Some of you have been hearing me speak on some of my videos and have heard I've got a nasally voice. Some of you may have heard other deaf people speak, too, I'll tell you about our "Deaf Voices"

The main reason is because we can't hear ourselves. Musicians have speakers aimed back at themselves, or wear headphones, to get instant feedback on how they're playing. If they didn't they'll probably sound crappy eh?

We cannot hear the full "phonetic" and "intonation" of words. Some deaf voices are monotonous because they don't hear the affliction of words and emphasis on parts of sentences. I can hear some intonations and sometimes hear the "mood" of the conversations, but sometimes I put the emphasis on the wrong part of the word. For example I used to pronounce "CheroKEE" as "CheROkee"

I also found this explanation online - 

“Research shows we don’t hear the changes in our speech and through lack of use, we become unable to use our mouth, tongue, chest, and other organs to give clear speech. Consequently, a [deaf] person’s voice can become flat, monotonal and nasal in quality"

Our chest? This part confused me, aren't our vocal cords in our throat? What do we need our chest for other than for breathing air in and out? Again I researched online -

"use your chest to power your voice instead of just your throat and voice box. It will be deeper in pitch, warmer in quality and display full resonance"

Mindblown....all this time I've been speaking out of my head and throat only!


"People who speak in nasally or squeaky, high voices sound insecure, inexperienced, and give the illusion of not being confident."

No wonder some people have said I sound whiny and not authoritative. When I do try and be strong-voiced, especially when telling the kids to do something, I end up sounding angry! Then everyone's upset 'cuz Momma's pissed-off, I'm usually am not, but how do I make my voice sound like I mean business?

But no matter what our Deaf Voices, Deaf Accents, or Speech is like, puleeeeze do not tell us "You speak very well". That's just plain annoying! That says "Oh all those years of torture at Speech Therapy paid off Eh?"

So.....talk to you later....

Tracy,
"One finds limits by pushing them" ~ Herbert Simon

Telemarketers, can't live with 'em, can't live without....oh wait yes we can....

We've all dealt with Telemarketers in our lives. Whether it's from ordering a magazine, donating to charity, or your name on a mailing list, we end up on a computer's dialer.

Very few are polite and patient to deal with a Deaf person on a captioned phone, so that's why I ignore the majority of the phone calls & let the machine pick up.

I think it's funny to hear stories how people deal with this annoyance, here's a few of ours:

- Sports Magazine calls hubby for renewal but after several polite refusals, hubby just puts down the phone while the telemarketer is still going through their speech and walks away. He hangs up after the line has gone dead.

- A friend would give the phone to his toddler whenever a Telemarketer calls and let's the child jabber away.

- Telemarketer calls us, my son answers. "May I speak to your Mother?" "She's Deaf" "I don't believe you!" "Ok" *click*

- Telemarketer calls, my daughter answers "May I speak to Tracy" "Shes Deaf and can't hear on the phone, can I take a message?" "That's OK I'll call back later" *click* My girl yells into phone "She's still going to be Deaf later!"

- Newspaper calls hubby asking...no wait...begging for renewal. "No thank you, we just don't have the time to read it" "But sir it's a good renewal price!" "No thanks" "But what about your WIFE! Wouldn't she want to read it?" "I said No!" *click*

Those are some of my experiences with Telemarketers, I would love to read about yours! Comment away and share the laughs.

Tracy,
"One finds limits by pushing them" ~ Herbert Simon

Today I'm hoping we get to go pick up our "new" couch from the Flea Market. I'm getting tired of picking up stuffing from our current couch. The dogs have been digging holes in our couch, probably in search of the latest thing that got spilt.

We don't buy "Brand New" much around here, almost everything in our house is either from a flea market, found, or gifted to us. The last brand new thing we actually bought was our TV.

What do I mean by "found", sweet hubby has found a bunch of things along the side of roads, at curbs and such. He used to have a tall stack of 5 gallon buckets 'cuz "you'd never know".

 We've had chairs, end tables & a lamp stand "found" by him. My favorite story of him finding something was when we all were in the van and he suddenly pulled over (on the side of a major highway mind you), trudged through the snow and rescued a 2 foot tall Patrick Star doll (from the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon). It was completely frozen so he just tossed it in the back of the van & we completely forgot about it. A few weeks later we all were out on another errand run, when I heard one of the kids (who were both preschoolers) exclaim "It's snowing inside!". I turn around to see they had grabbed the Patrick doll, ripped it and are now throwing the beads around all over the inside of the van! ACK! Both kids were coated in the staticky stuff as well as anything within reach. Randy pulled into a car cleaning place and he spent about $5 bucks in quarters vacuuming the kids off and the insides of the car. So much for saving money there eh?
 
So if you ever visit, you'll see that nothing matches anything else, no perfect color scheme, no perfect pairs, and you know what...I don't care! If it's usable, comfortable, and it fits, it's fine.

I'm so used to consignment shop prices that when I go to Wal-Mart I balk at their prices "$30 bucks for jeans!!??" Wal-Mart of all places, is "expensive"?

Yeah call me cheap, crazy, or chintzy. Well I'm not doing it for you! That's the trouble with the world today, people are trying to impress their neighbors, their boss, their family, "competing with the Joneses". That gets them buying bigger and bigger, living above their means, and incurring large debts and then they wonder why they're broke?

So, my place may look crazy, but dammit it's comfortable!

Tracy,
"One finds limits by pushing them" ~ Herbert Simon   

Well I couldn't find my camera.....so I went ahead with my webcam, I don't know how good the quality is so let me know :)

Video's about how I can't stand drunk people, with a little blooper at the end :)

I was playing around with Google Search and seeing what the Autofill would say to some searches. Autofill uses the most popular searches & lists them when you start to fill out the search box.

I've put together a slide show of the various autofills (or you can read a text transcript.)

So there you have it....what the "world" thinks......scary eh?

Tracy,
"One finds limits by pushing them" ~ Herbert Simon  

A while ago I read a statement that threw me off balance. I saved the statement but forgot to save the source (sorry).

"It is not the job of disabled people to "overcome" their disability or change their attitudes to fit society. It's society's job to change to accomodate disabled people"

Uhh, lemme see here.....

1) I feel that as a person with disabilities, I'm not "overcoming" anything. I'm just doing what I  have to do to go about my daily business. Sure there's more roadblocks to endure: unaccessibility, discrimination, ignorance & stupidity, but that comes with the territory, I push past it and continue on.

2) "or change their attitudes to fit society" - what exactly does this mean? Does society expect me to be sad, angry at the world and demand entitlements and physical support? God forbid we be happy, capable and productive without their handouts and pity. Just because "YOU" don't think you'd ever be able to live like this doesn't mean I deserve your pity and ignorance.

3) Is it really entirely up to society to change for us, or for me? All I can do is educate those I come in contact with, and tell them what I need from them for me to be involved, whether it's getting an interpreter, asking to switch seats so I can see better, or asking the school to use relay to contact me.

Sure there are times we "rally" for equality, making closed captioning mandatory on TVs, Service Dog Access, Braille on public signs, etc. But that's when there's so much similarity in our "needs" that it should be done. 

What irks me are those people who do it for the sake of "Political Correctness" and decide to label a "group with a disability" one way or another, and usually without really consulting said group. For example, who the hell came up with the term "Hearing Impaired"?? Did you ask the people with Deafness what they want to be called? We'd like to be called "Deaf, or Hard of Hearing". 

Then there are those who get carried away with their "Correctness", such as one incident on Fox's "The Five" (Yes I'm a fan) where co-host Eric Bolling opens the show by pointing at his "five" hand. Suddenly Twitter bursts with complaints "What about those fans who don't have five fingers?" Oh come on!! Seriously? Do yo think those "phalange impaired" (note the sarcasm) are really upset if others have complete digits or not?

How about switching that statement around a bit?

"It's society's job to "overcome" their stereotyping and change their attitudes towards people with disabilities. It is not the job of people with disabilities to lower their standards to meet society's views"

Much better.....

Tracy,
"One finds limits by pushing them" ~ Herbert Simon