participating in 2 YEPs has really made me embrace the idea of keeping a journal. it's like i am so paranoid these days and no longer trust my mind to remember the things that i want to remember. should i bemoan at becoming neurotic or should i rejoice at this more disciplined Le? anyway, that's why i'm typing this at 1am when i ought to be engaged in more worthwhile stuff (watching Friends vcds, for instance)

i spent this year's National Day with the deaf community at the SAD. a First for me! and since i am reporting back for NS duty next year, i have this annoying habit of thinking that all annual events that i am involved in for the first time will never be tried out for subsequent times. i am really treating my NS liability as a death sentence

sitting at the reception counter and waiting for "customers", i grabbed the chance to be the group leader of these 2 families because there were 2 little boys among them. i wanna "xian" xiao hai zi!

interestingly, all 4 parents are hearing-impaired while the 2 boys, Zhenlong and Jianliang aren't. Zhenlong is in pri 5 this year and you would be left awed by the way he signed rapidly with his parents, without any trace of hesitation. except for a few conversational greetings, i was stumped for stuff to sign and my poor retentive skills didn't help either. sometimes, i saw a sign that i knew i had learnt previously in my classes but i just couldn't match the sign to the darned word. so had to rely a lot on finger spelling, which really shouldnt be the case since i have honorably graduated from the Beginners' Stage liao. other times, i did a Joey and smiled and nodded along intelligently and tried to act like i was in the know

not hard on myself though, for this is after all my first time interacting with the deaf for an extended period of time and so things can only get better from now on. got to internalise some words in my long-term memory also. but thank god that Zhenlong was around because he acted as a bridge between the adults and me and hence basically saved my ass several times

i really appreciate how communication can be saddled with obstacles because some SEE signs indicated in the dictionary don't tally with the signs that deaf people actually use. so, it gets pretty discouraging as i realise that the lessons can only take me so far after all. plus, the exasperating nuisance of having to unlearn and relearn certain signs so as to facilitate interaction with them. additionally, one of the fathers signed that he is Chinese. so i assumed he meant that he learnt the Shanghainese sign lang and isn't that familiar with SEE after all. hence, another communication barrier

Huiyi (another volunteer) asked Zhenlong how he managed to pick up English and Mandarin since his parents couldn't voice to him, owing to their disability/cultural difference (depending on your stance). uncles and aunties talked to him? or he had a nanny? he replied, a bit curtly (or maybe i was too sensitive) that he "learnt in school lah". he remarked that he "also don't know how he picked up sign lang one", which made me feel that he didn't like to talk about such things

Zhenlong did say that his chinese is "hen lan" (lousy). so for a fleeting moment, my heart froze and i was going, "please, don't let him be from EM3"

i think that the language acquisition of hearing children in a largely silent environment is rather interesting. do they find it difficult to cope with 3 languages, especially Mandarin? what are the expectations of their hearing-impaired parents? will these kids be disadvantaged, academic-wise? how do parents ensure that their children learn English well, given that most vocab words, so essential to boosting grades for compo, don't have equivalent signs? maybe i shall fine-tune these lines of thought and pursue this topic as my hons thesis

i had a most enjoyable time teaching them how to sign the pledge. i could teach them something in their area of expertise (i.e. signing), i was feeling patriotic and warm because it was the National pledge i was signing on my nation's birthday and i was utilising my mediocre signing skills!

Jianliang's parents often stopped to guide him the proper way of signing. so i kinda took over and gave him additional attention. it just touched me awfully the way his parents were serious in wanting him to sign well. and jianliang was committed and even managed a "thank you" after the whole thingy. usually, he was this mischievous spolit brat who constantly demanded for freebies (ha!)

zhenlong asked me ever so often just what i meant when i uttered such-and-such Chinese phrase. though his Chinese standard may not be up to par, come to think of it, i really need to learn how to talk at the level of my charges nonetheless. and kids are really trusting. he took to me and entertained me with ancedotes and asked me to accompany him to go to the loo (for fear of ghosts) and then tried to scare me and asked me to look for a lighter so that he could play sparklers and basically didn't leave me alone, feeling like an idiot and second-guessing my decision to be there

awesome fireworks display. the fireworks actually stayed in the sky for some time instead of just vanishing into thin air after exploding. is my fuzzy head playing tricks on me or is there a difference between watching the Preview and watching the actual Parade after all? do they use cheapo fireworks in the former?

the conclusion is obvious but yes, it was worth enduring all the shitty isolation for this. and i will do it again in a heartbeat

p/s: it's 2.35am now. gosh, i really took some time with this!