ADSL's questions, pt 2

"Whats the most interesting conversation you have ever evesdropped on? Knowing that you lip read and not everyone being aware of it, have you ever come across and interesting situation that made you surprised or made you laugh? I'm sure you have some interesting stories to tell."

My lipreading skill is at best 50%. Depends greatly on how a person talks. It's more about being there at the right time.

The biggest surprise I had? When I was at a restaurant, I was seated facing a man across a glass partition and he was telling his buddies about his court case. He was facing charges of molesting his kids and he told his buddies he felt confident about beating the charges because he thought his own kids wouldn't testify against him. Imagine the looks of his buddies' faces when he said that...

The saddest? Watching a college student whine to her friends that, after getting a ticket from her parents to fly back home for Christmas, they wouldn't buy her another ticket for her to go see a friend of hers. She said something along the lines of "My parents bought me a ticket, why couldn't they buy me another? I want to see my friend. It's not fair!" Whine, whine, whine.

The funniest? I happened to look at a co-worker's direction just as she looked in my direction to make sure I wasn't "eavesdropping". She was 5 cubicles away (the low type where you can see others from a sitting position). I cocked my eyebrow and she immediately turned red and turned around to hide her embarassment. Other co-workers, who were talking with her, cracked up at her actions when they realized what had happened. What made it so funny? I didn't even catch a single word and one of the co-workers told me later on that the woman was talking about a guy who rocked her world in the bed last night. She was spilling all the juicy details and she THOUGHT that I "listened" in on her whole story. LOL

If you thought job hunting was hard, try being a deaf person! (pt 2)

The 3rd manager? She was HJIC's secretary before she got the job. That surprised everyone because she had never been anything more than a secretary in any job anywhere. Everyone *knew* how she got the job. I stayed quiet because she had been nice to me when she was the secretary and I had helped her with some stuff in the past. None of that mattered because she got very mean to me and did everything she could to get me to quit.

Once I had to go to the bathroom badly (and I do mean BADLY) and when I finally came out, the Bitch (HJIC's former secretary) caught me on my way to the desk and she claimed that I was gone for 30 minutes. "Impossible," I said, "since I lose the feeling in my legs after 20 minutes." The Bitch then let me go and called a supervisor (not mine) over and while standing just 6 feet away from my desk, in the center of the department...they started discussing openly for anyone to hear...about my bathroom habits. I found out about that later and I was told they were overheard in saying, "How can he sit in that office chair for hours on end and not lose any feeling in his legs?" among other things. EXCUSE ME?!?

I was so mad and embarrassed by that. I was given an opportunity to retaliate when I had to write my argument for why I deserved a raise during my annual job review. I had done the job consistently with high remarks year in, year out. So, I wrote up a nasty review on the Bitch and I basically outed her as being HJIC's companion during business trips that had nothing to do with her job duties.

I was called into HR and I met with two ladies - one of them was the same woman who was impressed with me at the job interview. They asked me subtly why I wrote the letter and I said, "You know why she got the job." They giggled at that and I instantly knew why they laughed. Everyone's suspicion about how the Bitch got her job was correct. They thanked me for my time and I thought that was that.

The firestorm that resulted from the review (in which I got "bad reviews" and received a tiny raise of 1.5% instead of the usual 3%) motivated me to look into taking jobs within the government center so I could get away from that. The same woman, who was impressed with me at the job interview and working in HR at the time (and still was), let me know about a job opening. She knew I had all the qualifications and I immediately applied. Few days later, HJIC called me into the office and basically patted me on the head about the job and shoved me out the door. What did he say? Something along the lines of "This job is not for you, but thank you for your interest. You may go now." I was boiling mad after that.

When HJIC ordered a security door installed which became a major inconvenience for everyone because we all had to use our ID to get in each and every time, I observed something about HJIC and the security door. He had grown weary of that and started using the "back door" tactic by going through a conference room instead of dealing with the security door. I retaliated against HJIC by locking the door opening into the hall from the conference room, effectively locking him out and forcing him to go through the security door because HJIC's new secretary had hearing issues and couldn't hear him knocking on the door. If he forgot his ID, he would have to ask someone to let him in. Soon, he was checking the door to make sure it wasn't locked before leaving...I'd wait a while and...lock the door. He never caught on as to who was locking him out, let alone catch me in the act. ;)

The screaming supervisor finally retired 1.5 years after the 1st manager had retired. The Bitch had since moved on to an easier job where she didn't have to deal with HJIC as much (and me since I was starting to catch onto how the management style worked and started using them against her effectively)...plus, she didn't have to work as hard at her new job. The 4th manager, for whom I had warm regards for because she was my supervisor during my first month there before I was promoted, was a horse of a different color. Literally.

I applied for the supervisor's job since I was the only one who knew how to do the job, inside and out. The Horse refused to interview me and put someone else in the seat who had ZERO experience instead. I was initially bothered by that, but I figured that maybe I didn't meet the qualification of being 4 years on the job. The new supervisor was devoutly Christian and he struggled mightily to reconcile what was going on - being told by the Horse and HJIC to do things that weren't helpful to me career-wise and he tried to buffer that by taking some of the heat himself. How did I know that? He told me. He couldn't handle it anymore after a year and became an appraiser.

I applied again for the seat and the Horse again refused to interview me and picked a guy who had been working for 3.5 years instead. I screamed "discrimination" and threatened go to HR and HJIC cut me off by saying the county government had this obscure rule about the so-called "short list rule" where if there were less than 5 people applying for the same job, the manager had the discretion of bypassing the interview process and picking someone. He even claimed that the guy had been here for 4 years and met the qualification. I e-mailed HR anyway and they confirmed the rule and HJIC went after me for that. I just sat there and pretended to listen while HJIC angrily spoke to me. He finally stopped talking and left.

I tried to reason with the Horse to no avail and I ended up saying, "So you want me to train (the Golden Boy) just like I did with (the Christian)?" The Horse actually said, "You didn't train (the Christian)." "Oh, really? How did (the Christian) learn how to do his job then?" She shrugged at that. I said, "Fine. Good luck with (the Golden Boy)." and walked out of her office without giving her a chance to respond.

I refused to help the Golden Boy learn how to do "his" job and he started to fall further and further behind on his job. He even started coming into work and start working 30 minutes before his shift would start and staying 30 minutes after his shift ended just to try to keep up. The Horse KNEW why he was failing miserably and she was being stubborn about it. The Golden Boy finally quit after 11 months. I applied again and guess what? No interview. Picked a woman who had zero experience and had been with the county just 4 years. 4 years and 2 months to be exact.

A co-worker approached me at my desk with my new supervisor right beside her and asked me if I would help my new supervisor because the Horse didn't know how to help. I said, "You already know that I can't help." The new supervisor nodded and went to her desk...and did something unexpected. She e-mailed me and told me she learned from the same co-worker about everything and all the crap I had endured. All this in a very understanding manner and she ended the e-mail with "I will understand if you still do not want to help me learn. I wouldn't help me either if I had to go through all of that too."

The same co-worker, who told the new supervisor everything, shortly after found herself in a very messy situation and started telling the Horse everything in hopes of extracting herself out of that. The new supervisor pulled me aside and let me know the co-worker was basically selling me (and others) out. I was hurt by that because the co-worker was my "work wife" and we had shared things with each other closely and intimately. I thanked her and I promptly fed the co-worker disinformation. When the Horse realized the pipeline into the drones' mentality had been compromised, she cut the co-worker off and refused to help her out of the messy situation. I refused to do anything for the co-worker as well. That almost destroyed the co-worker.

I ended up being friends with the new supervisor and the co-worker finally mended the fence with everyone at work (except the Horse). Not long after that, I got my dream job. I loved it and I flew so high at my new job that I soared. I had found my paradise.

If you thought job hunting was hard, try being a deaf person! (pt 1)

Editor's note: I apologize! I had planned on finishing the post yesterday but I was asked at last minute to open the center for a meeting and I just forgot. Also...since the post itself is so long, I had to break it into two parts. Sorry!

Other than communication issues (lipreading and/or speech comprehension), I'd like to share with you how easy it is for a smart, well-educated, and deaf man like me to find jobs.

I graduated from an university with Bachelor's degree in communications. The program I majored in is considered to be more advanced than most programs in other universities - you have to do a thesis and pass it in order to graduate. That doesn't happen until you get to Master's.

With a newly minted degree in hand, I went to job fairs for 2 years. Never missed one. Never got a call or a nibble from anyone at the job fairs. Just postcards/letters with the usual "We have your resume on file and we will contact you" bullshit. That practice has now been discontinued with so disgruntled applicants suing companies for whatever reasons. In fact, I haven't seen anything like this in almost 7 years now.

At one of the job fairs, I handed my resume to a woman at a booth for a local newspaper. She looked over it and seemed okay with it until she spoke to me. When she realized that I am deaf, she said "You do know that we use telephones at work? How could you handle that?" I explained to her that people could call a TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) operator and then they could talk to me as if the operator isn't there. She was shocked by that and I walked away with disgust and contempt clearly written on my face for her. I stopped going to job fairs after that.

About 3 years after graduation, someone at an advocacy company leaked to me about a job opening at a local county government center. I ran over to there and my typing skills impressed the woman who was doing the interviews. She was reluctant to hire me because I was so overqualified. I told her that I was willing to start on the bottom and if I have the skills to move up, surely I would be moved up. That did it for her - she hired me on the spot and I started working the following week.

The day after I started, the manager caught me in a hall that wasn't close to where I was and pulled me aside. She said, "What are you doing here?" and I *knew* exactly what she meant by that...she wasn't asking me why I was out there. I explained about doing the job fairs for 2 years without any result and how I had just gotten married (got married in 2000, almost one month before I started working), and I was desperate for anything. She pondered that for a second and said, "Thank you for your honesty." One month later, she put me at a desk that was in charge of records and I never left that desk for 6 years despite all kinds of discrimination I endured.

I can hear you go, "What kind of discrimination did you face?" Truth be told, the manager, who put me in that desk, never discriminated against me and refused to allow any sort of that to happen. She had 100% faith in my ability to do the job despite having to work with a supervisor who was so universally disliked by all that nobody wanted to work with her...let alone be willingly promoted to that desk.

Naturally, the supervisor got very angry with me during the first week at that desk. The manager was genuinely surprised by how calmly I took the supervisor's rants in stride. I didn't mind the supervisor so much. What got worse was when the manager abruptly retired (she refused to tell me why but it became obvious after...) and the HJIC (Head Jerk In Charge) put in a young woman who used the "rah-rah" style of management. That's exactly when everything went to hell.

The supervisor got even worse with me after the 1st manager retired...co-workers have told me they heard her scream at me, even when I was just a desk away. She would scream my name as I walked away to get something (per her request or job request). She hated how I would get up and go, even when I didn't stop to talk with others. Once she came down hard on me for a simple error of omission and that burned me. Guess what? She made a similar mistake the same day and I told her so. She promptly reported me to the Cheerleader. (Eye roll)

When my wife and I were expecting our first baby, the Cheerleader came to me and encouraged me to change from the old PTO (Personal Time Off) system to the new one "because it's easier for you to build up your vac time versus splitting up the sick time and the vac time...and you'd have to re-accrue the vac time all over again if you used them up." Sounded like a good idea, so I signed the paper.

After my daughter was born, I discovered that I lost all the sick time and the new PTO system caps the hours at 360 (the old system had no cap on sick time and the new one doesn't allow sick time). I spoke with the Cheerleader about that and she said I agreed to use up all the hours before the maternity leave time kicks in. That wasn't in the agreement I signed. Her response? "Oh, that was covered in the policy book." Bleep. You're probably thinking, "What about the maternity leave that was supposed to be guaranteed by law?" The paper I signed stated that I agreed to that. I hated her after that and she quit after being on the job for 6 months.

(Part two to be continued tomorrow)

Lightning rod for controversy

Last week, I posted about how outdated some concepts are in terms of creating a resume. While writing up that post, I had an "Eureka!" moment and decided to create another post about job hunting.

On February 4th, ABC News did a segment that flew under the radar for most of the hearing viewers unassociated with the deaf/hard of hearing community. Why? Two reasons: ABC News has been doing the "What would you do?" segments for a while and the shock value has worn off...and the other? That segment really didn't apply to them.

Please click on this link for ABC New's show, explaining in text what you are about to see.

Then click on the link for behind the scenes on YouTube, showing you how that particular segment is set up before the taping and the airing.

Link for the lightning rod on the segment itself, watch all the way to about 5 minute mark. Better captioning of the same show can be found here

I will post next week about my experiences in job hunts. I noticed that not a single person offered the two young women any job. I also asked at the end of last week's post if anyone would hire me...

Story series - trying to blend in anonymously, part one

Gillian, from A Daft Scots Lass blog, made a comment on my "That Was It?" post which helped inspire me to post another story. She said, "This story really made me smile. I love to hear of bullies getting what they deserve." and that stirred a memory from high school. I had three bullies at my high school and I remember them all clearly. That's why the title of this post is "trying to blend in anonymously, part one".

I had made a mistake of putting myself on an accelerated pace of Algebra in 8th grade (I was trying to compete with other students for "first place" that existed only in my mind) because I found myself in 9th grade Algebra where it was normal to have two or three sections assigned daily. Why was that a mistake? I didn't understand what was going on, let alone learn effectively...and to exacerbate the matter further, I felt like a fish out of the water.

Didn't help that I was the lone deaf student in that class. A student took advantage of that. Never forgot him...his last name was Nugent and he made a big deal out of that by wearing Ted Nugent shirts. Never was related to Ted...he couldn't possibly have since his actions were more on par with the Neanderthal than with the homo erectus or even homo sapien.

Each and every time the teacher turned around to write things down on the blackboard, Nugent would try to bother me. At first, it was easy to ignore him because he tried to talk to the back of my head. Hello...I can't hear you...and you're in this class? Wow.

He finally figured out that he had to touch me in order to get my attention and that fed his feeding frenzy. I could tell that he wasn't being friendly to me - laughing at me and looking at his friends for encouragement is a dead giveaway. I tried to pretend to stare blankly at him as he either mumbled at me or spoke rapidly on purpose. That didn't work. I tried to ignore his taps on my back. Didn't work. Even tried brushing off his "touches". Made him more motivated than before.

I had to report Nugent to the principal when the teacher didn't believe me on what was going on. Nugent claimed that he was trying to help me understand whenever he talked to me. He was only reprimanded and the teacher was ordered by the principal to move Nugent to the opposite side of the classroom. Remember, this was the 80's. No suspensions, no detention hall, nothing.

Nugent kept bothering me in the class. He learned from one of the students that waving arms was an effective way to get my attention from a distance. He would laugh and wave his arms at me. I was extremely frustrated and that made it inifinitely harder for me to learn. The problem went away only because I was struggling too much to learn anything and I was moved to Intermediate Algebra.

That, was the "lightest" instance I had involving the three bullies in high school. I never interacted with Nugent again after I was reassigned to Intermediate Algebra. My sister moved on to 9th grade the following year and I found out from her why Nugent had disappeared. He got in trouble with the authorities over drugs and his parents moved away to avoid the shame.

Next Wednesday, I will write about Bully #2. Be sure to come back next week!

Karma is a bitch and she has sisters...

I love that quote because you've heard phrases such as "Payback is a bitch", "Karma is a bitch", "Life is a bitch", etc. You can see how my favorite quote infers. ;)

This is in reference to a psycho I used to work for. I found out recently that a club has been forced to close the doors for a year due to a rapidly dwindling membership base and funds. I had served on that club with distinction as Vice President, President, and Vice President before the psycho came in and started maneuvering to get one of the cronies installed as V.P. at the election.

Several people told me they saw the psycho tell the V.P. candidate how to set up a voting bloc in order to win the position. I told them to not worry about it because clearly the psycho can't stand me and wanted me out. "Let them have the club", I said and walked away. Not even two years later, this happens.

The word got out about how the psycho had used job connections to get a lover a job in the same department. Not only that, the psycho is married. Huge conflict of interest. The psycho got demoted down from Program Director. I laughed when I heard that. Like I said...

Karma is a bitch and she has sisters.

Whew, now that the Silent Weekend retreat is over...part 2

Editor's note: please see the post below for part one if you haven't read that yet.

I woke up Saturday morning and it was still dark out. I went to check on my campers and I was tickled, really tickled to see my thieves had taken their mattresses down and placed them in front of the fireplace (the mandated spot for each cabin's mascot) and they slept on the floor to make sure nobody could get to our mascot. I looked over to the fireplace and was shocked to see our mascot wasn't alone.

My boys. My cabin. I felt that familiar surge of pride again.

I got my pager out and I took a picture. The older thief woke up from the flash and when he saw who I was, he grinned at me. I signed, "how many mascots?" and he signed "Four". I signed "Four? Proud you!" The original picture was way off-center so I took another picture. The older thief grinned and held his thumb up as I re-snapped the picture. The younger thief had accidentally covered up the other mascots while he slept - you can barely make out the blue dog peeking out from under. Take a look. LOL

You can see the hen now, just behind our mascot.

At the mandatory 7:45 am staff meeting, I found out that my campers had won the Dutch Auction game. That boosted my sense of pride for my campers, which is no easy feat.

After the meeting, I joined my campers at their table for breakfast and they told me other campers were grumbling about the two thieves being too good at the mascot game. Then the staffer in charge came over and told my campers to give back the mascots. They protested that they had followed the rules cleanly this time. They looked at me and I nodded my head slightly; they promptly turned the mascots over to her.

After she left with the 4 mascots, the younger one signed to me, "Why punish us? We follow rules!" I leaned in and signed, "(it's) Okay, you punish because you too good". They laughed at that and calmed down. I was curious about how they managed to steal 4 mascots after the cabins had learned how sneaky they were and were undoubtedly on high alert.

Me: "How four?"
Older thief: "We went their cabins, take"
Me: "Time?"
Younger thief: "3 morning"
Me: "Wow"

Then it was time for the outdoor games. Friday night had dipped into the 30's and the sun was warming the field up to the high 40's when we streamed out of the mess hall. We headed out to play a regular Silent Weekend game and a favorite of mine, "Clusters". It's a great game that anyone can play.

Here's how it works - someone holds up a number and the participants must "cluster" themselves into a group of people matching the sign. If the sign comes up as "6", each group must have 6 people in it. The "refs" rush in and count the members of each group to ensure accuracy. The others who couldn't find enough members are out of the game. Then everyone breaks apart and mingles...waiting for the next number. The last two remaining in the game are the winners. The last two left in the game that morning were each given a clue to share with their cabins.

After playing a relay game (each camper had to "read" what was fingerspelled and either fingerspell or sign it) and "Guess Who?" (each camper had to guess the identity on a card taped to their backs, using "yes/no" questions), we went back for lunch. My co-counselor informed me that he managed to get another clue. My mental computation told me that any other cabin had, at best, 2 clues while ours had 4.

After lunch, I left to lead a workshop for the beginners. I decided on the "7 W's of ASL" (who, what, where, when, why, which, & how) as the building block approach, supplemented with time reference (yesterday, tomorrow, day, week, month, etc.), emotions, and gender line for sex-specific signs (mother, father, boy, girl, etc.).

When I wrapped the workshop up 1.5 hours later, the participants were able to follow everything so much better and they felt good about that. Some came over and praised me for that. Even the staffers who attended were impressed by my style of teaching. I had gotten everyone involved, even the staffers and counselors. This was officially my first time leading a workshop. Two years ago, a presentator got sick and I took over at the last minute.

Then it was craft time, where the campers were allowed to unwind and get creative. That always recharges the batteries. Then the announcement came - each cabin must use the line "Guess What?" and use the gloves as prop in their skit. What skit, you may be thinking? Every year, each cabin comes up with a skit involving signing, deaf culture, and any relevant aspect of the deaf world and we all compete for the best skit. It's one of the best things about the whole weekend...and the most stressful!

I herded my campers back to our cabin to brainstorm for our skit. I came up with a great ending line...the problem was we had nothing to build around that. We had 1.5 hours to brainstorm before dinner and then 2 hours before we had to go to the rec hall and perform our skit.

Nothing. NOTHING. We went back and forth. We came up with three different ideas, but none of them were interchangeable with each other. Nobody could agree on a single idea. Suddenly, it was time for dinner. I signed to the campers, "Eat fast, come here. 5 minutes eat. Go". After I scarfed down my meal, I biked back and laid myself down to rest my brain.

The co-counselor woke me up few minutes later and after deliberating for 15 minutes, we eliminated one idea. We ultimately decided that the idea of murder was not doable and focused on the idea of a bad dream. This happened 50 minutes BEFORE everyone had to go to the rec hall. Argh!

The younger thief had a talent for performance and was the logical choice as "the kid" in the skit...but...he had never seen the movie we based the skit on and had no idea exactly how the line worked or the impact of the line. He was only 7 at the time the movie came out. After struggling through the explanation for 4th time, someone suggested that I be the kid. Before I could protest, every camper jumped in and unanimously agreed on that.

Sighs. Okay. We rehearsed everything at the speed of light. Well, we had to - only 30 minutes to get it all down before going. I reminded everyone to not worry about flubbing their lines...the audience does not know what we are doing and would not know if someone messed up. We rushed off for the rec hall 5 minutes until 8 pm.

The skit took place on Planet Eyeth (as opposed to EARth, where most of us are deaf and we sign everywhere). At the beginning of the skit, I was ordered to bed by my "parents". As I dreamt, I "woke up" in the dream and I tried to sign to my uncle and aunt but they were wearing gloves so they no longer spoke sign language and were "speaking" like Earthlings.

I panicked and ran to my sisters doing pedicures on each other. They had gloves on and "spoke" to me, not understanding what I was signing to them. I freaked out when I saw my brother speaking on a phone with gloves on. Why is he using a phone if he is deaf?!? I saw my parents and tried to sign frantically to them. They did not understand and thought I was flailing my hands around. I saw they had gloves on. (I ran to my bed to wake up from the dream) As I woke up, I cried for my parents and they rushed in.

Mother signed "What's wrong?" I pulled my blanket up and around my head and I signed "I see...hearing people". (That's when the audience roared with laughter as they realized we had done the deaf version of "The Sixth Sense"). Mother signed "Guess what" and I signed "What?" and she signed "Hearing people not real." I sighed with relief and signed "Whew, bad dream".

Judges traditionally razz each skit. I loved what they said about our skit.

After every skit was performed, we had the option of going to a bonfire or the mess hall or cabins because we all were done for Saturday. I hung out at the bonfire for a while before checking in on the mess hall prior to going to bed.

Around 5 am Sunday, I was awakened with a sudden cramp in my right calf. I got out to stand on my foot to unkink it...and saw something dart across my room. I crept out or my room, looked around, and caught someone trying to steal our mascot. Whew! I checked around the cabin and boom, caught another one lurking in the shadows. He was obviously the back-up. Perfect timing to have a cramp. LOL

At the mandatory staff meeting, the counselors all agreed that my skit was the best and funniest. After discussing the candidates for awards, we joined the campers for breakfast while the judges deliberated everything.

We all went to the rec hall for the last time. The staffers let the campers know that they were once again allowed to use their voices. Then the awards were given out. My cabin won The Devil (the older thief), The Clown (the younger thief), The Biggest Sweetheart, and The Balancing Act.

Sadly, the judges did not think our skit was the best and I was told there was a collective gasp when another cabin won instead. At least we won their minds and hearts. ;)

Whew, now that the Silent Weekend retreat is over...

Some of us met up at a restaurant near the retreat so we all could just hang out for the last time. The retreat each year keeps us so busy that we really don't get to do much together. That's okay - what we gain each year is the new memories and the bonds developed.

The theme this year was murder mystery, done in the style of the board game Clue. Sounds like fun, right? It sure was!

Knowing how massive the locale is, I brought my bike (third year in a row now) and so did another counselor. A third one had his bike on his mind but he forgot and wasn't happy about it. Despite the weekend forecast in the 30's overnight, we used our bikes all over the place. A few campers were very curious about my Trek 7300 bike and asked to use it. Of course, they had to ask me for permission...in sign language. ;)

After getting everything set up and decorated, everyone gathered in the mess hall to kick the weekend off. The staffer in charge explained, through voicing and signing, what the theme was and how it would go down. Each cabin would get a clue to get started on the game and everyone had to work for extra clues to help solve the mystery.

The winning cabin with the most points scored in the Dutch Auction game at the rec hall (after dinner) would get a clue. Admittedly, I had never heard of Dutch Auction and I had to listen to the rules. You had to put things in a bag that you thought would be called out by the emcee and you'd get points for that. Sorta like a reverse scavenger hunt, where you don't KNOW what you'd need in order to win.

Then with an added twist, the staffer said few minutes before she had secretly placed a mascot in each cabin (not related to the theme) and the cabins were charged with protecting their mascots from abduction at all times. This had never happened before. New territory. Hm.

I headed back to my cabin with the co-counselor so we could change into our characters for the night's main event where we would interact with the campers. Right as I was aboout to finish dressing up, the co-counselor left our room to wash up. He rushed back in and excitedly told me to, "come look now".

I followed him into the center of the cabin and I was amazed to discover that two male campers of my cabin had stolen ALL of the other cabins' mascots (see pic below; our mascot is the tan dog). I felt my chest swell up with pride when I realized that I would've liked to have thought of this first. These two campers had illegally abducted the mascots - they were supposed to wait until after the main event. I knew I would get heat for what they did...and I didn't mind that. Not one bit at all.

Faces blacked out to protect the guilty ones ;)

Not seen clearly is the fabric hen, between large blue

dog & pink pig - which will be visible in the next post

The other members came in and saw what had occurred. They loved it...suddenly we had that instant bonding. The younger thief signed to me, "What if mascots on list? We can 8x points!" Irrefutable logic. I signed back, "Me fine, put mascots in my sleeping bag...mine biggest." Let me explain the weird wording when we speak in sign language...we are signing and there is no need to sign each and every word since we mentally "fill in the blanks".

We went to the rec hall and one counselor approached me in an agitated manner, "Mascot gone! Don't know what mascot look like!" and another chimed in with "My mascot gone too!". I feigned my surprise at that. Hehe. When other campers and counselors saw the looted mascots on display, some of them went after me. After some accusations and arguing, I shrugged at them and signed, "Wish I thought that. "

The counselors went to the lead staffer to protest and she signed, "Sorry, game starts now." Ohh, I could feel the heat/glare from the counselors. I stuck to my guns...hey, I was (and still am) proud of those sneaky buggers! LOL

The first item called out was a toothbrush, which every cabin easily produced. The emcee signed, "Toothbrush, one point. RED toothbrush, two points". I knew I'd like the game and I stayed in the background so the campers would be more involved. The emcee was funny and creative with his "calls".

At one point, he signed "10 points, any 'I Love You' sign or symbol" and I watched my campers search frantically in vain for anything that resembled the famous "ILY" icon. As time dwindled down on that item, I suddenly remembered something. I rushed out to the emcee and I showed him my ILY tattoo. He signed, "Real tattoo? Not pen?" and I signed "Yes, real" and I showed him my other tattoo. He was so impressed by that he gave my cabin 20 points. A counselor saw what I did and ran over to show him her tattoo of a cartoonish hand in the "ILY" pose, holding a heart (on the right side of her lower back). He promptly rewarded her 25 points. LOL

Then...the emcee signed "5 points, cabin mascot". I grinned at that call and looked at the thieves. They looked at me with a mischievious look in their eyes. Other cabins protested "loudly" and the emcee signed, "30 seconds left!" Instant stampede to our spot for the looted mascots. Bedlam. Chaos. I saw both thieves were refusing to give up their preferred mascot, feeding the frenzy. I ordered both to give theirs up in order to restore the peace.

Then the game ended and the scores were tallied up secretly to determine the winning cabin to reward another clue. Meanwhile, the counselors were ordered to take their posts at their assigned tables and play games like blackjack (campers had to sign numbers), mirror relay (fingerspell a word back to a counselor), tactile fingerspell (campers had to put their hands inside a box and "feel" a counselor spell a word), etc.

That...was...just...Friday. LOL I'll publish part two (about Saturday and Sunday) tomorrow. :)

Formspring Q & A #9

Q: Sorry if this seems personal, but I am curious. What is sex like with hearing and deaf partners? I'm assuming that you've experienced both.

A: I don't think that is too personal. In fact, I get asked that sometimes when I agree to be on the hot seat for students in sign language classes who are either studying to be sign language interpreters or just interested in deaf culture.

You're right - I've had experience with both deaf and hearing women and I know that this is day and night when it comes down to that. The differences? Communication style changes (you can use your voice with hearing partners and you can't with deaf partners), senses (not having one sense can enhance the other senses, it's true), cultural differences (think of this as having different religions, beliefs, or race), and the "worship" factor.

Let me explain the "worship" factor. Think of your celebrity that you have a major crush on. You'd do anything for that celeb so you can have your experience. Not quite the same here, but...you have someone who wants to be with you just because you are deaf or hearing. Some deaf people do WANT to be with a hearing person for selfish reasons (having a "built-in" interpreter is the most common reason) and hearing people want to be with a deaf person for selfish reasons too (most common is to accelerate the learning process). I made sure that I wasn't with each woman for selfish reasons; I couldn't say I made sure each didn't choose me for selfish reasons - I don't have their brains. ;)

I know there's the inevitable question that begs to be asked - which is better, deaf or hearing? - and I do not have a preference. You could argue that I've been with hearing women more often than deaf women...but that's because the circumstances were right more often with the hearing women. That's my respectful answer.

Formspring Q & A #5

This is just too funny...a blogger friend asked me this on the last Friday of May and I got this last Tuesday...

Q: What is your opinion on cochlear implants and the impact it has on the deaf community?

A: Some of you are not aware of the firestorm the cochlear implant (CI) has on the deaf community. I'll educate you briefly (you can find more on Google) on why that is controversial. The deaf community is strongly opposed to CI for two reasons - "genocide" of the deaf culture and the age of the CI recipients.

Many deaf people feel that by allowing CIs in the kids, these kids would grow up and not embrace the deaf culture anymore. That does happen and their fears are justified, I'll grant you that...but on the flip side, I have seen children of deaf adults (who have not received CI) either embrace or disdain the deaf culture, regardless of their hearing ability.

As for the age of the CI recipients, that is even a bigger controversy. How so? Imagine that you are 21 years old...some government agent or doctor tells you that you must give up your love for sports and allow the doctors to scoop out some bone from your skull, compromising the skull integrity. You must wear some bionic modification and you must maintain it at all times. You do not have a say in this. You would not like that, right?

Now, imagine that you are a baby and you lost your hearing. Having CI will restore that, but at a price - you lose your skull integrity and some residual hearing when the doctors cut through the nerves to implant the CI. What if...you grow up and you want to play baseball? No, you can't because there's a risk of a line drive to your head. Football? Nope. Lacrosse? Nope. Any sport? Bowling, sure...darts, sure...anything NOT remotely possible of injury to the head and that's not much else you can do. Sorry.

I am NOT going to debate whether or not the parents have the right to do this to their kids or even the moral/ethical obligations. That would be a LONG and protracted post. I'll leave that to professionals, educators, doctors, and deaf advocates to slug it out.

My opinion on CI is this...if you want one, go for it. What about those who cannot make informed decisions? I always hesitate to answer, but I would allow them to receive CI if I feel that this would not be a problem for them later on. I suspect that my older daughter would want to remain active in sports and I think my younger may like to play sports. If that is the case, then I would not allow them to receive CI. My girls are old enough to understand, but not enough to decide on their own. I would listen to them first though.

The other downside of being a person with CI is being shunned for having CI. I won't ostracize those people like some other deaf people do. I have known a few deaf people who got CI and some of them do benefit from having CI. They are VERY happy with having CI. However, few others have stopped using the CI completely because they didn't like it anymore. They cannot undo what was done to them in order to have CI. See what I mean?

There will ALWAYS be controversy when it comes to "helping" the deaf people. If a scientist discovers a way to permanently fix the hearing loss without any surgical modification (think "Star Trek")...do you think the deaf people would embrace that? Nope.