today has been the most educational day this semester, and i didn't even go to class. since my roommate grace is taking american sign language as her language req, as part of the class she had to attend an event with deaf/hearing disabilities people, so she took me with her on a trip to the museum of modern art. we saw this funky little exhibit for one guy's sculptures, and since it was after moma hours there was no one there and we could browse the place freely. the tour was hosted by someone who wasn't deaf or mute, so i got to learn quite a bit, while an interpreter stood next to her and signed like crazy.

i was pretty hesitant about going at first, because i had no idea how to sign anything, and i was the only person there who didn't have any signing experience. when we got there, half of the people could speak anyhows, since they were students learning asl, so i didn't feel too left out. grace taught me some useful signs, like "my name is j-e-a-n-n-i-e," or, "i can't sign, i'm with my friend, she's learning sign language," or, "fun!" (when i went home, i also learned some spicier signing, like when you make a circle with one hand and you trace the shape of that circle with the index finger of your other hand, it means butthole. try searching up "profanity in sign language" in wikipedia, you come up with some pretty interesting results. oh, and don't tell grace i taught you...please.)

the interpreter showed up an hour late, and during that time we got a little thing of cheese, grapes, wine, etc (grace thoroughly glared at me for taking a sip or two of pinot grigio) and we got to mingle with the other people on tour. out of the remaining people who actually had hearing disabilities, there was one guy that grace and i grew particularly fond of. he called himself martin, and his name-sign (the way you identify yourself so you don't have to spell out your entire name letter by letter) was really unique: he would put his fingers at his jaw and move his wrist up and down, because as he put it, "his moods were like that, lots of ups and downs." martin was about 60 years old, and out of all the other deaf people there he was the only one who tried to get to know everyone, especially the students who were learning asl. he asked around the table what our names were, and offered to tutor sign language for those who needed help. he was so cheerful, and when we actually got to the exhibit, you could tell he was focusing on the art so peacefully, with this incredible look of satisfaction and pondering all mixed together on his face.

did i mention? martin was not only deaf-- he was partially blind. he told us he was suffering from ushers disease, which affects not only your hearing, your sight, but also your balance, so he carried a kind of stick with him to help guide his way. he also had his personal interpreter with him, and it was the most curious form of interpreting i had ever seen: the interpreter (who had hearing and eyesight, of course) would hold out his hand, and martin would grab it, and the interpreter would sign away, just like that, with one hand covered by martin's hand. and martin would stand there, nodding and smiling at both the interpreter and the person he was talking to, grinning away.

he was apparently really into museums, because he had visited many before, and i just stood there there whole time, looking more at him than at the museum exhibits. i mean, here's this guy who can't hear the museum curator except through a stilted translation, and can barely see the art pieces at all, and he's there, smiling and signing and genuinely pouring out interest onto the people and the objects around him.

that might not sound particularly extraordinary unless you think about it in perspective-- how many people do you know, with perfectly good eyes and ears, who will never walk into a museum on their own will, or even care about people they meet unless there's a benefit to knowing them? (ah, the networking concept of yuppies. hooray.)

martin's ushers syndrome will only get worse: there will be a day where he won't be able to see the museum exhibit in front of him, and it will only get more and more difficult to communicate to those around him. essentially, his world is closing up around him slowly but surely, yet i've never seen anyone as brave as that man, who was willing to put his hand into mine and ask me my name in stilted signing.

jeannie

new york snow is disgusting. its like unsalty salt-- "unfit to eat or drink, and is thrown out to the pigs to be trampled on", that is, if we were to refer to new yorkers as pigs. (is that the exact quote? i can't remember.) i flinched when i saw one of our freshman guys stuff an entire of handful of snow into his mouth... looks are deceiving, kids. white snow does not mean CLEAN snow; new york snow will probably make you sprout another arm or something equally mutative, considering how much nicotine and exhaust filled air it has passed through.

we had our first snowfall yesterday, and i managed to trip not once, not twice, but three separate times in the snow. i'm becoming less and less coordinated, i think, along the lines of my muscle atrophy which has been correlating with the more sleep and less class i go to. seriously, i think i've lost weight only through muscle loss-- i'm just fat on bones now. (but its ok, because we always have to remember one particular big korean boy's motto: "i'm fatter, but happier.")




in other, less weight-conscious news, i've been working on this beast of a final project for asian american literature. our professor said that we could do "something creative" instead of a paper for a final grade, and well, that's right down my lane of doing less real work and more artsy fartsy things. collage was number one on my list of "something creative" because a) i can rip things apart! and b) its an excuse to buy more magazines.

(on a side note, magazines are one of my secret guilty pleasures, along with chick flicks, dressing up, and makeup. if you ever ask me in person about such horridly girly topics, i'll disdain them vehemently, but come nightfall who's the one curled up in a fuzzy blanket doing her nails in front of america's next top model? i'm such a girl sometimes, its gross.)

so yes, my stack of fashion mags have multiplied, although half the pages are now ripped up and scattered on the floor around my desk, bed, and chair. i'm making this huge collage of a geisha, with the face of marykate olsen covered up and a kimono the color of 14 oil of olay ads. its supposed to be a controversial masterpiece denouncing american ideals of the east and of women from asia assuming these roles that have been misconstrued through various media, most notably fashion magazines and such paraphernalia, and i don't know how to pronounce half the words in the sentence i just wrote. (is it misCONstrued or MISconstrued? parapherNAlia or paraphernaliA? ugh.) actually, it just looks like a badly done geisha girl made out of badly ripped magazines badly pasted on there with badly sticky glue. it stopped being controversial about 2 minutes into the creation of it, and now its just plain ugly.

i'm desperately trying to pull the piece together into coherent thought but nothing is coming to mind right now. ripping it in half is sounding like a good idea, but the project is due monday, and i don't have the energy or the muscles to go out into the dirty new york snow to buy more magazines.

jeannie