Winter Semester

Ok so I still haven't finished writing about Christmas. Sorry, I'm working on it but we had a very busy Christmas break. So in the meantime ( by the way totally didn't know meantime was one word until today) I'm going to update all of you on how this semester is going.

I'm currently taking ASL 102, New Testament (Part 1), Statics, Calculus 1, and Technical Writing. Thus far I've had a pretty good start to the semester. I've only encountered a few problems. The most prominent one came from my English class which is on technical writing. As everyone knows I use interpreters during class. This means that I normally sign and the interpreter will voice for me ( for more information about voicing check out my last blog, I know shameless plugging). For this class we have to do several presentations. The problem occurred when I asked my teacher after class how he wanted to time me. He had been using his watch, which obviously wouldn't work so well for someone who can't hear the alarm.

My teacher then made a rather grave mistake. He asked me to present orally, meaning he didn't want me to use ASL during my presentation. He went on to say that he felt that using an interpreter for the presentation made it the interpreter's presentation and not mine. Many people will read this and wonder ok, where's the problem I don't see it. The problem is that is completely inappropriate and flat out illegal to ask that or bring that up with a deaf or hard of hearing student. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's just flat out illegal for a teacher to do that. One of the ironic things is that my teacher uses in the canal hearing aids.The other ironic thing is that my husband had been encouraging me to do the presentation orally and I had been considering. After the mistake on my teacher's part I've decided to present using ASL. I want to stand up for my rights and do what I'm most comfortable with. My husband is fully supporting my presenting in ASL, mostly because the teacher made him mad.

On a funny note, a very funny situation happened in my religion class. Every day we start with a prayer. If you pray then you have to introduce yourself to the class and answer three random questions. The class asked me how I met my husband, my major, and then my teacher walked right into a huge no-no. My teacher asked me what is the most important thing we should know about "hearing impaired people". I signed back instantly, (without trying to be snarky) not to call us hearing impaired. The entire class including both of my interpreters and my teacher burst out laughing.

Being Deaf at a hearing school certainly has it's  ups and downs, it's funny moments and it's hard moments. But all in all, it's not half bad. Next time more about communicating with hearing people (when I don't speak) and eventually I'll post about Christmas.

love you all
Rachel