Exhausting Weekend

Last Friday, the 9th, we went to Deaf Night at the Block of Orange. We met some cool people from Cal State Northridge (known for its deaf studies program) there. My friend Rhi, the activist, got really excited and insisted that we go up to CSUN the next weekend (this past weekend). We ended up going at presumably the worst possible time traffic-wise (Friday evening) but it wasn’t too bad. I was, however, a bit frustrated with the trip as a whole. It was definitely fun in the end, but I spent money I don’t really have on a dinner I didn’t really like, and I had a hard time communicating with anyone! There was a large group of us; some deaf, some hard of hearing, and some hearing. Because there was so many of us I never knew what was going on in the conversation. I had to keep asking what was going on, but my boyfriend didn’t even know, because neither of us is very skilled at signing yet and a lot of our friends have slight “deaf” accents so I have a hard time with that. Overall, it was a long drive and a long night. I got home around 2 in the morning.

Saturday I was exhausted, of course, but there was a fundraiser for OCF-OCF that I’d been looking forward to going to. My boyfriend and I were wishy-washy about whether or not we had enough energy to go, but in the end we went. It was a casino night at the local Elks Lodge. My parents paid for us to go. We got free drinks, played black jack and such, and my boyfriend even won a poker set. It was fun. It was also very, very loud. There was loud music playing and the bass was louder than any conversation I could have possibly had unless I was screaming. I had to have my boyfriend repeat nearly everything directly to my hearing aid.

Both of these instances were ones in which I definitely wish I could lip-read/ sign better! Sometimes I feel like I’ll be in big trouble if I ever actually go deaf. I didn’t learn these skills naturally at a young age like a lot of my friends. I’ve decided to write this weekend off as a loss. It’s been a loss of actual weekend/relaxation time at least. I can’t wait for the Walk to come. At this point it’s partly because I’m excited to meet new people with whom I can connect and partly because I’m exhausted from work that doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. It will all be worth it when I make a bunch of new hard of hearing friends at the Walk, right?