It isn’t my fault.
Oh, okay, it is, but I plead the holidays.
I am very behind in Stories, and I have had two emails from people wanting to know if I died.
Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t.
I will, someday, but I still have Stories to write and naked people to draw.
No notes about the naked people, but I do have some notes for the Stories that are days old and, as yet, unwritten.
Okay, one has a note about a naked person, but we will get to that.
Today, Aaron and I drove off into the sunrise to go look at Ball State.
In case you want to know, it was named for the 5 Ball brothers. They also donated an art collection to the school, but we didn’t’ have enough time to look at it.
We did, however, get to see the naked lady.
(See, I didn’t’ keep you waiting. At least, not very long.)She is a statue in the middle of the first floor of the library and a favorite meeting place. Apparently, she has a name, but the student tour guide had no idea what it was and says that the kids all just say,” I will meet you by the naked lady.” Aaron and I, of course, had a conversation about her.
I said, “Aha, they have art here!”
And he said, “ See, it isn't’ all bad!”Actually, we didn’t’ say either of those things, but we did have a conversation- it was actually about the fact that the anti-theft devices set up as you walk in and out of the library create a huge auditory assault, if you are wearing hearing aids. Aaron described it as something equivalent to blinding someone, only via hearing aids.
My hearing aid didn’t make such a bad frazzle for my ear as his did- he literally stopped and almost staggered- but, outside the same building, there was definite low level hum audible from my hearing aid.
Very curious. Maybe they are sending secret messages to Mars or something.
At any rate, it wasn’t very hearing aid friendly.
The naked lady tour guide was our second brush with “official “ folk.
The first was the information “guy” who prattled along with some slides after we were shown the uncaptioned videotape.
The third was the young woman who led the tour for the Telecommunications Department, and the fourth was a young man who helps to run the student radio station.
My impression of the experience?
Ball State needs to rethink whom it picks to represent it.
Three of the four seemed to be having quite a struggle with the English language. I was really glad that the one young man had changed his major from education, since he wasn’t’ sure what to do with the verbs was and were- and misused them about 14 times during his talk. Actually, the last young man also happened to have a problem with verbs. There may be a theme to this, or maybe it has something to do with the odd auditory signals from the Library. Maybe those signals are inaudible to Hearing folk, but scramble some deep set attachment for verbs.
The campus tour guide, however, was more versatile; she had trouble with both verbs and adjectives. I have no explanation for the problem with adjectives.
I do, however, think that I may have found a good place for Sarah to attend college.
Sarah struggles when writing, especially with verb forms. Here, she would not stick out, at all, from the Hearing students, even though English is her second language…One more disadvantage neutralized!
And she doesn’t’ wear hearing aids, so we don’’ have to worry about her getting messages from the Library that are meant for extra-terrestrials.
Of course, English is also Aaron’s second language. He didn’t get a crack at it until after we had bought him a set of hearing aids. The fact that it has long since replaced ASL as his primary language…well…
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the guide we had for the Telecommunications department spoke English well, she was very under-informaed about the department and would have us look into a room and say” I don’t’ know what all that equipment is for.” Nor did she have any idea what Aaron might do in his classes. But her spoken English skills were good!
Actually, so were the facilities, and the potential extracurricular opportunities in both television and film-making.
But, it isn’t even going to be a side note on the list of programs he is considering because they require two years of a foreign language, and they do not count ASL as a language.
So, it is back to the highways for us, looking for a good backup college.
At least, one for Aaron.
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3 comments:
hm, i'm glad that went well. what'd aaron think about it?
u had better ask him.
my impression? depressed. he felt teh foreign language problem was a deal breaker.
otherwise, he thought the program was good- not as good, maybe, as columbia- but godo in diff ways?? ask him- i am just teh stupid old mother.
Temple has a language requirement also. They don't offer ASL, but you could call and ask if they'd accept it. He'd probably have to take a placement exam. CCP (Comm Coll of Phila) is nearby, he could take classes there if he needed to.
Do you remember my friend Ermanno? He spoke only Italian until he was 6, but since he was born in the USA, Penn made him take an exam, which of course, he failed. And the professor couldn't understand a word he said because she had no practical experience and Italian is all dialects.
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