ASL Pro

There's a wonderful site you can go to called ASL Pro where you can register and create tests under the "Quiz Me" section. I find it to be very useful. I hope they will add on a feature that allows you to quiz your students on phrases and sentences. I will write to them, suggesting that idea. There is also another nifty section on fingerspelling, that you can pick, slow, medium or fast to practice your finger spelling reception skills.

I have an appt with a special after effects editor this friday, he only charges $25 per hour and I think he could get all of the effects done within 2 to 3 hours. I am so jazzed to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. The same goes for my website, the only thing left to do is add my team bios, additional photos and the trailers and then I can finally unveil my website for my movie, wheee as Ronnie always says.

Class last night was relatively painless. The students turned in their final exams and it was a short class. I am concerned about one student who hasnt been handing in her work, I will have to speak to my supervisor about seeing if she qualifies for an incomplete or??

Right now am at work and working on my lesson plan for tonight's class. My supervisor will be observing so I am already working on keeping my mouth (lips) from moving when I sign because it is consider cheating when you mouth the words and the students don't learn as effectively that way.

I love Farscape, they have the best swear words like "What the Yotz are you doing?" "What the Frell is going on!!" also when the other shipmates (various aliens) try to repeat whatever the human (John Critchon) says like Chicken Soup, it comes out as "Zeekin Zoop" and so on. And I thought us deafies had it bad...

I feel beta

soon to be back in alpha mode and back into the swing of life. Its amazing how fragile our bodies are and what happens when we don't heed to its warnings. I shouldve, couldve, wouldve but didnt and it cost me 1.5 days of work! I got a nice email from Baba telling me not to wait so long next time and I wont because now that I have a place to go and a doctor assigned to me, I wont be so hesitant to see one. I really liked the William Ryan Center, they couldve made me feel like a 2nd class citizen but they didnt. In a place like NYC, you have to marvel at the level of care and compassion I was given yesterday :) Plus it helps to have a boyfriend who shuffled along side me to the infirmary, then to the apt, back out again to the Clinic and then to Drug Reade. Basically giving up his day for me to help me out.

I also recieved a lovely thank you note from Peep. I was touched and I am glad she s doing so well. I was in much worse shape then she is in considering that its only been a few months since her breakup. Shes a smart girl because she walked away. I didn't. I always wondered why I didnt stand up for myself as a kid and again when I saw my own relationship going down the toilet. Am I one of those captains who drowns with their ship? For me, I think I was naive in the fact, that I thought love conquers all. If there is enough love, you can get through anything. But I have since re-evaluated that claim and realize its not love but commitment that sees through the trials and tribulations of the affairs of the heart. Besides love doesn't put bread on the table. Its hard work, a level of respect and a commitment to work through the bad as well as the good. Knowing Peep she will enjoy this time being single. I sure did enjoy the 4 years I was. There's something to be said for only having to worry about one's self.

Clyde recieved good news today, he is moving into his new one bedroom apt downtown in the finacial district. I am happy because he had also considered Roosevelt Island but changed his mind when the suburban mentality became glaringly clear. I don't blame him. Who wants a socceer mom and a PTA dad deciding whether he can live? Nah, I want him to live somewhere where his American dollars and credibility speaks for itself. Not where I have to worry about their percieved notion of his ethnic, race, creed and or nationality and if it fits in with theirs. He is thrilled to finally be settling down and have an address to call his own. I know the feeling, 3 months of not knowing where I would settle down did a number on my nerves. Its good to see Clyde in such good spirits.

The antibiotics are working their magic :)

Drug Reade is my New Friend

Dang it, no amount of sleeping will cure me of my sinus infection. After pulling a Rip Van Wrinkle for the weekend, only going out to dinner and a play on saturday night with Clyde, Blondie and Cain. Unforunately I fell asleep in the play :( I did get to see my old classmate Aaron Kubey starring in the play Brillant Traces.

I finally caved in and went to William Ryan Center where they have a walk in clinic. They charged me $93 and their staff was very nice. I could barely hear anything so Clyde did his best to terp when it was needed.

not much else to report, will go to bed soon and hopefully the rxs will help soon?

My 2 sample essays

I had to write 2 sample essays for my student's final exam. I decided to use real life experiences. These are from when I was a kid/teenager and do not reflect my current way of life;

Here are the 2 essays I am asking for;

Please pick either A or B and type a two page Essay on the topic you have choosen.

A- Write about a time when you did something you were not supposed to do and where it took place. What did you do and why did you do it? How old were you? Explain all details of what happened, -slowly, and step by step. What did you learn from this experience?



B- Write about a disagreement you had with your parents. What was the disagreement about and where did it take place? How did the disagreement start? How did the disagreement end? How old were you when this disagreement happened? Explain in details of what happened, -slowly, and step by step. What did you learn from this experience?


Here are my examples;

I Stole From the Gap!

When I was 15 years old and at MSSD (Model Secondary School for the Deaf) I became friends with a girl name Annie. We both were oral students learning ASL as teenagers. She was one of my closest friends. I discovered one day while we were off campus in George Town that Annie liked to shoplift. I was so surprised because I had never stolen anything before in my life!
After a few more times, she showed me how to shoplift. Basically you take an item or object which has to be pretty small, small enough to slide up your sleeves. We would go to different stores and slide make up and music cassette tapes up our sleeves and walk out the store. This went on for a few months.
One night our dorm had a trip to SpringField Mall in VA, and we were in the Gap store. It was near the winter holidays and I didn’t have any money to buy things so we decided we would each take a shirt from the Gap store and we did. We also stole earrings and necklaces from a Claire’s boutique store and other stuff.
Then riding the bus on the way back to MSSD, Annie and I took our stolen goods out and was bragging about them to the other girls on the bus. We were stupid and admitted we stole from the Gap. One girl who I hated name Deanna was nosey and saw what we signed.
We got back to Dorm D and went to our rooms. About 30 minutes later an REA (Residential Education Advisor) came to my room and told me to come into the office to talk to the CRE (Campus Resident Educator) who was the head of the dorm. I can’t remember the CRE’s name but she confronted us about the things we brought. Making us show her all of the stolen goods. She asked us where the receipts were? We both lied and said we threw them out and put everything in one bag to make it easier to carry. She told us how Deanna said we were bragging about stealing from the Gap. We were busted! Of course I was crying my eyes out but Annie stayed calm and cool. She didn’t care or worry about the CRE calling her parents. I was very upset about my family knowing.
Then the CRE said we would have to go back the next night to the Gap store and return the shirts. She also told us they may call the police and file a report on us but it was their decision not MSSD’s. I cried all night and felt terrible.
The next night, it was just me, and Annie with one REA driving us back to SpringField Mall and I didn’t want to go but had no choice! Annie was quiet the whole ride there. I felt like Annie didn’t care and I started not to like Annie.
We got there and went to the Gap store. I was so ashamed. We gave back the shirts and the Gap store people said they decided not to call the police. The REA said we were very lucky. It was so humiliating to admit it to their faces.
We got back to MSSD and we both were punished with community service and had OCR (off campus restriction) meaning we were not allowed off campus on the weekends for 2 months. Then after that, we both couldn’t go off campus without a staff with us for another month. I stopped hanging out with Annie. She still would steal stuff and brag about it. I never stole again!
I learned that even if you have a friend you like, if they do things that are wrong or convince you to do those things with them. They aren’t your friends. I learned that stealing is wrong and that I don’t like the humiliation of being caught.


I Never Liked Wearing Dresses

My Mother always wanted me to wear dresses. From the time I was a little child throughout most of my teenage years I never liked to wear dresses. Every year for school photos my Mother would beg and plead with me to wear something nice for my picture. I just wanted to wear a tee shirt and jeans. I was not happy at my hearing school. I had no friends and I wanted to be invisible.
When I was a senior at MSSD (Model Secondary School for the Deaf) it was time for graduation. I decided to wear jeans, converse sneakers and a black tee. I figured that I was wearing a graduation gown so no one could see my clothes underneath it.
Well, my assistant principal Vivian Rice read me the “riot act.” Saying the way I dressed was not appropriate and that I needed to go and change my clothes. I told her “I don’t have any dresses or nice pants.” She didn’t believe me. So we went back to the dorm to my room where I opened up my closet and my dresser and I was right, I only had jeans and tee shirts with flannels. Back then I was into heavy metal so of course most of my clothing were dark colored or skulls and roses with thorns. I just couldn’t see what the big deal was.
Then when I went to Gallaudet University, my mother would complain about me dressing so ugly and never using a purse. I said “Mom, who cares, I am not a girly girl!” And then she said “Jenny you are so pretty, why do you want to cover yourself up like that?” She would try to get me to go shopping for new clothes and pick out clothes like skirts and blouses. I wasn’t happy.
I dated one deaf guy for almost 7 years and then we broke up. Somehow something inside of me changed. I no longer wanted to dress down all the time. I wanted to dress pretty so I could feel pretty. I realized that I spent most of my life feeling ugly and my clothes reflected my self-esteem.
My Mom is now happy with the way I dress. I even learned to use a purse. My new boyfriend teases me about the way I used to dress when he sees older photos of me. My Mom was right, I am attractive and I do not need to hide my body in baggy clothing. I still wear jeans a lot but mostly on the weekends. I dress professionally for work, and pretty for when I go out with friends or my boyfriend. Now I go shopping with Mom and it is fun. She loves it when I buy something she picked out for me.
I learned that I don’t have to be invisible or wear ugly clothes. I know now when I see girls dressed in baggy clothes that it may mean they are embarrass about how they look or not comfortable with their bodies. A woman doesn’t have to dress girly but dress nicely. I think when you dress nicely it makes you feel better about yourself.

Krammar Jewish? I dont think so!

Ugh please Michael Richards dont try to make yourself look good by jumping on the Jewish bandwagon. The Jews have already been blamed enough for the discrimination Black people face and we don't need your name added to it. Not that theres any validity to that myth that the Jews want to keep the Black people down, Richard's racist remarks are not of that of a Jew and to call himself as one... Any self-respecting Jew such as myself this to be quite distasteful. You can read more at CNN.

Working on final exam format for my class tonight. I am a little nervous as I have never given a final exam before in my life! But I gotta admit, seeing my name on my student papers "Instructor X X" inflates my ego a bit more than usual. And those who know me know I have quite an ego (often hearies complain of hot air hissing out of my left ear which is unobstructed by a hearing aid)! JK, yeah I do have an ego but not to a point where people avoid me :D

Baba sent me this email earlier and I thought it was a beautiful, but bittersweet memory and I wanted to share it;

It was summer, as you know, so the boys were home from school. X and X were twelve and still little kids, so every day we brought them to our friends the Raudenbushes (Papa called them the Rubberbrushes!), so we could be at the hospital. The Raudenbushes lived at the top of a hill so the road up there was winding. Papa always kept cigars on the dashboard. As we rounded a turn, a cigar slid down to my side and Papa said, "Have a cigar." Then the car turned the other way and the cigar slid back to his side and I said, "No thanks, I just had one." Then we turned again and the cigar slid back to my side and he said, "Have another." Well, at that we just broke up and laughed until we almost cried. As you know, laughter and tears are close cousins. It was a way of coping with the unacceptable although some people might find it strange that we were laughing while X was dying in the hospital.

Baba is right, laughing and crying are more alike than most people realize. Evolution standpoint says laughing occurred in response to being nervous. Like if we were back in the caveman era and we felt threatened, we would laugh and bare our teeth.

Ah.. the scent of cat pee....

For some crazy reason yesterday while I was at work in Queens, I kept smelling cat pee. I checked my shirt, slacks, even my bra. I checked my backpack, purse and my shoes and nada, no cat pee. But still it drove me crazy. Perhaps that was a premonition of what was gonna happen today. When I arrived at my Media job, again I caught the scent of cat piss and realized the black shirt I had for 10 years carried a faint scent of cat pee! Ugh so I went to the nearby store and brought a tee to wear today instead... Damn cats, I came home last night to find a nice mixture of cat vomit and a massive hairball on my bed and comforter, lovely! Gee this is the thanks I get for going out of town for a few days. Tom and Kat not likieee... teach me a lesson or two will they? Now they are banned from my room when I am not home.

A little relaxation goes a long way! My Sweetie, posted this on his blog about my evil influences of being lazy 1x a week (ok, sometimes 2x or 3xs a week...)
On Sunday we got back to the city and totally relaxed. We only went outside once to obtain food and that was about it. We watched a bunch of corny comedies such as Deuce Biegelow: Male Gigolo, but it worked. It was the first time in 2 years that I've just shut down my brain totally for an entire day and did absolutely nothing. The most interesting part was going outside to realize it was already dark by the time I had decided to get dressed to get dinner. I literally can not remember the last time I've just hung around that long doing nothing, but it was definitely worth it.
Funny, he IMed me on Monday telling me he decided to get rid of the garage that he rented for the purposes of working on his cars. When I asked him why? He said he no longer needed it and prefer to have days like we did on Sunday. I agree, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!"

I made a major decision yesterday, I decided not to teach Writing to deaf adults again in Jan. My heart wasnt into it and it was making me miserable because I felt I was doing a disservice to the students who are all a great bunch of kids! They need a teacher who has all the answer and gets a hard on for the English language. I only write well cuz I grew up oral so I write how I speak. Not because I know the correct word order, what verbs are main verbs? Auxillary verbs? Infinitive verbs.... etc etc so when I met with my supervisor I told her the truth that I wasn't digging this subject and I was sorry that I didnt want to keep teaching that class. She was very understanding and although disappointed with my decision, she remarked she thought I was a wonderful teacher but she could sense when she observe my class there was some disconnection between myself and the materials I was teaching. She wished me well and I feel that I will still see her occasionally as one of my mentor for advice.

Now I will contact one other school and see if they need me in Jan because they wanted me this fall but I declined due to conflicts in my schedule. Hopefully they will still want me to teach?

This weekend I plan redo my room set up, the current floorplan sucks and I am going crazy with the chaotic feelings of my room. Thats one of the disadvantages of ADD, when something is bothering you, it makes you nutty and unable to focus on anything but what is bothering you. I cannot ignore my surroundings, if I am not at peace with it, I cannot relaxs.

my hearing aid battery

Would give me away if I ever committed a serious crime. Think about it, all they'd have to do is notify the pharmacy chains, send out a bulletin of a deaf woman, 5 ft 6 inches, 130lbs (ok, 135 lbs), brownish, reddish hair, bluish, greenish eyes, big toothy smile... id be 3 states over and stop by to get diet coke and damnit, on my last hearing aid battery is dying! I'm on the run, trying to elude authorities.

Of course I couldn't listen to the radio, ya know to check in periodically on any news updates. Can't use a non traceable cell phone, same thing, too deaf to use it. Couldn't switch my accent and pretend to be "hearing", its a deaf voice all the way!

I use my hands too much between life and ASL, my fingerprints be all over the damn place. Everyone knows I'm a slob, so of course lots of evidence for "the man" to follow my trail.

Man, CSI sure does give a deafie a lot to think about. I used to major in criminology. I was very interested in learning why some people commit crimes and others don't. Then after a year and 5 classes later. I realized it was a depressing field to be in and knew that reading about it, and learning the theories is fascinating on its own. But real life wouldn't be as exciting or rosy.

1st official review of...

Save the deaf theater at this Znuage blog and I also got the link for an interview with Christy Smith and her experiences with Survivors. Its old news, but for me, I had never seen the video from Deaf Nation, so check it out. I sure do miss Christy, she was a cool chick at Gally and we hit it off like kindred spirits. I hope she is well in Colorado?


Glad to be back in NYC. I do truly consider it to be my home these days. Clyde and I hung around Sunday, watched Garfield's movie "A Tale of Two Kitties" cute. I liked the 1st Garfield movie better.

Not much else to report, the website for my movies is almost done!! Whee and I've contacted several after effect editors for my 1st movie, because damnit, its been 3 long years my friends have been waiting for it and I cannot nor will I delay the completion any longer!

Oh right, I finally saw Ty's movie "The Family Stone." Wow, the clothes were the lamest I had ever seen him in but I know as an actor on a movie set, he had very little say on the wardrobe. But I am proud of Ty, two movies under his belt. Hope more on the way? I did find it ironic that the only diversity the movie included was Ty and his BLACK gay lover. Its always the same story for deafies and Black folks, they get type cast as the deviants from the norms of society and to be embraced by the audience as if they were like everyone else. Helllllll-O, ofc we are like everyone else, is it not 2006? When is Hollywood gonna stop treating Blacks and Deafies as special ed? For example in the movie "Rosemary's baby" it was the Black guy who was the groundkeeper and slighty retarded. Same for "The Green Mile," the one prisoner, a Black man also retarded. *retches* enuff is enuff..

Say Toilet Seat!!

When Baba snapped this pix below, instead of asking us "say cheese", she instead asked us to "say Toilet Seat!!" I replied "Toilet Seat!" and Clyde replied "No!" and began to laugh and voila, a great pix!

Clyde and I arrived to my hometown, in the nasty drizzling rain and cold front. We missed the Thanksgiving dinner, partly because I couldn't get moving so we could get on the road and partly the weather kept us at a safe speed driving wise.

I love the way he drives now. I think he's one of the best drivers I've ever met. When we first starting date, I didn't think so. His old car made me nervous because it didn't feel like anything would stop it if it spun out of control. I like his new car a lot better, its interesting to see how people react when he tells what kind of car he drives. Yeah its a BMW. *yawns* really I don't pay any attention to car makes or whatnots. I am happy if it has 4 wheels and gets me from point A to point B. It could be a cardboard box with wings for all I care. Slap any brandname on it and voila it still a car, you have to pay insurance on and deal with the upkeep. I'm a retired car owner myself. Don't miss it. At the same time, there's perks with dating a guy with a set of wheels, I won't deny that. As long as he wants to remain in the driver seat and me a mere passenger, heck I can live with that!

It was good seeing the folks tonight. My uncle's corn bread pudding, excellent. The turkey too. I didn't get my stuffing fixs because the kind there had mushrooms *retches* mushroom, the horror! The inhumanity!!

Tmw will have lunch with Baba and Clyde before he heads back to NYC for a meeting tmw late afternoon. Then ill head to my Moms place. No way am I getting caught in the whole "Black Friday" deal. Id like to keep all my limbs attached and not have to wrestle some lady over a pair of pants!

I am glad to be here, I needed a break from NYC and my responsibilities. Hope everyone had a wonderful Gobble time!

Boyfriend is watching Racist Seinfeld

*tsk tsk* his ancestors genes would roll in their graves if they knew...

Yep Krammar a closest racist has debut in LA recently, full blown rant tirade led to our KKK membership card inclusion of Michael Richards. Too bad, my boyfriend used to be a big fan of Seinfeld, one of the few Jewish things I had in my favor and he destroyed it, thanks a lot Richards.

Ech today was a day where my head cold kept me indoors more of the day. I ran a few earrands nearby 110th st, I live off of 125th so I was able to avoid downtown mad ass traffic of Holiday travelers.... thank god! I learned my lesson a few years back when a normal 2 1/2 hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive from MD to PA for Thanksgiving. Ever since I only travel on Thanskgiving day, I skip the wednesday horror gridlocks!

I got the cutest pictures from both Ronnie of Averi who is 6 months old and my other friend Joe Joy who became an uncle recently. Babies are so cute, as long as they arent mine. I still havent made up my mind, kids or no kids... the biological clock is a ticking, only a 7 year window left for me.

The kitties both Tom and Kat were so sweet, they laid next to each other by my feet earlier today as I was cleaning and packing. Cylde is here now, we ordered some pizza cuz my roommie has taken the kitchen hostage and has been cooking for a group of 15 to 20 people worth of food but sadly maybe 4 people are expected to show, I dont know why or how she wants to cook so much food all day long??? I truly have lost all intertest in cooking from scratch.

Tmw my sweetie and I head to PA for thanksgiving at my Uncle Robbies. I cant wait, I really enjoy my Mom's stuffing and my uncle Davids corn pudding! Plus turkey and gravey, yum yum!

alrighty to all of you, happy Gobble TIME!
xx

almost over

The event in my opinion went as smoothly as it could. (You know how that story goes, what starts out small, becomes grande). There were some technical difficulties with the chocolate foundue and making cosmo martinis but all in all the attendees made the hard work worthwhile.

The food selection was EXCELLENT, I was quite pleased. Both of the women in charge of that left no stone unturned.

The selected workshop from an outside source went quite well. I like the presentator because she's so energetic and outgoing. I enjoy being around people like that.

The other mini presentation by one of our hostess was quite entertaining and informative. Led to many interesting tidbits for discussions. Hands wave or in this case "hands off" *winks*

The Goody Bags well received. Ill be reviewing which samples, products I liked or didn't like sometime this week.

I overall enjoyed the experience and had the opportunity to meet some new faces, I was quite impress as one of our attendee was a Yale student, grad level. Another traveled from Maryland. One was sick with a cold and still she made the effort to be there.

Will I do it again? I feel like no but my mind screams yes cuz if you aint dead, you better be living! Do something that you consider worthy of your time and energy. I could never do the same thing, day in and out. Occassions like last night open room for other possibilites.

Clyde also gets a BIG worthwhile mentioned in the whole scheme of things. He allowed us to use his post office address, he hefted back and forth packages for the event itself. He drove me to several places the past 2 days to prepare and he was so generous with his time in doing all of this. I consider him to be very supportative in nature. I'm glad he can see and appreciate why I dedicate my efforts to such projects. I would like to reciprocate somehow with his projects, but its difficult because most are related to technology and mechanics. Ill figure out sumthing along the way.

Shortly 2 of the hostesses and I will begin putting the apt back together again. Whew, then the week begins for me. Glad its a short one due to Thanksgiving.

Who nose?

I know its highly frown upon to make English puns out of ASL such as signing "who" but instead of by the mouth, you do it on the nose. So it sounds and looks like "who nose/knows?" Been missing my friend Handler who moved to Baltimore last year. He is always signing crazy stuff like that.

Today got me a cold that kept me in bed most of the morning but finally drag my arse to work at Media services so I could get some hours in today and work on lesson plans. I teach ASL level II tonight and am putting together some activities for review purposes.

Last night Szymanski and I worked on a decoulage (sp?) where you add layers of fine paper with special glue for items for this saturdays private event that we're hosting with two other deafies. We got over 30 sponsors for this event, whee! Friday we will be busy picking up items and preparing for the event which begins saturday evening at 5pm. I am very excited and looking forward to it. Word is starting to get out there of the event itself but I am not at liberty to discuss it on my blog :( afterwards maybe, depends on the other hostesses but no names will be used to protect the identities of the attendees.

I have learned a lot about the art of asking. It really depends on who you asked and where? The very poor areas and the very high scale areas usually said no when we went in person to ask for samples. But the average stores like Body Shop, Sephora... they all agreed and gave us samples to use in the goody bags.

Sunday I plan to do nothing except relax and watch movies all day. I know I will be wiped out by then. Luckily next week is a short week due to Thanksgiving. I am excited to see the folks back home.

Clyde is well, saw him over the weekend. I went to a mall on Sunday in Queens, the first time Ive ever touched a mall here in NYC. I will see him tonight after class too. Hes doing great, busy with his wireless business and he has been helping me out with getting supplies or deliveries for saturday night event.

Not a whole lot of exciting things to write about, basically teaching has taken over my life. So much paperwork. But I am happy to say I did some logging of footage for the 3rd movie this past weekend. I hope to on Sunday finish the logging and then like a puzzle start putting the pieces together.

Save Deaf Theater

My friend Joe Joy has been working very hard these past few months on a project to save "Deaf Theater." I am in the video and I hope he can bring and raise the awareness for the need to fund deaf related cultural endeavors. You can watch the video at this link;

Save Deaf Theater

Last night's ASL class went really well. Tonight is English Writing class. My students for the most part are almost done with their first essays. Its interesting to read what topics they choose (1st date, traveling, deaf and hearing differences and similarities...) Never in my wildest dream did I ever think I would be teaching writing skills but ofc I love it as I have been a writer all my life. I try to help my students see where there may be confusions or unnecessary words or sentences. The goal is not to be wordy but to be clear so the reader can understand what the writer is trying to say? Next Tues will be my first class with a supervisor observing it. I am already nervous about it. Not because I think I do a lousy job but that I may not be doing what she expects or wants? She's very nice and supportative so I know I am worrying for nothing but I am a perfectionist so of course I worry.

Speaking of perfectionist, my boyfriend will not sign 1 word signs only but he rather sign sentences and phrases. But what he doesnt realize is that by not signing words at all, how can he ever hope to sign sentences? You have to have the basics building blocks in order to put them together and form thoughts. He is trying his best and I appreciate it.

Tmw I plan to edit. Yep nothing is gonna stop me tomorrow. I cannot keep putting off my movies, its ridiculous!

How lucky am I!!

How weird is it when you get lucky enough for the following to happen?

Go to the snack machine for a bag of sourdough pretzels to snack on and voila, not only do you get the pretzels but two other candy bars came out too!

Walk down the stairs into the subway station only to see the train is there and you are too late. Well I saw the train conductor and he actually waited for me! I had to run quickly and of course I dropped my metro card but nonetheless he waited! I couldnt believe my luck so of course I shouted before entering the train "How cool are you!!"

To have scored possibly 15 sponsors by emails alone, not counting the freebies King and I gathered on Sunday when we did some footwork here in Manhattan for our private event! Whoever attends this event will more than get their money's worth!

As you can see I am in a great mood. I came across a site called Strange New Products which is worthwhile to check out when you have the time :)

My 5 classes that I am teaching are falling into place and Ive been able to establish a rountine for myself now. I am out 12 hours Mon thru Thurs for both of my jobs. Then Friday I usually take care of things around the apt (laundry, cleaning...) then the weekends are mine (sort of, I often spend one afternoon preparing lesson plans for the following week).

Clyde is well, he joined me for Szymanski's birthday dinner sunday nite where we ate Sushi at Blue Ginger. The Crazy Roll was absolutely delish! I ate too much and had a bad stomach ache the whole night and all of Monday. I will never again eat too much, I learned my lesson.



I have been watching a lot of Home Movies which a cartoon series from Cartoon Network Adult Swim and its hilarious. If you get a chance to check out this grown up cartoon I highly recommend. I also been watching the 1st season of Farscape. I love Netflix!

Pixs from My trip

All of these photos were taken by Karen, still need a firewire to post my photos.


Karen on the morning of the cruise in Miami.(You can see our ship in the background)


Here I am on the way to the Mayan Ruins in Mexico




At the Mayan Ruins, man the misquiotoes crucified us!!


In Mexico at a nearby beach




Here's me snorkeling for the first time!


Here's Karen, already a pro!


I am headed back to the ship for food after a long day of Mexico!!


Karen and me at the Turtle Farm, Grand Cayman Island


Another deaf couple, Jim and Sue from Wisconsin with their coda son.


Me


Me and look-a-like Nicholas Cage (George) petting the turtles.


Yep, me and the turtle, we be happy!


Here's me on the boat, while we head to Sting Ray City, Grand Cayman Island


Karen and a Sting Ray moment


Karen



Me barely touching the Sting Ray...


Karen and George


Karen gets frisky with the locals!

Unwinding at the end of the week is always hard for me. Once I know I'm off the next day, instead of being able to sleep, I become even more wired. I have a bad habit of thinking about several things at once, and getting catch up with my "plans." What I mean by "plans" is anything to do with my life. So far here is what I've been planning;

Reflecting on how teaching went this week and mentally making notes of what I want to do next week.

Drooling about editing (haven't done any since before the cruise- I am not happy)

Planning a private event for later this month (which I'm looking forward to, but a lot of effort team effort among myself and three other deafies).

Thinking about tmw's errands (one involves going to the Bronx UPS store for a pick up).

Making time to see "my partner in crime" Clyde (aka Tin Man).

Making time to see friends, like today I finally had lunch with Blondie. Tmw night I will see Joe Joy. This weekend is Szymanski's bday. Of course this is my precious Greek Bazar weekend and seeing my family :(

But I mostly out of all of my plans, I want to edit and prep lessons for my 5 classes. The syllabus(es) are all done, finally got that monkey off of my back. I think that's what I dislike teaching the most is the LONG term planning of schedule for education related courses.

On a different note, this week of teaching went MUCH better than last week. I actually have had some time to go over the materials used in these classes, and get to know my students more. Plus try different ways of teaching methods.

Another thing I'm extremely pleased is the fact the Clyde has started ASL class last week. I already see some of the benefits from it. Its interesting to see which signs he acquires quickly. Of course the iconic ones are always easy but the abstract signs I'm refering to. For example, when we first started dating, he used "Improve"/ "Decline" sign a lot. Which while not iconic, conceptually makes a lot of sense. He's gonna be a wiz at this anyway because he's very animated by nature. [For hearing standards that is.] Useful for deafies (of course!), it makes the conversation a lot more fascinating. Better than some guy with out any facial expression and a flat, lifeless voice talking. What deafie in their right mind wants to work that hard at lipreading and struggle to understand that kind of hearing person. I mean really, why don't you just put a paper bag over your head?

Ok I got my blog fix and I can try to go to sleep. See see...

ding dong the wicked witch is dead!

Long last JKF has been asked to step down. Woke up to an email from Baba letting me know that the BOT has finally come to their senses! Wheeeeee!!! Washington Post

Saturday I spent mostly at home, I seem to have some kind of sinuses probably due to stress and weather changes. I didnt get much done and spent the day on the computer yesterday (sunday) doing lesson plans and paperwork. I am done with one of my syllabus and have 1 more half way done.

Got to see the girls (King, Blondie and Szymanski) on saturday for a few hours, kinda hard to focus with my head ringing. My Sweetie came by last night, I made him crab meat raviolli with vodka sauce, YUM!

Had to axs my plan to PA next weekend for the Greek Bazar, I just have too much on my plate to be going out of town so soon again. It wouldnt be enjoyable because I would be thinking about all the things I have to do when I return.

Am about to leave 1 job and head over to another-later

running at full throttle

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past 2 weeks, due to cruise and work kicking in full mode, I haven't had much time to blog.

I need a firewire to use for my digital camera before I can post them up. Figured id wait for the pixs before putting you all to sleep with my vacation stories *grins*

I've started teaching this past week. I really like my students, some are deaf, some are hearing learning ASL. This is the best age group, 20 years old or above!

Got to see Handler tonight briefly. Haven't seen his ass since AADB (American Assoc for the DeafBlind) camp I spp for last summer. I will meet him Sunday for lunch before meeting my webdesigner later that afternoon.

My Sweetie and I got to see each other tues and wed. Funny I thought I see more of him on the weekend then the week day but the opposite is what has happened. Between my meeting tmw and sundays meeting, as well as seeing Handler and my db friend Boston Paul. And he has his car stuff to do, and business related activities. We agreed sunday night would be best. I look forward to then.

Today I caught up on sleep and going out tonight to see friends always makes me happy. We all decided to make it an early night due to the rain and everyone had a long week. That was fine by me.

Did some cleaning, my room looks like it exploded because I never finished unpacking, there s clean laundry that needs to be put away. I need to tidy my room and work on paperwork stuff for my classes next week.

All in all, life keeps me busy :) btw several movies I saw over the last 2 weeks. One was 'Lord of War' with Nic Cage which of course I loved him from 'Face Off' and 'The Rock!' I also watched 'TransAmerica' with Felcity Hoffman (sp?). Interesting, I'm not sure how well it was recived by general society but it was well done. My only complaint was it got truly depressing at times. During the cruise the only movie that was captioned was the movie 'Dr Dolittle 3' as always movies about animals always rock! Yeah the sugar factor at a maxium high (typical of disey) but not enough you feel like brushing your teeth afterwards. Last night I watched 'Fun With Dick and Jane.' Very fun to watch, much better than I expected.

Next weekend I get to see the folks back home, I'm so looking forward to it. It will be a short visit but Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Good 2 be back in NYC!!

Got home Saturday around dinner time, the Tin Man picked me up from LaGaurdia ariport and whisked me back to my apt right below Harlem. It was great to see him, I was exhausted from only getting a few hours of sleep the night before and also traveling in all three transportation modes (ship, plane and car) was tiring as well.

Yesterday I was a LAZeeeeee bum. Woke up super late to my Sweetie who went and brought me a blueberry muffin :) I did some unpacking and a lot of snoozing. I will write about my trip in details later on when I get the photos on my computer (not sure how to do that yet.) Overall the vacation was a great experience. There were only 2 complaints I had about the cruise,
1- not many deafies (a total of 31 in all.. not like the 400 they originally said) so while those who went were nice, I was disappointed by the lack of deafies in all.
2-the cruise itself (ship activities) were very limitied in terms of things to do. For example most of the activities require additional money such as bingo, gambling, drinks *sodas and alcoholic*, spa, etc etc. I enjoyed going to the Islands and sight seeing more than the activities on the ship itself.

The other thing about going on a cruise is you do get cabin fever big time by the 4th day there. When you first board the ship, it seems so overwhelming like a small city but once you get around, you see how small it really is. Cruises are for people who like to eat!!! I was astonished at the amount of roly poly sized American's onboard. I felt skinny on the ship, unlike NYC where I am average. I got annoyed when people would ride the elevator for one stinking floor! Hello, the stairs are not that long or hard to walk and I often would walk anywhere from 2 to 7 flights of stairs because they were very easy to do. I've decided in the future if I go on another cruise it would have to be 4-5 days max. I want to try a different cruise line than Carnival, to see if the others have better activities??

My favorite island was Jamica! And the Cayman Island the least *too touristy and expensive*, Cozumel, Mexico was my more historical visit (seeing the Mayan Ruins). The whole week was full of sunshine and I did get burned once but after that I made sure to slather on the sunblock lotion and stay in the shade. The water was magnificant, I have never seen such clear, blue waters before. I tried snorkeling for the first time and got to touch Sting Rays at the Grand Caymnan Island.

I didnt touch a computer for a week, except during the Grand Cayman visit where I logged on for 15 mins to check emails. It was good to be "unplugged" and I realize the break served to clear my head up. I hadnt realized how stressed I was till the end of the cruise and how much more carefree and optomistic I felt. Knowing I didnt feel that way on Friday the 13th, worrying about this and that before leaving for Miami proves to me how much I did in fact need a vacation.

My Mom's friend Rich sent me the joke below which I thought was pretty funny;

Football FINALLY makes sense..........
A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. "Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."
Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of
the game, all they kept screaming was: 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like...Helloooooo? It's only 25 cents!!!!

Cute huh?

Also from my Sweetie's blog, I copied and pasted for your enjoyment on hearies perspectives on deafies *grins*

Seen but not heard...

So I woke up this morning and decided to go to the drug store since My Girl had not yet awakened. Before I left, I decided to remove her hearing aid battery and obtain a new one since it had been dying all last night. When I got to the store I went to the seperate hearing-aid battery section (which is usually right next to the pharmacy) and all they had were batteries half the size. A little 30-something year old white guy came up to me and said in a pleasant voice "May I help you?". I noted the fact that he got right in my face, but couldn't make out why just yet. I told him that I was looking for a larger battery and immediately he jumped back and said "You don't wear a hearing aid..." I replied that I didn't and never actually said that I did. The way he looked at the battery in my hand was as if I had robbed it from a deaf person and it was a piece of forensic evidence. He curtly stated that he didn't know where the proper battery was located and walked away. I realized that he had wanted to play the hero to some poor deaf guy and when he realized that he wouldn't have that opportunity, he couldn't care less.

One thing I've noticed about some "hearing" people is that they take a paternalistic attitude toward deaf people. They get some kind of silly sense of heroism and self-approval from doing so. Some of them will explain to me how they are trusted and known in the (capital D) Deaf world. And how they have "mastered signing" - which usually means they know less than me over my few months of picking it up at random. They explain how deaf individuals inspire them and how they are so wonderful. It actually reminds me of how people talk about their cats and dogs because they refer to all of the tricks and neat things that signing has within it. "They're so lucky that they can talk in loud environments! - It must be great to sleep during a thunderstorm - Wow, it's cool how they can turn their hearing on and off with the flick of a switch - Watch them sign, even though you can't understand doesn't it look lovely?!" This is the point where I just sit there nodding my head until they realize that I don't really give a damn about anyone's trust or approval, whether they are deaf, hearing, short, tall, black, white, have wings or can shoot laser beams from their eyes. I could really see myself a couple of years in the future and knowing how to sign in a basic capacity. Also have more knowledge of deaf people and be asked by one of these "hearing trustees" how I've "come so far in this wonderful world". I'd then make up a statement; perhaps that I met a deaf girl and wanted to get in good with her and then "kept it up with the deaf bullshit". Anything to get a do-gooder's jaw to drop on the floor ;) I thought this was HILARIOUS!!!

The art of ASKING

Well me and 3 other ladies are prepping for an event in NOV, and I have been emailing various companies asking for samples or discounts to use at this event. After all the worse thing they can say is "no." So far I have gotten 4 companies and I am sure more will reply in the next few days.

Its interesting to see their replies, whether its yes or no. Most of the time it is no because this event is not for non-profit, but rather social/educational. The larger companies flat out say no but you know what? I am gonna try some of these larger companies stores in person here in NYC, ask for a manager and explain the event. Hopefully they have some leeway as to what they can give us compared to the parent company.

I am sooo excited to be leaving for Miami this Friday, the cruise leaves the port Saturday afternoon. I will be sharing a hotel room with my friend Karen friday nite, I am hoping to get a chance to see a little of Miami night life, as I hear dancing is the main attraction.

Been preparing syllabus for my 2 classes I will begin teaching upon my return. A lot of paperwork but luckily for me my work is allowing me to borrow one of their PC laptops for the trip :) this will save me money from not having to pay roaming charges from my pager or internet cafe fees on the ship.

Tmw nite my Sweetie will come by to help me with any last min preperation and to drive me to the airport Friday late morning. I sure am gonna miss him a bunch but hes been very busy working on his business so I know he wont be bored while I am gone.

Things at Gally are not looking any better :( Ive been saying it for 6 months now, JKF sucks! STEP DOWN JFK!

Hmm what else, been editing and real progress is being made for the website, heck it might even be done before the end of October!

Outrageous!

I couldnt believe one of the insurance quotes I got for individual health ins. They wanted between $600-$750 a MONTH!! Hello, thats a little less than I spent on the school's health ins which was approx $900 per 6 months. I have decided that my best plan of action is to keep a list of free clinics I can go to on as need to basis and just pay for the rxs myself as its cheaper than the actual insurance! You better believe I will be taking my multi-vitamins this year! I have never had consistent health insurance anyways, the only time I was given ins was when I was a student attending ungrad and grad school and for 1 1/2 years of my 3 years employment at MSD. So living without health ins is not new. If I could find a low-cost rxs plan, that would be ideal to help lessen the prices for my prescriptions. The Tin Man is looking into that for me today.

This weekend I went to 2 different workshops with King. We met up at 7 30am on a saturday morning, both bleary eyed and dragging our arses to the workshops. I really liked the guest speaker, who is from Long Island. I would love for her to come to my school and give a lecture for the TC ASL Club (Hint hint, Rusty-).

Got the most adorable pictures from Ronnie and her cutie pie Averi! I think Averi looks more like Hoswer than Ronnie. I sure do miss that gal!!

Saturday night when I got home. I realized after frantically searching for my apt keys that I didnt have them! In my morning rush to get out in time to meet King, I mustve forgotten them. Worse yet my roomie was out on a job (flying the friendly skies of what airline, unknown) and only Blondie/Cain as well as the Tin Man have the spare keys. Luckily for me my Sweetie came by from working on his cars and let me in. We hung for a bit but I went to bed at 7pm. I was behind in my sleep all week! I only woke up for 2 hrs on Sat nite and then slept in till 930am yesterday morning. Spent the morning cleaning before the Tin Man came by. We went out for Sushi and walked around a little. Basically we just watched some movies and worked on our own projects, mine was logging footage, his was setting up his wireless business.

I wanted to post the replies I ve gotten so far in regards to the Gally Protest. Here's the automatic reply from Senator Clinton;

Thank you for your e-mail. It is very important to me to know the issues
that are of concern to you. A growing number of my constituents are now
choosing to communicate with me via e-mail. I hope you will understand
that, because of the volume and range of e-mails I receive, it can take
some time to send a response that specifically addresses the subject
raised in your message. I do, however, want to let you know immediately
that your message has been received. Hearing from you and others through
e-mail helps me to quickly learn the views and interests of New Yorkers
and others, which is very helpful to me in my work in the United States
Senate. I hope you will continue to monitor my work through my website
at http://clinton.senate.gov, and I welcome hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Now does that mean anything, who knows? This one is from Schumer

Thank you for your e-mail. Each and every piece of correspondence I receive
is important because it allows me to better understand the New Yorkers I
serve in the United States Senate.
As you can imagine, my office receives a great number of messages
every day regarding a variety of issues – this is particularly true of
e-mails. It makes me proud to know that my constituents take an active role
in our government by corresponding with me, and I look forward to
responding to your concerns in greater detail. In the meantime, I just
wanted to let you know that your e-mail has been received, and to ask for
your patience until I send you a more detailed response.
Again, thank you for writing. Please feel free to visit my website
http://schumer.senate.gov to follow my work in the Senate and to learn more
about the services my office can provide to you.
Warmest regards

Hmm, like my Sweetie says, if Gally's Protest makes the NY Times, then I King and JKF are truly up the "shit creek!"

One last thing before I go, the term Tent City usually refers to a location of homeless people such as it was back in the day in NYC Central Park, called Hooverville. According to Virtual NYC Hooverville is as followed;

Hooverville is a term describing a series of villages that appeared following the Great Depression in the United States from 1929 through the 1930s and 1940s. These villages were often formed in desolate areas or unpleasant neighborhoods and consisted of dozens or hundreds of shacks and tents that were temporary residences of those left unemployed and homeless by the Depression. The government did not officially recognize these Hoovervilles and occasionally removed the occupants for technically trespassing on private lands.
The word "Hooverville" is a spin on the last name of the 31st President of the United States during the beginning of the Depression, Herbert Hoover. Some of the men who were forced to live in these conditions possessed building skills and were able to build their houses out of stone. Most people, however, resorted to building their residences out of box wood, cardboard, and any scraps of metal they could find. Some individuals even lived in watermains.

According to Wikipedia, Tent City means;

The term tent city has been used for temporary settlements made of tents, such as the beginning of Anchorage, Alaska. As a proper noun, it now is also used for series of organized encampments of homeless people in the greater Seattle, Washington, USA area.

Now whether or not GUFSSA protestors were aware of this or if they intentionally chose the name "Tent City" is questionable. In one respect, I could see why they would choose it as most Deaf people do not earn a lot of money and are often not in a position of power so not unlike the homeless people. Or the fact that "no one cares" in the real world is also a possibility of this term being used at Gally. In a way this whole protest does leave many deafies feeling without a home base which was Gallaudet, but now we can't even rely on Gallaudet to represent us fairly. I am proud of all the deafies standing their grounds! JKF has to GO!

Day 4 of Tent City II

[Update; a copy of the letter(s) I emailed to Senator Schumer (NY), Senator Clinton (NY), Rep. Rengal (NY), Rep. Barlett (MD), Rep.Cardin (MD)]

Dear Senator Schumer;

My name is XXX and I am deaf resident here in NYC. (or in the case where I wrote to MD reps I put; "I am a former deaf resident here in MD where I lived in Prince George County from 1995-2004") I am a former alumni of Gallaudet University in Washington DC and currently there is a major crisis happening there.

Jane Fernadez (JKF) was elected as the new President of Gallaudet University last May which prompted a Tent City I protest. The search process for a new president was seriously flawed and bias. There were several more qualified canidates or interested persons for the job but due to questionable standards and selection process, we were given JKF as our new Gallaudet University President.

This decision by the Board of Trustees (BOT) was not well recieved by Gallaudet U campus nor the nationwide deaf communities.

JKF has not proven herself to be a worthy leader. Her record at Model Secondary School for the Deaf was at best atrocious! She manage to cut many programs that hurt the overall school and lowered the enrollment numbers and education level. She has never been about the deaf students or the Deaf community. She has been mainly about self-glorification and recieving a hefty paycheck. I am dismayed and quite upset as many other deafies are by the BOTs unwillinginess to look into this matter seriously and respectively.

I am writing this to ask you to please look into this matter and if possible to discuss it with other senators about their thoughts and views on the situation at Gallaudet U.

Any advice and or help would be much appreciated by myself and on behalf of Deaf Community at large.

Thank you for your time,
-Deafening Chameleon


Current updates and videos on Tent City II. First thing first, KING JORDAN suspended the SBG!!!!Read more at Mishka Zena's site (thanks Joe Joy 4 posting it).

Also Tent City II made the news on the West Coast, San Francisco Gate. Thank you California deafies!!! You can also go to Joey Baer's site and watch this video;

there was also a flyer posted and handed out on campus at FSSA with the following statements;

The flyer below was passed around to all members of the Board of Trustees and shared with the Gallaudet community.



Gallaudet University Board of Trustees

IT’S TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK!

· Have you independently verified the situation at Gallaudet?

· Do our own Gallaudet Administrators really support the selection?

· Where is the support from the external leaders in deaf education?

· Do you know how many alumni and others have said they will not contribute to Gallaudet or to a Gallaudet controlled GUAA?

· Do you know that more than 80% of Gallaudet’s deaf faculty oppose this selection?

· Where is the evidence that we are coming together to follow the President Designee’s leadership?

· What will happen in 2007 if the majority of this community either actively oppose the new President or just simply “give up?” Can Gallaudet succeed? Elizabeth Zinser said “no President can succeed without the faculty!” Has the BOT not learned this lesson?


Please talk off the record to these people and find out what is really happening and what key people are thinking. You NEED to know this!

Talk off the record to:

· former Board members / Chairs

· Deans, Directors and Department Chairs

· Administrators in College Hall, Chapel Hall and in EMG

· NAD leadership

· leaders of deaf businesses, schools, universities and organizations

Also there's a video clip on Noah Beckman who is Gally's SBG prez, I met him briefly last spring during the Tent City I protest. If you noticed at the beginning of the video we see JKF sitting there with a sour look on her face *you know why? cuz she knows she's f*cked*

Then there's also this clip on Roy Ricci who I met thru my friend Coleslaw a few times over the years. I also saw him at the Tent City I protest last May and we hung a little. He got to watch my SDI trailer and seemed to like it. Here he's talking about an artwork he did based on the events from Tent City I thats for sale and 30% of the proceeds will go to FSSA funds.

The last clip I want to post is from Monday morning when Tent City II resumed. Ryan Commerson is ironically I think wearing the same jacket from our picture last May when he was still PNG. I believe all 3 of these videos (Noah Beckman, Roy Ricci and Tent City II) were done by Ryan Commerson. In the Tent City II clip, you can see Jesse Thomas puttering around in the background. I sure wish I was there but work and life keeps me in NYC! At least Gally knows I am there in spirit!!!

According to Elisa's site there will be following (which should be happening right now as I type)
[Make sure to scroll down to "tent City relocated" post. There are 2 Tent City II video clips you can watch]


* Noon - the naming of the buildings ceremony. Student leader Tara Holcomb said that the alumni are very upset about the new names, that they do not agree. The alumni had recommended for the arts building to be named in honor of Debbie Sonnenstrahl, who did a LOT for the arts department at Gallauduet. A walk-out is planned for 10:15 AM and then everybody will meet at Tent City to prepare for the protesting of the naming ceremony. "There will not be a celebration, there will be a funeral here," said Holcomb.

* Then the protestors will show support for the faculty members who will talk to the BOT members at 2 PM. The faculty members have already sent a letter to the BOT - read it at http://gufssa.org/.

* The BOT is expected to meet with select students at the cateferia from 4 to 5 PM. Holcomb urged every student to go, to be sure it is not limited to only selected students.

* At 7 PM, there will be a retirement gala for Jordan hosted by Jordan. "We will go. We will show them that there is nothing to celebrate about," said Holcomb.

After all this is finished, the protestors will meet again to discuss plans for Friday.

Holcomb also said that a laywer is actually spending the night at Tent City to make sure that everybody will be protected. Then the protestors spread out, some discussing the events that has happened and will happen, some writing down art and quotes and statements on the sidewalks with chalk, and others tucking into their sleeping bags in their cozy tents.

Well thats pretty much all the news I can gather for now; Man how I wish I had a DV Camera, I would so make a short video for FSSA to show NYC deafies support, Joe Joy you up for the task???

"BC/AD who's he?"

The title of todays post is a line from a stand up rountine Dressed to Kill by Eddie Izzard who is one of my all times favorite comedian. I like his views and topics he uses in his routinies which often include world history and religion.

Back to the point, it used to be known that BC stood for "Before Christ" and AD stood for either "After Death" (which is stupid because Christ was born in 4 A.D.) or as an abbreviation for "Anno Domini" in Latin or "the year of the Lord" in English. This came up during a conversation with the Tin Man last night. We disagreed with whether or not the term/abbreviations are still being used or changed. As we both truly think we're always right and the other wrong. I knew BC/AD was an outdated term usages but I couldn't remember what had replaced AD, only BCE was all I could think of. So I had to check online today when I arrived at work, to confirm whether or not I was right? And apparently I am. It seems that recently historians and theologists are expecting the terms to be changed from BC to BCE (before the common area) and AD to CE (common era). I liked this excerpt below that goes on to explain why they encourage the newer terminology. Religious Tolerance

The Ethic of Reciprocity (the Golden Rule) suggests that one should not intentionally cause unnecessary pain to other humans. We should treat others as we would wish to be treated. Since only one out of every three humans on earth is a Christian, some theologians and other authors felt that non-religious, neutral terms like CE and BCE would be less offensive to the non-Christian majority. Forcing a Hindu, for example, to use AD and BC might be seen by some as coercing them to acknowledge the supremacy of the Christian God and of Jesus Christ.

Consider an analogous situation: the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The most recent version of this pledge includes the phrase: "Under God." Imagine what a Wiccan (who believes in a God and a Goddess), or many Buddhists and strong Atheists ( who do not believe in the existence of God) feel when having to recite those words. Consider how a Christian would feel if the pledge read "Under Buddha" or "Under Allah."

Although CE and BCE were originally used mainly within theological writings, the terms are gradually receiving greater usage in secular writing, the media, and in the culture generally.

I like this idea because it encourages more neutrality than the old abbreviations. The world is a big place, better to make it so everyone is a part of it. There was another quote I came across while at Religious Tolerance website by the Dalai Lama that sums up my views on all religions. "Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal." Its the fanatics or those in power who abuse religion ideology to fit their own personal goals/agendas. A few rotten apples does ruin the barrel.

Got to visit Eddie last night, he's hanging in there. You see he had to have his knee caps replaced and the 2nd one got infected, thats why he has to have the surgery again. But only after the doctors are secured that the infection is completely gone!

I had a wonderful time with my Sweetie. We ended up talking up late and it was just nice being with him. We plan to go to this winery fall festival on Sunday afternoon in NJ.

BTW, last night's ASL class went very well. My student was pleased we played a "game" that King recommended to me in regards to fingerspelling. We also worked on classifiers and descriptions.

Today I'm at work, trying to keep my eyes open. No amount of diet coke or chocolate can save me today. Maybe I'll get my second wind in a bit?

Important Updates for Deafies!

Tent City II resumed officially Monday Oct 2nd!

You can go to Washington Post to read todays article, Protesters Renew Fight Over Choice Of President

Here's an excerpt;

Many said that they are fed up with the board, that trustees have been unresponsive. And they have complained that new rules limiting on-campus protests are stifling their rights.

Others complained that it's time to move on, that they are happy with the selection of Fernandes, see increased efforts by the board to listen to concerns or are dismayed by the divisions they see widening at the school.

A faculty report submitted to the board began by expressing dismay at what it said was a dismissive attitude from trustees.

And tents once again colored the lawn in front the main gates yesterday, with such signs as "We won't move on 'til our 2 demands are met."

According to Ridor's blog
Ricky writes,

"...that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) Officers has started to get the identification of Tent City residents in an attempt to do something at this hour.
Carl Pramuk, the Dean of Student Affairs, has indicated that if the residents of Tent City remains after 11 PM, the ties between the SBG with the Business Office will be terminated. Oooh, I’m not afraid of threats, Carl Pramuk."

Plus even some of Gally's teachers are on board according to Ridor's site;

"Yes, Five Different Professors Taught at Tent City: Several classes were conducted at Tent City. I was informed that five professors did this. Bravo! Let’s hope that more professors will follow their example in search of our social justice at Gallaudet. Students, faculty and staff members, it is time to muster your courage and stand up for what is right — after all, it is your principle that may be jeopardized by others."

Thank you Ricky for the above and posting Thomas's blog link below;

From Jesse Thomas' blog I love what he wrote about Gally's adminstration placing MANURE *ugh* on the front lawn to prevent Tent City II from happening last monday;

"Enough is enough. The rules of protest? Manure. Jane even being the Provost in the first place, without having distingushed herself at MSSD AND with a qualified Deaf woman already in the Provost's office (but, alas, refused to be King's lap dog)? Manure. The presidental search process? Manure. The results of the search? Manure. Saying they support, then doing nothing about the Audism Mandates? Manure. The culture of distrust and fear the current administration (including King and Jane) has created among the faculty and staff? Manure."

Seems Gally students staged a walk out yesterday and today there will be FSSA meeting for supporters. Tmw is the dedication ceremony to I King Jordan and his wife Linda. Gally will be renaming the student union, formerly known as the ely center in honor of their names *excuse me while I go barf*! Plus the BOT will be meeting tmw and Friday. Great more expenses go on Gally's tab as they feast and dine and discuss how they won't budge from their decision and continue to milk Gally out of their funds.. grr BOT make a decision and stick with it, but for god sakes stop pretending you guys care. We already know you don't!

Update on Closed Captioning Cuts by FCC, according to Joe Joy's blog;

This is the problem with "deregulation": it puts lives at risks. TV programs are one thing, although God knows we are paying customers too and entertainment should make sure they can reach as many people as possible (you can BET they're not going to take off spanish-language options.) Now they're putting the safety of thousands of Deaf people at risk. Or maybe we should say MORE at risk.

More can be read at VA Young Democrats Senator Allen is Silent as FCC Undermines Captioning Rules For the Deaf With Damaging Policy Changes

on September 12, 2006, the FCC suddenly undermined closed captioning rules that had been established in 1998 based on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The rules required closed captioning to be phased in gradually over 8 years, with a requirement effective January 2006 that 100% of all new TV programs must be captioned unless captioning would be “an undue burden” (due to difficulty or expense.) Between 1999 and 2005, the FCC approved 3 of 67 requests for waivers – and each of the waivers was limited in duration to 1 to 3 years. On September 12, the FCC unexpectedly announced that it was for the first time ever granting permanent waivers to two TV programs and announced that it was “inclined favorably” to granting similar requests by a new category of TV programs. The FCC then granted nearly 300 additional requests, which made it clear that the FCC had essentially changed the rules without admitting that this was what they were doing. Advocates have filed for a notice of review and stay of both FCC decisions.

Thank you Joe Joy!

Amish, snipers, interracial dating, "Oh my"

Well I lost my original post so starting over again. As many of you know there was a shooting 2 days ago in my home town. My grandmother was attending Temple on Monday when she saw the helicopter land on the emergency pad on top of the nearby Hospital with one of the victims from the Amish School Shooting. 5 girls died, 5 more are in critical condition due to being shot in the heads :( Today's paper in Lancaster, according to Baba, has the information for the funeral services for the 5 Amish girls killed. Plus there is a fund being established for the others in the hospital to help cover the hospital bills. Of course Baba being the humanitarian that she is, wrote a check to donate and her Temple is meeting soon to discuss what they can do to help.

I don't know why its become popular with disgruntled people going into schools and opening fire. Its even harder to deter because how can we punish them? Most of them commit suicide. Whats the answer? I don't know other than to ban firearms among civilians. But of course the NRA (National Rifle Association) would have a fit to be tied. They are one of the biggest lobbyist when it comes to political campaign contributions and backing their puppet-like politicians. This has been hard on my family back home, having something like this happen nearby. I went thru a similar experience when the DC sniper hit the area a few years ago. It was soooo scary, you couldn't even go to the gas station without worrying. The word was when walking outside, was not to walk in a straight line but in a zig zag like fashion so that you as a "target" could not be as easily spotted or lined up with a gun.

Anyhoo on a different note, I realized last night while having insomnia that ironically the Tin Man is not the first person "of color" that I've dated but the 1st one that I've dated seriously. So in my boredom I googled "interracial couples" and a few interesting things came up.

Excerpt from the Washington Post, Dec 1998 Interracial Marriages Eroding Barriers
In much of Latin America, for example, marrying a person of lighter skin color is considered a move up the social ladder. Some Latinos invoke the phrase, mejorando la raza, improving the race, to signal their approval.

"There is a bit of colorism in the [Latino] community," says Greta Gilbertson, a Fordham University professor. "It is often times perceived as prestigious to marry outside of the group. And if that person happens to be white, so much the better."

another excerpt from the same article;

When it comes to housing, blacks are the most segregated of the nation's racial minorities, "by orders of magnitude," says Rebecca M. Blank, a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, which recently compiled a report documenting the nation's racial dynamics. On average, blacks live in neighborhoods that are 60 percent black, while Hispanics and Asian Americans tend to live in far more diverse neighborhoods.

"When you are talking about Asian or Hispanic middle classes moving into neighborhoods, you don't see the same tripping mechanism causing whites to move out that you see with blacks," Harrison said. "These things suggest that the black-white color line is still with us and that the integration of blacks is going to be a different story than the assimilation of Asians and Hispanics."

An excerpt from Usa Today, Dec. 2005 Love is no longer color-coded on TV

Racism is often reflected on television through hate crimes and other violent stories, Nagra says. "We know racism exists. Let's show people getting on. Let's be positive about it."

Mixed-race romances on television have never been plentiful, as the mass medium has been fearful of alienating viewers and advertisers.

In 1957, on Alan Freed's weekly rock 'n' roll show, black singer Frankie Lymon was seen dancing with a white woman. ABC promptly canceled the show.

On Star Trek, when Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk kissed (against their will) in 1968, it was heralded as the first interracial smooch on television.

And when Norman Lear featured a black woman and a white man as married neighbors to 1975's The Jeffersons, it was considered groundbreaking.

In real life, the gap slowly is narrowing. According to the most recent Census, interracial marriages grew from less than 1% in 1970 to nearly 6% in 2000. And as more of the world becomes a melting pot, interracial relationships have popped up more frequently on TV as well, though often tangentially. Some examples:

• Debra Messing's Grace dated guest star Gregory Hines on Will & Grace in 2000.

• David Schwimmer's Ross character fell for Aisha Tyler's Charlie on Friends in 2003.

• Gary Dourdan's Warrick has a history with Marg Helgenberger's Catherine on CSI.

So as the TV landscape has evolved, the issue now is less of whether mixed couples are featured on top shows, but when, how and if the writers will make their race part of the story line.

Hmm gives me food for thoughts. So far I have experienced mostly dirty looks, especially on the Upper West Side where the facial expressions range from disgust to "how could you?!" looks. As well as one time at Ikea, there was a Black woman working as a customer service rep and she was all smiles for the Tin Man but wouldn't even look at me and when she did, her face dropped into a look of disgust. I guess the thought running through her mind was "oh another White girl, butting in on my dating pool."

Work is going well, my schedule is now full all week and I am very happy. I am also glad to report that after sitting down with paper and pen and calculating roughly how much I would earn from all of my jobs, net not gross with taxs taken out, I will actually earn enough to live and pay my bills *whew!* I wont be raking in the dough but I won't go hungry either.

Been working on my lesson plans for tonights class. And tutoring plans for my tutor students in math and reading/writing. And since we're on the topic of tutors, my FCP tutor, Dj Tikki Marlsa came by and we got a lot covered last night. On my next day off, I plan to edit till the cows come home!

Tonight I will visit my friend Eddie who is still at home due to complications with his knee surgery. He's been majorly depressed and I don't blame me. How many days can a person stay inside and deal with the boredom? He's spent most of 2006 at home! Hopefully time will pass quickly enough for him.

Gonna see my Sweetie tonight at Eddies, looking forward to giving him a big old hug and kisses!

"Love Sees No Color"

or in this case, Love sees no specie, only Love. Last week Baba sent me this cute email that I just had to post. But after you see the photos, keep on reading. This is a prime example of how facts can become rumors or in this case, an urban legend. The info below was obtained from About

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans" that could be found quickly, were a litter of weaner pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.

Would they become cubs or pork chops? Take a look........ you won't believe your eyes!!!!





Comments: The photos are genuine, but there's more to this story than meets the eye.

To begin with, the snapshots were taken at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand (near Bangkok), not some nameless zoo in California. Moreover, it would appear that the sad tale of the tigress falling into a deep depression after losing a litter of cubs was fabricated, as was the claim that the piglets were substituted for the deceased cubs by zookeepers in order to console the "mourning mother."

As it happens, this sort of intermingling of species is not at all unusual at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, where "creating successful relationships with animals of different species" is something of a guiding principle. The facility, more accurately described as part zoo and part circus, boasts offbeat attractions like basketball-playing elephants, "lady crocodile wrestlers," and a petting zoo where customers can bottle-feed baby tigers with their own bare hands. Visitors have reported seeing tigers, pigs, and dogs all housed together within the same enclosure, with sows nursing tiger cubs and tigresses nursing piglets "adorned in tiger-print costumes."

The costumes are strictly for show, by the way. The mother tiger pictured above, who has been photographed on other occasions suckling piglets au naturel, was herself nursed by a pig in infancy and apparently regards the other species as family, not prey.

Mother Teresa was right;

“Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless” Mother Teresa was quoted saying in 1979 when she won the Nobel Peace Prize. How appropriate for today which is Yom Kippur (it began at Sunset last night). The Day of Atonement which could be measured not only in acts of regret and wrong doings but to also reflect why it is important to do acts of kindness and try to send out positive energy rather than negativity. As it is, the world is already quite negative these days.

Interestingly enough the most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize went to 2 Americans,Andrew Fire and Craig Mello for their contributions in science. Basically as reported on CNN; "for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a new avenue for disease treatment." My grandmother is a genetic junkie, she reads everything she can get her hands on when it comes to gene research and Mitochondrial DNA which is basically the life force if you will. From Wikipedia "mitochondria have their own DNA and are assumed to have evolved separately."

I am sure today both Baba and Uncle David are at the Synagogue back in PA, observing Yom Kippur which is the holiest day of the year. "...In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work ... For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD." -Leviticus 16:29-30 I'll admit being a reform Jew, I don't always follow the High Holidays rules and regulations. For example this holiday you are to make amends against other people you have wronged during the year prior to this day (Yom Kippur) and then you make ammends for wrong doings against G-d today. I personally use this day to reflect on the past year on my mistakes or inappropriate behavior I may have acted against others and I then make the effort to rectify my mistakes. Whether its in a form of apology or just making a note not to repeat the same mistake twice, everyone has something to owe up in one form or another. I believe in G-d in a sense of it representing life's ability to exist but not in a way where I contribute human qualities to G-d such as judgements or G-d being a paternalistic being. I think the way to disrespect G-d would be to not take care of the planet, to destroy things (organic in nature) etc etc.. Almost like Native American view's in how we treat nature shows our respect of lack of to G-d.

Also I do not fast during the high holidays. The only time I am willing to fast is in political protest or fund raising $$ for countries that have extremely low food productions or where starving is the norm. I did that once in college at Gallaudet where we had people sponsor us by donating $$ to us for this organization and we agreed to fast for 36 hours to get a sense of what it is like to go hungry. I remember there was approximately 20 of us, we had sleeping bags and stayed at the Gally Field House. It was so hard to sleep on those wooden floors (the same one used for basketball games) and I also recall being cranky and having headaches by the 15th, 20th hour. Then at the end we all got to eat together but it was a bittersweet experience for me. Knowing what real hunger feels like isnt fun. Sadly tho its not limited to our poor international neighbors. It exist in our own backyard because so many Americans face hunger everyday.

Saturday was a miserable rainy day. I went to orientation for one of my jobs that afternoon. Later on Joe Joy stopped by so we could catch up and make plans for PA trip next month. The Tin Man and I basically just hung out that day, the energy level in general was very low and most people I talked with that day, had either napped or plan to.

Yesterday the Tin Man and I went to the UWS to eat brunch and walk around. There's a small flea market off of Columbus Ave and approx 75th st. The weather was gorgeous and I picked up some fresh peaches.

We also watched Cinderella Man, based on a true story of Jim Braddock as a boxer during the depression here in NYC. I enjoyed the movie immensely. He was one of the few men to beat the famed Max Baer who critics disagree with his portrayal in the movie Cinderella Man. Some argue he was this horrible, snobbish Jew who literally killed his opponnets in the ring by beating them to death. Others say he wasn't even a Jew because his mother was Catholic and his father a non-practicing Jew and Max was raised in the Catholic faith. But by the time he became a boxer, he had announced he was a Jew and even during one fight in 1933, he wore boxer shorts with the star of David symbol on it as he fought his opponent who was of German background. I have to be somewhat skeptical and wonder if he didn't use the "Jew Card" to promote his own status during his career?

Knowing how the Americans felt about the Nazis, it wasn't a bad time to be a "Jew." I don't think we will ever know truly whether or not Max Baer was a Jew or whether he was as malicious as portrayed in Ron Howards' movie.


Today at work in between tasks, I gotta do lesson plans for tonights and wednesday's class. Plus for tmw's tutoring session. I realize I enjoy teaching quite a lot. There's such a sense of accomplishment seeing your students progress from point A to point B and then onto point C, D....