Being a Deaf Fan

My Life As A Deaf Fan
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Have you ever thought of what kind of fans Hanson has? When you go to a show or fan gathering, you can tell what kind of people they are just by looking at them sometimes (like they're punk, prep, etc.). But haven't you ever wondered if there are other kinds of fans? Fans that may seem like everyone else, but they really aren't? Like perhaps, people with 'invisible' disabilities? If you ever meet me, you'd think I'm an ordinary hearing person, but I'm not. I happen to be deaf. I'm still a normal person, my ears just happen to be 'broken' as I like to say.

How can I be a Hanson fan if I can't hear the music? A lot of people have asked me this question. Who says deaf people can't enjoy music? For some deaf people, they can feel the vibrations from the music, the different beats and so on. And for some, they can even hear the music. There are hearing aids, ya know! That's what I wear everyday. It's my right ear that I can even hear anything with the hearing aid. My left ear, I usually consider it my 'dead' ear as I am unable to hear anything, even with a hearing aid. So I have to rely on my right hearing aid in order to even hear anything.

As you may not know, there are 2, even 3 'worlds' for the hearing impaired, the deaf world, hearing world, and the hard-of-hearing world. For myself, I consider myself to be living in two different worlds; the deaf world and the hearing world. I have the option to hear or to go deaf. It's pretty simple, I can simply turn off my hearing aids if I do not want to hear anything. Most of the time my hearing aids are turned on. Usually the only times I don't have my hearing aids is when I'm going to be in water (swimming, shower, etc.) or when I'm in bed.

I remember it was the summer of 1997. I wasn't even a Hanson fan yet at the time, but my sister was. I happen to be sitting in the family room, channel surfing, when I came across the Oddville show on MTV. Hanson was on the screen, so I ran into the computer room to get my sister. I told her that those three guys that she liked (I didn't even know WHO Hanson was at the time), the M-M-M-Bop guys (that was what I thought the song was at first!) was on MTV. She went into the family room, and the show was just about over. That was pretty much the first time I had an idea of what Hanson looked like and that sort of thing.

It wasn't until around my birthday in September when I actually got into Hanson. My sister wanted to "follow the crowd" and stopped liking Hanson. I got a CD player for my birthday, so she gave me the Mmmbop single CD and Middle of Nowhere cassette tape. I listened to the CD first as I wanted to try out my CD player, and that was the first time I heard Mmmbop, entirely. That pretty much had me hooked! Ever since then, I've loved Hanson, I loved the music. I just couldn't get enough of Hanson! Before Hanson, I was a big fan of Immature, and Immature only. I guess you can say Hanson has helped me to get into other music artists. If it wasn't for Hanson, I probably wouldn't be into Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, etc. Hanson helped me to broaden my taste in music.

That's how I got into Hanson basically. And some other artists as well. Today, I'm still a big fan of Hanson. Hanson is still at the very top of my list of favorite music artists. I really admire musicians that do their own thing, you know, like write their own songs, make their own music, play their own instruments, etc. I think that is what makes Hanson a true band, and of course, they are very talented.

You see, I wasn't always deaf my whole life. I was born hearing. It wasn't until I was 26 months old that I had became ill with bacterial spinal meningitis. It was the meningitis that had left me with a severe to profound hearing loss. From then on, my family and I faced many challenges. It took me forever to even talk again. I had to learn how to talk all over again. And I had to learn how to listen too. Once I had been fitted with my first pair of hearing aids, I started hearing some things again. But it took a long time for me to even recognize what the sounds were.

In 1991, I was enrolled at the Wyoming School for the Deaf, where I spent 7 years of my life. That was my first 'taste' of the deaf culture. I was around other deaf kids, and I learned sign language. Not only did I learn sign language and of how to care for my hearing aids, but I also learned how to talk, my English skills improved, and I learned tons of other things! If I hadn't been at the deaf school, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even being doing as well as I am today. I loved it at the deaf school. I just loved the fact that I could communicate easily with my deaf peers. We all had something in common. After 7 years at the deaf school, I was mainstreamed in public schools.

For 7th and 8th grades, I did pretty well. But 9th grade is a whole other story. I have to say that 9th grade was the worse year ever! I had failed on some assignments and tests for the first time ever there. A math teacher that was a jerk, and a substitute teacher in social studies that we had for quite a few months didn't help much. Plus the fact that I went without an interpreter for most of the year (except for in choir), and that was pretty bad. By the time I reached 10th grade, I wasn't so sure of myself. I was even isolated and kept to myself. I didn't really make any friends in 9th grade. It's a lot more difficult for me to make friends with hearing people, not only did they not understand deafness, but it was a challenge to even keep up with conversations. The isolation continued. At least I started opening up a bit in 10th grade.

There was this one student that I really enjoyed being with, and that was Amber. She was in special education and had multiple disabilities. One of the disabilities was that she couldn't speak with her voice, so she used the few home signs to communicate. I remember at first, she was frustrated and angry a lot, and she would scream and cry. But once my interpreter and I started teaching her signs, her frustration levels decreased. Just teaching her signs made a huge difference for her. And she was even able to communicate more. Amber had learned approximately 20 new signs that year.

I'm still in high school. This year I am a senior, and am looking forward to it. You see, the school that I go to for half the day, Star Lane, is a very unique school. It's not like any other traditional high schools. Instead of teachers, we have tutors. The tutors are just there to help us along, rather than giving us lectures on certain topics. Instead of learning out of textbooks, we rely on the Internet, the library, encyclopedias and dictionaries for information. Instead of working individually, we worked together as groups. Star Lane is a problem-based-learning school, so we work together to solve problems, real life problems. As a sophomore, I remember we did an architect problem, where we had to design a cabin for one of the tutors at the school. Just last year, the juniors acted as crime scene investigators, investigating a crime scene. Of course the group I was with did pretty bad. But it was interesting. And once last year we as juniors had to be doctors and figure out what was wrong with our patient. We do math, science, language arts, and social studies all together with the problems we do. Some problems may not have a science or a social studies grade, so the tutors would have to find alternatives so that we could get the grades we needed.

I will be going back to Star Lane in September as a Senior. The cool thing is, the seniors are pretty much on their own. And they get to do the problems that they created themselves. Juniors that are to be seniors at Star Lane get to create their own problems. I happened to have created a problem that has to do with the controversy of cochlear implants. I only thought of the idea due to the fact that I myself am very interested in getting a cochlear implant for my left ear, and I thought this would be a GREAT way to educate the students at Star Lane about deafness. I'm definitely looking forward to doing that problem.

OK, enough of my school life. Now here's family life. My grandparents have always been a huge support. They helped pay for my very first pair of hearing aids. They purchased an FM system (an assistive listening device basically) for me one year. In January of 2001, they even helped to pay for my new digital hearing aid. They once even learned signs just so they could communicate with me. At home, I don't even use signs to communicate. I talk with my voice, and I lip-read what others are saying. My life is basically a pretty ordinary life. I'm a computer nerd, I love listening to music. I love to read. Traveling is a fun thing to do. I've been to Washington, DC twice, been down to New Orleans, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Mississippi, Missouri, etc. I enjoy watching movies and picking on my cats. Role-playing is something I like to do online, and I even write. I happen to be writing a book about my deaf life, but I haven't done much with it the last few months. I love making websites, and messing with my PaintShop Pro just to see what I can come up with.

I have 4 pets in this house. There's the 2 cats, Mouse and Little Miss Amy. Unique thing about Little is that she's deaf, like me. It's pretty cool. Then there's the fish that my mom's boyfriend had won for me at a carnival. And just recently we adopted a 4 month old lab-mix dog, which I named Sunny, short for Sunflower. I'm going to have Sunny trained to be my personal hearing dog, so she can alert me when the phone rings or if there's someone at the door. Then there's my dad; he has 2 cats in his home. My step-mother Linda runs a daycare in the house, and I enjoy going over there often just to play with the kids. I even have a job at the newspaper where I type up letters to the editor, 2 days a week. I still need to find another job as I really do need more money just so I can make my car payments (instead of having mom pay the $100) and pay for gas. It'd be nice to have some extra money for when I want to buy something for myself or for Sunny.

Did I mention that I'm interested in getting a cochlear implant? I think I did but I'm not sure. This is something that might allow me to be able to hear out of my left ear again. Hearing aids are not enough for me at all; there's still a lot of things that I miss out on. But a cochlear implant might help. If only my mother would call the cochlear implant center in Denver and set up an appointment.

Well, there you have it. Now you know more about me. But if you still have some questions, don't hesitate to ask. You can ask me ANY questions. I like answering questions.