Sign of the times

I had a friend from highschool stay over for the last few days of university. I'll call her Peanut. It was great seeing her - hadn't seen her in over a year. And in that year she's started to learn BSL. Which I think is fantastic! I always get really excited and pleased when a hearing person learns BSL.

The day that Peanut arrived, my college at university was having a small music festival. Nothing big or fancy, just a chance for student bands to be heard. It gives everyone an excuse to just relax and have a drink (then again, we're students - no excuse is needed!). It was a lot of fun - I love listening to live music. The only problem is that I can't hear anything except the music. A spoken conversation is out of the question - my lip-reading isn't quite good enough to hold a long conversation.

On the other hand, I can hold a reasonably decent BSL conversation. Nothing deep or meaningful, but a decent conversation none-the-less. Usually there's just no one else around that can have a conversation in BSL. In comes Peanut. It didn't matter that I couldn't hear a word she was saying and that I wasn't focusing on lip-reading, we were signing away to each other. I could enjoy the music and have a conversation - it was fantastic!

At one point, the band that was playing took a little break between songs. It was at this time that all the conversation in the hall fell silent. Peanut and I were still signing away to each other. So the entire hall was silent. Until... 'Summer of 69' came blasting out. For a split second I wondered where on earth the music was coming from, as did everyone else in the room. Then I realised. It was my phone. With reddening cheeks, I fumbled in my bag to silence it (I was cursing the fact that I wasn't wearing my bluetooth necklace!). By this time everyone else had realised the music was coming from me, and a huge round of applause filled the room, along with some questioning looks 'wasn't she just signing? Isn't she deaf? How can she talk on the phone?' After what seemed like an age, I finally found my phone and answered it with a weak 'hi', which was met with a burst of laughter from everyone in the room. I think my face resembled that of a tomato. Then the band started playing again (they kindly waited for me to answer my phone before they started - which just made me more embarrassed and aware that every single eye in the hall was watching my every move).

The phone call, in case you're wondering, was a friend asking for a lift. So off Peanut and I went to pick them up. We then returned to my college to listen to some more music. At this point we decided to sign along to the music. Some people sing to it, we signed to it. The best song to sign to was definitely a cover of 'Bad Romance'. We got a few odd looks, but mostly people seemed amused by us signing the chorus. It's something I usually do to myself in clubs (like I said, some people sing, I sign), so sharing it with a friend was brilliant.

One thing Peanut and I did notice was the differences between our sign language. She lives down South, whereas I live up North. Just as there are different accents for different parts of Britain, there are different signs for different parts of Britain. Most of the signs are the same, there are just a few noticeable differences. Numbers being one of them. The differences weren't too big though - we had no problem understanding each other.

It was also great being able to sign to each other in the club later on in the evening and on the bar crawl the next night. Most of my hearing friends are pretty awesome in that they go above and beyond to make me feel included and to make sure that I'm not excluded too much because of my lack of hearing. I couldn't ask for a better bunch of friends. But sometimes I do feel like I'm asking too much from them, that my being deaf is a nuisance to them. (They've never done anything to make me feel this way - I'm just conscious of the fact that I don't want to be a burden to anyone). So being able to sign with a friend was just brilliant. Although I didn't want to sign too much as I didn't want to exclude all my non-signing friends. It was difficult - finally, I could hold a conversation without asking 'what?' every 5 minutes or just smiling like an idiot if I didn't hear something, but in doing so I excluded everyone else. I hope I didn't upset my non-signing hearing friends - if I did, I'm very sorry!

Seeing Peanut again was great fun - we had a lot of catching up to do. The fact that she could sign to me was an added bonus. Definitely looking forward to her next visit.

Deaf Girl

Festivals

I've just come back from a long weekend at a festival. It was great - I had a lot of fun and saw some awesome bands perform. Unfortunately I had to leave early and didn't get to see one of my favourite bands perform, but apart from that, I had a great time.

Experiencing a festival as a deaf person is completely different than experiencing it as a hearing person. Although I'm classed as deaf, I do still have some hearing. So I can hear the music. However, even if I was completely deaf I would probably still go to festivals - I know plenty of profoundly deaf people that go to festivals. They may not hear the music, but they can feel it. Just because a person is deaf, doesn't mean we don't enjoy music. Profoundly deaf people just enjoy music in a different way than hearing people.

So I could hear the music, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But there was a lot of background noise, so hearing anything else was difficult. I relied a lot on lip reading - although this did get more difficult as the weekend wore on. When I'm tired it becomes harder to lip read. Ordering food from the stalls was interesting. If I got asked something, the chances were I didn't hear what they said, so I just smiled and nodded like an idiot.

The same went for talking with my friends. Some of the time I could hear them, some of the time I couldn't. Sometimes I just sat and enjoyed the atmosphere, not really caring that I couldn't quite hear what they were saying and it was too dark to lip-read. It was still fun. And there are only so many times you can say; 'what? What?'

I also decided not to go and stand amongst the crowds (i.e. standing as close to the stage as possible, being pushed about by everyone else trying to get as close as possible) or moshpit (where you push people and try and avoid getting punched). Instead I went on the viewing platform that is limited to disabled campers & their carers. Why didn't I choose to go the front of the stage? My hearing aids would have to come out and I'm not sure how safe they would be in my bag - all it would take is for someone to grab hold of it, for it to fall on to the ground and get trodden on and my hearing aids would be broken. And if something caught my ear - be it a fist, a bottle or anything else - and I ended up with a wound in or around my ear, I wouldn't be able to wear my hearing aids. They may seem like silly reasons, but when most of your friends & family are hearing and can't sign, talking is the only way to communicate with them.

What I also loved was that I was allowed to camp on the disabled campsite with a friend. I'm a big fan of the disabled campsite. It means I can park my car close to my tent (instead of walking for about 30 minutes carrying all the gear). The showers and toilets are also cleaned once a day - it's fantastic not having to hold your nose for fear of being suffocated by an ungodly stench. And the campsite is close to the arena. All things which are great.

The people you meet on the disabled campsite are great as well. In general, I would say that the people on the disabled campsire are more friendly and open and more willing to help in any way. (I have camped in the general camping area at festivals and found that the people in tents around you tend to stick to themselves). I find the atmosphere is more fun and you get to meet loads of people.

The only two downsides to the disabled campsite is that there's a curfew - meaning you can't bring in guests to the campsite after midnight (too bad if you've pulled someone and want to go back to your tent for a bit of privacy...) and it's a 20 minute walk to the village. The village is composed of different stalls, shops and entertainment and is pretty big. This is where most people go to after the last act has performed.

Whilst walking down to the village, I mostly kept quiet. Mainly due to the fact that there was a lot of background noise so I couldn't really hear anything, and there wasn't much light so I couldn't see to lip-read. I was walking down to the village with a bunch of people I had just met on the campsite. They were all talking and having a laugh together. I couldn't really join in, but I was enjoying the atmosphere nonetheless. I'm sure they must have thought that I was either being rude and not joining in the conversation, or that I was just extremely shy (the fact that I'm deaf hadn't come up in conversation yet). Although one guy (let's call him Bear) knew I was deaf. He waited until we got to a lit area on the path and then he started including me in the conversation - he knew the light meant I could lip-read. Definitely appreciated that.

There was also one major advantage to being deaf - when I was tired and wanted to go to sleep, I just needed to take my hearing aids out and there would be silence. No noise to keep me awake. Whereas I was aware that it wasn't always so easy for hearing people to get to sleep (unless of course they'd had a few drinks to help them!) That was a definite advantage. The disadvantage was that it took me a bit longer to wake up in the mornings as I didn't hear any noise to signify that people were getting up. But being able to sleep in silence is definitely an advantage and didn't leave me as tired as I might have been had I been hearing.

So, I had a great time. Am definitely glad to be home in my own bed now though. Camping is fun and all that, but it's nice to sleep in your own bed. Especially as there's no curfew in place! ;-P

Deaf Girl