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

That's Life!

You know how, as a parent, things get screwed up schedule-wise in terms of getting everyone ready for school and work? Today was one of those days.

The girls had taken way too long to "get going" - eating, showering, and dressing. In my haste to help speed things up, I wasn't paying ENOUGH attention.

I grabbed some socks, panties, a T-shirt, and some overalls with Harry Potter's Hedwig on it for my younger daughter. Dropped them in front of her and said, "Get dressed now." I left to tend to my older daughter in the kitchen.

Three minutes later, she came into the kitchen and totally surprised me with how she handled my request. Here is what I saw.


The legs were way too long fer her and she improvised. All on her own.

Made my day. :)

Poll results

That's the result of a poll I put to the visitors. Interestingly, nobody went for the final option because I considered that to be open-ended and allowed others to express their opinion that wasn't listed. Also, it was interesting to me that so few of you (2) were interested in my experiences as being a deaf person with Story Series/Anything funny (3 each) and Memories (4) close behind.

I will keep varying the nature and topic of my posts (yes, I will still post "Say What?" on a recurring basis). Thank you very much for taking your time to answer my poll...I appreciate that! My curiousity has been sated, for now. ;)

Story series - trying to blend in anonymously, part three

Bully #3 came into my awareness in my junior year at the beginning of winter. I was trying to cut across a snow-covered baseball field since the campus is large and I was already running late for a class.

This guy saw me trying the shortcut and ran over to talk to me about something. I didn't understand him and I tried to be polite with him by using the usual "I don't understand you. I am deaf" tactic.

He kept talking to me and he was using his mouth in such a way that was not conductive to lipreading; barely moving the lips and speaking too rapidly. I tried again but that didn't seem to get through to him. I shrugged and turned to leave. I happened to look back and I saw him bend down to scoop up some snow.

I ducked before he could hit me with the snowball and I laughed at his clumsy effort as I walked away. I thought I wouldn't see him again since I had never seen him before. Not so. The next day in a hallway, someone leaned into my peripheral vision and did the mocking mouth movement. When I slowed down to look at that person, I recognized him from yesterday and I realized that I had never noticed him.

Each and every time he saw me, he would mock me. I was already well-known at the school, despite its size with 2,000 students and I hated that because it meant that I had to endure the looks and the whispers (like I can hear them!) as I walked by. My self-confidence was nowhere to be found so I really hated being "outed" like that and that guy was doing that every time he saw me.

He never touched me. He never waved his arms. Never did anything to me except let his friends KNOW who I am. Every dang time. Then...a new semester came around...

That meant new classes. Wouldn't you know it? He happened to be in the same physical education class with me. I had always looked forward to P.E. every semester because I got to play sports and I got to show everyone that being deaf didn't necessarily mean you'd be terrible at sports and I loved knowing that I wouldn't be the last one picked for teams. Loved that...and there he was.

I had this friend who sat next or near me in alphabetical order. Never forgot his name. He was already a stud - he was a drummer and he worked hard on his body and his long flowing hair so he would look hot. Rock music was the rage in the 80's...and he saw this guy mocking me in P.E.

In a flash, he stood up and walked over to him and said "Stop! Don't do that anymore!" and came back to his position and resumed his conversation with me.

Just like that.

The guy was left speechless, and so was I. Never had anyone stand up for me like that. Especially not the guy who could have any girl he wanted without having to work for it.

I was never ever bothered by anyone after that. Coupled with the fact that my sister had finally become one of the most popular girls in her sophomore year (remember, she was one year behind me), nobody wanted to mess with the hot drummer's friend or the popular girl's deaf brother.

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!

Who needs sound to know what's going on around you...?

Emmy (of her fabulously philosophical "Right Turn Without Signaling" blog) left a comment on my post about stopping my mother dead in her tracks - "As my daughter's teacher always reminds parents who are baffled by the fact she's deaf but missing nothing, there are a lot of things that happen where you don't need sound to know it is happening. This is a great example of this."

Emmy, as I said in my response to your comment, you are absolutely right. However, the depth and the scope of how we miss nothing hasn't been explained...until now.

While I was standing around after getting my tattoos, the artist was trying to find something and I knew exactly what she was looking for. I got a piece of paper that was taped to the chair and handed it to her. She was surprised because that was exactly what she was looking for and she didn't say a word to anyone.

How did I know? First of all, she turned the chair around. The paper came into my view and it was a drawing of a tattoo that my wife wanted on her body. Then the artist rearranged her tools and accessories. After watching her be satisfied with her arrangement, I saw how her head came up and her eyes rested on the spot where the paper had suddenly "disappeared". She started looking around for it.

Easy as putting two and two together. There are other moments that have astounded even my wife who has witnessed my observation powers. Such as?, you ask (as I knew you would LOL).

Recently, my family and I went to our older daughter's school for "Trunk r Treat" where people would give out candy from their vehicles. After making our round, we went inside the cafeteria. I noticed some art, all using the same artwork. Ahh, coloring contest! My wife explained to me that each row represented each grade and each held the finalists. She pointed one out to me - it was our daughter's.

Of course, my heart swelled with pride and I thought she did a very good job compared to the rest in her grade. I tried my best to be objective and I looked over very carefully each art in her grade. 8 total out of over 70 students. 4 were marginally good or worse. I thought hers was either best or second best. I looked over all other finalists' art.

Then we all sat down to mingle with everyone else. Not long after, I saw a woman pull a single artwork off each row and then stand in front of the crowd. I realized that the woman had picked winners...and my daughter's artwork was still on the row. I was disappointed by that. My wife waved at me to get my attention and told me they're ready to announce the winners.

I told my wife "That woman already has picked winners and our daughter didn't win. Shh, don't tell her." My wife looked at me like I had no idea what I was talking about. The woman started announcing the winners by each grade. My wife asked me how I could possibly know that. Just as I finished explaining my observations, the woman announced the winner for my daughter's grade and my daughter did the "Oh man I didn't win!" face.

At least she was a good sport about that. I was proud of her for that and I told her so after we left.

Story series - Blood blister'd hand

Editor's note - I thought I had this scheduled to publish. My apologies to those who were expecting my regular post.

I was rather a wild child growing up. That's how people saw me. Why was I wild? I just didn't understand the societal expectations placed on me and the norms I was supposed to follow. Nobody had ever taught me...I figured almost all of that on my own. Bear that in mind when I tell this story of the blood blister'd hand.

Sometime in the day somewhere far away from the house, I had this undefined feeling deep down in my belly that I was in trouble. Didn't know what or why. Just knew. I never liked coming home and get spanked for what, to my underdeveloped mind, was no reason at all. Never liked having my parents administer corporal punishment to me and then say to me, "You know what you did!" No explanation. How was I supposed to know what I did when I didn't understand the expectations and the norms?

I decided that I would protect my butt from the inevitable sting of a parent's hand, but how? My young mind deduced that the rocks, when I'd fall on them, hurt A LOT...so, the rocks would hurt the hand that "fell" on them. Perfect. I gathered up a whole bunch of small rocks and stuffed them into my back pockets. Then I got up and went home.

Sure enough, my mother came to the door upon hearing my entrance into the house. She grabbed my arm before I could say anything and spun me around so she could swing her hand down to spank me. Thud. Not "thwack!" I felt the rocks push into me and that hurt a little. Surprised me...how the rocks hurt me...but I was more surprised by my mother's reaction to my "butt protection".

She howled in pain and held her wrist as she tried to shake the pain off. Perfect, my idea worked. She ran into the kitchen to soak her injured hand in cold water to help relieve the pain.

She never spanked me again. That was my entire recollection of this episode. When I told her about how I remembered this moment while discussing the demerits of corporal punishment few years ago, she told me something else had happened that day. The rocks were pointy enough and she had hit the rocks hard enough that she developed blood blisters on her hand. She confessed that she was too scared to spank me since then.

My idea worked too perfectly. I felt bad about that, but we all are able to laugh about it now.

Story series - Got busted on a plane!

Editor's note - the Story series will be published on Wednesdays unless that is too close to the date of a holiday.

Because I was attending a college with excellent resources for deaf students 800 miles away, I fly often. I have been flying since I was just few months old in my mother's womb, so I knew the whole drill.

Buy a ticket, find the correct gate, introduce yourself to the personnel as a deaf traveler so they can tell you when it's your turn to go in, wait until they tell you, go into the plane, find your seat, stow your stuff, sit down, put your seat belt on, pick up a magazine, get some gum out (helps with the pressure in my ears), and wait for the flight attendants to do their choregraphed demonstrations.

This time was different. I got a seat by the wing exit door and an attendant came over to where I was sitting. She started talking to everyone who was on my "row" about the emergency procedures and I couldn't believe how I actually understood every single word she was saying.

After she was finished with her instructions on how to operate the emergency exit doors, she asked if everyone understood. I nodded at her and she caught that. She looked straight at me and said to me, "I need you to verbalize that you understand."

Busted. I grinned at her and quickly thought over on how to say something without giving myself away. The word "understand" was too long. No. "No problem", again too long. Ahh! A small word that I can manage. Three letters long, perfect.

I said, "Yes" as clearly as I could. She went, "Ah, you are deaf. Come with me" and she swapped my seat with another closer to the front of the plane. Smart lady. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here is a surprise video below...



We just signed "Happy Thanksgiving (to) You". Yes, that's me (remember my fave shirt? LOL)...and I originally set out to do this solo but my younger daughter WANTED to do this with me. Fine with me! ;)

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. ;)

Whoa...whoa!

Editor's note: I meant to have this post published on Monday this week and move the Q & A #14 post to next week, but I just plain forgot. Simple as that.

My family and I went to a local Halloween parade on Saturday, just few blocks down from our house. That, in and of itself, is nothing ordinary...except for a certain vehicle.

As you probably know from experience, towns always showcase their public services. Firemen, policemen, and emergency personnel would come out for the parades. They always strolled by in their vehicles. It's always nice to see seized cars turned into cop cars, ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks as they go by. Nothing extraordinary about that...til that Saturday.

I was about 10 feet from the front of a fire truck, my right ear facing it when it blasted its siren horn. Whoa, whoa...the sound reverberated in my left ear and I physically reacted to that by ducking a little and bringing up my left hand to cover my left ear.

Something strange happened - I experienced a little dizziness. I rarely hear anything, let alone this humongous sound bouncing around and rattling my brain like crazy. I glanced at my wife and a neighbor. They were cracking up hard by the fact that I heard it. HEARD it. All I could do was grin at them.

Jeez!

Another fire truck went by and blasted its siren horn again, but I did not hear it this time. I was almost dead middle of the truck and the neighbor did the crossed eye roll from the noise invasion on her ears. This time, I cracked up at her. Turnabout is a fair play. LOL

I am sure you have noticed that I heard the blast in my left ear only. My left ear picks up sharp & high pitch noises while my right ear picks up soft and low pitch noises. No, I wasn't wearing any hearing aid - I haven't in decades. Just a weird quirk of how my ears work...not at all in tandem.

People still suspect that I am a hearing man pretending to be deaf...

While I was at my computer, I happened to be sitting in a way that my glasses was showing a reflection of the front door. I saw in the reflection of the door opening and someone coming in. I knew this would be my mother - she was supposed to come over at that time. I swiveled the chair around to face my mother and I said to her, "Hi...I heard you come in." She froze in her tracks as if to believe that I had actually heard her. Her expression was PRICELESS...I cracked up hard, turned around away from her, and laughed myself right into tears. Even when my mother finally got around to me, I couldn't stop laughing. She knew, KNEW...that I got her really good.