The Flip Side

It turns out that Cochlear Implant video I shared the other day isn't all smiles. Apparently Cochlear implants are a major dividing point between the deaf culture and hearing culture. My fiance, Lorelei, is a Speech Language Pathology major at UGA and is also getting a minor in American Sign Language. I showed the video to her and she mentioned that she probably wouldn't want her child to get one.

I was stunned. I listed off reason after reason I would want my child to have one: for their own safety; to enjoy the sounds of music; to be able to interact with other hearing people everyday; to not have to struggle in life. She replied that I was only looking at this from a hearing perspective and deaf people would consider that offensive. She told me my aunt was very outspoken in her opposition to cochlear implants. Further background info, my Aunt grew up in a deaf household, has her PHD in Deaf Studies and she and my uncle adopted my cousin who is deaf.

At this point I just wanted to hear her perspective to see if she could reel me back in. I was lost and confused as to why anyone wouldn't want their child to have the opportunity to hear. So she began with the basics. First, being deaf isn't like being blind or disabled. Deaf people have their own culture, and many deaf people are very successful. Many deaf people can read lips and some can even voice. Second, not all deaf people are completely deaf. My cousin, for example, can hear at certain frequencies. They even can translate those sounds in to full sound recognition in some cases. Third, even if someone is an ideal candidate for cochlear implants there is a 3.7% fail rate, and if they fail your cochlea is ruined and you lose all hearing. No sound recognition. Just nothing. To go along with that even if the initial implant is a success you can still lose hearing down the road. That hearing loss isn't even included in the failure rate. Fourth, even with a cochlear implant you aren't guaranteed to hear as well as a hearing person. Some patients only see a slight increase in hearing. Fifth, its an incredibly invasive procedure that involves drilling in to the skull. Finally, a cochlear implant completely alienates you from deaf culture.

I was still going back and forth on the issue when she suggested I watch Sound and Fury. Sound and Fury is the story of two families struggling with the decision of whether or not they should get cochlear implants for their deaf children. I searched for the video and found this clip on YouTube.



It was at that point I realized how ignorant I was being. I just wasn't seeing life through deaf eyes. I scrolled through the comments and the debate was there, too. A few deaf people against a world of hearing people trying to explain why those children would be ok without the implant.

I decided to double back and check the comments on the original video and see if there was a debate there. Sure enough, eight pages back there was a comment about how wrong it was to make such a personal decision for a child.

This whole discussion really moved me. I feel awful for my knee-jerk reaction and it makes me want to dig deeper. I'm not really sure what the conclusion should be here, but I guess it's something along these lines. Think through your perceptions and then research both sides. You can be surprised by what happens to your initial perception.

Edit: I watched Sound and Fury and it's follow up tonight. The decision on Cochlear implants is still a hard one for me. I'm not sure which way I would go. The filmmakers seem to be pushing a pro-implant world, but my limited exposure to the deaf community has shown me that it is a beautiful culture we should cherish. Tough topic.

It's ok. Just laugh

There are moments in life when you have to decide if it's ok to laugh or not. Girl says, "I like the big ones", Daniel Tosh makes a racist observation, and now I present you with Girl smacks concrete and makes funny noise.

Just so you know she survived and now leads a normal healthy life. For optimum laughter watch 9-12 times.

Engagement Pictures

This weekend my fiance and I took a weekend getaway to the greatest place on earth, Clemson, SC, for our engagement pictures. The weekend earns a solid A- on the fun scale and could have only been improved if I hadn't had so much homework to deal with. Tailgating, football, lake, and boozes on Saturday then Blueberry muffins and engagement pictures on Sunday.

I'm lucky that one of my best friends, Adam, was a Graphic Communications major at Clemson and is a photo superstar. For background this is the same guy that hid up in a tree for two hours so he could get pictures of the proposal. After we saw how those turned out we started begging him to do our engagement photos. Two reasons, he is that good and we're pretty broke. Lucky for us Adam had already planned on offering up his services as a wedding gift so it all worked out. 

Taking the pictures was great. We're all good friends so we screwed around the whole time and had a really good time with it. Favorite moment might have been when my fiance discovered a tree that had actually grown a sack with two balls and wanted me to take a picture with it (awaiting photo). 

Since that time my fiance has asked me everyday when our pictures were going to be ready - apparently girls love this shit. Lucky for her Adam is a known procrastinator when it comes to Physics and Chemistry, his last two classes to graduate from Clemson, both are on their third round. As a result of him putting off his real work he did up a couple photos as a preview of what was coming.

"You guys look like f-ing J. Crew models on safari or something." 

All rights reserved on both photos to Adam Peake.

Poor Adam has no idea the beast he has now unleashed. Like a junkie after their last high, Lorelei is now chasing after the rest of the pictures with more fervor than ever before. I only pray that I can hold her back long enough for him to finish them all. 

...And to answer your questions yes, she is that good looking. No, I didn't trick her in to this relationship.

Awesome

I was sitting at my desk griping about having to put together a blog entry. Thinking to myself that it would be so much easier to just go to bed and not worry about this. So I did the logical thing and started poking around the corners of the internet.

I learned that ants can survive a fall from any height. Sounds like an interesting premise for a bank heist if you ask me. The queen outlines a dastardly plan to steal the identities of thousands and then jump of the roof in an apparent suicide. Only she's not dead. DUN DUN DUNNNN!

I discovered that in Japan they have different stickers for the elderly and newly licensed to put on their cars to alert others, bears do shit in the woods,  lightsabers would have been perfect with a wrist strap and found a lolcat that brought a smile to my face.

It's funny because it's legal.

Finally, I found this video and I knew my original post on the merit of lightsaber wrist straps was toast.



I'm not sure what was more moving, the mother's reaction or the baby. The sheer exuberance of his smile at hearing his mother's voice is something you usually only hear about in fiction. Stuff like this just doesn't seem to happen in real life. Even the doctor's cheesy line about an early Christmas present doesn't ruin this moment. There are some things in this world that are truly awesome and this is one of those moments.

If ye cen read this Fuck off

This is ma nightmare, He squelched out. Ah thought he wis gonna lose it raght ther. -Fuck this righten fer diffrnt tones if ah could skip one fuckin' book this bastahd wuld be et, he sais as tha keys stopped agin.-Ah don't give a baker's Fuck if it's necessary, ya had to go a wee bit deeper to understand him. Tha bastard was 3 hours of sleep on and he didn't give two shits fer workin no more. This nonsensical shit is gonna fuck up yer brains.

Procrastination

Every time I swear it will be the last time. Just like an addict trying to break their cycle of destruction, I too struggle to stop the chain of events I have once again set in motion. I can't be bothered once I sit down at my desk on Monday afternoon. Like a monk on a pilgrimage, or a flock of geese headed south I don't know what drives me down this path. All I know is that once again it is 5:00AM and instead of sleeping I sit at this keyboard punching out words hoping for a hint of tone similar in nature to the fine work I'm so intent on imitating.

The real problem is the success with which I have continued this never-ending cycle of delay, delay, delay, then work until ungodly hours. As far back as I can remember I have been putting off assignments or finding excuses to do them later. A particularly memorable moment came in the fifth grade when I saved a science project on the element Phosphorus until the night before it was due - a problem since it was supposed to be a quarter long project. After a B-minus and a verbal lashing from my instructor I was on my way to the next project I wasn't going to complete in an orderly amount of time.

It's not a problem of interest. I'm interested in my work now, and I genuinely enjoy it - a year of work that you hate has a way of changing your perspective. No, this week I'm going to blame it on the continued adjustment to how long it actually takes to complete my assignments. You see, I'm used to cramming for three to five exams, quickly completing a couple homework assignments and  completing a project for a grand total of about 48 hours of studying per class. I have quickly discovered that this tried and true method of working my way through classes is no longer acceptable here at The Circus. So with a heavy heart and even heavier eyelids I bid you, Good Day!

McDonalds

Billions and Billions served. A pleasant reminder that before you decided to have that piece of over-processed garbage shoved down your gullet billions and billions of other idiots made the same decision. There is something that reassures us in knowing that other people are making the same decision; a security blanket of sorts. We think to ourselves this is a safe decision because so many others have made the same choice, but we never consider what happens if all those people were wrong.

We are all searching for the next group to follow. My favorite groups to follow are those who consider themselves counterculture. In high school I ran with an emo crowd for a while. Not mainstream either. We're talking about full on hardcore screamo shows in an empty retail space converted to a concert venue where the main act every Friday ended their show with the lead singer chugging YooHoo then puking it up on stage. Fucked up, right? Sometimes we just don't understand how wrong we are until you step back from a situation and realize what the fuck is going on.

Anyways, back to the emos, these kids spent the better part of their Friday nights talking about how nonconformist they were, and what sheep the popular kids were at their school. Fucking morons. I still remember the first time I showed up to hang out with them in a Polo shirt. You would have thought I dropped my shorts and shat right in front of them. I took grief the entire night about how I was just buying in to a cycle of conformity. So yeah, I fell for their tricks and bought a Taking Back Sunday t-shirt for my Friday nights out with the emo kids. The black t-shirt made me so hardcore.

About the third time I listened to a shitty local band whine and scream about their unfair, white suburban life I started to doubt that I had found an escape for the mainstream. Those bunch of mindless drones had just bought in to a completely different form of mainstream. Conforming to noncomformity. We're all just a member of a bigger group. Gradually we grew apart, but I never forgot the lessons learned during those hardcore emo nights.