Archive for February, 2011

New brakes for the beast

Author: Striker

Feb 16

Last weekend, Nick picked up the car from my work, and fitted the new brakes.

I now have RDA slotted rotors, and Bendix Ultimate brake pads fitted to the front. The brake fluid was flushed, too, as the old stuff was looking a bit murky.

Right from the get-go I noticed a little ‘bite’ when applying the brakes, as opposed to the dull results the previous set-up had. It’s now a couple of days later, and while I haven’t had the chance to test the brakes properly (it’s been pissing rain all week), they do seem a lot more responsive than previous.

I’m looking forward to being able to test them properly.

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How many Auslan users are there in Australia?

Author: Striker

Feb 16

In class on Monday I learned that the numbers on “deaf” people are highly inaccurate.

Promotional videos suggest that the number is around 2,300,000. This is actually the number of “hearing impaired” people in Australia, whether or not they have learned Auslan.

The number of deaf people who use Auslan as a primary language actually sits more around 5000 people. Add to that their families, and friends, and you’re at more like 10,000 people.

Forgetting the people I have met at TAFE, I know two interpreters, two hearing impaired people, both of whom are in the process of obtaining hearing aids to deal with gradual hearing degradation, and a small handful of friends who are picking up a couple of signs through dealing with these people.

The fact that I know around six people that use Auslan seemed like a small number, while I was under the impression that there were millions of deaf people around. Now that I know the community is tiny, it changes my perception a little.

I spoke to a good friend today, about a little on-the-side tutoring in Auslan to help me out with my Certificate II, as I am not sure that I am learning as quickly as I really should be.
That said, Ian (our teacher) is right, and we need to immerse ourselves, and stop using our voices.

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Auslan 10/02/2011

Author: Striker

Feb 11

While I can’t remember the name of the module we’re studying on Fridays, it’s about deaf culture, and we get to keep the interpreter through the whole module.

I don’t think we actually learned much today. We were split in to groups, and made to outline culture highlights for four countries. It was an introduction to identifying cultural significances.

What I did learn today, is that the deaf tend to congregate in the kitchen of a home, rather than the lounge-room. Any deaf people who can comment on this?

Also, after class I got clarifications on the signs of no-idea, don’t-know, and ‘plate’. The latter to help me when I’m talking to deaf customers at the shop, to better understand their orders.

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Learning Auslan

Author: Striker

Feb 10

Yesterday I enrolled in Certificate 2 in Auslan.

The class was more paperwork than anything else, enrolment forms for TAFE, going to the administration office to hand in said forms, then the student services building for my TAFE card, which they couldn’t give me because I wasn’t in the system yet.

When we got back to the class, it was a quick introduction to finger-spelling, and learning to spell our own names.
Homework was practise. Spelling out license plate letters, names, anything we could thing of, so this morning I’ve been spelling friend’s names.

I think I have the basics down, I can do each letter, and I think I’ve memorised all of them.
The thing I’m having trouble with is spelling a word as a word, as opposed to individual letters.

During class yesterday, our instructor mentioned that the interpreter would only be there for three weeks.
Having finger-spelling down in one day, and being able to understand Auslan at a conversational level in three weeks are two completely different things. I’m fairly worried about being thrown in the deep end, and not being able to swim.

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