New glasses are here!!

Well, I picked up my glasses today from the OSU Opthamology Center just a few minutes ago. They look pretty good if I do say so myself. You can't even tell these are bifocal lenses because they are blended in with the rest of the lens.

Once more, they were absolutely free! My exams were free too. How? There is a program at OSU called Vision Care Fund. They help those who don't have insurance and meet financial guidelines to get free eye exams and glasses. I was lucky to find such a thing because I could tell my eyes were getting worse.

I like them a lot. There were a lot of frames to choose from too. Of course, I couldn't get Transition lenses like I'd like, but I'm not going to balk about that when I get a complex prescription pair of glasses for free.

I can see better, that's for sure. I cannot see things very well up close, so when I looked through the bifocals for the first time, I was amazed at the difference. I kept lifting the glasses off my nose and putting them back on to see the difference when I was reading. Everything is so clear and I never noticed how bad my eyes were up close.

I'm glad to have them...yay!

What???? College Break? 3 weeks of nothing to do? HELP!!

OMG!
I just realized something. I've studied so hard and been to busy to plan anything for the three weeks I'll be off school!!! I know I'm going to my sisters for Christmas and to Indiana to visit my girls and college buds for New Year's. That is set in stone. But, what do I do in the meantime?

Let's see how much money do I have? Oh, great...not much. And let's not forget a leaky tire on my car. Ho ho ho....tis the season, eh?

Well, money is tight because I paid off my last checksmart loan(YAY). I was so caught up in that mess and glad to be rid of it. $258 later though I have little left for the rest of the month. I have food and all the necessities, but man....I wanna go have some fun or something. Oh well. I'll find something to do.

Maybe I'll do some reading. The main library is only a block away. There are a lot of books about deaf culture I can read, plus I can work on my sign language skills with my deaf friend, Jon.
There are websites I can go to where they have quizzes to help you stay up to speed on fingerspelling and signing skills too I can take advantage of.
Or, I can practice my fingerspelling technique and get better at it. I have a fingerspelling class next quarter, so there is nothing wrong with letting my fingers do the talking..ha ha...yeah, I know...bad joke.

So, there are a few ideas. I may write a few articles on gay issues. I've been doing that off and on. I wonder if I can get one published? I should find out how to do that. I dunno if it's as easy as calling a local rag and having them read it, or what. Anyone have ideas on that?

Oh well. I'm getting hungry so I'm gonna stop writing for now. Toodles!

Ahhh...final exams are OVER!!!

I'm very happy I took only ASL courses this quarter. The Final Exams were pretty intense. Luckily, I was able to study a lot and I have a feeling I did really well. I know I went into the Final Exams having an "A" in my classes thus far, so even if I didn't do well, I would still pass. But, I am hoping I get good grades so I can keep my GPA at 4.0.

For ASL 1, the Final Exam had 3 parts. Parts 1 and 2 are completed one day, and part 3 is completed the following day. This was day #1:

1) Video taping yourself signing 10 sentences like asking a classmate questions and telling them about fictitious family members signing names, ages, and their jobs.

2) Culture and grammar. This was a written test taken from the assigned readings and grammar rules in ASL. This was hard. You have to think like a deaf person to answer the grammar questions. Also, you need to know about basic Deaf history.

And Day #2:

3) Receptive. This is where the professor signs something and you write down what is signed. This can be very intense, as the professor doesn't pause while signing the sentence or whatever to give you a chance to write things down. The professor does pause between repeating each sentence though. At that time, you're to write what was signed if you can remember it all. After the repeat, you fill in what details you missed the first time. My writing suffered because half the time I was writing while watching her sign. LOL...

The Receptive part is usually 5 pages long. For example, The first page will be her signing about going to the food store, what she buys and how much she pays. The second, where she travels and how she gets there. Third is family members and ages. Fourth can be where things are located at school. And lastly, she will throw in names of animals and names of basic items around the room that we should know. WHEW! That is a lot.

My other class, Introduction to the Deaf Community was harder than I thought. For one thing, they combined two courses into one starting this quarter. So, we had a lot to learn in one quarter. Part of our grade was based on our participation in class discussions, so I made sure I piped in and gave my two cents worth once in a while. The class was actually very interesting and lively. The only problem was, we had very few quizzes and only one test the whole quarter. The rest of the grade was the discussion portion I mentioned earlier, and papers/projects. GOD....those projects/papers were tiresome, but interesting and informative. I mean, they weren't super-hard, they were time consuming though because they required A LOT of research. Tons of it. We were given three projects in three days if that gives you a clue. The class was easy before that was plopped in our laps.!

Then the final exam..WOW. It was comprehensive. There was no book for this class either. It was based solely on notes you took, films we watched, the two quizzes and one test we had. That's it. So, the professor gave us a study guide....with 44 acronyms of organization names we had to know. There were laws, by-laws, medical terminology, questions about films we watched in class, what educational interpreters were and how they become licensed, 15 people's names and who they were...blah blah blah...I about went crazy. The study guide was 8 pages single-spaced.

You know what though? I studied for a solid week and weekend and the final was a piece of cake! Wow, I was glad when it was over!

Anyway, we'll see what my grades are for the two classes and then I'll celebrate. I hope I get all A's!!

More articles of gay importance from slapupsidethehead.com

The American Library Association released their annual list of most challenged books on Tuesday. Topping the list for the second consecutive year is And Tango Makes Three, a true story about a couple of male penguins at the New York Central Park Zoo.
The story is actually pretty cute; the penguins pair off as a couple and begin incubating an egg-shaped rock as if it were their own. Eventually the zoo-keeper takes notice and replaces the rock with a real egg that another penguin had abandoned. The two penguins take turns sitting on the egg until it hatches into an adorable baby chick, which they raise together.
The book, complete with really sweet, colourful illustrations, generated more formal complaints and was pulled off more library and school shelves than any other book since 2006.
Complainants charge that the book leads impressionable children to accept the penguin lifestyle.

Troubling news from Malaysia, as Canada’s latest gay deportee is now being sought by police in his home country.
Amirthalingam Kulenthiran, who applied for Canadian refugee status in 2003, was deported three weeks ago because he failed to prove he was gay. His refugee claim was based on the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, saying that police there had beaten him while in custody.
Now that Amirthalingam is back in Malaysia, police stations across the country have been ordered to stay on the lookout. Ismail Omar, the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, said that the search measures are merely to investigate his claims of police brutality:
What was his offense? That’s just it, if he did not commit any, how could the police arrest him? We are sad that he had accused us just like that.
Homosexuality in Malaysia carries a prison sentence of 20 years, or caning. Just before he was deported from Canada, Amirthalingam filed an emergency pre-removal risk assessment, but was rejected.
I wish Amirthalingam the very best of luck. While it’s sad that gay Malaysians must stay closeted, hopefully this situation will help draw attention to the problem there.

And now for Sports..take it away, Luciano!
Luciano Moggi, the former managing director of Juventus, Italy’s largest soccer club, went on a bizarre tirade against gays this week during a televised interview. The controversial official, who is currently being tried for corruption scandals, said that…
Well, actually, I think I’ll just let you read it verbatim:
"There are no gays in football. I don’t know if players are against having them in their team but I definitely am. In the teams where I worked there were never any. I never wanted to have a homosexual player and I still wouldn’t sign one.
I’m old school, but I know the ambience of football and a gay wouldn’t be able to survive within it. A homosexual cannot do the job of a footballer. The football world is not designed for them; it’s a special atmosphere—one in which you stand naked under the showers."

So, there you have it: Gays don’t like soccer, and even if they did, any latent athletic ability would be invariably foiled by their beacon of gayness. Which is alright, I guess, since us gays couldn’t handle after-game showering without, presumably, violating all our teammates anyway.
Incidentally, while former professional soccer players have come out as gay in the past, no current players are openly out of the closet. I can’t help but wonder why that is…
Thanks to Slap reader Kathrine for this gem, with an extra hat tip to The Offside

And in other news:

Jamaica is marketed as a vacation paradise, but for gay people, the danger can be shocking.
Gareth Henry, a Jamaican gay activist, has had 13 of his friends murdered by lynch mobs in the past four years, and has now fled to Canada to seek refugee status.
Sadly, Canada has an atrocious track record of protecting endangered gay refugees. Alvaro Orozco was ordered to be deported to Nicaragua in October because his adjudicator didn’t believe he was gay. Leonardo Zuniga, a Mexican claimant, also had his refugee plea rejected last summer despite the threat of anti-gay violence in his home country. With Jamaica’s popular image as an easy-going tourist spot, Gareth Henry might not have better luck.
Jamaica’s perception needs to be challenged; the country’s most popular musicians habitually call for the murder of gay people, and the public acts accordingly. Montreal Simon regularly reports on Jamaica’s horror stories (I’m borrowing his recurring zombie island motif), but very little attention is paid by the mainstream media—and Jamaican police are often mob members themselves.
I wish Gareth the best of luck with his claim and hope his stories will gain the attention they deserve. If governments become aware enough of the issue to put out traveler warnings, Jamaica may finally be forced to stop the madness.

Three men in Cameroon have been sentenced to six months hard labour for being gay. (This is in addition to six months already served in jail before the trial.)
Being gay is a crime in Cameroon, carrying a maximum sentence of three years in prison. While the three men in this case aren’t serving the full sentence, they weren’t caught doing anything gay in particular either. I guess the judge just has some kind of super, acute gaydar.
Hey, how about that? Gaydar pings are now admissible trial evidence

Here is a toon I thought was funnier than hell..ooooh, Did I write hell? Ahhhh!!!

Gay article...

How about this...Geez:

Yahya Jammeh, the president of The Gambia, Africa, announced last week that he will introduce laws “stricter than Iran” in dealing with homosexuality. He said that gay people in the country have exactly 24 hours to leave, and that he will “cut off the head” of any gay person he finds left.
Jammeh said that he wants to make The Gambia “one of the best countries to live in,” adding that he has spent over $100 million US dollars since 1994 to help promote the country’s development.
While I guess it’s nice that he’s giving gay people a day’s head start, the comments were immediately condemned by human rights groups. Carey Johnson of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Council was appalled by the mass death threat:
What president Jammeh fails to realise is that there are a significant population of Gambians who are gay, and he has no right to ask them to leave.
Jammeh made international headlines last year when he announced that he had discovered the cure for AIDS: A mixture of herbs to be eaten and rubbed over patients’ bodies.

And another:

Italy’s Ministry of Transport has been found guilty of discrimination after they told a gay man that he must re-take his drivers test due to a “sexual identity disturbance.”
Danilo Giuffrida, a 26 year old from Catania, Italy, was told that if he didn’t take his drivers test a second time, his license would be revoked. After successfully passing the drivers test for a second time, Danilo’s license was renewed for one year instead of the ten years for heterosexuals.
Imagine that. I didn’t think my driving was so inherently dangerous. Though, really, if the Ministry of Transport wants to think that being gay is a disability, that’s not too bad of a trade-off for one of those parking tags.

Here, we gays are compared equally with the destruction of a tsunami:

http://blogs.mississauga.com/blogs/surjitsinghflora/2008/08/27/same-sex-marriage

Why am I surprised by all this? Because it is 2008 people!!

Gay Blog I found

This blog, http://www.slapupsidethehead.com/ shows us what's REALLY going in the world around us pertaining to gay issues. Wow...I was appalled and laughed at the same time. I will include more articles and pics soon.

A tiny church in Backlick, Ohio (very close to Columbus, OH)has drawn some ire from local residents over its illuminated sign out front: “I kissed a girl and I liked it. Then I went to hell.”
The text is, of course, a reference to a hit song by Katy Perry, though I’m not sure why they don’t share the world’s enthusiasm for mass-manufactured pop music. When asked about the sign, Reverend Dave Allison said that the message shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, saying that the sign was posted “as a loving warning to teens.” Aww..I feel loved, don't you?


A refugee claimant in Winnipeg is set to be deported to his native Nigeria after failing to prove that he’s gay. The anonymous refugee said that, as a gay man, life for him was not safe in his home country. Indeed, homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria, and violators can face lengthy prison terms.Judge Yves de Montigny, however, rejected the refugee’s claims, saying that since the man couldn’t describe the function of EGALE—Canada’s largest gay rights organisation—and confused the names of two Winnipeg gay bars, he mustn’t be gay at all. This new legal definition of “gay” now puts most of Canada’s gay men in danger of deportation

A 73 year old Catholic exorcist, Father Jeremy Davies, has warned that gays are at serious risk of demonic possession, if they aren’t already controlled by Satan.

Four schools in Auckland, New Zealand, have barred students from taking same-sex partners to the prom unless they sign a contract declaring they are homosexual, according to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.
Sarafin Dillon, an education officer for Rainbow Youth, was disappointed by the reports, saying that forcing students to sign contracts would only increase “the ridicule and the whispers” that gay students face.
A spokesperson for the schools responded by nervously wielding a torch and backing into a corner, stuttering “Reveal yourselves! Where are you? Show yourselves! GAAAAH!”

A few cartoon-only's I thought were funny: