It’s been months since I wrote an entry, I should be punished! But today’s blog is going to be random and maybe a bit strange!
In the last entry I wrote about the upcoming BDA conference in Belfast. It was interesting and I met a lot of people. I gained a few more followers on Twitter… you might ask ‘How’? I tweeted pretty much everything during the conference so the nice people on Twitter could be kept up to date. I could see there was a gap in BDA’s social media as it is brief and edited on Facebook. I did ask when BDA would be on twitter. Their answer was ‘Before Christmas’ … yet still nothing! If they want to attract younger members, they need to be more up to date on current fashion of social media and to attract more professional people they need to move quickly as twitter is an useful tool for networking and for gossip on the lives of celebrities!
I have persuaded several friends to get twitter and I think they are slowly becoming a convert! I could proclaim my love for twitter and people might nod their heads and think ‘She’s crazy’. Twitter is my daily news, my social life, my gateway to the big bad world; I can fill in gaps for many things that I might have missed out on. There are many people willing to tweet information and to help people if needed, Deaf people can benefit from this if they know where to find all this on twitter! I used to sit on trains that were stuck in middle of nowhere and wondering what the hell was going on… I now just simply tweet to whatever train company I am on e.g. virgin @virgintrains as they have staff devoted to answering queries from people wanting to know what is happening and I can find out more information.. At times I know more than the hearing people on the train with me which make me feel superior! But it also allow me to adjust my plans and to be aware of why I am late instead of the usual reason- ‘train stopped in middle of nowhere, couldn’t find a member of staff to ask why and I fow the tannoy’ for all I know the tannoy could be telling jokes! But following the relevant transport is useful but yet I needed to get used to seeing the unpleasant tweet when it involves a death of someone e.g. ‘train delayed due to a person being hit at a crossing between Birmingham and Coventry’ I have been seeing more of those tweets lately and I hope It was an accident not the sad truth of suicide.
On a cheery note has anyone seen ‘Deaf teens in a hearing world’? It is a documentary about a limping chicken that later get murdered by their notetaker and is later served in Nandos but with no creamy mash! This harsh life of the limping chicken touched the Deaf community with a Facebook group being set up; a website (www.limpingchicken.com) devoted to creating cultural awareness of how important chickens especially limping ones is to the Deaf community.
I enjoyed seeing the diversity of the Deaf teenagers on the documentary; I was disappointed on how it reflected on the signing community. For some hearing people who might think the spoken languages are beautiful, I feel the same way about sign language… If we watch someone who is a fluent signer, you could literally drown in those moving hands, the facial expressions welcoming you into their secret world with no sounds.
I recently watched Stephen Fry’s Planet Word; it is about the spoken and the written languages… Given my interest in languages I pre-ordered the series and settled down to watch it. There was a brief section on ASL (American Sign Language) in Deaf theatre which I found interesting but disappointed that Stephen Fry did not choose to explore BSL.
Whilst I’m on the topic of BSL, I’ve noticed some staff in my local Starbucks started signing to me now, I’m pleased about that as it goes to show few basic signs goes a long way in helping Deaf people communicate with ease. If you go to a local café often, it is worth signing your order and they will pick up the signs and repeat it back to you. I also often go to Varsity for lunch with friends and I try to order food through BSL. Today I was rewarded by a bar staff signing chips to me… yay!
I strongly believe that everyone has some element of sign language inside them; it is up to them to do something about it. I often get frustrated going to my BSL module, the class I am in has been going to 3 hours classes a week for 3 years and YET they are nowhere close to level 2. I feel sad about his as I don’t get why they chose Deaf Studies as part of their course and not gain a reasonable level of BSL skills. I got a bit upset the other week when I bumped into one of the people on the Deaf Studies course; she was trying to get people to join Zumba. When I said hello, she waved then carried on asking people. I wasn’t sure if she thought I wasn’t interested in Zumba or because she thought as a Deaf person I wouldn’t be able to do it because I can’t hear?
I know I can be anti-hearing at times. I do have some hearing friends that I adore because they see me for who I am- not the Deaf girl who use her hands to communicate. I’ve lost count of times I’ve taken my hooks out and started listening to music to be greeted with pitying looks. Someone once said to me they thought it was great I listen to music even though I could hear nothing…. Erm if that was the case I wouldn’t listen to anything in the first place!
I have just realised I’ve hit the 1,000 mark! I best sign off for now and save my mutterings for some other times.
Yours in gibberish moving hands that I love to wave about!
Fact: I am currently reading Sophie Kinsella’s new book- I’ve got your number which is about a mobile… erm ironic I know!
