A large portion of my life as a deaf individual within a hearing world involves planning ahead. When I thought about it, I realized a central part of my college experience is that it requires a unique level of planning ahead that most people don’t have to worry about. For example, today I was telling someone that I can’t skip classes at the last minute because I have interpreters.
I feel that that requires a bit of explanation. First of all, I really like both of my interpreters this semester as human beings, and I know that they both commute a pretty long distance to get to my school. So, for one thing, I’d feel really shitty if they commuted such a long way and then found that I wasn’t there. I mean, come on.
Second of all, my school would get billed anyway if I didn’t show up. I once worked at my school’s disability center, so I got to see the numbers. Where I am, it costs between $40-$60 to hire an interpreter for an hour, and you have to pay for a minimum of two hours. That means I’d cost the school $80-$120 at a minimum. The interpreting agency requires that you must tell them a week in advance about cancellations if you want to avoid a bill.
Emergencies happen, of course, but it means that I can’t just skip class because it’s a beautiful day and I want to stay outside.
I’m a senior in college. Let’s get real here – I’m not gonna go to every single class. I mean, come on. So, in the end, what happens is that I skip a class sometimes to take a break from things. I always plan out my absence at least a week in advance. I email my access coordinator to say, “Hey, I can’t make it to class on [insert date],” then I do something productive with my time like taking a trip to see a friend. In the end, planning out my absences helps me feel that I got the most value out of skipping class.
Another example is that, lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. I’m not yet ready for graduate school, though it’s a possibility, and I know for sure that I want to live in the mountains again – I grew up in the Rockies, so I fucking miss having mountains around me. But I don’t know if I want to live in Seattle, Portland, Montana, Northern California, Colorado, or… there’s so many choices, really! As a result, I’ve been tossing around the idea of bumming around on the West coast. Basically, I want to keep moving until I find a place that makes me say, “Hey, I could live here.”
Some of my very favorite people in the world have bummed around. So when I look at their bumming-around experiences, all of them basically go like this: “Save up some money, hop in my car, drive until I find a place to stop, get a temporary job or busk to get some extra cash, get out of there, do the whole thing again.” I realize it doesn’t sound great to everyone, but it sounds like a fun adventure to me.
The problem, though, is that I freeze up at the “getting a job” stage. I mean, when I think of bumming-around friendly jobs, I think of jobs that are temporary and have a high turnover rate. That, in turn, leads me to think of things like waitressing, retail, fast food, and working as a barista.
Here’s the problem, though: Many of those jobs involve communicating with the public, especially the ones that pay relatively higher. That’s what stops me. For instance, I imagine myself trying to take orders at a coffeeshop while the espresso machine grinds in the background. In my head, I end up asking the customer to repeat him or herself about ten million times, and the customer gets really upset and then my manager gets upset. It’s not a good scenario.
It’s not entirely about money, though I do admit I get anxious when I don’t have a steady stream of income and that it’s not exactly the best economy to go bumming about in. But you see, I’m not the type who can just live off of his savings forever – I have to feel like I’m giving back to society in some form. I have this strong desire to help others; it’s what propels me through life. When I can’t do something as simple as giving people their food because of the way that this society is structured, that bums me out sometimes.
But then, I remember: it’s simply a matter of planning ahead! Just like I have to plan in advance for something as simple as skipping a stupid core class, I just have to apply a little bit of thought to this “moving around until I find a place I want to live” idea. I could, for example, find a four-month internship with a stipend centered around helping homeless queer youth in Portland. Or I could become a ski instructor. Or I could actively seek out d/Deaf communities as a starting point and work from there. Or… well, I don’t know. It’s a story in progress. Stay tuned, guys.
