i have big eyes

No, I don't mean metaphorically. No, I don't mean normal big eyes, like "your baby has such cute, big eyes!" Well, yes, I was born this way. anyway - let me explain.

I had a eye test today. The eye doc was cool, writing everything down on paper, instead of just writing down the essentials. At one point, he said that my eyes were big, bigger than his. Huh? He clarified his point by drawing a normal-sized eye and writing above it, "MINE." Then he drew a huge eye next to it and wrote, "YOURS." Eek. I asked him, why? He shrugged and said, "Some people have big feet, some people have big noses, you have big eyes." Ummm.. Okay. He said that its why I'm so nearsighted. Something about the lights going in the eye, etc etc.

Later, he checked the back of my eyes and asked me if I had a family history of glaucoma. I said, no, I don't think so. He told me to check with my mom because "the back of your eyes looks suspicious." Uhh. I told him that my brother was also told that he might have glaucoma, but I wasn't sure whether he followed up on that. He told me to come back the next week to have a glaucoma test.

And then my mom just told me that my dad and uncle have glaucoma. Oh.

Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness. But they say that with early detection and regular medication, I should be fine. Let's hope so. And, no, I won't start buying marijuana, despite what people say, it doesn't help glaucoma as much as legal medication does.

Maybe I have to take double doses of the medication, since I have such big eyes.

i would like my therapy back

xanga has always been a sort of a therapy - a sounding board, a ranting machine, etc, for me. i could just go to my laptop and type furiously or slowly about any subject that was bouncing around in my head. but now with all the protest this semester and my blogging and then the new blogsite, my therapy disappeared. i'm bringing it back, but for obvious reasons, i have to guard my privacy somewhat. all my blogs related to deaf issues and the president and etc will be public (at elisawrites.com), obviously, even though i haven't been regular lately... but come christmas break i plan to type a lot more, since we now know who the three candidates for the interim president position are. anyway - i want to rant from time to time about ridiculous and irrevelant things, sometimes i just need to stretch my fingers and massage my thinking cells. so, if you're (weirdly) interested in my pointless ramblings, juz ask me to add you on my protected list...

happy holidays, everyone!

Open Forum Tonight

This entry was originally published at gallaudet protests

What: An Open Forum

The first open forum was a success, with great suggestions for making it even more so next time.

This open forum will group people into three rooms (a mix of faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni, and community members in each group). Each group will have one moderator.

This open forum is intended to allow people to share their concerns regarding barriers to unity, their frustrations regarding “the system,” ideas for processes that will lead to a more united and healthy campus.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come!

When: Monday, November 20th, 7 to 9pm

Where: We are trying to secure MPR and Subflex A/B in the Student Acacemic Center. For now, meet in the marketplace area.

Sponsored by the Student Body Government and the FSSA Coalition

This information was taken from www.gufssa.org

Unfortunately, I have a class tonight and will not be able to attend. I am confident that other bloggers will cover the event. If you don’t have class, be sure to show up and get your voice/hands heard

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Comment Away!

This entry was originally published at gallaudet protests

I always loved getting comments on my blog, because a blog is at its best when it becomes a conversation rather than just a person talking. But during the protests, I felt that I had to close it because I did not have time to go through comments and make deletions – some comments were totally not necessary.

But I miss the conversations. And now that things have settled down some, I’m bringing it back. I’ve opened the comments at my blog at Xanga and I enjoy it very much. Comments can be negative towards me, sure, or positive, sure, but when it comes to making threats or demeaning any person other than me, it’s when I don’t enjoy comments. I also hate cenorship, but I will delete those comments.

I’m looking forward to the conversation. See you in the blogosphere.

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What Rejection Does to the Deaf Community

This entry was originally published at gallaudet protests

I was wandering in the halls of books at the Gallaudet library, looking for books related to deaf education for one of my classes. I was taking my sweet time, as I always do in libraries - there’s just too many books to look at. I came to two books about Miss America Heather Whitestone, remember her? One of them was written by her mother and one by Whitestone herself.

Mildly curious, I skimmed the one by the mother. It had some cute pictures in it and some sad but cute stories about her and her deaf daughter. It talked about her “hard choices”, such as choosing oral education for her daughter and later letting her take Signed Exact English classes. It was what I expected. I put it back and decided I would look at Whitestone’s book. I flipped the pages, looking at the pictures in the middle first (you know you do that, too) and then moving through the book, glancing at chapter titles. One caught my eye - “Miss Deaf Alabama Pagent.”

Whitestone talked about how many people at the deaf school didn’t understand her because she signed in SEE. She talked about how one deaf girl was angry that Whitestone brought her hearing mother. She talked about how other deaf girls also danced to music in their talent competitions, but their motions were “simple.” She said that her ballet dancing didn’t “hit” the deaf audience because “they didn’t hear the music or felt it in their hearts.” She said that she couldn’t understand the judges who signed in ASL, because “the vocabulary of American Sign Language is very limited and they communicate thoughts, rather than complete sentences.” She explained that the judges couldn’t understand her because she signed in English, which had “a rich vocabulary and grammatically complete sentences.”

By that time, I was boiling inside. How many people have read this book and murmured at the limitations of ASL? They would think, it must be true, since Heather’s deaf, so she should know. I glowered with anger - but I read on.

Whitestone went on to say that she was completely rejected by the other deaf girls in the pageant because she spoke to the waiter at the restaurant that they went to — the deaf girls were being immature (this is my word) and signing ASL to the waiter and Whitestone got tired and just spoke the other girls’ orders. Whitestone drove back home with her mother, wondering, she was rejected by the hearing world and now she had just been rejected by the deaf world. Where did she belong to?

Now I wasn’t mad at Heather anymore. I was mad at the deaf girls. If they had accepted Heather and welcomed her — became her friends, taught her ASL and its rich vocabulary and structure, introduced her to the deaf community — who knows what Heather could have given back to the deaf world.

This is one of the reasons why the Unity for Gallaudet movement is so important. Some people have said that it should be called Unity for the Deaf. I agree. Rejection does nobody good. This is why so many reacted with anger at what Fernandes and Jordan and Coogan said to the media, that the protestors were rejecting Fernandes because of her being not deaf enough. The deaf community has been trying to get together, to unite, to be more accepting of each other, and now it was being divided all over again by misinformation.

The deaf community then came together for real, all kinds of deaf people, and became united towards a single goal. Now that the protest activities are over, we must never forget the ultimate goal. Unity.

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