we set sail for the sky.
Mar. 30th, 2010 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damkiannaMan, today was a long day - not a bad day, just a long one. Rain all day, which, I do not hate rain, but walking all the way down to Dewey Hall in it is not very much fun. And then Cog-Lang was cancelled, which was obviously good, but meant more walking in the rain than I would've had to do if class had been on. Hearing Rehabilitation was pretty soul-killing; I used to be vaguely interested in audiology, once upon a time, but spending this much time on how assistive devices all have microphones, and infrared waves are light but we can't see them, is just. **hands**
However, we did have kind of an interesting class the other week, where by "interesting" I mean it made me kind of uneasy and angry. We watched a video - Sound and Fury, I think it was called - about a couple of related families who were each considering cochlear implants for children who had been born deaf, and their decisions, and a little about the results of each. One family was Deaf; one family was hearing, although at least one parents had Deaf parents.
We had a reading earlier that week about how Deafness can be thought of as analogous to ethnicity for a number of different reasons; but the video really brought it home to me, just in the way that watching it ended up making me feel the same way some of the films in Human Cultures did. It was all so frustrating - I kept wanting to slap the hearing people, because (ironically enough) they just weren't listening. I can completely understand a hearing family choosing to raise their child as a hearing child; but telling a Deaf parent that he or she is being "abusive" because he or she doesn't want to get his or her Deaf child an implant? That does not sit well with me at all. Just watching somebody say it left me feeling icky all over.
And I have gotten so used to spending my time in a space where people try to monitor themselves for pant-loss (excepting B, of course) that it was a real shock to me to have the video end on a clip of the Deaf father talking about how much he valued Deaf culture, and how much he wanted his child to have a strong Deaf identity; and then hear the girl next to me say, "Man, that guy [the Deaf father] was so obnoxious." I mean, it wasn't quite as bad as the girl who was insisting that Deaf people were just making life harder for themselves by not trying to integrate completely into the hearing world, but it was pretty close.
And then, of course, this weekend happened; AT's boyfriend, D, was up, so we watched a bunch of movies together, including The Princess and the Frog. I'm of two minds about it, even with a few days to think about it. I mean, on the one hand, there were plenty of things that pleased me: that Tiana was not white; that she had a goal and a dream that were unrelated to Naveen, the fulfillment of which was just as important to the ending as falling in love; that Disney did a pretty striking job showing that Lottie and Tiana were friends but not equals.
However, there were also things that bugged me about it. I was leery of the movie even before watching it because of the previews - I'm pleased that Disney finally gave us a black princess, but kind of rubbed the wrong way by them doing it in a movie where she spends almost the whole thing as a frog, and watching the movie ... didn't change that. I don't know a lot about voodoo, but the little I remember from a classmate's presentation during Religion in high school didn't really match up with the portrayal in the movie. Which is not a huge surprise, but still annoying. And some of the musical numbers felt oddly tacked on, which I think may be a result of the huge amount of adaptation they had to do to move The Princess and the Frog story to New Orleans. I'm not complaining, exactly - the job they did making you really feel the setting seemed pretty good to me - but ... I don't know. It didn't feel as tightly put together as some other Disney movies. Overall, though, I liked it reasonably well. It's not a favorite, but I'd watch it again.
And Sunday afternoon, of course, was Palm Sunday. I did not realize this until I actually got to the Catholic Center, and saw the palm leaves on the table in the lobby, waiting to be blessed. It was very interesting - I was totally clueless about the reading of the Passion, I almost had a heart attack when people started passing missals around because I had no idea what they were doing. I have to admit that I cried a little; the concept of crucifixion is so awful that I can make myself cry just by imagining it a little too vividly, and reading it combined with singing the really lovely responsorial psalm, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me - well. I'm a soft touch. Watching the GoF movie makes me cry, too, and I've seen it at least four times.
Fortunately for my dignity, we had a visiting ... uh, official of some kind - he did the blessing of the palms, and the sermon. And - I know this is awful, but there was something a bit unusual about the way he said things, and he had the hat, and all I could think of the whole time he was talking was the Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride. /o\ I am so ashamed. (There was also a moment where he presented political correctness as in opposition to the truth, which was frustrating.)
Anyway. Easter next week - with mass in the morning, instead of the evening. Presumably that one will be a little more cheerful. Plus, I finally get to eat the box of Peeps I've been saving since spring break. :D
However, we did have kind of an interesting class the other week, where by "interesting" I mean it made me kind of uneasy and angry. We watched a video - Sound and Fury, I think it was called - about a couple of related families who were each considering cochlear implants for children who had been born deaf, and their decisions, and a little about the results of each. One family was Deaf; one family was hearing, although at least one parents had Deaf parents.
We had a reading earlier that week about how Deafness can be thought of as analogous to ethnicity for a number of different reasons; but the video really brought it home to me, just in the way that watching it ended up making me feel the same way some of the films in Human Cultures did. It was all so frustrating - I kept wanting to slap the hearing people, because (ironically enough) they just weren't listening. I can completely understand a hearing family choosing to raise their child as a hearing child; but telling a Deaf parent that he or she is being "abusive" because he or she doesn't want to get his or her Deaf child an implant? That does not sit well with me at all. Just watching somebody say it left me feeling icky all over.
And I have gotten so used to spending my time in a space where people try to monitor themselves for pant-loss (excepting B, of course) that it was a real shock to me to have the video end on a clip of the Deaf father talking about how much he valued Deaf culture, and how much he wanted his child to have a strong Deaf identity; and then hear the girl next to me say, "Man, that guy [the Deaf father] was so obnoxious." I mean, it wasn't quite as bad as the girl who was insisting that Deaf people were just making life harder for themselves by not trying to integrate completely into the hearing world, but it was pretty close.
And then, of course, this weekend happened; AT's boyfriend, D, was up, so we watched a bunch of movies together, including The Princess and the Frog. I'm of two minds about it, even with a few days to think about it. I mean, on the one hand, there were plenty of things that pleased me: that Tiana was not white; that she had a goal and a dream that were unrelated to Naveen, the fulfillment of which was just as important to the ending as falling in love; that Disney did a pretty striking job showing that Lottie and Tiana were friends but not equals.
However, there were also things that bugged me about it. I was leery of the movie even before watching it because of the previews - I'm pleased that Disney finally gave us a black princess, but kind of rubbed the wrong way by them doing it in a movie where she spends almost the whole thing as a frog, and watching the movie ... didn't change that. I don't know a lot about voodoo, but the little I remember from a classmate's presentation during Religion in high school didn't really match up with the portrayal in the movie. Which is not a huge surprise, but still annoying. And some of the musical numbers felt oddly tacked on, which I think may be a result of the huge amount of adaptation they had to do to move The Princess and the Frog story to New Orleans. I'm not complaining, exactly - the job they did making you really feel the setting seemed pretty good to me - but ... I don't know. It didn't feel as tightly put together as some other Disney movies. Overall, though, I liked it reasonably well. It's not a favorite, but I'd watch it again.
And Sunday afternoon, of course, was Palm Sunday. I did not realize this until I actually got to the Catholic Center, and saw the palm leaves on the table in the lobby, waiting to be blessed. It was very interesting - I was totally clueless about the reading of the Passion, I almost had a heart attack when people started passing missals around because I had no idea what they were doing. I have to admit that I cried a little; the concept of crucifixion is so awful that I can make myself cry just by imagining it a little too vividly, and reading it combined with singing the really lovely responsorial psalm, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me - well. I'm a soft touch. Watching the GoF movie makes me cry, too, and I've seen it at least four times.
Fortunately for my dignity, we had a visiting ... uh, official of some kind - he did the blessing of the palms, and the sermon. And - I know this is awful, but there was something a bit unusual about the way he said things, and he had the hat, and all I could think of the whole time he was talking was the Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride. /o\ I am so ashamed. (There was also a moment where he presented political correctness as in opposition to the truth, which was frustrating.)
Anyway. Easter next week - with mass in the morning, instead of the evening. Presumably that one will be a little more cheerful. Plus, I finally get to eat the box of Peeps I've been saving since spring break. :D
