"You'll shoot your eye out!"

The title comes from an iconic line uttered over and over to Ralphie's dismay in his indefatigable quest to acquire a Red Ryder BB gun in "A Christmas Story". The image of Ralphie was featured in one of Jewels' posts (in her now-defunct blog) last July, in which she talked about a time when a BB gun was used to playfully terrorize other people. It brought out a memory that I had forgotten about until now.

I was about 22 at the time when this happened. A bunch of us (all deaf) decided to go camping while it was cold out and we wanted to rough it. We agreed that we would use tents, digging tools, camping utensils, lanterns, non-perishable food, and matches. I thought it would be fun to bring along my pump-action BB gun.

Talk about being young and stupid.

After setting up the tents and a communal fire pit, we all went off in different directions to gather up the wood for the fire pit. One of us found a huge trunk and we recognized it as the perfect bench for us to huddle around the fire. It took all 4 of us just to move it. We could not carry it, despite us being young and full of spunk. LOL

After we got settled in, a friend asked me if he could borrow my BB gun. I gave the approval after telling him to go into the forest, keeping the gun away from us. The rest of us gathered around the fire for companionship and warmth.

We chatted for a long while and once in a while, something from the fire pit would suddenly jump out at us. We thought it was strange how the fire kept showering us with sparks. We kept moving further and further back from the fire until we were keeping the coldness out with our backs while barely keeping the warmth in with our fronts.

As the sun started to sink into the horizon, I got up to stoke the fire some more and I noticed something strange on one of the logs. The log seemed to have a strange round yellow spot on it. The spot seemed familiar, so I looked closer and...

Huh? BB pellet? What was it doing on a log? I shared my discovery with my friends and they were at first puzzled by that. We examined the other logs and found more BB pellets imbedded in them. That's when I cracked the mystery.

Have you figured it out yet?

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Our friend had climbed up a tree and shot a whole bunch of BB pellets into the fire. I chewed his ass out about that because we could have been seriously injured by a richocet or a flying spark. What if one of us got shot in the eye? He wasn't fazed by any of that, despite my anger and the rest of us jumping on him for his flagrant disregard for our health.

He was gone for over an hour and he said he had been shooting at the fire for about 20 minutes. He thought it was funny how we couldn't figure out why the fire kept shooting sparks at us. Made it easier for him to keep shooting since we were all deaf. He refused to apologize. What a jerk.

Never went camping with him again and I never brought my BB gun along again.

ADSL's questions, pt 3

"Is there such a thing as a singles bar for sign languagers? If so, have you ever been to one and whats it like? Is everyone signing all over the place?"


Cute questions, indeed. :) What we like to do in order to have our own version of a singles' bar is we take over a section of a bar and chat away. The en masse of flying hands can be intimidating to waitresses and bar patrons.

There are three reasons for having our own singles' bar: 1) for deaf people to socialize, 2) for interpreting students (they're called that because they are studying sign language in hopes of becoming an interpreter) to help enhance their signing/comprehension skills, and 3) looking to get lucky.

Yes, I have been to one - that's how my wife and I started dating. ;)

ADSL's questions, pt 1

A Daft Scots Lass left a comment in one of my posts last week, asking the following questions:

"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."

"Is there such a thing as a singles bar for sign languagers? If so, have you ever been to one and whats it like? Is everyone signing all over the place?"

"Do you prefer to sign with a fellow deaf person or do you prefer to lip read?"

"Whats your most favourite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?"

"Whats your most challenging part of being a daddy?"

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Since ADSL's first two questions contain sub-questions, I'll answer them in "ADSL's questions, pt 2" (and pt 3) later on in the immediate future, I will answer question #3 which is "Do you prefer to sign with a fellow deaf person or do you prefer to lip read?"

Having attended my deaf school's reunion Saturday night, I got to experience both (signing with deaf people and lipreading each other) at once in one sitting. My deaf school emphasized strongly on oral education - signing was forbidden in the classrooms. We had to learn how to lipread the teachers. When we were done with our deaf school, we were ready for the world without ever acquiring any signing skill.

I had not seen some of my classmates for 30 years and it was rather disconcerting to me when I talked with some of them and seeing their eyes go blank when I tried to use sign language to help with the communication. One classmate was barely able to comprehend fingerspelling...and nothing else other than a sign here and there. Two of my classmates started conversing with each other, without any signing - just lipreading and gesturing.

I got bored with them after few minutes and I sought out others who could sign. I know it sounded bad...as if I was being a jerk or selfish. They were talking about NASCAR and driving/racing tactics. I have nothing against that, just not my cup of tea. I simply used that as my excuse to leave.

So it's obvious that I'd rather sign with a fellow deaf person than to lipread. Out of the 21 students in my graduating class, 14 attended the reunion (including me). Maybe half of that are at least competent in sign language communication. 30 years since graduation and only one could communicate with me in sign language fluently.

Story series - how we stayed together

Driving tactics as a deaf driver traveling with other deaf drivers in the pre-pager days are unique. Even in the age of smartphones, deaf drivers like me still use the same unusual tactics.

Hearing drivers could easily work out the agreed-upon horn signal (beep, beeeeeep, beep-beep is my horn signal LOL) and you'd know it's that person when that person uses the correct horn response.

In the old days during daytime, deaf drivers kept track of each other through herding, visual, and memory tricks. The herding tactic is self-explanatory...we stayed together as best whenever we could. The visual part is easy because we simply looked for cars that were of specific make & model. The memory part? License plates and any distinguishing mark on the car - dents and peeling paint stand out more in our minds than leaves or anything nature-made.

Now, what about nighttime? Forget about all of the tactics as described above. You can't see ANYTHING past the headlights, even in the mirror or when you eyeball the driver while the headlights are in your eyes despite what the movies show you. I always chuckle when a driver in the movie is able to make out who the driver is while that driver is behind the first driver. I have never ever been able to see anything beyond the headlights. Can't see the driver even if the interior lights were on.

I thought of using this standard feature found in cars as a way of saying "Yes, that's me behind/in front of you". I was proud of coming up with that until others said, "we have been using that too." ;) The standard feature is something you would never think of using because you normally use that for emergency situations.

Yes, the hazard lights.

It's an excellent way to "communicate" and it is far less intrusive than flashing high beams at other drivers. Flashing high beams can confuse other drivers who aren't your intended targets anyway. Plus, there is no way you can signal a driver behind you. Hence, the hazard lights.

Because it's easy to lose each other in the cacophony of headlights at nighttime, we need a way of confirming each other. So, when you see someone randomly use hazard lights and you see someone else respond...

Off to do something that I love to do every year...

I volunteer every year as a counselor for a retreat. Normally that's nothing special about that, but the retreat is very unusual. It is for people who want to improve their sign language skills and my job is to help enhance that while at the same time, bring deaf culture to them.

Nobody at the retreat is ALLOWED to use their voicebox to communicate. The penalty is wearing a massive and colorfully loud bib with a dangling pacifier and a helium-filled balloon (so we can spot who has that when the next person gets busted for speaking).

I have previously mentioned that I am deaf and fluent in sign language. That is the unique set of skills I will be bringing to the retreat. There will be 8 lead counselors (I'm one of them), about 10 co-lead counselors, and about 8 hearing staffers who are sign language interpreters. We will be handling about 70 participants, maybe more. The participants will range from beginners to advanced.

The retreat will start Friday night with a gathering in the mess hall for dinner and end in the gym Sunday noon. I have to be there by 2 pm to help set everything up and help take everything down after the participants leave. 40+ hours of work nonstop, but pure fun and rewarding. I get to bond with the lucky ones who sign up for my cabin. Nobody is allowed to know which cabin will have who as their lead and co-lead counselors.

The biggest challenge every year is the skit. We always say to the participants "This is for fun", but we all secretly hope to be the one who wins this year. My cabin (out of 8 total) has won twice in 8 years (2006 and 2009). Not bad at all. Let's see if my cabin can win two years in a row. ;)

Maybe I will tell you the storyline of both skits that won. In separate posts, of course. LOL I will try to remember to post about this year's retreat Sunday and publish on Monday. If I miss that, just come back Tuesday.

Recipes and permanent memories

First of all, I want to address a request made by Anjeny. She asked me for a recipe on the cupcakes that my wife made for our 10th anniversary party. She got them from Allrecipes.com (a very well-versed site).

Cupcakes:
Chocolate fudge cupcakes
Red velvet cupcakes
Vanilla cupcakes - same recipe as red velvet cupcakes, minus the food coloring.

Frostings:
Cream cheese frosting
Peanut butter frosting
Mint buttercup frosting with dark chocolate glaze - mint chocolate frosting, as everyone called it, was really weak at the beginning. I had my wife add more mint to it and we got it just right. As always, taste before serving for best results. ;)

I did have an anniversary present to give to my wife (as did she), but unforseen circumstances prevented that for both of us. Last Friday, I went with my wife to "exchange" the gifts...at a tattoo parlor. LOL She has always wanted to add three more tattooes to her two and I granted her that desire.

She kept thinking I'd back out of getting inked for real. I wasn't really into the idea of getting inked because I always had that "what if" scenarios running through my mind. What if I don't like how it looks? What if I develop an allergic reaction to ink? What if, what if, what if... Ah, forget it - life is short!

For those who know me, the designs of my tattooes reflect me. Sorry if you were expecting flashy or crazy designs. ;)

Here's my first tattoo...

To explain what "that" is...this is the sign for "I love you" in finger sticks. My wife got the mirrored image on her left shoulder because of how we sleep in the bed - my right shoulder touches her left shoulder. Sweet, huh? ;)

Here's the actual sign (not my hand) below.

...and here's my second tattoo.

The letters are Greek, saying "Kappa Phi Theta". Before you jump in to say "You got that wrong, it is supposed to say 'Phi Theta Kappa' which is a honors society for community college students", I belong to a now-defunct fraternity called Kappa Phi Theta. My wife is a member of Phi Theta Kappa. Trust me, I know the difference. ;)

The woman who did the tattoo work was fascinated with me and she kept asking us all kinds of questions. We both answered everything and threw in some random information like how long we have been married, kids, blah blah. Even other artists listened in on us and asked us few things.

As for my inking experience, it hurt a little bit but it was really nothing to me. Felt weird, as if the skin was being pulled instead of the "skipping across" sensation. Had slight burning sensation but I recovered right away and I am not feeling any pain now.

What did you think of my tattooes? Simple, I know...but fits me perfectly. ;)

Formspring Q & A #11

This didn't come from Formspring...rather, the question was posted as a comment in my Formspring Q & A #8 post. In that post, I was asked "When did you learn how to sign?" and I answered with "When I was 25 years old."

This prompted Shelle BlokThoughts to ask "Why did you start to learn? Especially after all that time?"

Here's my short answer - I didn't want to learn until then.

Here's my medium answer - I didn't want to take the easy way out and thought I was doing fine as is.

Here's my long answer - I went to a school for the deaf where emphasis was placed on oral communication (meaning speech and lipreading) instead of using sign language or total communication (combining both oral and signing).

Here's my long, long answer - Because I learned in that environment, I developed a bias for those who eschewed oral communication for either sign language or total communication. I thought that they were taking the easy way out to communicate with other people. I even thought that using sign language harmed their ability to communicate clearly in English. I had met a few who couldn't speak at all and/or lipread and their grasp of English was...atrocious. They didn't attend the same school, hence my ignorance.

So...why did I learn at all? I, at first, viewed this as a challenge to learn a new language - I even thought learning it would be a snap because I discovered that I have an ability to mimic what I see perfectly. I learned that ASL (American Sign Language) is in fact a whole language that comes with its own syntax and grammar...just like Chinese, Spanish, German, etc. I was even surprised to discover a whole different set of customs and culture within ASL. I didn't learn everything within a year...I am still learning and I am loving it.

When I visited my uncle for the first time in more than a decade, he was surprised to see that I had learned sign language. The last time I visited, I had been using sign language only few years and there was nobody around who knew how to communicate in sign language, so I had no reason to tell him that. My uncle was mesmerized by how I could silently communicate every word, thought, and emotion to my wife and all of that would come out of her mouth as she translated ("interpreted" is the better word) for me. He understood my speech clearly enough, but he was just utterly fascinated with this. ;)

What did I take away from all of this? I learned a lot about myself, picked up a bunch of great friends, and gained a wife. ;)

Formspring Q & A #10

Q: How did you meet your wife?

A: This is easily one of my favorite anecdotes to share with people. Thanks for asking, really. Here it is...

People kept asking me where they should go to meet their potential mates. I get asked for advice on many things and I get why - they know I have the answers or I'll say something that makes perfect sense to them. I always tell them to never go to the bars because the people they meet there are under influence and are not necessarily who they are when sober. I've seen way too many relationships fail on that merit alone.

So...where did I meet my wife? At a bar, no less. LOL You need to know this about me...I do not drink and I refuse to drink on the account of my father. So, why was I at a bar? That's where deaf people hang out to socialize (it's a deaf culture thing) and where interpreting students go to help hone their skills by interacting with deaf people. I really never liked going to bars - the people you know aren't the people you know later on.

I had met her earlier when a friend of mine introduced her to me as his girlfriend so I put her out of my mind. When I went to the bar few weeks later, I found out she was single again so I asked around and found out that she is hearing and was studying to be an interpreter. That meant I could go over to talk to her and communicate easily with her. I was just interested in her mind and her personality...to see if she was really someone I could talk to. Guess what?

Yep, we hit it off right away and when I found out where she lived, I invited her to watch me play in a dart league at a bar 10 minutes from her home. The opposing team never showed up and we talked.

And talked.

And talked.

Until the bar kicked us out. We went to her house (I lived almost an hour away) and talked some more. I finally left at 7:30 am. Now you know why I love to tell this story. The moral? Despite my rousing success (going to celebrate 10 year wedding anniversary soon), I still say "don't meet people at bars". ;)

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.