Strange

It is so strange how our thoughts sometime are synchronized with every other Deaf person...

I was referring to my recent vlog where I discussed about ASL classes should be taken up by Deaf students, not only for hearing-- And *bam*, this week my ASL students are supposed to read chapter 15 in "Deaf World"-- which Jack Levesque discusses about how deaf people's ASL is awful because they don't have the opportunity to take the classes like hearing people does with English under the title of "Let's Return ASL to Deaf Ownership". Is it a coincidence!???!!?? Funny...

This leads me to a confession: You know, sometimes I would make a blog or vlog... then put it on hold for further editing-- but that topic ends being already discussed among the Deaf blogosphere. If I post my on-hold blog/vlog, I feel it will appear as if I am "jumping on the bandwagon"-- to follow the hype; yet my thoughts in vlog/blog were truly an original and it was just a coincidence that every other Deaf person was thinking the same thing! So... admittedly I usually swept it under the rug just to avoid the impression that I was following the trend.
I know, that is not good that I am holding back my thoughts-- defying the whole purpose of blogging.
But you know me. I like to march to my own drum. :-) Let's hope I can beat y'all next time when I have a thought to share. (winks!)

To be judged? NO THANKS!

Hope this works!

I do have more videos so if you want to see other vlogs I made in the past (but didn't add to my blog), go to http://www.youtube.com/gnarlydork

***
Off-topic:
I am excited about Ella Mae Lentz's workshop being hosted here in San Diego!
-BUT-
Unfortunately, I have to take my niece to a private school for her Finnish lessons 45 minutes away so I couldn't zoom back to San Diego after dropping her off (I have to stay there to observe as well... until noon. The workshop ends at 1pm. Impossible. So sad for me...) So I have asked my husband to film the workshop for me... and they seem to be okay with that... YAY! it will be wonderful to have a tape for people here to watch the workshop if they couldn't attend this Saturday. That way, the information about Deafhood is STILL spreading...

Dreaming about Vlogs

So weird and so pathetic but just today I took a nap and dreamt about ASL vlogs being subtitled. I dreamt that I was struggling with a certain computer program with another person. S/he tried to calm me down and showed me a certain tool in one of those drop-down menus-- and ta-da! All three vlogs I made were automatically subtitled! WOW! A program that can read and put subtitles on ASL just in a snap! But suddenly I found a problem with one of three vlogs-- the subtitles were garbled ("as@kjd asdlkj asskel"). We both were bewildered, but realized that the person in the vlog (Whom I interviewed, apparently) was signing in LSM! Ahh... a drawback, but I signed to the person "Worry not, will work that, short shot type, nothing-to-it easy job."

Hopefully that dream will come true! ;-) (Of course, with them fixing on the bug of not able to read various foreign sign language!)
But I had to blog about it because I thought this is the first red sign that blogosphere has invaded my mind. WHO DOES DREAM ABOUT VLOGS/BLOGS, FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Brief note--

Elizabeth left a comment saying "Hey, would you be interested in somehow being involved with DCS?"
So my reply is: "With what, Elizabeth? I am VERY curious on HOW the community can get INVOLVED with DCS [Deaf Community Service] to help them getting back up."

I am not concerned about how I can do, but the possible solutions we the COMMUNITY can take actions on.

(and for your information, the CAD chapter for Greater San Diego's blog is up and running. http://sandiegocad.blogspot.com/ so all information about upcoming meetings/events will be posted there, not here-- this is MY personal blog!)

Hearies Know It All?

This is for all my Deaf friends who think their English is horrible and that the hearies have it better because they can hear the sounds et cetera...
Bullshit. Hearies are inept at English just like us-- it takes practice and academic lessons to be fluent in writing English.
Just because you speak/sign the language, it doesn't mean you are an expert. Everybody needs to take lessons to polish up their native language!

The image is taken with my SK to capture the misspelling and grammar
errors found on this simple handmade card by a 40-year-old hearing
female neighbor.

(edited: I added the image after Ridor pointed out that I didn't have any images in this entry. Thanks. I was blogging from my SK3, and apparently the email with attached picture didn't work for Blogger... will have to invesitage more to see how I can include pictures directly from my sk3. Deaf258-- HELP???)

Tidbits of the Day

Tidbit #1: It seems that I riled some feathers locally with this entry. Good! A quiet and timid woman won't make history like this loud and opininated woman will. I don't see why they got upset (I found out through a little bird that my blog was the talk of day at DCS even all way up to the president-- they wanted to know who is "gnarlydorkette" and everybody, who knew me, said "Gee, she is such a nice woman, I don't know why she would say that..." They sure didn't know me until now!). They knew they have problems. Their problems should be shared since they work for a community-- and if they need help from us, then we need to know what the heck happened. There should not be any secrets between friends, right? It seems that (my interpretation) they were upset that I made a bad review about the DCS yet I never attended their town-hall meeting. So what if I cannot attend a meeting, I should not make an opinion? I think that is ridiculous. I can make opinions regardless my physical presence. I am sorry I do have priorities (family and work) but I do stay in the loop by having friends who can relay me information from the meeting. Plus that entry was referred to incidents occured PRIOR to the town hall meeting.
This whole thing is just silly. But it is nice to know that DCS is paying attention to the community, let alone my little blog.
This little bird also mentioned "Advisory Council" which is a commission of Deaf / hearing people to help DCS operating. This bird said that you cannot google it up because it is such a small group. Anybody know about this group in San Diego? What is AC's goal and role in helping DCS's grave situation? Share the information! What is the solution San Diego can do to help the falling DCS?

Tidbit #2: Greater San Diego Chapter for CAD has been official. Membership is open and ideas for goals/events/et cetera are welcome. The next meeting will be at March 3rd (will be hosted at a different place to advocate a county-wide participation from Deaf community). I will establish a blog for the chapter to relay the minutes from meetings to the members who couldn't attend.

Tidbit #3: I like to teach ASL at universities but I think I do have a high expectation from the students. I like to teach and show them how to "talk" naturally among Deaf/signers, rather than memorizing odd dialogues from the textbooks. I always tell them to use this sign, not that because it is "cool" and commonly used. The textbooks are SO outdated... it does provide a wonderful foundation to learn ASL but so many signs are just awkward if used in a sentence. Take "decline" (the english word) for example... it is similar to the ASL sign of "excuse" but from the chin. and the dialogue in it used decline in somewhat like this sentence: "No, I declined to go out movie with you." .... NO WAY YOU WILL SAY THAT IF YOU ARE TRULY A NATIVE ASL USER!!! You use that "decline" sign only in this simliar sentence: "Your application for Gallaudet has been declined due to lack of information". So this little thing just irriates me that many teachers do think the students should know this and misuse this!

It is also hard to teach students who are used to another teacher's style-- so they kept asking me what is the sign for that, this, etc... I kept telling them: "If you forget a sign for a word, you just try to describe that before you resort to fingerspelling. Show them that you can think." They just stumbled and begged me to simply tell them the sign. I see it as cheating if they cannot figure out on their own-- looking in their books, or describe it to me then I can relay them the sign for it. How hard is it for you to describe "fridge"??? Gesture for opening a door, then say that it is cold and you put foods in it. ASL students, if you want to score brownie points, AVOID FINGERSPELLING! Don't linger on English. And so many of them are so immature-- or very shy. I am pretty open, since the class is at an university-- a place of "adults" (guess not!), so the discussions of anatomy, alcohol, illicit activities do come up once in a while. Mind you, the textbook started it-- by showing signs for "wine", "beer", and "liquor". So it just happened that one of my formal students asked me: "SIGN FOR RUSSIAN ALCOHOL?" which referred to vodka and the new students tittered. They laughed even more louder when I do show them the sign. I didn't see what was so funny about this. If they want to become fluent in the language, then they would need to know all common conversation topics-- like sports, alcohol, party, meeting, dating, etc. I feel sorry that they see ASL as a pure and naive language when it is just dirty as English, Spanish, and every other language with slangs and swearing words. ASL is not only a beautiful language with "flying magical hands". ASL is my language and I befoul it and so should you!

If you think about it, American hearing people pollute their language of English as well-- with accents and slangs. They are ruining the thousand years of history that went into to perfect English with proper prounciations, spelling, and accents... grey, not gray. Thee, not you. Whilst, not while. Hell, it is just how American talk. Just same as Deaf people sign-- we do not speak in poetry everyday!!! [Cursing various ASL textbooks' DVD for glamourizing American Sign Language]