(Continuation of “A Tale of Woe“)

Sitting in a seat at the back of the half empty room, the boy sat knowing he had worked hard all week. He had put everything he had into this paper. The spring break teacher was different from his “I hate my job” teacher. This gave him a sense of hope, she seemed happy in her position as an English teacher. He had written the paper, typed it out and turned it in with breathless anticipation. He had spent all his free time making sure his sentence structure was correct, that his paragraphs flowed and that his point was clear. The young man couldn’t stand the stress of not knowing the outcome! Not knowing if he’d passed or failed again was killing him! The teacher took a break and went out of the room. He waited until she was out of sight and hurried over to peek at the sheet of names she had on her desk. The teacher was crossing off the ones who failed and leaving the ones who passed. He scanned the list and found his name…. it had not been crossed off! Was this it? Had he finally passed this paper?! Was this real? Maybe he understood wrong, maybe it was the names crossed off that passed and others failed… He went back to his seat wondering, still confused as frustration ate at his nerves!

After the class was finished, he walked slowly up to the teacher, “Ummm… I was just wondering if I passed it?” He said shyly. The teacher pulled the list out of her bag and said, “Well, let me see… Yep, you passed. Good Job!” Shoved the paper back into her bad and walked out of the classroom leaving the young man standing alone. The idea of passing this paper had only been a dream and now - now it was a reality! He had done it; all the hard work had finally paid off and he was free from the weight of passing this English paper!

He looked around and found no one to rejoice with him, but that was okay because this was a personal battle that he conquered by himself. A smile formed upon his face where tears of pain and annoyance once fell, and he felt something he hadn’t in a long time… pride.

When you live in the middle of effing nowhere and the air is sucking the moisture out of any living thing - finding mushrooms the size of small children in your front yard is a surprise! I pulled into my driveway the other day and spotted something pushing up the soil - dry, dead soil… I stopped, backed up, rolled down the window and asked Scott, “What the hell is that?!” It totally looked like flesh peeking out… *eeek* It’s freaking me out just talking about it! Scott says matter-of-factly, “They are mushrooms.” What?! I made him dig them up right then and there - because the idea of flesh peeking out of the ground was not something I could live with. He dug them out and I saw just how freaking massive they were! I mean good god how on earth does that happen?! Maybe I am a moron - but I was under the blonde (need a good excuse) impression that mushrooms (fungus) needed DAMP darkish environments to thrive…go figure!

I was informed that these are “toad stools” which are very dangerous (poisonous) and grow in grass… Hummm - again, we don’t have grass. A freak of nature I suppose. *smile*

We open in a small town where high school students are rushing out of school on a cool Friday afternoon; ready to enjoy their spring break. As the school empties of life there is a lone corner of the library where a young man is still working hard on a paper determining his right to graduate. The young man focuses on the computer screen and types, greatly concerned his writing will not be good enough to pass the rough standards required. The young man is Hard of Hearing and even though he’s brilliant, he is having a hard time passing his writing exams. He types on, reading and rereading, trying his best to catch any mistakes he’s made. Changing and fixing and no matter how hard he tries, it’s still wrong! Frustration is fighting with depression to take control of his mind. Tears invade his vision and he’s chewed on his lower lip so much it begins to bleed. All the students are gone from the school, gone to start spring break. Not him… Even after he is able to leave this one paper in a box of authority he got the golden ticket to come to a class during spring break and write another paper. He’s worked so hard… his grades are close to perfect… his future depends on this paper, and if he cannot pass it he won’t graduate. No matter how high his GPA, no matter how many classes he’s passed… it all depends on these tests. His life hangs in the claws of a young hearing teacher who hates her job. His future depends on this one woman who sits at her desk and cries because she is so unhappy doing what she’s doing. She sits daydreaming of a different life while students fight to succeed in a swim upstream to graduation. The young man saves his paper again and catches a sentence he wrote, “The girl went to their father and ask for a money.” Damn! He knows it’s wrong, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. He looks around for help, but knows he’d be risking it all if an adult were to help - even with one little sentence. This is a test, and if someone were to interfere with it, it would mean failure. He reads the sentence again and again, but is unable to find the mistake. Through training in English, he knows something is wrong, but what? WHAT! He closes his eyes and rubs his head. “This is not fair!” he thinks to himself. He wants to throw it all away, his frustration is raging, he wants to scream to release some of the stress - but he can’t. He looks around at the empty library and wonders what it would be like to be free, out running with his friends and enjoying himself. He should be laughing and goofing around. That would be great because he knows he won’t be a kid forever. It’s almost over and instead of enjoying the last few moments of his youth, he’s stuck at the school library all alone. He looks again at the sentence and reads it out loud. Sounds good to him, but a lot of things sound right to him that are wrong to the hearing world. Why does the hearing world have to be so judgmental? Why can’t they be more understanding? Again he reads the sentence, “The girl went to their father and ask for a money.” Oh, he sees it! He changes it, “The girl went to their father and ask for money.” Yeah - that’s better… or is it? He can’t tell, the sentence SOUNDS correct to him. Saves again. It’s almost five and school was out at two. His stomach yells for food and his throat screams for liquid. It was time to print his paper…he had no choice. He filled his lungs with air and held down “control” key and slowly pressed the “P” key, then quickly he hit “enter” key. He went with bricks on his chest to the printer, collected the papers, stapled them together and shoved it into his backpack. He glared at the blank computer screen for a few minutes wondering his fate. With depression heavy on his soul the young man walked out of the library and over to the teachers’ lounge, placing the paper into the box of the one who will determine the pass or fail. He sighed heavy and walked out of the school…

Saturday morning his teacher walked in and grabbed the paper out of her box, “Finally!” she exclaimed with annoyance. She went to her room, threw the paper onto her desk, and sat down. “This is not going to be fun.” she predicted as she held up his paper and began to read. “Did he put any time into writing this?!” She asked herself aloud. She finished the paper and threw it down onto her desk. “I don’t want to deal with this right now.” With a great sigh she stood up and walked to her door and glanced back at the paper the young man had put so much time into and worried so much about. She switched the lights off, closed and locked her door and mumbled, “Moron,” as she walked away.

Wrong Game is an ASL (American Sign Language) movie I went to see yesterday with a few friends. It was shown at a local high school here in the middle of effing nowhere to help raise money to send a few high schoolers to Washington DC. The 11th and 12th graders are going on a trip to visit the infamous University - Gallaudet. It was an awesome turn out! My friends and I figured a handful of people would show up, but there was an auditorium full of Deaf, Hard of Hearing and hearing folks all jazzed up about being together and getting to see this movie.

We went into the high school auditorium and took our seats in these old wooden seats (with fold up mini desk tops - probably a lecture hall at one point). We knew right away our butts were going to be screaming out in pain soon. The movie started, but first we had to sit through a ten minute long commercial for Sprint… I guess Sprint sponsored the movie and therefore it was more or less their film. They then gave 50% to all the children going on this trip. *Kudos Sprint*

The movie finally began and at first was a little confusing, but quickly got to a point where everything was clear. I was a little freaked out going into the movie because on the trailer I viewed online I saw some guy talking about a disembodied cow head - yuck! I am not into disembodied anything! Finally about halfway through I calmed down, realizing how corny the movie was. Not Corny in a bad way, but corny in an, “I can watch this and not be freaking out” way. I was able to relax and enjoy the show knowing violence was not totally on the agenda. There were nasty bug eating scenes and yucky spewing of foam as someone dies scenes but no lopping off of heads or pulling out of guts… Thank you film makers! It was tense because you had no freaking idea what was going to happen next, who was going to die or how exactly. It was a well executed movie and although I want to sit here and replay the whole movie for you - I won’t.

It was weird - as a hearing person - sitting in a theater watching a movie without any kind of sound. I did enjoy the experience and I understand that I was watching the movie as a fellow Deaf person. Anytime my friends and I would talk to one another, we respected everyone around us and signed as we spoke. It was fun and I hope we have more chances in the near future to see more ASL films.