Working with the Deaf

[shadowfireflame]

I just started working with a deaf student at the Writing Center, and wow! How different her experience of life must be! I took sign language a while ago, but it’s completely useless now, which is very unfortunate, because I feel that half our problems would be solved if I could talk to her directly instead of awkwardly through an interpreter (who sat me in the middle, which I do understand but which completely distracted me so that I feel we accomplished very little). I’m burning with a million questions, which we simply don’t have time to talk about. It makes me very sad, actually, that I’ve taken sign language classes but have never actually directly interacted with a deaf person before. I’ve heard that sometimes at deaf parties, they’ll listen to music with a strong base line and just jack it up so they can hear the vibrations. It’ll kill a hearing person, so all the hearing people shove earplugs in. But, oh, the infinite patience of my student!