past feelings.

I was reviewing my old blog posts and this one caught my eye. I wrote it on February 6, 2004. In the light of the current issues with coclear implants and speech therapy, it was important to express how I felt then, and I still feel the same today. Enjoy!

Feb. 6, 2004: So, are you saying that if my parents had given me CIs when I was little, the first thing I would 'hear' my parents say would be, "I love you more because you can hear better!"?!

Think again, it's screwed up. What's wrong with parents loving the children regardless of their handicaps, disabilities and/or deafness? I prefer my parents to love me no matter what, than to focus on what is wrong with me! Growing up, I have had some experiences with my parents where it was clear that they were trying to "fix" me. It came to the point that they have been trying too hard with doctor appointments, audiologists and hearing aids. I never had a lot of fun with my parents because they really put too much energy on making me speak perfectly and not allowing me to have a normal childhood. It put a bad strain on our relationship between myself and my family! It won't be any different with cochlear implants. If my parents did put cochlear implants, I would be beyond pissed! Too many parents have this misconception that buying hearing aids or cochlear implants automatically makes their Deaf child(ren) obligated to do what the parents want them to do, having to live their lives through the parents' dreams, realities and high expectations. It has come to the point where life as a Deaf child with hearing aids/cochlear implants reeks of verbal, emotional abuse and near-slavery!

My final point: It is MORE important for me to be understood and loved than to be able to hear and feel "broken"!

blogging food for Deaf thought.

"If it is true that Ridor is like Howard Stern, then it is true that KokonutPundits is like Don Imus!"

- Deaf258

where should I move to? and why?

Please keep in mind that I am taking the following into consideration:

• accessibility with the area's Deaf community
• standard of living (cost of rent and food)
• quality of the area's mass transit (I got no car)
• number of job opportunities
• quality of college/university and their services

After you make your vote, please comment why you made the vote. I would love to have as much coverage as I can get! Thanks, guys! ;)

frustrated.

right now, I am just frustrated with everything I kept bottled up inside. Pretty smashed now that I had more than 5 shots of that apple pucker with 99% proof.

I am just angry things are not going the way I want them to happen. Good things always happen to other people... I wish so bad that I have good things happen, someone to love me eve n though I can be a pain in the ass. Someone to inspire me rto do bwtter and the best I could be. But why does it have to be so hard???

oh, my goodness.

Thank goodness for Craftzine.com or I would not have found the good-ness blog! :) Now, I got my eyes on her Japanese fabrics.

edible flowers.

I subscribe to the Craftzine.com's daily blog posts via the Feedburner service. I was delighted to discover an entry on edible flowers for salads or cake decorations. I love their picture of the cupcake with little flower petals on the frosting. This is what I am talking about:


Craftzine.com blog: Cooking with Edible Flowers

I am SO bookmarking this! One of my best friends have a birthday coming up and she wants me to make vegan cupcakes for her. So, this is a great, quick article on edible flowers for decorating cakes and salads.

Please check out the blog post at Craftzine.com!

feel that?

Feel that?
Originally uploaded by Deaf258.

Neal was doing laundry and found his younger daughter's bra in the hamper. His older daughter was visiting, so she took out her cellphone while Neal posed for the photo shoot. I ran up to him and just cupped one of his breasts just for the Hell of it.

It was too funny because the younger daughter was out on the beach when all this happened. What a nice surprise for her to find what's on her cellphone!!

Boy, are we trouble?! ;)

stock up on halloween icons.

Hey, it's that time of the year when you should stock up on Halloween decorations and celebrate!!

Get your free Halloween icons here!
Pumpkin Eve
Pumpkin Eve 2

cool chair and a laugh.

I remembered I saw this video of a really cool modular chair before and burst out laughing at the end of the video. Good thing I found this video again, so I am going to share this with you! If you're fluent in ASL, you'll get it why I laughed at the end of the video. ;)

Modular chair
Uploaded by grrrrreg

upcoming news: The Gay Justice League movie!

Remember the Justice League with Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman and other super heroes?? Well, get this.. They're making a new movie on the new Gay version of Justice League!

Click this and shout: "SHAAAAZAM!"

Icon Sets for Harry Potter fans.

From the IconBuffet's site:

"IconBuffet is home to a tasty plethora of free icons. Collect them, download them, trade them with your friends. They're kinda like baseball cards, only without the steroids. And you can use them on your website."

You can get your sets here and here:
 
But there is a catch! When you sign up for a free account, you will be given 10 tokens and some stamps per month, starting every 26th of the month. Tokens are needed to 'buy' icons from your friends. Stamps are spent when you send an icon set to a friend and that friend bought it from you. Points are collected throughout the trading game. I wish they let the users have 'rollover' tokens, but no, they do not offer that feature. Any tokens you have left, you need to spend it all by the 25th of the month because it will be reset to 10 tokens on the 26th.

Another option, which I use, is to become a VIP member. To be a VIP member, you will need to either pay $6 per month or about $48 per year. You will get more free icon sets, cool tips or insider news, plus 30 tokens to spend per month. Another perk in being a VIP member is you get $25 off any stock icon sets they are selling in their online store. I bought 90 dollars worth of stock icons (3 sets for $30 each) and paid only 15 dollars! Sometimes they send out free surprise stuff online or in snail mail. The tokens reset each month on the day you registered to be a VIP member. Make sure you spend your tokens by the last day! I would stick to being a regular member unless you are totally into icons, sign up to be a VIP member.

The best thing about this site, any icons you got from being an IconBuffet member, you can use it on your blog or website! It won't hurt to have a little eye candy! ;)

Here's my top 3 favorite IconBuffet sets:
Taipei Tiny
Taipei Tiny Too
Taipei Tiny Finale

just in case.

If anyone wanted to know, my cable connection was messed up in the middle of the transition to a new apartment. It is unknown how long my internet will be up for the time being. Right now, I am using the old apartment's connection and it will be cut tonight. Until then, know that I am not gone and haven't forgotten you! ;)

my reason?

I have been going through my saved drafts in my Blogger.com, erasing them all and consolidating them into one file. Then I would follow-up on each one. Some stuff are going to be about Deaf issues, Gallaudet, hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc.

Let me start off with a draft post I wrote on October 29, 2006:
"Long before I. King Jordan slipped up and named Jane K. Fernades as the 'President' during the Fall 2005 semester, any of my Gallaudet friends in the past felt hurt and couldn't understand my reluctance and pessimism towards their university. Some even accused me of attacking them because I 'do not appreciate Gallaudet'. I couldn't express my reasons to people who are upset and getting in my face. In light of what happened in the past few weeks, I kept quiet for the most part, eagerly supporting my Gallaudet friends and watching for the news. Today came around and I got an IM from a good friend who is a Gallaudet graduate. I was thrilled out of my mind and delighted that BoT terminated Jane Fernandes! When I heard the news, I knew that Gallaudet will be FINALLY moving forward from its rut and stand-still for many years. I cannot express how big of a relief to find out Jane's out the picture! But at the same time, I am not going to celebrate yet. Why? Who will repair the damage? Who will restore Gallaudet's reputation? Who will fight and ensure Deaf students graduate with degrees worth equal or more than the degrees from other colleges and universities?

For a long time among my peers in Utah and Arizona, Gallaudet had strongly gained a reputation of being a "high school" university. It was embarrassing to me as a Deaf person knowing the fact Gallaudet is a Deaf Mecca! Thanks to I. King Jordan for not doing a damn thing to make education empowering for the Deaf, many students in his 18 years' reign were robbed of an actual college education. Gallaudet's academic reputation is damaged.

The ONLY good programs from Gallaudet that I know of are worth a lot of respect, the Linguistics, ASL, and Deaf Studies. Nowhere else can a person get a comprehensive and depth of study and education in the language of ASL. Gallaudet's the best place to be for those studies!

I'd like to emphasize a line a blogger wrote earlier. That sentence verified my point I was trying to make long before BoT did the selection process which picked Jane last Spring.

rural versus urban: The MSSD gate, the ninth in hell for JKF and IKJ?: "Instead of being creative to keep enrollment levels up, the IJK administration especially with JKF on board for pre-college programs (now known as Laurent Clerc center) and Provost, and now president-designate, they choose to face hard reality and dumb down the quality and resources to keep the federal money running. They should be accountable for their actions and decisions they made."

You read that part IKJ and JKF dumb(ed) down the quality and resources to keep the federal money running?? THAT is the reason I knew I wouldn't appreciate my education if I went to Gallaudet. I need challenges, I want to learn. If education was that easy, I wouldn't do it! It'd get boring for me really fast. I hate slow, easy classes. It insults my intelligence as a college student. If the school's administration on purposely degrade the quality of education all for the money and shit deals for their students, FK that school! I want to go to a college or university who would give a damn and appreciate each and every one of their students!"

I know this post is now outdated, but more people will have a better understanding of how I felt about Gallaudet and the protests. More events have happened since I wrote this blog post last Fall. Gallaudet is now on probation and could lose its accreditation if their standards aren't up to par. I think this is a good thing because Gallaudet have a window of opportunity to become the best university for Deaf students! Once Gallaudet complete its task in meeting the requirements and standards, I will be eager to submit my application to enroll! I have high hopes and dreams for Gallaudet and for myself as a potential attending student!

painting.

My roommate, Neal, and I are moving to another apartment. His daughter will also be moving in with us. The apartment have 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and den. It is *HUGE!* The den is going to be my room.

In this video, Neal and I were painting Neal's bedroom walls yesterday. I decided to play with my Macbook, iSight and iMovie's settings. The result is this video

Fun! ;)

heart-kun

Originally uploaded by Deaf258.

These pictures and email was forwarded to me by one of my best friends, Jarmilla.  She has a Chihuahua at home named Tequila, so she is a big fan of them.  Jarmilla happened to come across these 2 pictures and some info.  She wanted to share with you and everyone! ;)

Originally uploaded by Deaf258.

Her message:

How cute! Wished its mine!

A male long-coated Chihuahua named "Heart-kun" with a heart-shaped pattern on his coat sits at Pucchin Dog's shop in Odate, northern Japan, on July 10, 2007. The one-and-a-half-month-old Chihuahua was born on May 18, 2007 as one of a litter. The shop owner Emiko Sakurada said that this is the first time a puppy with these marks has been born out of a 1,000 that she has bred. She also said that she has no plans to sell the puppy.

Soooo darn cute!

(ツ)☆jArMiLLa☆(ッ)

High Heel Race - Baltimore Pride '07

The High Heel Race - Baltimore Pride '07

Feeling like one of Cinderella's sisters.


Posin' and wavin' to the rainbow-colored
masses.


These ain't Prada, honey. I lost the race!
Originally uploaded by Deaf258.

Last Saturday, Neal and his 2 daughters signed my up into the Baltimore Pride's tradition, The High Heel Race. Let me make this as brief as I can. I had the opportunity to watch the race last year, but this year, I was participating! Whoo!

So, the parade officials led me to near the stage to sign a waiver and put on a pair of old high heels. Much to my dismay, those pair of high heels are *gasp* tiny! For a few minutes struggling with the shoes, I felt like one of Cinderella's fat step-sisters. I managed to squeeze in all my digits and heels in them. The announcer started calling out each of the racers' names. Mine came up, strutting out and waving, I curtseyed to the crowd. Luckily for me, there was an interpreter on stage to tell me the "ready-set-go!" announcement. I positioned myself on the starting line and stared at the interpreter. When the announcer yelled, "GO!", I ran the best I could. I think I was last, but I wanted to make it in one piece alive! Holy Hell!! My calves, hips and ass were on fire! I ran back to the stage to change back to my familiar, comfy shoes.

After being in this race, I learned a newfound respect for the women and trannies who religiously wear high heels. I also learned something new about me, I wasn't nervous being in the attention of a large crowd like I was before in the past. Interesting, huh??

Anyway, I posted the pictures to my Flickr account the next day. One of my good friends and my former interpreter, Daniel, posted a comment on my Flickr account, "You go girl! Now you just need to learn to bevel." LOL! ;)

Even though I was pretty tired and bummed out about my Macbook dying on me the night before, I had a fabulous time that day! I hope Neal will be in the High Heel Race next year, and his daughters might help me sign him up!

Muahahahahahah!

vlog 0007: label me this. label me that. and macbook woes.

A vlog about trouble with using Sorenson IPRelay service to call AppleCare. The call resulted in damaging my Macbook and was without a computer for 3 days. Thanks, Sorenson and AppleCare!

UPDATED! An added note about an earlier post a few weeks ago, I am proud to be Deaf and DUMB! So I added the logo on my blog/vlog.



POSTED 5/3/07: With the past hot issue about being pre- or post-lingually Deaf, badges have sprouted across the Deaf blogosphere. I hesitiated putting one up because I like to be unique. So, I got the template from Banjo and made myself a new one:

What do you think of that? I am proud to be Deaf & DUMB!

Of course, some of you are gonna get pissed off. But, wait!! There's more. An explanation via vlog tomorrow EVENTUALLY! ;)

vlog 0006: introducing markie lee.

6 minutes and 33 seconds
I know I went over the suggested standard limit in vlogging minutes, but I felt this is an important person to recognize and appreciate his sweet spirit. I feel so honored and privileged to know this young man, Markie Lee, from Phoenix, Arizona. His life story is very inspiring!! He is also a budding artist with a lot of experience in various mediums. I would like to present you his latest work in 3D (and it's in ASL!).

It is WORTH checking out! Here's Markie and his "Deaf Angel's Way" video!

9 minutes and 26 seconds

vlog 0005: congrats in order.

Congrats to several bloggers and vloggers for their mention in this weekend's issue of The Wall Street Journal!

a joke: 0001.

How do dyslexic people hold their pets? Watch to find out!