Deaf for a Day
Anna Arce Ms.Ricciardi
March 21, 2013 ASL, Period 7
Deaf For A Day Living from day to day as a Deaf person, you may encounter many unpleasant situations. Little kids staring, adults staring, employees giving you an attitude for them not understanding, and some people who are just plain ignorant to Deaf people because they’re different. Last Saturday I used ear plugs that gave me a mild hearing loss for a day while going through my normal activities; even with a mild hearing loss I still experienced much trouble. I sat through a family dinner with my hair up and a headband on as a way to hide my bright orange ear plugs, no one knew I had them in. My mom likes to listen to music as we eat; I was sitting at a full table of six people. Keeping up with normal conversation was extremely difficult; the music wasn’t even that loud but still made huge difference. I had to look directly at whoever was talking to understand what they were saying; if I wasn’t looking at them I would miss words. Everyone keep getting very frustrated with me because I kept asking them to repeat themselves, they all thought I was joking, my brother and I like to make fun of each other and often mumble under our breathe about each other at the table but I wasn’t aware when he did this. The night only got worse after that, I went out with my friends, when we were in the car the only person I could talk to was the driver because she was in the front with me. My friends in the backseat would think I was ignoring them; they had to tap my shoulder to get my attention. I couldn’t listen to two things at once, it was either talk to a single person or don’t talk at all. As someone with no hearing loss this was almost a shock, when I went to 7/11 to get a coffee there was a stranger who must have said excuse me multiple times and I didn’t hear due to the TV above my head. When I finally moved out of their way they gave me a dirty look and told me to “Learn some
March 21, 2013 ASL, Period 7
Deaf For A Day Living from day to day as a Deaf person, you may encounter many unpleasant situations. Little kids staring, adults staring, employees giving you an attitude for them not understanding, and some people who are just plain ignorant to Deaf people because they’re different. Last Saturday I used ear plugs that gave me a mild hearing loss for a day while going through my normal activities; even with a mild hearing loss I still experienced much trouble. I sat through a family dinner with my hair up and a headband on as a way to hide my bright orange ear plugs, no one knew I had them in. My mom likes to listen to music as we eat; I was sitting at a full table of six people. Keeping up with normal conversation was extremely difficult; the music wasn’t even that loud but still made huge difference. I had to look directly at whoever was talking to understand what they were saying; if I wasn’t looking at them I would miss words. Everyone keep getting very frustrated with me because I kept asking them to repeat themselves, they all thought I was joking, my brother and I like to make fun of each other and often mumble under our breathe about each other at the table but I wasn’t aware when he did this. The night only got worse after that, I went out with my friends, when we were in the car the only person I could talk to was the driver because she was in the front with me. My friends in the backseat would think I was ignoring them; they had to tap my shoulder to get my attention. I couldn’t listen to two things at once, it was either talk to a single person or don’t talk at all. As someone with no hearing loss this was almost a shock, when I went to 7/11 to get a coffee there was a stranger who must have said excuse me multiple times and I didn’t hear due to the TV above my head. When I finally moved out of their way they gave me a dirty look and told me to “Learn some