unordered paths and ASL
September 26, 2008 – 10:56 pmGui reminded me that it’s possible to be ready for things you haven’t specifically prepared for. (Thanks, Gui.) I also had my first real ASL conversation in many years. Well, “real” “conversation” in that I could catch pretty much all of what Ian and Lissa were saying and I could get across my point by fingerspelling the many words I didn’t know.
Though I call myself hard-of-hearing, I feel like (and probably identify most with) a hearing person trying to learn about the deaf community andthis language that they use – I just happen to be a hearing person who… can’t really hear. (For instance, when someone’s signing and they have an interpreter speaking the words they’re signing out loud, I can’t understand the ASL or the interpreter’s voice alone – I lipread the interpreter.) Not sure if there’s a proper name for this – “hearing on the outside, deaf on the inside?” Or the other way around?
Cscott has been experimenting with unordered paths in a gloriously casual, fun, and quirky way. I have coworkers who think like this. All the time. How did I get so lucky? I also really want to try tackling this ticket. It’s things like this that keep me plugging through weekends like this – 6 hours from now I’m going to be back in the office testing. Well, it’s only one more week until release. A little less, even.
I keep wanting to go back to my 11-year-old self and say “No, really, kid, you’re going to be okay – there is a place where you can fit into the world. It’s called Boston.”
4 Responses to “unordered paths and ASL”
You would be deaf on the outside, hearing on the inside. Like a banana – yellow on the outside, white on the inside. ;P
By nikki on Sep 27, 2008
Or would I really? I can see myself as being either on the inside and the outside, depending on the situation – I pass as a hearing person and as a non-hearing person at various times (most often “hearing with a speech impediment,” as far as I can tell), and feel like a hearing person and a non-hearing person at various times (usually the first by default, punctuated frequently by acute awareness of the second).
Going by sheer time frequency, it would be “hearing on the outside, deaf on the inside.” There isn’t a good food for conveying that in one word, though*. Which is probably just as well; we don’t need any more slang words that can be used as categorization insults floating around.
*There’s got to be a term within the deaf community for something like it, though.
By Mel on Sep 27, 2008
Hey Mel!
I hear you!!! Fitting in to the Deaf community is all kinds of tricky. I also find myself in a strange spot – I learned ASL at a very young age and back then I was accepted as a part of the crowd pretty much wholesale, even though I had no particular reason to learn ASL. (I guess nobody really quizzes cute 10-year-olds about their motives!) As I got older, though, I began to be excluded more and more from Deaf events and groups. Now, I find that people are MUCH more suspicious and/or curious about why I sign, and why I want to be involved. You’re hearing? Well, this club isn’t for you. I absolutely understand why those attitudes are necessary in order to create a certain supportive atmosphere, but boy does it sting sometimes!!
Anyway, I think it’s super awesome that you’re signing again. Boston is indeed a place full of so many “weird people” it’s hard to be alone :)
-Lissa
By Cygnet on Oct 1, 2008
Like religion, sexuality and dB loss, there’s a whole spectrum of the cultural affiliations associated with the Deaf/deaf communities. While certain places have been traditionally enclaves for one sect or another, those lines blur further and further as technologies and legislation changes the landscape: In a post-cued-speech, post-cochlear implant, post-closed-captioned television, post-Sidekick/Blackberry/OpenMoko, post-ADA world, it’s harder to stay in one ghetto or another. No single “community” is large enough to stand on its own, and it requires a fluidity of mode shifting. To borrow and repurpose from a song: “If you can’t be, with the one you love, love the one you’re with, love the one you’re with.” ;-)
P.S. So, I’m a little behind on this reply. I only now stumbled in due to a search. I got no time to be reading blogs (let alone commenting on them) on a regular basis. ;-)
By Kevin on Aug 17, 2009