that is for past entries and not getting the current and new entries. That is where the buttons filtering the “New Sounds” and “Culturally Deaf” entries would work rather well. Not to say that the titles I’ve given should be used, but yeah.

As for the whole thing with name calling and what not… I think there should be some sort of a rule where it is the blogger/vlogger’s responsibility in watching their comments and prevent a flame war from breaking out. If the rule is not abided by, then by all means, not show any future entries on DeafRead until the b/blogger regains control.

As for the whole thing with neutrality of the editors, I understand that no one could ever be neutral, and in fact, can harm people when the neutrality is gone and its colors show through through some sort of an incident.

As for any rouge commenters or b/vloggers that are being militant, same thing applies to the above mentioned rule, and some sort of action should be taken.

I hope my ideas have been beneficial in some ways to the community on DeafRead.

—

Are we really ready to move forward in trying to resolve the problems at hand dealing with DeafRead?

That didn’t sound right, and  if it was a false information, then it would not show up in search, and so I want this bit of information confirmed. My case worker at VR also seem to imply that I would have the new processor to replace the old one, thus raising the costs still further. If the costs of batteries is true, then I am afraid that I will not get the new processor–if it is Freedom Nucleus. Or if the case worker is correct but is not the Freedom Nucleus with the expensive, short-life span batteries but something else entirely, then I would like the link to such information.

If there is such a processor with expensive batteries with six hour life, then… I feel like I’m back in the dark ages. My current one, BTE Nucleus, lasts four to five days without changing the batteries and is very cheap.  I am sad that BTE will be made obsolete, I love my BTE.

Several entries ago, I said that I was not sure if I should forgive my dad for being an audist, but now, I can let myself go and forgive him because of the letter. I also bitterly wondered why they didn’t move us to a Deaf school instead of H.I. program because they sacrificed their dream home, their dog (my dad actually cried, whom I never to this day, cried in my presence, and I didn’t know that until this letter) so that I could hear and listen.

Gosh, I’m tearing up right now, I don’t know where my priorities should be. So, I’ll just type up the letter exactly, punctuation and all and her underlined words as well, except for spelling because my inner editor won’t take that. And so we go. (background info, I was born and raised in Michigan.)

Tiffany, they say hind sight is 20/20. What would I do differently? I am sorry we did not teach you sign like you now wish you would have learned. We did the best—made the best decision we could with the info we were given. Pleae know—although it was an easy choice to make, we definitely made a lot of sacrifices for you… which I am not sure you are aware of. [I was, as I mentioned above, but not the whole picture] We had a beautiful house with 1 ½ acre we owned at the end of a dirt road, which was denoumated [? Dominated? Can’t read that word but I get the wording] by state land [or I perhaps don’t get the wording…] We gave that up to put you in a better school… East Jordan. We then had to give away our family dog which we had for 3-4 years. We took her to the pound and it made Rob cry. Rob then had to drive 45’’ each way to work everyday—the snow storms were bad at times. One day on his way home he was almost killed in a car accident. We then found out about the cochlear implant. We drove 4 hrs each way to Ann Arbor for months for testing and finally got the surgery. So then we sacrificed again (kind of) and moved to Lansing. I don’t think Rob really wanted to because he enjoyed hunting + fishing and “it rained all the time in Lansing.” Lansing also had a great H.I. program so that was another reason to move. Where we lived always revolved around you—except (in my opinion) when we moved to Florida—(and maybe mason as well). Everything happens for a reason. We did the best we could—

Mom

How’s that for a letter? I don’t know what to think, but that sure showed that they cared enough to want me to succeed in life by having all the skills to function as a hearing person. I can tell that this was on my mom’s mind since she and I first met the group of people who picked me up for Orlando Retreat and has since then, probably thought hard about it.

What in the world am I supposed to say? What type of card do I give them to show my appreciation of their love for me? I won’t ask the why’s right now, because they really did sacrificed quite a bit for me and we were poor for quite a while as well because of the expenses C.I. came with.

How can I ever thank them? For now, I won’t criticize them because, seriously, I have done enough of that and the only way right now is to just learn the new language and teach my family along the way as I have been doing.

Edit: To reflect the comment below, I have two other brothers that I grew up, just for the background info. Still, my parents did give up more to accommodate me than my brothers and I had half wondered how they dealt with it…

I am sure how many of us who are tired of schools not supplying with adequate  captioning. In this class, we use a lot of videos, and only a small number of them are captioned. I even admitted to her that I doze off slightly because I could not follow at all (which she was alarmed at.) So, today, she said to look into trying to get educational videos to be mandated that all videos must be captioned, no matter how old it is. She also said that it is a big business, which I don’t doubt, looking at how expensive it is to hire a stenographer for CART.

So, that got me thinking, I knew how many of us with many types of disabilities struggle on a daily basis, be it in education or in work  place and general day to day like Karen’s run in with the Steak n’ Shake.  And more than ever, I want a sense of justice being done for all people with disabilities, we cannot be mistreated, downtroddened, oppressed, or any other kind of action done to us, either for saving their own money, their bias, past experiences, and so on.

And so, I literally have no idea where to start looking for education in getting specialized lawyer and how well they are doing. Is there a growing demand or are people turning their heads away from disabled people? Or are we doing much better than what it was ten years ago, thus the need for disability lawyers is decreased (though, I can’t imagine that they’d ever go away because of people’s bias).

I even tried googling, and there’s so much to wade through, which is why I have come to you guys for any pointers to direct me in the right direction. Any website dealing with this type of lawyer and its resources would be wonderful. I am about to make a major Major change based on this information in my life and I would like to know as much as possible to see if this is for me. smile

Rini

Far different than my original idea where the original idea was that both sides were the same person, trapped within themselves, trying to perceive which one of themselves is cleaner–sin nature wise.

This painting was done all in acrylic. Probably took me about 20 hours to complete the painting which is on the canvas of 20 by 24 inches. Used masking tape for the background, hence why the lines are so sharp. I wanted to experiment with the masking tape since I was suspicious of their use. I love them now. The one thing I love about the painting is her hand, signing the letter A in American Sign Language. It came out really well, thanks to my friend’s suggestion of studying hands. Actually, I went almost on a whim (outlined with light blue paint) and without references except for my own hand since I originally didn’t have her signing.

But because I grew interested in Deaf Community when I returned from Michigan, and I wanted to make the lines of reality apparent to show how they are on different levels of communicating. I leave the rest of the interpretation up to you and decide for yourself, after all, multiple meanings of a single painting is marked as a good artist. Or so I hope I achieved that.
 Painting

Clicking on the link will open in the current window. Once you are in the gallery, just click on the image to make it bigger.

Hard of hearings depend heavily on devices, and trying to learn or re-learn how to speak and lipread as well as listening (probably the most difficult), and all the stuff we have to learn in order to be successful in the Hearing world. I got angry when the captioning for House tonight was not shown because of the primary results about the election was being shown once awhile. When the election primary results did come up, the captioning stops. I don’t give a frack about the results of the primary until after the show is over. Not to mention that the captioning stopped for a full minute when the primary results did show up at the bottom of the screen, thus, making me miss out some of the plot that is happening that I wanted to know.

While this would have affected everyone in the Deaf World, HoH and Deaf alike, it only served me as a reminder that I can’t fully comprehend the speech of the television, no matter how successful I appear to be as a HoH person.

HoH President Now! scenario would never happen, because HoH people is an invisible group, (after all, there is no such thing as HoH Culture) only making ourselves heard when we cannot understand what the other person is saying.  And that, sometimes, makes us even more less sure of ourselves because we are taught that to be anything less than a hearing person, is defective. Which sure raise our self-esteem by leap and bounds. /sarcasm

If I really did have a half a penny for every time I kicked myself in the rear for any type of miscommunication break down, I would surely be a millionaire by now. My self-esteem is low right now, and I don’t know what to do at this point (besides appealing to get CART services as FM system is not working). My life is quite literally a blank road after this semester ends and the prospects are frightening and not having gained any self-esteem by the semester’s end in making myself heard without sounding like a bitch, well, I’m not sure what I can do.

Looking and sounding like a bitch is one of the last thing I want to do. So I never speak up for things I really need. My note taker in Art History ceased and I really want to tell her to continue taking it for me because I found out that the ‘rough draft’ paper is supposed to be an outline form… augh, but at least I’m really communicating with the teacher for anything I missed and is willing to overlook the actual rough draft and not outline. But it’s still stressful for not knowing what’s going on in the classroom. And I don’t want to approach the note taker to tell her that I still need the notes and appear bitchy because she doesn’t want to do the work.

I really keep to myself too much at school, I rarely interact and when I do, it’s during art, but even then, it’s only a hi and a few casual words like “what’s up?” I badly want to interact, but I don’t want any communication break down and keep kicking myself in the rear. The fear of communication break down prevents me from interacting with anyone, and that really, really gets me down on most days because in the end, I don’t have anyone to hang out when school is not in session.

 I tried joining tournaments and clubs last semester, but to no avail because of my fear of communication break down. I thought, this is not fair, why am I stuck with this situation? I didn’t really understand why, but somehow, I kept trusting God to help me stay strong. I have remained strong ‘til now. I want to cry out at this unfairness of being a hard of hearing person, even though I literally can’t hear a sound of a gun shot or fireworks when my CI is off. I’m not hearing anything right now because I am supposed to be sleeping now.

 All of this makes me realize how hard it is for everyone else with an hearing loss and who try to be in the Hearing world without knowing or avoiding the Deaf Culture. I will admit, I love my CI so much that I seriously considered being an audiologist for CI and being an advocate. Back then I was living in the bliss of ignorance, not knowing an iota of the Deaf Culture. I thought that deafness was seriously something to be cured with and that everyone wanted to hear sounds. I couldn’t even imagine anyone not wanting to hear (but now I kind of understand why some don’t.) That was me about three years ago now, not very long ago, was it?

And today… my thoughts about being an HoH person and how I deal with being as such is falling apart. I’ve stated in the past blogs that I’m sick of how I was dealing with things as a HoH person, but I hadn’t fully comprehended what it was doing to my self-esteem–yet, I did have some ideas what was happening to my self-esteem. I knew I was down sometimes, but I didn’t realize the full depth of how much it was personally affecting and hurting me. When I went to the Orlando retreat for the Deaf/Blind, I realized how outgoing I really was, or rather, remembered, and now that I am back and it’s been a week and half since then. Because of that, I remembered of who I really was, it really had me feeling down. 

Sure, I can interact freely one on one, provided that there is no background noise, and that the person has good voice for me to hear. My success as a ‘hearing’ person is pretty high and can fool anyone into thinking that I am not deaf once getting a job. Not so sure about afterwards though… And that’s where the line crosses and my confidence is lowered.

I really wish such a world or even a country, is mainly made of deaf people. (link)

This post was inspired by Deaf Culture Website: HoH

While in my past entries, or comments for that matter, I might have appeared anti-CI, but I’m not at all. I have accepted the device as a small part of my life. I guess in a way, CI is both a blessing and a curse. I cannot imagine my life without sounds now, so I continue to put it on each morning if I took it off the night before. (I wear it when I need to wake up from the alarm clock sometimes.) The music is fun to listen to, especially if there are no words (only instrumental) and I enjoy those best. I love to hear myself whistle, hear the bird chirp, the sudden awareness that an emergency vehicle is driving by, the far distance sound of a train tooting… I could go on.

Sometimes, I also enjoy not letting people know that I am deaf when I’m conversing with them (only if they have good voice that I can understand, if they don’t, I speak up that I am hard of hearing so they can make themselves more clearer.)

While my parents were in the hindsight 20/20 when they implanted me when I was three years old, there are some things that I wish I didn’t have to deal with or wish I had in the beginning. For the first few years of my life, I enjoyed going to the speech therapy so I didn’t have to go to the mainstream classes. But now that I think back on it, I felt that because so much time was devoted to speech, that I didn’t learn a whole lot in actual education.

Sure, I was a part of the Hearing Impaired program where we could try and catch up, but most of the time, they dealt with the basics that I already knew about or resolving my conflicts with other kids in the program (we fought a bit [that’s an understatement, by the way.]) So, I was impatient about learning more, but we were mostly stuck with the basics and I couldn’t really communicate how I felt to the teachers because I respected them too much.

Respected them too much–that’s also an understatement, you could say I was their teacher’s pet, I would even go to some of my teacher’s house for sleep over (and that was fun.) I still love them and I am glad they taught me how to speak and sort out the sounds with my cochlear implant.

At the same time, back then, I wanted to learn how to sign, but no one seriously taught me them. Only some of the words and it was basically viewed as a fun language without serious thought. The only time I was ever told not to sign, even babbling signing, was when I was at University of Michigan’s hospital for my appointment, I saw a kid signing to his parents, and I imitated that with my dad and he said “No signing.” I asked why, he said, jsut no. I was about six or seven then. I never knew why I wasn’t allowed to sign, and it wasn’t until I was late into my teens that I found out why (and I couldn’t believe how stupid the idea was when I found out that it could prevent one from learning to speak.)

Knowing me, I would have embraced both, because I loved to speak and I loved the idea of signing. I wouldn’t have been someone who stuck with one because the other is harder. It makes me… I don’t know, sad, that I’m only limited to one way of communicating. There are many times when signing would have been easier, such as resturants and busy places where I can’t hear people very well.

But you know, that’s all in the past and accepted that, even though it gets me down sometimes. I can’t really blame my parents, well… I don’t know about dad because of his attitude stinks when it comes to signing in the few times I spoke to him about ASL.

But anyway, I also hate relying only on one way of communicating and when it fails, or when I can’t afford to get a new processor (my current two processors are going obsolete this March), I don’t know what I’m going to do when they stop working. I don’t think people are very patient when our mode of communication is paper and pen (or text messaging, or any other way).

I love sounds, they are amazing, and I wouldn’t wish to never know what sounds sound like. But at the same time, they are not be all, end all, because there are many things that CI can’t do for me. I still rely on closed Captioning on televisions and in some classrooms, I still have to tell people to repeat themselves (quite a bit at that), I avoid the voice phone, I never check my voice mail, I prefer text messaging over talking any day on cell phones. I avoid movies, I get angry when a show or even a commercial isn’t captioned, as well as the majority of videos online.

Cochlear implant is only a tool and it is not who I am.