The Problem of Being Deaf in a Hearing World

I recently watched a documentary titled "Sound and Fury", which is about the struggles of a deaf family trying to fit in to a hearing world.
Peter, Nita, and Heather are a deaf family that are struggling to make the decision of getting Heather, their oldest girl a cochlear implant. They are part of a family of part hearing and part deaf people, and the controversy goes for both sides. Peter's parents can hear, and they are pro-implant. Nita's parents cannot hear and they think that Heather should not get an implant. Peter's brother's wife was formerly deaf and got an implant, and got her kids implants as well. The opinions are very diverted all across the board, and Peter and Nita do not know what to do. Peter is incredibly closed minded and doesn't want the implant. Nita does but doesn't at the same time, but they end up giving Heather time to think about it and make her choice. She was only six then.

In my opinion, Heather should have gotten the implant for a few reasons. First and foremost, it does not make sense. We live in a hearing world. Only .38% of the entire population of the U.S. is deaf. That is about one million people, and despite that sounding like a lot of people, it is not. Having the opportunity to get an implant and not getting it is like getting a million dollar check and ripping it apart. The amount of opportunities lost by that decision are endless. Our world is facilitated for the hearing, not the deaf. Just at my job alone, the few deaf people that I have had to help were never on their own. They always had a hearing assistant that could translate it to sign language. Heather would have to limit herself to only interacting with deaf people or people that can sign, so only a few people around her. She could not play with hearing kids without struggling. Then she would be destined to go to an all deaf school and then go to a job that accepts deaf people. But the possibilities are limited.

The second reason is because she ended up getting a cochlear implant six years after the documentary was produced. I found this surprising because Peter was completely closed minded about it and there was a lot of drama that him and Nita caused in their family, just to end up doing it. Now Heather goes to Georgetown University and can talk and hear like every other student in the institution. I doubt this would have happened if she remained deaf. Her mom and two younger brothers ended up getting them too, but Peter is too stubborn to do so.

Sadly, due to technology, the deaf culture is going to die out eventually. I am sure in the near future it will not even be an option to remain deaf. The world is bound to move.

          I recently stumbled upon a quote by Dr. Seuss that says: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I did not expect this from a children's book author, but it certainly left me thinking a variety of different things about life, death, and the experiences that shape up one's life. 

          This quote is an optimistic perspective that can be brought up in times of sadness and mourning. Dr. Seuss alludes to the good memories made with a specific someone, something or an event that no longer exists/ no longer is with us, but it provokes positive thoughts and consequently positive reactions. After meditating and remembering good memories, the subject usually will feel gratefulness that that person/thing/event happened in their life or somehow got involved with them. In my opinion, this quote has more appeal to the death of a loved one and how negative of an impact it can have on someone's life. 

          Death is scary. It is unexpected and widely unwelcome. The problem at hand is that absolutely nobody can be exempt from it, and some have problems accepting it. The key is to live life to the fullest and make every second count. Sounds extremely cliche, but it is true. We as humans tend to take most things in life for granted. I bet you that you have never thought to yourself "Oh, I am so glad I live in a house that has heating on it because it is extremely cold outside yet it keeps me warm." Why? Because most of us were raised our entire lives in a house or some sort of shelter. Point is, that you never know what you have until you lose it, and this counts with family and friends as well. In my personal experience, as a kid I used to not let my grandfather hug me or be playful with me or anything. Five years ago I moved to the U.S. from my country of origin, and my grandfather is one of the people I miss the most and living without him is almost impossible because after all, there was a strong bond between us and every time I think about my attitude towards him when I was younger I get extremely angry at myself and wish I could go back and enjoy every second I got to spend with him and the rest of my family. Moral of the story is: don't take anyone for granted. 

          Dr. Seuss was an extremely influential writer despite being a children's book author. He gave us excellent life advice through his books as well as teaching us valuable lessons that can be applied later on in life. With the quote above, he really makes us realize that even in the deepest, darkest moments of mourning and misery we can find enlightenment and positiveness. Be happy to be alive and take advantage of every second you get. Life is beautiful. 

Just Kids

     Patti Smith had a life like no other. Troubled childhood as a kid dealing with disease and a not so stable household shaped her up to be strong and independent. She has no apparent vocation, but she liked to write poetry. Deciding to pursue her dream of being a poet, she decides to go to New York City, the city that never sleeps. Her adventure had no planning ahead and she had no place to stay, nor did she have money. She was homeless for quite some time, sleeping in different parks, public bathrooms, and sometimes fellow artists that offered her to stay at their apartments. Smith could not hold a job for longer than a week, and being a waitress was not even an option for her. She was a reading fanatic, so she started working at a couple bookstores to make some money to at least buy food and some art supplies. It was then when she met a shy, talented hippie named Robert Mapplethrope. He was a painter and had the clear goal on his mind to become like Andy Warhol, his idol. Together, Patti and Robert decided to move in and pursue their respective artistic dreams. Robert was a frequent drug user, smoking marihuana on the daily and using LSD (or acid) to create his art pieces. Along their troublesome lives that consisted on barely having anything to eat and struggling to reach their breakthrough point, Robert had serious problems questioning his sexuality. Leaving Smith and the Big Apple behind, he travels to San Francisco to find inspiration for his art and perhaps the answer to his questionable sexuality. Some time after her comes back with even more questions and gonorrhea from being sexually active with other men. From then, their relationship had ups and downs, (from this point on there will be spoilers) and their artistic careers finally start to blossom. Robert starts finding his passion and point of expertise, nudity, and Patti begins to reach out to more people with her poetry, to the point of becoming the lead singer for her own band. Their lives would change completely, finally becoming successful, meeting celebrities like Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan just to name a few. They finally became wealthy and Robert finally had everything he could possibly want except health. The last chapter of the book is dedicated to honor Robert's death. He was diagnosed with AIDS and died a few months after. At this point Patti and Robert were not together, but they were very close friends.

     Overall I think this memoir is incredibly well written with a lot of detail and passion. I am amazed as to how detailed Pattie's memories are of what happened all throughout her life. There are points though, where her plethora of detail becomes slightly obnoxious and almost unnecessary. I did not think that I would like this book, but once I got into it, Smith's crazy life adventures and the crazy places she went and all the people she met, it was hard for me to stop. I read this book in the span of three days in about 8 hours, so it was a pretty fast read for me. It would be helpful to have some background knowledge of what was going on at the time the book was written and if you like the art, music and culture involved with it too. I would most definitely recommended to anyone trying to read a great memoir.

Men vs. Women

     Upon reading these two very opinionated and controversial essays I have been questioning why in our society men and women are regarded so differently. Perhaps the nuances are notable in the physiological aspect, but not in the personality traits of each person. Every single individual has a unique personality to him or herself. There are men that are very soft and cry easily and women that are incredibly tough and enroll in the military or do "manly" things like fighting (prime example is UFC fighter Ronda Rousey), therefore, I strongly believe that all the wrong assumptions made about each gender are extremely out of place and should be disregarded. You need to be happy and to achieve this you need to be free to be the person you want to be.  
     Going back to the essays, I am going to start with "The Great Lawsuit" by Margaret Fuller. Beautifully written and with a very strong argument, Fuller addresses various issues with sexism in her era. The language employed is appropriate to the seriousness of the topic, and quite old school, but this is obvious considering this was written over 170 years ago. It is inspiring to me that despite all the judgement she knew she was going to get, she published her works in which she strongly believed. That is one of the components that makes a literary piece good. If the author is passionate about the topic, the piece will certainly reflect that and be more engaging with the reader. The way the essay ended was remarkable, I loved how Fuller combined the topic of sexism and God together to prove her point.
     To be frank, "If Men Could Menstruate" was not appealing to me in any way. I found myself very uncomfortable throughout the three pages that seemed an eternity to read through. At the beginning I thought all the sarcastic regards towards menstruation and men being proud of it were hilarious, but later on I thought it was too overdone, and although her argument was stated, she failed to back it up, in fact, I thought it was totally invalid. I agreed with her up until the fourth paragraph, then it went down hill. I highly doubt any females like menstruating, for all I have heard, it's awful, and I know for a fact that that feeling towards it would not change if roles changed between men and women. Steinem failed to mention all the symptoms and after effects of menstruating like cramps and mood swings. She portrayed the whole process as painless and barely noticeable, when in reality it is not, and even me, being a guy know that.  I can personally say that if I started menstruating all of the sudden, I would not be happy about it.
   

Seeing

       Speechless. Perhaps that is the best way to describe how I felt after I finished reading Annie Dillard's "Seeing". Confused and dazed I made my way through her stupendously written essay, without knowing the significance or motif of it. Certainly not my style of reading, but she did make me realize how oblivious we are about the things that surround us because we take them for granted. I found it fascinating all the studies she incorporated into the essay about the surgical procedures Dr. Von Senden performed on blind-from-brith patients and the consequences after performing them. I certainly did not expect to see such drastic reactions like wanting to be blind again or even suicidal contemplations. Yes, such big lifestyle change can be overwhelming, but I never expected it to be to that extreme.
     Although I struggled comprehending Dillard's claim in "Seeing", I really did appreciate how descriptive she was, especially when she talked about her adventures at Tinker Creek. Her lively descriptions of her interactions with nature make the reader feel like he/she is actually in the scene along with Dillard. In my opinion, she over used her encounters at Tinker Creek, but her excellent way to describe the things she saw made the story not dull. This just goes to show the importance of getting the reader involved in the essay by successfully describing what is occurring in it. It stimulates the brain and makes it easier to read.

Google is Making Us Stupid, or Is It?

     "Is Google Making Us Stupid" is a splendidly written article that addresses the problems and changes the Internet as a whole has made in us since it was introduced. Nicholas Carr's skeptic views and arguments certainly make one think on how times have changed since all of the revolutionary inventions (books, the printing press, the clock, computers, the internet) came into the frame of time and history and how our brains have modified themselves to use these tools as efficiently as possible, perhaps like an automatic update to a new, more useful software. 
     Carr's claim was very negative towards the use of the web, and it seemed like he was scared (not to mention he wrote this article after watching "A Space Odyssey") that this new technology would indeed make us more dependent on it and ultimately more stupid. I disagree with that. Yes, it is obvious that the way of thinking in this "Internet Era" we live in has changed from "convectional" ways, but that is because the mediums have changed too. He mentioned that himself in his essay, when he wrote that the same research that used to take him hours in a library would take no longer that 10 minutes in the Internet. New mediums are by nature far more efficient and help getting tasks done faster, but he sees them almost as a doomsday device (Futurama reference). I do agree though, that we are very dependable on it. How many times have we not known perhaps the meaning of a word or the location of a placed and have just googled it? Heck, Google is now a verb that can be conjugated in the English language in almost every tense (yeah, the foreign guy is talking about the English language). Some of us have hit rock bottom and have not even take the time to open our phones but to just hold down the "Home" button and asked Siri the burning question we have in mind. That same efficacy that helps us get stuff done faster has also made us lazier, but that is the beauty of innovation and technological break throughs. They help us do more in less time, and also do things that we have not done before. With all of this being said, of course we are going to think differently! We are always bound to change the way we think and process information because settings never remain the same. It is quite obvious with technology, but even nature or our own body. The way we think about ourselves changes in the daily, and majorly as we hit different life stages. I doubt a seven-year-old thinks about him/herself exactly the same as a 15-year-old would. There are different interests and different perspectives, but that is the magic of time. I would personally think that we are more knowledge-full on average than people were 50 years ago. Here is why: by performing quick searches in our preferred browsing engine, most predominantly Google, we are able to gather more information about personal inquiries than people could back then. If I have a random thought about what is the lifespan of a Green Sea Turtle, I can just search that, and in less than a minute have my answer to it, and in less than five minutes have learned about specific facts that make that species unique. Now, if we backtrack to 50 years ago, it would have taken me 15 to 20 minutes to get to my local library, another 15 or so to find the sections that talk about turtles, and finally another five to find out the book is no longer there, but they have one available in a library 10 miles away. The information in the net is limitless, and our knowledge can be too, it is just a matter of time until our brains adjust to this colossal medium to start noticing the changes. 
     

Talk of the Town, The Reflection

      Both of these well written pieces by Updike and Sontag display the relevance of one of the most lamentable events in American history, 911. Updike's piece focuses on where he was and what his immediate intake of the situation was when the tragic events took place. I find it terrifying that he was so close to the towers when it happened and I don't think I would react the same way he did, with a more observant, curious approach. My reaction would have been to call everyone I know/ care about and tell them I am fine and ask them (if they were in the vicinity) if they are okay. I was curious as to why he addressed the entire situation at the very end where he says "New York looked glorious" because for me personally it came off as a triumphant statement as if something great just had happened, when it was the complete opposite. I would not be surprised if he received criticism for that.

      Sontag's honesty came out as cheeky and more leaning towards al-Qaeda, almost as if she was trying to justify their actions. I find her piece extremely controversial, but I totally get where she is coming from. Every story has two or more sides to it. Most of us here in the U.S. have most likely only heard the version in which we were innocent and unexpectedly attacked for no apparent reason. Songtag's testimony raises up questions like "Did we really not do anything?", or "Are we really innocent?", and sadly the answer is "no". The U.S. has been involved in the Middle East for a long time, even before the 911 attack happened, and our Special Forces certainly killed many innocent people that were not involved with al-Qaeda in any way.

     Despite of the strong sentiments displayed in both of these well-written essays, I strongly believe that a good literary piece is written with a plethora of passion and interest for the subject. It is not for nothing that it is taught that when writing, honesty and interest for the topic is a must have, and at the end of the day, that is what separates an average writer from a good writer.

The Beginning of Something Great

     Hello there, fellow AP Comp students. My name is José Ignacio Montalvo, better known in McFarland as Jose or Josie. As many of you may know by now I am from Quito, Ecuador, and moved here (to Wisconsin) five years ago. It may seem obvious enough, but my life has been a roller coaster ever since.

 

     The nuances between Hispanic and American culture are opulent, to say the least. Life works very differently here, and it can be shocking from time to time. It appears to me as if everyone in the U.S does his/her own thing and only fends for him/herself, which is very contrasting from Hispanics that seem to have a more communal mentality where everyone tries to help the other as much as possible. Perhaps one of the most shocking things I have encountered is the fact that family is not as important as -in my opinion- should be. In Hispanic culture (and many others as well) family is the core of society, meaning that everything revolves around it. Usually, kids do not leave their households until a few years after they finish college, or until they are not dependent on their parents economically anymore. In the counterpart, young adults here want to leave their homes as soon as they turn 18, which is hard for me to wrap my head around. Regardless of how different the U.S is from Ecuador, it is still a gorgeous country and my experience here has been phenomenal so far.

     My first language is Spanish, and I speak it very fluently, but at this point in time, I would not hesitate on saying that my level of English and Spanish are basically the same. Throughout the years I have lost my accent significantly, but there are days where I cannot help butchering words, which can be embarrassing. 

     My favorite activities consist of traveling, music, and being with friends. Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. I love going to new places and exploring new cultures and lifestyles. This summer I got the chance to go to Panama for a bit over a week and I had a stupendous time. Obviously traveling is made easier knowing two of the most spoken languages in the world, which is a nice asset to have. I travel constantly back and forth from Ecuador to visit family and friends which can be melancholic at times, but great nonetheless. Music is one of the main aspects of my life. I play the guitar and also the drums, and I am into most music genres except for country, but that is something I can rumble about in another occasion. My friends mean the world to me, and I consider myself to be a very sociable person. Over 70% of my summer time is spent hanging out with friends, specially my two best friends Schuyler and Quintin. I always have a blast when I am around them. We all share the same passion which is soccer, so we spend endless hours playing "the beautiful game".

     I'm looking forward to AP Composition this upcoming school year and I hope everyone enrolled in the class does too!