Here’s MY answers to questions from Fairy’s bellamoden blog.
Q: Is ‘deafie’ one of those terms that’s fine for someone who’s deaf to use, but a no-no for someone who isn’t?
Simona: I don’t mind, but only if the hearie knows already the deafie and are friends with each other. Otherwise, I much prefer that the hearie used “Deaf”. Then again, if it came down to the usage of “hearing-impaired” or “deafie”… then by all means, use “deafies” instead of “hearing-impaired”.
First of all, us deafies hate to have the term “hearing impaired” applied to us. I know you hearies think that’s politically correct or whatever, but truly, it’s not, it’s insulting. Grin. It’s akin to calling a woman “penis challenged” or a man “vagina impaired”. Call us for what we are. Deaf.
Q: Do you have a special place to get movies with subtitles, or do you go to your local video store?
Simona: Not much here for me to say, you two’ve said it all for me, basically. There’s a new company coming out that does a Netflix-type program for deaf people. All their videos and DVDs are open captioned. They have many old movies captioned now, many educational programs, so forth, things that used not to be captioned. I’ve gotten myself signed up for that, so I look forward to that. And the best part of that: It’s free. Their website is at http://www.cfv.org/ - so have a gander if you wish! My classic films that I want to see that aren’t closed captioned: half of Shirley Temple films, the other half of them are captioned. I find that weird. 
Q: What would be the best type of sign language for me and my kids to learn? I have heard of Signing Exact English and ASL.
Simona: I concur! ASL rulz! I grew up signing SEE, have been signing ASL in English order for years now. I still can’t sign in ASL syntax and may never do so but that’s all right, as long as I can understand others who do so.
Q: Is Sign Language international or does each country/language have a different one?
Simona: Hehehe, thanks for reminding me of my time in New Zealand. I picked up New Zealand Sign Language very rapidly and was soon signing it there as if I was a native. I also was soon talking like a New Zealander, lol. For some reason, communicating was much easier with hearies there than here in the United States. Maybe because I found the sounds much easier to pronounce there than here (the ones that are said kinda hard here, but softly there… such as the R at the end of words such as “water”).
Matter of fact, I have ended up occasionally having to fall back in the New Zealand method of speaking to get myself understood with words such as water, sauce, so forth.
Q: Do you use a ‘terp’ at work or are you a good lip-reader and use voice?
Simona: Frarochvia said it. Also, speechreading is very tiring. Think of it akin you trying to constantly shout and listen to your friend in an extremely noisy room, with the conversation being extremely vital to your life. Your entire energy is focused on your friend, but you’re working so hard to understand everything she’s saying, too…
That’s in essence what speechreading is for us. Maybe now you’re wondering where the noise is for the deaf? Well, that would be the light, the people moving around, the vibrations, any movements, every tiny little detail. We’re not merely watching the person’s lips, we’re ALSO watching his face, his body language, AND out the corner of our eyes, we’re paying attention to what’s going on around us. On our skin, our feet, our tushes on our chairs, so forth, we’re attuned to any vibrations and if we feel any, we’re going to be analyzing what it is until we’re satisfied to what and where it is and came from.
Q: What do you think is the reason for the whole ‘your English is really good’ thing. Is it something you worked at or a different education or something else entirely?
Frarochvia: If I knew, I would be a zillionaire.
Simona: Heh, Frarochvia, me too! My opinion lies in encouragement by family and full access to books (as in encouraging to read and discussing them) and watching television with closed captioning on all the time.
Q: Do people who are born deaf dream with sound?
Simona: My sound irritations: music but then again, I’m unusual for anybody, really. I just hate music, they’re out of sync with my body’s rhythms. And if it’s in cars, then I’m going to go insane.
As for dreaming in sound: I have never done so to my recollection, but I also do not recall dreaming in sign language either. I just know people and I chat. Do we chat telepathically? Maybe. 
Be interesting if that was so. Laff.
Q: What is your biggest frustration when dealing with people?
Simona: Yes, it’s annoying for people to have to repeat and repeat. But don’t you think it’s equally as annoying for us people to have to ask and ask over and over.
All my life, I had to deal with “Never mind” all the time because it just wasn’t easy enough for them to repeat. For me, that is the most annoying thing ever. It implies to me that I’m too unimportant to deal with. That they don’t care about me enough to take the time to tell me what it was, either by taking paper and pen to write it down, if lipreading didn’t work.
Q: How do the deafies learn?
Frarochvia: I think the way we learn is the same, except with a lot more pain thanks to how non-deaf the education is.
Simona: Yeah. Especially when teachers assume we’re not as capable as their hearing students are. And we have to prove over and over constantly how equal we are to their hearing students and it’s still not good enough for them to accept us all because there’s only four senses so therefore not good enough.
Yeah, a tad of bitterness here and there from my schooling past. 
Q: Can deafies really understand everything they lipread and can they lipread everybody?
Simona: The best of the best lipreaders’ accuracy at lipreading (more accurate to say speechreading, really, which I’ll come to in a moment) is about 30%.
It’s more accurate to say speechreading, but everybody calls it lipreading because, hey, you’re staring at the lips and reading the lips! Grin. But in reality…
The person has to figure out what sound was just made on the lips, then conjecture what word the speaker just said, then put that all together. So it’s mainly a game of guesswork with a bit of reading thrown in. So it’s the context that we focus upon.
Q: If you could pick one sound that you could hear perfectly well, what would it be?
Simona: I don’t care about any sounds except to be able to hear my husband chatting away to me. I’d love to hear his voice (except when he’s mad or upset, hehe). Who needs any negativity!?
Q: Would you ever consider a cochlear implant?
Simona: I used to think about getting a cochlear implant, before I had accepted my deafness, during the times of darkness. Now I’m much happier with who I am. I realize that I would have stopped using the CI after probably a year or so, just like I don’t use the hearing aid. I hate most sounds, for the same reason Fairy does too. They’re annoying, they give me a headache, they’re useless, they serve no purpose.
And when my hearing friends ask me what do I miss being hearing or some such silly question… my simple reply is always this: “How can I miss something if I’ve never had it?”
That one liner was what led me to ultimately understand that I would always be deaf and was what taught me how to be happy with who I am. If you’ve never had something, then there is no use missing it or envying it.
Q: Are you more comfortable with your hearing or nonhearing friends?
Simona: That one is difficult for me to answer, as I don’t have much of a social circle here, but what there is of it, they’re mainly deaf peers with some non-deaf peers sprinkled here and there. My husband isn’t deaf, laugh. He’s working on learning ASL, slowly but surely.
Q: Do you feel isolated and how do you cope?
Simona: Right now, I can’t socialize much because I’m too broke to go socialize with the deaf community here, but hey, that’s ok, my time will come, and they know me and I know them.
And I have my peers online (they are non-deaf, but they’re supremely friendly! I adore online chatting).
Q: If someone were to recognize your deafness during conversation, which is more polite: to allow you to read lips or to add signing even if the signing isn’t great?
Frarochvia: What is even more polite is asking the deaf person for her preferences because every deaf person if different. Alway ask. That’s the #1 thing. Just because a person is deaf doesn’t mean she knows ASL, or can lipread. Or both.
Simona: What she said. I learned that the hard way a few weeks ago… I met a deaf lady on the bus … turned out she didn’t sign at all. Ooops.
Q: Are you able to drive? I don’t know if hearing is essential for safety reasons, such as a horn honking, back up warning signals (on larger vehicles mostly) or sirens. Usually emergency vehicles have lights in addition to their sirens, so this might not even be a valid example.
Simona: yah yah!! It’s scary to see cell-phone drivers swerving all over the road!! And people wonder if deafies can drive?? They’re the ones who can’t hear themselves with music blasting so hard that I can actually hear it while on a bus, and even worse, the bus’s VIBRATING from the music!! Those drivers are gonna be late-deafened (well, earlier than the previous generations, unfortunately).
Blessed Be!
Hehehe.
