CI Update, and subtitling.

Hello All. My oh my it is storming big time here! The start of Tornado season falls upon for those of us who live in Tornado Alley. Even though Tornado alley is more specified for the states of Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and so forth, tornados hit everywhere. Just as commonly in Missouri and Illinois, this is where I live! Right now the wind has been howling, hailing, lightning, and thunder like you wouldn’t believe. Hope there’s no tornados! What jokes do you guys have planned for tomorrow for April Fools Day?! I have nothing so far, I have to work for 4 hours then go to class to turn in my dreaded 6 page paper!

My paper was about the type of skulls we had to observe in a museum located at my university and we had to write about 1-3 paragraphs, 3 pages minimum about the skulls and any information we could add for it to the paper. Mine ended up being 5 pages typed and one resource page. Not to bad here!

I wanted to update some folks about the CI scenario. My insurance company with SIU-C denied me the CI. So, my dad is going to look at his insurance and check to see if his supports CI. If it does and we think it will, they will switch me to my fathers insurance this summer, so I can go ahead and start seeing CI teams and figure out if this really IS the best thing for me, or if I am better off leaving it as it is and maybe trying out digital hearing aids? I want to thank everyone who showed support, emails, IMs, comments, whatever it was I appreciated them all! I was disappointed to know but figured my insurance would not cover it. In fact that and hearing aids were the ONLY two things not covered under my insurance. Figured!!

I will keep you guys updated as we go along. Should be interesting! I also wanted to add on to what Geo mentioned about protesting subtitles in vlogs, but not protesting it in movies and TV’s. He pointed out to me that a lot of those people who did not support subtitles on his website and many others still supported subtitles on TV and movies. Ok why?

That really is a double standard. I understand some deaf folks want to protect ASL and keep it going. But, some have to face the fact; there are just some people who will never learn ASL. I have heard people go, well “ok if they want to understand my vlogs in ASL, they need to learn ASL themselves”. Ok then My response to you is, “you want to watch my movies without subtitles, go get your hearing back and learn how to understand voice without ASL”. Wow, not that easy now is it?

You have to understand why people do it. It is to reach a wider audience, since not everyone can learn and do the language. Do you expect the English to not translate all the Chinese movies into English for the hearing people to understand then? Do we have to go learn their language then? ASL is a language, a national recognized language. In fact, it is the 4th most used language in the country and maybe the world. Not everyone is going to learn it, so if you want to start your vlogs, be prepared to be asked “will you consider subtitling it” for deaf, non ASL users or even hearing folks who don’t know ASL. You want to be heard by everyone right? Then be prepared to reach out to everyone.

Mike McConnell said it best; use what you know to relay information. However, be sure to MAKE it available for everyone as best as possible, whether it is in ASL, cued speech, subtitles, voice over, whatever is needed. I support sites like Geo’s because he reaches an audience for EVERYONE. He signs, and he uses subtitles. If he had not done that, you can bet I would never have come to his site. I am not willing to go seek out people who don’t try to at least seek me out that is by allowing subtitles.

Sure, I am going to attempt to learn ASL and such. But voice and subtitles will always be my number one usage. I will be prepared to relay it as best as I can, whether by subtitles, signing, cueing, again whatever it is! I already did in a way. If I was going to use your attitude of “well they just need to learn our language then” I would not have subtitled the 6 videos I did for you guys so you guys could understand the video. After all, I should have just said “go learn how to understand voice and get your hearing back” Right?

All I really ask is, once again be open minded. Respect what everyone knows and uses. Also, I have had a lot of people ask me to view their vlogs. Guess what I can’t, why? It is all in ASL, and they refuse to or won’t subtitle the video or provide a written/typed transcript. So I cannot enjoy what you guys are! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a vlog by Geo of his site to go look that has subtitles. Sayonara!

Alex