A Topic That Matters

I was born hearing. When I was ten days old, I became very sick and was overdosed on some medication that had been prescribed for me. My mother didn’t find out that I was deaf until I was nine months old. She was devastated, but unlike many mothers, she had faith in me. I went to a deaf and blind preschool but my mother wanted me to go to a hearing elementary school. There was a meeting between the Deaf preschool and the school district. The administrators at the Deaf preschool kept speaking negative things about me and about what I couldn’t do. One teacher stood up and said, “Let me tell you what Brooklyn CAN do.” She changed my mother’s life and mine. I went to a hearing school all through elementary, middle, and high school. I was a successful child growing up. I overcame all the negative words and attitudes towards me; I ignored people when they said that I can’t do this or that because I am deaf. I proved them wrong. I was the main female character, Ophelia in the play Hamlet in sixth grade. I was the president of the student council in sixth grade also. I was a point guard, three pointer, and MVP on the Championship Basketball team in middle school. When I wasn’t playing basketball, I was the school mascot, a falcon, for the other school sports teams. I was an exchange student in Taiwan and Student of the Year in Mandarin Chinese. I had a GPA of 4.0 through middle school and high school. Last year, I won a pageant and became the princess of my town, Miss Laverkin. Later, I was often asked to perform and be a motivational speaker down in the Southern Utah area. The reason why I am telling of my success is because I showed the Deaf community that they can do anything they set their mind to even though they are deaf. My goal is to help the deaf community be in a better position. I want to help mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents or anybody who has a deaf child to know that it not the end of the world. All they have to do is become informed, give guidance and opportunities, and show their child love and support.
Since I grew up in the hearing culture, I wanted to see the view of hearing mothers who just had a newly diagnosed deaf child. I want to give them hope through my own story, and the stories of other deaf people, that their child can be successful throughout their life. I also want to know what the deaf people’s point of view is in being successful in life. What are they against or not against in their culture? I know that we have more than a million deaf people across the world. I am going to interview deaf people and have them tell me their stories and experiences and what kind of impact the deafness had on their life. The deaf also need to see there are so many opportunities and they need to learn how to seize it rather then not do it. They also need to learn there are hearing people that are willing to help and they need to accept their offers. I’ve written a separate survey for the deaf and for the hearing. I want to know what the hearing think about the deaf and what the deaf think about the hearing. I’m going to interview some successful deaf people and how they overcame some things that hearing people said that they couldn’t do. I am going to ask them some ideas of how to make the deaf world a better place.
I believe that the problem is based on perception of how hearing people view deaf people and how the deaf people view themselves. I want people in the hearing culture to accept people with disabilities in their life. Everyone has a right to do anything they set their mind to. We should all be equal and treated the same. I want hearing people to accept and support their deaf child. I interviewed a director from the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind. Her name is Marilyn Madsen and she helped me expand more ideas of what I can do to make the deaf world a better place. I want to stand up for my Deaf culture and show people that we are equal and that we need be treated the same. And I want to continue to show hearing parents of deaf children that with their guidance and support their child can have a full and successful life.

Let the Copula Be

In Sonya Lanehart’s essay, “Let the Copula Be,” Lanehart discusses that she previously believe the “good” and “bad” use of English. She grew up learning from her family, her school, and her teacher. She wanted to be a speech pathologist. She attended the University of Texas. She took couple of a classes and she realized that there are no such things as “good” and “bad” English. English was based on the historical use of Language.
As Sonja L. Lanehart attended the University of Texas, she took “History of English Language” and “American English” to pursue her dream of helping people speak better English. As she took these classes, she noticed that there are varieties of English all over the world today. She also read a book called, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. “Darlene trying to teach me how to talk. She say US not so hot. A dead country give- away. You say US where most folks say WE, she say, and peoples think you dumb. Colored peoples think you a hick and white folks be amuse. What I care? I ast. I’mhappy. But she say I feel more happier talking like she talk. . . . Every time I say something the way I say it, she correct me until I say it some other way. Pretty soon it feel like I can’t think. . . . Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind.”
The more she learned, the more she believed that English can vary as long as we can understand each other. She previously corrected other people on their English especially her family. Now that she had learned about the History of English, she doesn’t want to correct others anymore. Others kept asking her for help and she noticed that they didn’t believe in themselves. She said, “I embarked on a new journey to find and reclaim my homeland. I have gone from one end of the continuum to the other, and I know it has been a change for the better. My family still expects me to correct them. I struggle with that because they believe in me more than themselves.”
I really enjoyed Lanehart’s personal experience with English. I don’t believe there is a “good” or “bad” use of English. People learned from where they came from, from their family, from their culture, from their school. In my deaf culture, deaf people don’t always write perfect English. My mom raised me to learn how to speak and how to write. I learned how to sign Exact English. Signing Exact English taught me how to write in proper word order. Most people in the deaf culture sign American Sign Language. The difference between signing Exact English and American Sign Language is that Exact English is signing every single word and American Sign Language is conceptual. For example, Exact English, I would sign, “I am going to the store.” American Sign Language would sign, “Store, I go.” But what matters the most is understanding each other. Learning how to communicate in English with each other is the most important thing.

What Is Important About My Short Story?

I’ve been asked to write a short story about something an important event that has touched me or something so memorable that I will never forget. I have chosen to write about my ten day trip to Nicaragua in the beginning of June. Nicaragua is something I hold dear to my heart because I have learned a lot of new things I did not know before. The Nicaraguan people have taught me so much about love, patience, and how to overcome your fears.

One thing I remember most is meeting one lady, I can’t remember her name, but I do remember what her house looked like, what she looked like, and the landscape around her house. I remembered every detail about that day. The reason why I remember a lot about that day is because her house was empty and she told us a story I will never forget. There was no furniture, no clothes scattered across the floor, no pictures or decorations hanging on the wall except for two small pictures hanging in the corner of the small family room. She told the story to my mom, my brother, and me. She said that she went to work in another city called Managua for three days. When she came back, everything was stolen. I remember feeling so sad for her; I remember that she was still smiling. She said that she was still happy because the two small pictures hanging on the wall and gospel weren't taken away from her. She wasn’t selfish and I looked up to her. Before traveling to Nicaragua, I asked for a lot of things such as new phone, new car, and others things. I was focused on myself and didn’t even think about the people around the world who needed things that we have but they can’t afford. I hope one day I can do some donations to help the needy in Nicaragua because Nicaragua was the 2nd poorest country in the American continents after Haiti.

Through my short story, I want the people who live in America to know that they should be grateful for their safety and protection in America. There are scary times that I had to face in my fast ten days trip. I was walking with my brother and my mom in a town called Chinandega. I was smiling at everyone I met; I love making people feel good about themselves. Basically all the guys were speaking Spanish to Justin and Justin made sure I stayed by him. I kept on smiling not knowing what’s going on. Justin told me this, “Brooklyn do me a favor, look down and do not smile. These guys want you. They want to take you home with them. They offered to pay for you.” I freaked out and I was scared. That is when I start to see another side of Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a beautiful town but it can also be dangerous. All the houses that I passed don’t really have doors or glass windows. They have bars on doors and windows to protect themselves from the gangs. We came across one gang incident. We were talking at a family’s house and there was a gang of about 20 boys running down our street, screaming, and throwing rocks. The family ushered us in as fast as they could. I was scared, praying in my heart we would be safe. Luckily, my prayer was answered. Two police cars showed up and they fit 20 boys into their small vehicles. I heard from the family that it happened almost every day. I loved the food there for the first three days. All they served was beans, rices, fried bananas, eggs, and bread the whole ten days for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The last seven days, I became very sick and threw up. All the time we have to be to careful with what we drank and ate. The only water Nicaraguans can afford is water from a lake where they wash their clothes, pigs bathe there, and people do their business there. I accidently drank their water and my stomach was in pain and it was terrible. I am grateful for the clean water and many opportunities of food here in America.

I absolutely love the people there; they are full of love, kindness, compassion, joy, caring, and full of happiness. I met a family who can sing all night long and dance, I felt like I belonged there. I met a boy there; he was with us for the last three days of the trip. We fell in love, but that is a whole different story. Nicaragua has my heart. Whether that place was dangerous or not, I would go back and visit the place again, because I love the people.

Shitty First Draft

Have you ever struggle writing a paper, or a story? Anne Lamott had wrote this short article called, "Shitty First Draft." She expressed her feeling that we are not all perfect on the first draft we wrote. She also said that we can come up with billions of idea and we don't know how to write it down. She told us to let it go and just do it, just write it down on a piece of paper. Many of us want to be the most successful writer, we just have to work hard to get there. Few of us dream of writing down the most perfect words in perfect sentences in perfect paragraphs into creating a perfect story. But they can not all happen in a shitty first draft you wrote. Once you finish a paper, it need to go through few processes. You need to read what you wrote or let others read it and see if there any editing that needs to be done, or you have created more ideas you want to put into your story or delete some sentences. After that process is done, then you do the third draft and have few touch ups and then your paper is perfecto and done. When then next time you need to work on another paper, the process starts all over again. Anne used to write food reviews for California magazine. She would go to few different restaurants with few of her friends. Her friends pick a meal off the menu and Anne would write down what her friends' opinion were after they taste the meal. She would write down quotes, their expression when they tasted it, were they happy with it or not happy with it, and all kinds of questions. After that was done, she would look down at her paper and see her shitty first draft. She then would sit at her desk and write and make few touch ups and editing on her second draft and third draft. And then her reviews were nicely done. She advice us that we all need to take a break from our writing. We don't want our mind to get all to crammed up or too tiring. We want to be excited about writing a paper, and when you're excited, the paper will look wonderful and yourself will feel good about about the accomplish you have done.

I absolutely agree with Anne Lamott, "Shitty First Draft" article. There are million times that I have a lot of different ideas I have but don't know how to write it down or want to make my paper perfect the first time I write it. After I read the article, I knew we would make few mistakes along the way when writing a paper. I have others to help me edit my first draft or telling me their opinion of the paper to me. I have learned my mistakes from reading the first draft and fixing it in the second draft and third draft. I do believe that if we go through the process of writing, editing, creating more ideas or deleting some words or sentences, our paper would be a perfect third draft rather than a shitty first draft.

5 Goals I Hope To Accomplish This Year.

There are few goals I want to accomplish, some is hard, some is easy, some is wild, and some is boring. But I like to think the best of life, make everyday an adventure. I will tell you few of the goals I want to accomplish.

#1 Language: I love learning new languages. My dream is to become a world traveler. So far I know three languages, which are English, Chinese, and American Sign Language. I traveled to Taiwan three years ago as a exchange student for two weeks. That was the best two weeks of my life. I was born hearing and became deaf at ten days old. The school for the deaf and blind taught me sign language. This past summer I traveled to Nicaragua, and I have the desire to learn Spanish. By the end of this year I want to have a good conversation with people who speak Spanish

#2 Math: Who loves math? And when do we use math? I grew up hating math, so you're not alone. But I really really REALLY want to be able to understand math. I want to be able to hear a light bulb's ding when i understand. I am taking Math 1010 this semester everyday and I am struggling with it. I always have to ask someone to help me and I get embarrass by asking someone. I believe I will pass this class as long as I study hard and ask question

#3 Guitar: I absolutely love music. I can't live without music. I just recently bought a left-handed guitar. I hope to learn how to play "B-E-A-utiful" by Megan Nicole and "I won't give up" by Jason Mraz. I will have to practice, practice, and practice until my fingers bleed. Once you want to develop a talent, you have to work hard to get to that goal. You can expect to be talent the next day you learned.

#4 Mission Paper: I hope to turn in my LDS mission paper in December of 2013. It gonna be a tough process getting it done, but I have faith that I will get it done by then

#5: Bike Trip: In my high school, my principal had raised 33,000 dollars for new computers for our school this past summer. This is what he did, he rode his bike from Florida to California. You know what he did each day? He video tape himself giving a motivational speech to the student of the school. Each video talks about how we can do hard things. In honor of him, I want to ride my bike from Draper Temple to Jordan River Temple to Oquirrh Temple to Salt Lake Temple all in one day. I can do hard things like my principal.

I have many long term goals that I will talk about later in life. I am gonna focus on my short term goal and I have the desire to accomplish them all by the end of the year. Because I CAN DO HARD THINGS as long as I believe. And so can you!