Just so you are aware: it’s Deaf Awareness Month.
I wasn’t planning on posting about this but as it’s also Deaf Awareness Week, I’m under double the pressure.
For this, I’ve put together an FAQ. Except, instead of answering the questions, I am going to rate them on their awkwardness:
Attending a social gathering, especially one composed of mostly Francophone hearing people, is decidedly not a Laura thing. But if it’s a friend’s birthday, I try to give the gift of my presence at their party.
At last Sunday’s party, the birthday boy, Paulo, looked at me in the eyes and challenged me to the “Circle Game”. This is the game where someone dupes you into looking at their hand as they press thumb and index finger together to form a circle, which happens to also be the sign for “asshole” in ASL.
I’m a lightly seasoned traveller: I’ve swum with sharks in Mexico, walked the Great Wall of China, zoomed around mainland Japan on a Shinkansen, slept among giant spiders in the Australian rainforest, and I’m on a first name basis with western Europe. For those whose curiosity runs deep, the list of places I’ve presented myself can be found here.
Last month, I read an insightful post by Stacey of Deafinitely Wanderlust about the barriers she faces travelling as a Deaf person and wanted to share my perspective.
Continue reading “It’s quiet everywhere: Travelling as a Deaf person.”
Hi!
I’m a former hearing person. I was born in Canada, and grew up in a middle-class hearing family. I’m also white, straight, and cis. This means my life began with pretty much just one disadvantage: being female. Oh, and being an infant, but I outgrew that horrid phase.
Then I got deathly ill.
Do you know what happens when a cute little blonde three-year-old gets sick in Canada? Everything that could possibly be done to save my life, was done… and at no expense to my family. In the process of saving my life, though, the drugs that were administered destroyed my hearing.
When I was a preteen, my parents gave me the “gift” of being relocated to Langley, the town where my school and friends were. Prior to moving to Langley, I lived a 30-minute drive away from a normal social life.
This meant, between the age of 5 to 11, I would have to head home on the school bus immediately after the bell rang. At home in the faraway land of Surrey, BC, I had the company of two cats and, if he felt like it, my much older brother. I also found entertainment in cartoons, the entire Babysitters’ Club and Little House on the Prairie series, art supplies, and sometimes a blanket fort. If I wanted to see my friends on the weekends, though, I had to trust my parents to make arrangements with my friends’ parents that involved motorized transportation.
I know moving to Langley was a sacrifice for my parents, but it wasn’t my fault the schools my older siblings had attended weren’t set up to accommodate deaf students. It wasn’t my fault there were no other deaf kids my age in my neighbourhood.
squaremeat.com 