Today — I had enough of wearing hearing aids that continually plague me with discomfort as the new ear molds still have not reached the perfect fit… 

How long before the soreness in my ears heal?  Will I be agonizing for hearing some music or a comfortable sound of a cat’s meow?

Been going on YouTube and I can see that I’m continually trying to find what I really like… or what really defines me.

Had been doing some music videos   — I enjoy doing them as it’s either the activity of “dancing” with the music or the accomplishment of finalizing the signing and lip syncing… Yet, there is one struggle — some songs are so difficult to hear and I refuse to do them after several attempts of trying to make it “passable” lip-syncing…

It feels like torture… why subject myself to working so hard on something? Why? I look and look all over YouTube to see if there are any subtitles and/or lip sync ASL signers on music. 

Many times, there is not much out there.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place? Or that there are so many copyright issues that some are afraid to put it up?

Sigh, Hugahusky

I was reading the CBT article - Cognitive Behavioral therapy… it’s merely this:

Upgrading the brain’s software — or at least, replacing the software with better synapses and with an additional and optional program, Humor 101.

Yes! Humor 101! Think and do things voraciously, with feeling, with a sense of purpose now that I’ve got someone to cover my back.

Who, you say? God, of course. Not everyone can always answer that.  I’ve been having pretty cloudy thinking and time got away from me. God had been carrying me… now I think it’s in the stages of.. going out in the real world without the training wheels… LOL  If I do fall, again, God’s got my back.

~Hugahusky

I’m still alive. Define alive. Alive as in breathing? More than that. Alive as trying to live each day to the fullest. 

I remember saying somewhere that life is not a race, life is an experience. It’s not trying to compete with others. It’s what you do with your life. It’s what I do with my life. 

I recall one therapy session that I received some PTSD educational articles. I came across something about phobias. Phobia, as I remember, was avoiding something at all cost. I came to realize that I had some kind of phobia of going back to school because it seem to me there was always something popping up and I fall down. I would withdraw from school due to extenuating circumstances.

Well, at that time, I was learning the PTSD aspect for my phobia towards latex. I had recovered after struggling with exposure to latex for almost 2 years. I realized, I have not been to school and I was AVOIDING that because I had felt like I was destined to not become successful due to health reasons or whatever. 

I’m not going to let that get me down. I intend to go back to school whenever possible. Right now, it’s a matter of restructuring my life, so I can move forward. I guess people would come to a point in their lives that they would need to readjust their lifestyle of exercise, food, and sleep. We would not have the same metabolism of a 20 year old when we turn 40 or 50 years old. Our needs of what fulfill our lives seem to change. 

I am constantly learning how to cope with whatever comes my way. The tools that I had learned in coping with PTSD was not enough to deal with ASD, Acute Stress Disorder. But I did have common sense enough to ask for help and do what I can. 

I still have many flaws. Lately, I’ve been very self-critical of how much weight I’ve gained. I need to learn to accept myself “again” and prioritize what is important to my life. My relationship with God and myself. It, again, needs work as I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of pain and frustration due to lack of sleep and hypersentitation of my muscles. I could only deal with so much in one day. 

Hang in there.

~Hugahusky

I’ve been MIA from this blog as I had been messing around on FB (currently) and had been going to college. 

Long story short - I have AS and RA. AS stands for Ankylosing Spondylitis. It’s an inflammatory condition that can cause fusion of the spine and affect other organs in an inflammatory way. RA stands for Rheumatoid Arthritis - an arthritic condition that affects all the joints in my body.

It’s not stopping me from living my life. It’s just the cards I’m dealt with and how I play them.

I’m also a recovered alcoholic. I had been in denial until last summer of 2010 and discovered God through the 12 step program of AA. I also discovered that in order to get and stay sober is by helping others who suffer from alcoholism/addictions and who are affected by alcoholism/addiction.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease - I’m thankful that the morphine that I had taken for my “butt” pain had sped up the disease to the point where I had become desperate for help.

I’ve realized that God is there for you, no matter what. No matter what obstacles are thrown at me, God loves me. He laid out this path long before and that is what makes me who I am.

Two months ago, I was hit by a car when walking home from work at college. It became so traumatic two days later and found out 2 weeks later it was called Acute Stress Disorder. I had all the classic symptoms. It lasts from 2 days to approximately 4 weeks. My mind was totally shut down. I had resorted to my old coping skills of drinking alcohol and pills. I was literally jumping out of my skin and fell off the wagon.

I’m back on the wagon as of 3 days ago. Went back to my usual meetings and my sponsor said - go sponsor others, just like where I had left off before the accident. Bingo, God dropped someone on my lap on my first day back. God provides. Didn’t matter how long I was sober as long I had that mental clarity in order to help others. I’m glad to be mentally & emotionally back.

Physically? Still recovering from the injuries… caused extreme muscle spasms. In order to calm them down, I had to use my hands, which in turn, the muscles of my arms became overused.

I pray that I heal soon so I can get back into the scheme of things as college and work had been put on hold.

~Hugahusky

Turns out the pains…. were the pains related to coming out of 6 year long remission from rheumatoid arthritis and plus something more that has not been pinned down.

Thought it was gone for good but I was wrong. Just a short, but a nice long 6 year fit.

Now, I need to get my head together and get my body working… it’s hard when my body parts are acting like children — whining and complaining.

So, hoping to give “them” some tender loving care and things will turn around soon.

~hangingintherehugahusky

I’ve been MIA for quite some time.

I could not sit comfortably due to my buttock/hip pain for more than 2 months.

The prednisone regimen therapies (4 different therapies since…) (First time was 50 mg for 5 days… pain went away, then came back 3x worse) (2nd time - 24, and tapering down 4 mg a day) (3rd time 40 mg … pain was unbearable  asked for more..went up to 60… moods went off the charts… a side effect no one wants… asked doc to taper off… as it wasn’t helping —- what? not helping?! Go figure) now at 3rd day of 10 mg, tmw will be 5 mg…) are not quite helping me at all… did it get messed up after that first round? without the tapering?

Went to the hospital during Spring Break… for 3 days… thinking about it hurts… was punching that button of morphine every 8 minutes… the pain was U N B E A R A B L E and  E X C R U U U U U U C I A T I N G!!!!!! I would not wish this on anyone at all!!!

School has… been stressful… this week was the most —- don’t know if I call it “lazy”, “time-out” from school, or what…

I came to Calculus at 8 am, ready to take the test… but when I looked at it… I couldn’t see… I was so cross-eyed… I was like, what the???  I wrote “sorry… I can’t see…” and put the test in the packet at 8:15 am…

Then took the bus home… — the bus ride was …. The driver was letting a bunch of people off the bus, and then closed the doors — I had to rap on the door, hey I want on the bus!! He opened up… then I got on, and when paying up… He pulled away before I had a chance to sit down… Heck, there are warnings that you are not supposed to be past the yellow line while the bus was in motion… Then next 2 bus stops, he did exactly the same thing, and this woman (2nd bus stop) fell on top of me, hurting my knee… I was like, “Jeez!!! Can’t you (the bus driver) be patient?!?! Got off at my stop and all I could think about was calling them… but I was so woozy from the muscle relaxant and the pain meds…. When I got home.. I looked at the side effects of the muscle relaxant —- right on the bottle it says, “MAY CAUSE BLURRED VISION.”  Oh, go figure… I called and left a complaint… but was having a very incredible time keeping my eyes focused… When I was calling, I kept getting this message —- Sorry, this phone number does not exist… I was like what?! Looked at the number.. oh.. felt like I had dyslexia or something… and the next few other phone calls was like deja vu…. I couldn’t input the phone number correctly… 3 phone calls in a row… heck, doesn’t that tell you I was just about to flunk that Calculus test?

I was sort of comatose the whole week… missing classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday… (I did go to class Wednesday afternoon.. but I was … sorta zombied…) I… am speechless…. it’s like my bod wouldn’t get with the program…

I’m in my 5th week or 6th week… I don’t remember week 1… I just got home from the hospital just the day before the quarter started.  WTH is going on?!

I remember that I had to email the access dept several times to please cancel the interpreter… and then when I couldn’t… I had to email to please do not penalize me for not showing up —- and not letting them know 24 hours in advance…  I said, “Hey, I’m paying out of my pocket for Calculus… If I missed (I think I missed at least 12 days of school, an average of 2 days a week) that much… just bear with me!”—So far, the access department had not penalized me… Although, under different circumstances, if I missed more than 3 days without prior warning, they’ll put the ASL interpreter to work somewhere else.

I was so scared…I didn’t want to lose the services of an ASL interpreter… but I guess with my “medical updates,” she hadn’t penalized me… yet…

I’m trying… hanging on… I’ve been to the ER 3 times… since… and not much closer to an answer… Some clues, yeah, but nothing more —- the ESR was so high == 89… when it’s normal 20 or lower… My doctors still haven’t figured me out. Why am I so complicated?

Sigh…

~Hugahusky

Back from … Oh where was I? Vacation away from home…

Brought back to reality… Dang tired… Hubby’s due for foot surgery tomorrow morning, so my vacation is cut a little short.

But, spring break was r e l a x i n g. Was up at Whidbey Island. I figured I’d do a little insight on being “me.” Meaning the deaf me. Hubby had to do a little adjustment as he wasn’t used to me being so ASL. But it was nice, just to relax… still I’m slipping between the PSE, “hearing”, and the ASL worlds.

I found that I used my voice in order to get attention or talk to my cats.

I am struggling… I have so many worlds… my hearing family… which, of course, requires talking to them in English… as they don’t know ASL. But my hearing brother does. I don’t get to see him often. He had a deaf girlfriend for a long while…before he got married with a hearing woman. Every time I see him, he gets a little rusty with ASL, but still can remember… picks up pretty easy after talking up a storm together.

How do I want to live my life now with my husband… he loves to hear my voice… my laughter… but I can see he doesn’t mind my being expressive in ASL.

One thing, we love music…   Is it wrong to… deny music in the literal sense? Should I take off my hearing aids and see how it goes? That’s a scary thought. I get tinnitus (ringing in the ears) if I go too long without hearing aids… Dang, am I dependent on hearing aids? Plus, they are expensive… especially the ear molds. 70 bucks per mold. Don’t have medical coverage for them anymore. Batteries, too. Gawd… when we went up to the Island, we forgot hearing aid batteries. So, bought two different size batteries as one hearing aid accepts 675 size, and the other is a 13 size (digital) (the other matching digital hearing aid was accidentally crushed by a car tire)… So, been wearing two lopsided hearing aids… I love digital, but since I don’t have DVR helping me, I’ve been on my own. Back to the batteries, they were dang expensive $11.95 for 8 batteries a package so I basically spent 25 bucks on batteries… then when it was time to go home, my hearing aid batteries hadn’t died, so I returned them to the store and got my money back as I already have a huge supply of batteries at home… Then to top that off, my hearing aid just died when I was walking in the apartment. Far out, nice timing!

So, am I gonna dare myself to not wearing hearing aids for the rest of my spring break? Oh, crud, how am I supposed to help my hubby? How is he gonna call me for help? Hearing aid dilemma… Torn between being deaf and dependent on hearing aids… Argh!

~strugglinghugahusky

P.S. I noticed I did an error on one of my blog postings —- I meant for the interpreter to “sign” for me,  not voice for me, when he was signing my “voiced” speech on videotape…

I can’t believe this slipped my mind…  When I signed up for ASL tutoring at the Tutoring Center… (this was 4 or 5 weeks ago) this guy told me that all the tutors are to come every Friday for “tutoring skills” sessions. Apparently after our interview, which was on a Thursday, I said, “Could you get an ASL interpreter for tomorrow?” He said to that aspect… well you’ll be fine.. you read lips right? I said… yeah…but….?  he said to that aspect, let’s play by ear and see how it goes…

Guess what… I’ve never felt so oppressed this bad for a long time… I said to this guy… please provide an ASL interpeter.. and guess what? He forgot the 2nd Friday.

Was it something about this that really set off my migraines the following week? I bet it’s a small part of it…  stress… that’s really unnecessary undue stress. (I know it’s really something else, but sure, any kind of added stress makes it harder to cope).

This will certainly be put to the test as I do intend to tutor ASL and attend those tutoring sessions on Fridays —- I’m going to have to be hardheaded about this, this time… if no ASL interpreter, I’m leaving — I refuse to go through a total hour of “READING LIPS”   As I’m more aware.. I need to be assertive and of course, aggressive about “Hey, don’t do that….” and now I can put a word to it… don’t be an audist, please… it’s really insulting, absolutely degrading and I refuse to put myself in those situations like 4 or 5 weeks ago —- I obviously was oppressed and felt really disgusted.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest…

~Hugahusky

Now, that Winter Quarter is out of the way… one thing continues to plague me.  After doing research on deafread.com, trying not to be biased… but I have to confess that some of content struck me funny… especially about audism. I had posted a few weeks back try to subtitle the “What is deafread.com” and I couldn’t finish it as it was 6 minutes long and plus had homework to do. I said in that blog, audism? What is it? Did I read that right? I had to watch the video 2 or 3 times and he fingerspelled, “A U D I S M” clear as a bell. That was like 3 or 4 weeks ago…

Did I experience audism in the college that I’m going to now? Yes and No.

My social issues professor was so considerate of my needs that he made sure that his “Identity and the Internet” homework reads didn’t require to read videos without subtitles after my telling him that I couldn’t understand a thing on one of the YouTube videos (and it was one hour long (or was it 30 mins?) (I sent an email to him, I’m sorry, I can’t understand a thing it’s like reading the fine print trying to lip read this guy and my eyes hurtttt! And said that I quit after 7 minutes) one day during the first week. He right away said to this aspect of don’t worry he’ll find some videos subtitled or have them run in class and have the interpreter interpret…  Well, I remember going on YouTube and putting in a couple of remarks… I think I did the same with CNN videos and FoxNews videos. I haven’t checked lately, but one had responded saying that I was a “whiner.” I found a tumblr blogger which put subtitles on their pictures… the blogger’s name was pretty explicit… Felt like,  “where do I go from here? to learn on the Internet?”

I went to check on deaf videos and boy, the content was so fascinating.  But one thing bugs me.. audism…

I had been going to Intro to Communications class this past Winter Quarter… this teacher talks fast, more than the average person. I had to ask her to slow down a few times… She tried, but got into the talking fast habit… (the ASL interpreter was doing fine… just so hard to assimilate…)

One day, I couldn’t find one of my hearing aids, and felt so off…  So, I decided to just sign for myself when participating in my Intro to Communications class. My interpreter did a good job, realizing that he needed to voice… that moment really struck me funny, because we were like halfway through the quarter and my teacher just looked up in a weird way wondering, “Who said that?!” and realized it was the interpreter voicing for me.  The next day, I had resumed my “talking for myself” and just before class ended, my teacher said, “(my name), can I talk to you after class?” That got my heart beating so fast, wondering, “What did I do now?”  She said… are you going to be speaking for the informative speech…  I said, yeah…

That bothered me a bit… what if I said no? Then the interpreter would have to voice for me…. wouldn’t that be like “grading both me and the interpreter?” as I’ve always felt that some interpreters don’t precisely get the message across the way I want to when I sign for myself.

I did my informative speech both in voice and ASL… oh gawd, that was SO HARD. I had to practice and practice and noticed before the real thing, sometimes I can voice fine, but the signing would be off…I did great…but the problem is when I got the feedback from the students, they were more or less glued to the ASL signing and probably didn’t hear what I had to say about dysfunctional families.

This time, when doing my persuasive (it had to be the same topic-dysfunctional families), I just voiced for myself… It was so much better for me, easier for me and looking at the feedback of the students… I felt confident that they “got the message”, even the teacher lipread to me with a thumbs up “AWESOME” right afterward. I felt flustered when she did that.

Am I feeling pressured to voice for myself? Was that audism in a very subtle way? The way she asked me after class inquiring if I was speaking for myself or signing for myself?  I had not put it to the test… but, I’m taking small groups communications next quarter… and definitely will put it to the test.  I gotta see…

Funny thing is, after that persuasive speech, which is totally embarrassing. I had that videotaped, like every student has theirs videotaped to give feedback on themselves, what kind of gestures everyone had and the tone of voice and all that. I had to request an ASL interpreter to sign for me. The request to the Access Department did not quite understand what I wanted. I said, “I need an interpreter to interpret my persuasive speech which will be on videotape and need the interpreter to voice for me which will take place in the library campus.” The Access Department sent me 3 or 4 emails asking me to clarify my request. I was like what? How can I clarify anything better than this? I said I don’t normally understand myself on videotaped if not with ASL. I had found out just a week before, when my husband videotaped me with a digital camera when talking about saying “goodbye” to my gramma’s old house. I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND myself. Sure, I can try to follow from my memory of what I said, but after time, I get lost… The interpreter had to ask me to clarify what I wanted, he understood right away. Apparently the Access Dept was utterly confused.  He was able to interpret for me without looking at the video, which I felt impressed as my voice was certainly clear… I… felt …  who am I in that video?  I watched it a couple of times at home… I felt like I had a split personality… am I wrong? Or just totally different shades of myself…

The person voicing for herself…. I can’t really see me….

The person signing for herself… I can see me as I have had mini videos from the digital camera for the past 2 years for deaf birthday parties and all that… but the way I sign…is very interesting… but have I signed for myself without using my voice? No… that’s one good test to see who I am…

Who am I? Obviously, when I grew up with intensive speech therapy, I became “hearing” as some deafies would sign hearing (on their forehead)… in the early years of college… which was more of a “put down” the way they signed it. But now when I mingle with the deafies… I don’t have that stigmatic, but once in a while a deaf or a Hard of hearing person, would ask me, “Are you Hard of hearing?” I said… yes and no… without hearing aids, I’m totally deaf.  But why am I facing this Identity stigma?

I felt that with my unique way of communication may have given MANY people the wrong idea, that deaf people can speak for themselves or can hear as well as I do or communicate as well as I do… and it feels like someone hit me on the head, “Oh, no.. they got the wrong idea on how I communicate.” As always, I have had to tell people, I’m deaf, I read lips, so can you be sure to face me when talking to me, please? Thank you.

So, who am I?

~whoamI Hugahusky

I had a great Winter Quarter…although it was a little rough between 8th and 10th week… I had three classes, Total Fitness, Social Issues (Identity and the Internet) and Intro to Communications. I had not been back to school for 15 years and this was a great way to come back… It was like, I’m alive, alive!! (didn’t I sound like Frankenstein!?)

Oh brother, anyway, I found a few ASL students on campus and made good friends with them. I even dropped by their ASL class with the permission of the ASL teacher. He had asked me if there were any other deaf students on campus. I said, no….(but later on I finally bumped into 2 young deaf students)… He inquired if I could tutor ASL…  Tutor? Ok… I’ve done tutoring in math for deaf students way back in the old days… Okay  hinting — in the late 80’s and early 90’s …  So, I figured  why not? Little did I know that my upbringing …. was different… than some deaf students… was mainstreamed… learned sign language when I was 15… and yet, when I went to college—one deaf student asked me if I knew ASL .. I said,  uhh yeah… (wondered why he asked) then he proceeded … to sign in pure ASL (I was like, whoaaaa!!!) I told him, “No, no… I’m wrong…I don’t know ASL” 

That was kind of thought-provoking, thinking back right now… Do I know ASL, now? Hmmm… I can read ASL… but I don’t practice in ASL, unless I’m talking to deaf people…which is not often… I’m married to a hard of hearing man and we have an unique relationship… we talk in English, sign in ASL, talk and sign PSE, and lipread each other…   everything… but one thing, I noticed… when he “signs” in ASL to his old classmates… his language is totally different, pure ASL — I had to change my way of thinking to read him…and go, “Hey, that’s my husband of 11 years and you didn’t know that…..?”

Well, I better sum this up… I started tutoring ASL students… and had to really change my style of “tutoring” as it’s not the same as tutoring math… I had to change my language… my preferred language — PSE with voice (sometimes just voicing English)  to ASL…  I figured I better practice more ASL with my husband and try to be a better tutor. He has gone to the Montana State School for the Deaf and Blind when he was 12… so, figure he has a different upbringing… and the ASL…  I’m gonna tutor some more next quarter… the college is offering “tutoring” classes, which entitles the student to earn a tutor certification after completing one “credit” working as a tutor. Wow, why not kill 2 birds with one stone? Hmm, make that 3…   Be more of an ASL person, be a tutor, and get paid… I wasn’t even thinking about getting paid when I was making friends with the ASL students…. I had invited them over to my apartment and we signed songs in ASL. We did that twice…  and then invited them over to the deaf bowling traveling league…  some ASL students got culture shock… heck, I was exposed the same way in high school… and even in college.

Sure am looking forward to Spring quarter… and hubby’s gonna be joined with me at the hip (the sore hip)… joking…  it’ll be neat, but I bet we’ll be stressed with homework and doing household errands at our apartment, etc…  But that’s life… I’m sure we’ll be learning lots of things ….  and telling each other stories at dinnertime… Dang, I love college! But stress, stress! I’m taking advantage of Spring break to RELAX! My communications teacher stressed on that. So, I will. But will be taking small groups communications, Yoga, and retaking Calculus (been 15 years, oh brother)   My doctor, who I just saw today, said yoga will help me strengthen my inner core muscles and hopefully repair those inflamed hip muscles.

Now, gotta headslap myself to bed, and to rest up for a week. I worked dang hard this quarter.

~stillsoreindabutt hugahusky

Dang hip pain…. on both sides…..  hope it’ll go away before Spring ‘10

~sorepainindabutt hugahusky

Evolution of Internet Identity gone Bad? Not!

After reading the three articles:

http://www.socialtext.net/data/workspaces/socialmediaberkeley/attachments/syllabus:20071225213123-0-32017/files/ResnickSTK.pdf

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/05/05/identity_crisis/

http://lcc.gatech.edu/~bmedler3/?p=543


Basically we’re talking about internet culture and how it affects us in the 21st century.

Robert Putnam talked about how the cultures were losing the connectivity of community since the 60’s and had hoped to entice us to merge back together.  Paul Resnick talked about how we can try to grow together with the “social technical capital” by enabling face to face communities that had existed before being online (not always the case of originally being face to face firsthand) to
enabling society who have not had much interaction in real life to grow and expand with the use of the Internet. People who have taken the advantage of the Internet to establish their online personas and to use Internet to expand their horizons. However, with Ben Medler’s article of online “social” games which he had explained that is like a step back into the solidarity and isolation of individualism, however he had hoped that the Internet would create more “community” games that would enable people to have almost instantaneous gratification of mingling with people. 

Carolyn Johnson’s article seems to have pros and cons of how people creating their own identity. At first, it seems that for those digital natives and/or digital immigrants would have to create different identities for different websites, but now with Bill Washburn’s “Open ID” can eliminate the hassle of having to create so many different Internet identity. With the networks acknowledging other networks’  such as Twitter linking with other accounts such as Facebook is enabling the person to put it all on one place.

With the Internet in our hands, we can easily readily decide to keep it all in one spot, or split our identities according to own tastes. Since I’m a digital immigrant, I’m not too sure how digital natives apply themselves on the Internet, just only what I have seen. I did have a very young roommate who did have multiple identities and her friend as well. They used role play a lot. At the time, I was more of a curious bystander and wondered how they conversed when they have been connected for 8 years and never had met each other.

With internet as our social technical capital, I dare say it can be beneficial for the individual to create awareness as a whole community such as community groups such as knowing more about health issues such as breast cancer, business issues such as selling things on Ebay or Craigslist, or hobby issues. We do happen to have some drawbacks as to dealing with “Mafia Wars” or “Farmville” on Facebook - why I say drawbacks, it seems to me that one can lose the awareness of their own self being doing “mindless” “social” games. One can hope that people can use common sense and utilize the Internet for creating productive issues with networking with families, people with common ties, and many other possibilities to expand awareness of self.

I still have this tendency to be extremely careful about creating an online persona, especially with Open ID’s. I still somewhat feel vulnerable being on the Internet, and still practice on how I expose myself as I feel that establishing boundaries are very important to create self-esteem in myself.

In my case, I have bounced from one place or another to find connectivity. I’ve also split my identities as well as a form of protection, but not necessarily always the case — just developing different social circles. In creating a sense of self, I wouldn’t want my mom or my husband to know everything that I’m doing on the Internet. I have many weak ties that helped me to create awareness, a better appreciation of self. I, at times, have had slipped into the muddy Internet in losing my awareness, but thank goodness; I was able to wake up and start doing something constructive. I realized that Internet had played a huge role in molding our own identities. It’s all trial and error, and creating ways to “comfort” self, expanding awareness, and to connect with people, whether they live far or near. It has enabled me to multi-task and save time which would have been very time-consuming to share things face to face. Emails, blogs, community forums, and many endless Internet utilities are now at our fingertips, with this phenomenal interaction inside the Internet. 

Communities such as Obesity Action Coalition, which I had joined last year, had created more awareness and support due to our needs for better health. I dare say that without the Internet, I would be in a rut, disconnected from my family and peers. With the Internet, I’ve grown to the point that Internet had enabled me to grow even outside of the Internet in face to face communities. I have joined Obesity Help foundation, and gone to seminars in real life, meeting people with the same common goals. I’ve even connected with my distant families via Facebook - although I had to disconnect myself from Facebook as it was too time-consuming. But at least we connected so that we can swap email addresses and phone numbers. They know where to find me and I know where to find them.

All in all, how are we utilizing Internet in our lives? I’d have to say, moderation is the key and as well as common sense. For example, if I had gone to a health website about sore muscles, and realize that I was given choices on how to better myself which I still need the face to face interaction, in order to better myself as I am not a doctor which websites have warned the consumer not to take it face value of what’s on the Internet as only real life doctors can only diagnose what the problem is. In the last three weeks, I’ve learned so much about “deafhood” and “audism.” Not realizing that we, as a deaf culture, are still constantly “educating” ourselves and the public. The Internet is absolutely empowering our needs and breaking down barriers.

Like every kind of evolution in the Internet as to music, we’ve discarded 8 track tapes to CD’s as well to discarding (hopefully) the social games to community games and better social technical capital for ourselves. When there’s good stuff on the Internet, there also has to be an opposite — the bad stuff — on the Internet spectrum for the goodness and quality of enabling ourselves to exist.

Fat lady ain’t singing, it’s not over yet…. finals coming up this week. 

Some days you’re a bug, some days you’re a windshield. by Price Cobb

The past 3 weeks has been a massive roller coaster.  I’ve been hit in the face, sideways, up and down, every way imaginable.

Not sure how to say this… I had this attitude to “expect the worst”… and shrug it off and move on.   However, that one day, the last Tues of February… was just one of those rare days that I could not cope… and to top it off… the medication, “Amerge” for my migraines —- had to use it three times that week… Apparently it messed me up…physically and emotionally.  I think I was too sensitive to the effects that it just messed up my muscles to the point of extreme spasms…  

I realize I can’t take my body for granted as I was literally on my back for over a week …  It was scary…  not seeing any progress as it was literally getting worse… my butt… is the most precious thing as it has to work well in order to walk and sit and stand… My god… I hope I don’t go through that again.  I had told myself last Friday, I’m going to school, even if it kills me!

But to top it off, it was coming back last night — the pain… aww man! I want to wrestle with this “pain in the butt” guy and pin this guy down. I want to tell this guy,  “Don’t f*ing mess with me, ever again!” 

But as life goes on, it will rear its ugly head again and again…  it’s just a matter of dealing with the punches, adapt, and move on — no one is perfect. 

As I remember at the beginning of the quarter, Jennifer Nyguen said something to the effect of “trying not to fall down head first” —- well I had replied… we might fall down …but the important thing is, getting up, and not wallow in self-pity or think it’s over.

I would love to have someone like one of those football coaches who gives a very good halftime inspirational speech, but then it’s not.

Osborne “would say that the game is about intensity, it’s about emotion, it’s about passion, but that emotion only takes you so far,” Frappolli said. “When push comes to shove, yes, you can rev up to go out for the second half and maybe you might create something initially.

“But the bottom line is you have to play. You just have to play.” 

from this link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/high_school/pennsylvania/20091012_Halftime_football_speeches_just_words.html

Okay, I’ve got to play out the rest of this Winter 2010 quarter… Watch out, here I come!! Butt in a sling and all!  (LOL)

~Hugahusky

DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE AMAZING RACE TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE BETWEEN HEARING AND DEAF WORLD IN DEAFREAD.COM

I had looked into Deafread.com. It is basically a blogosphere. Here’s the definition from wikipedia:

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions.

The Deafread.com is based on deaf culture and yet also has extras that are not related to deaf culture added to it. There is a sense of community with mini-communities interwoven in the blogs.

The website is maintained by human editors who approve bloggers that meet the criteria. They are called aggregators. Here’s a definition from wikipedia:

“In addition to aggregator services mainly for individual use, there are web applications that can be used to aggregate several blogs into one. One such variety—called planet sites—are used by online communities to aggregate community blogs in a centralized location. They are named after the Planet aggregator, a server application designed for this purpose.”

This blogosphere of Deafread.com was developed in 2006 by Talyer Mayer and Jared Evans. Their purpose is to bring in blogs relating to deaf culture in one place. When a person asks DeafRead.com to add his/her own blog - they must show that they are deaf or hard of hearing and meet the guidelines. There are about 95% deaf/hard of hearing bloggers while there are 5% hearing bloggers which must meet a higher standard of being accepted into DeafRead.com

There have been 32,666 posts since it opened in 2006. Many of the bloggers are sharing their experiences, updating the news relating to politics or laws that impact the deaf culture. Some bloggers use Vimeo, YouTube, diary-style blogging.

The bloggers range from 18 years or older and can be from all over the world. They do have a blogosphere called “youthdeafread.com” for those who are younger than 18. I have seen many blogs deriving from Japan Deaf News, from the UK, and all over the United States.

There is a community of a mixture of deaf, hard of hearing people, people who have relatives who are deaf who are trying to catch up with the hearing community. For example, just last week on March 3rd of 2010, they applauded YouTube.com for adding the auto-captioning to the YouTube videos. But as almost always, there are some flaws such as when it’s captioned “strange couple”, but really meant to be “estranged” couple.

This Deafread.com meets the social, emotional, physical, practical, and last of all, identity needs. When a deafread visitor reads the blogs, one may be merely trying to find others who have similar experiences or lifestyles. There are discussions that range from humor, movie theatres that are captioned, video-relay services, deaf conventions, politics in deaf colleges, laws relating to accessibility, some Spanish blogs, and a very diverse selection of people going through experiences of oppression, freedom, things that that deaf have going through over and over, and new experiences that deaf can finally do something.

For example, I learned that some bloggers are very strongly opinionated on banning audism. After seeing a video explaining why audism hurts the deaf culture as a whole, they are the 3 percent of the United States’ population and is vital to the community.
Audism is like racism, people who disrespect deaf and hard of hearing people by not acknowledging the lack of hearing. Here’s a paragraph from this blogger named Elizabeth who explained the term Audism (http://ehwhathuh.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-word-audism-or-audist.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EhWhatHuh+%28Eh%3F+What%3F+Huh%3F%29) :
 
“We have yet to convince many corporations to provide closed captioning or accommodations for the deaf and hard of hearing. Some people look down on those who use only sign language and refuse to speak. Those who jokingly cover their mouths on purpose as they talk to me, just to torture me, are being slightly audist. There are many, many ways people can be “audist.” I’ve witnessed some of my deaf/hh students experience audism, such as when the teacher leaves them out of classroom discussions or not call on them ever because they feel they are unable to contribute to the classroom discussion.”

Many blog articles will show how many visits to each blog and show its popularity.  In 2007, DeafRead.com showed the statistics of Blog of the Year, Best New Blog, Best Ally New blog, Most Funny Blog, Best Geek/Tech blog and so forth which can be seen at this website: http://www.deafread.com/blogawards/2007/results/

In DeafRead.com, they have 7 categories, All (13) Vlogs (3) Blogs (10) People (9) Orgs (4) Captioned (0) Extra (16) as of March 13th, 2010. I realized that many bloggers prefer to vlog to preserve their American Sign Language as to when writing a blog, the “Deaf” spirit shows more in a picturesque way which cannot be written.

Vlog is best described as in wikipedia: Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging[1][2][3] (pronounced v’LOG-ing or VEE-log-ing) or vidblogging[4][5] is a form of blogging for which the medium is video,[6] and is a form of Internet television. Entries often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take or cut into multiple parts.

Ever since Vlog came out in 2000, the deaf culture utilizes vlogging as their main way of getting the point across, whether it’s funny, political, or newsworthy.

I applaud on DeafRead.com in empowering the deaf culture as this enables those deaf and hard of hearing people to seen as equals in the Internet world. They have established great sense of digital identities which would not have happened if there was no Internet. The deaf culture would be so isolated from the rest of the world and yet, with DeafRead.com, the deaf people are still constantly “educating, educating, and educating” the hearing population.

I noticed in the Deafread.com that same people who applauded YouTube for the auto-captioning as of the first week of March 2010, were also very critical of CNN which has not yet implemented an accommodation of their news videos with closed-captioning.

I had posted earlier in my blog that utilizing Deafread.com is a great way to do flash mobs in order to EDUCATE the society that they live in.

To sum this up, Deafread.com is a great tool for deaf/hard of hearing/hearing people to learn about deaf culture and how to adapt or improve the society for better ways of equality. It also to show that deaf people are just like hearing people by sharing their experiences with just the matter of one missing “sense” of hearing.