I've got a crazy amount of assignments due this week, 2 mid-term exams, one which is tomorrow, and quite a good amount of places I need to apply and follow-up with. That aside, as I edge closer to stress-crying, I need to word this out. Mostly, because words help me sort my thoughts out and this is my word haven for the task.
Earlier this year, I visited my university's main campus, and that is when I had my first encounter with a deaf person. It was a reality shock for me, because as much as I would like to think of myself as a well-informed individual on important issues like gender discrimination, racial discrimination, religious bias, and the stereotypes that engulf our society, I cannot believe I had not thought about the Deaf community- the problems they face, the technology that still needs to be worked on to make resources more accessible to them, and most importantly, making people and our own communities more deaf-friendly. That was when I decided to start an initiative to make our campus more deaf-friendly, and I actively started learning American Sign Language (ASL). A deaf friend of mine took a lead on this and I helped out to teach ASL to anybody who wanted to attend weekly classes that we were offering on campus. We got an amazing outpour of great feedback and support from our campus community. My reason for writing this blog post is not to post about the initiatives I've been working on, but, because I think my mind is edging to a moral dilemma right now.
Do we do tasks like these because we truly want to help make a positive change or do we also love the attention that these tasks bring along? Yes, it's noble to think of the former, but, how realistic is the latter? If we did truly feel that the reasoning was to have a positive impact, then why post about it on social media? More importantly, why does it matter to me that someone is getting a lot of attention for posting a video about it? Is it because I started the initiative and it's something I'm incredibly proud of? Does that make me hypocritical because if other people are posting about this, they are in a way garnering people's attention towards sign language, which means the initiative was successful?
The fact that I've even written down the questions above is annoying me because this is such a petty thing, and I'm actually taking time out to type it all up when I have so many more important things that I could be working on. It's frustrating, to say the least, to be rational and stress-induced emotional at the same time. It's not helping me finish my exam-prep, it's not helping me decide if I want to order food at 2 AM, and it's definitely not helping me calm down. Hunger does NOT bode well with me, and when I'm hungry, I'm the last person you'd want to be around. That being said, I'm going to return to my ingenious plan to conquer my task-list. It's the least I can do and I owe it to myself to excel at these brilliantly time-consuming plans that I made during the start of the semester.
Here's to ranting, wording out silly things, and then feeling better about it.
Cheers.
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