about me...

I am a Deaf gay guy living in the city of Salt Lake City, the capital city of Utah. I was born in the Garden State, or New Jersey, and I grew up in South Joisey nearly all of my life. I have been profoundly deaf "since my birth." I had to quote that because my mother insists that I was not born deaf. I think I will save that story for a post at a later date. heh... Yep, I am a DCOHA. (a silly abbreviation I came up for Deaf Child of Hearing Adults). There is no other Deaf members in my family, except for Jack, who is my mother's first cousin. Jack has been deaf since birth, and about 20 years older than me. I remember when I used to always look forward to Jack's unannounced visits, and how I would enjoy chatting with him and his wife from time to time.

I attended a local public school which had a program for deaf students, and after a while, I ended up being placed in the mainstreamed program. I grew up signing ghastly Signed English, which changed in slow progression towards "ASL." Again, I quoted ASL, because everybody loves to argue these days what "pure" ASL is all about. Somebody might say that I sign PSE, then the next person thinks I sign ASL. Whatever. I don't care, I prefer to sign my own style, which also includes random foreign signs and whatnots.

I have been gay as long as I can remember. I remember having a "crush" on a hearing guy back in Grade 5. Quite funny in a pathetic way, methinks! In high school, my dad caught me with some... erm... choice magazines, but he never said anything about it. At the age of 19, I decided to end everyone's suspicions about me by stating the obvious. I was fortunate to have great family and friends who didn't abandon me due to my homosexual preferences. It turned out that I am not the only gay member in the family, as my sister joined the boat a bit later on. Heh... That will be a funny story to post later.

Anyway, the point is that I don't believe in allowing my deafness nor my sexual orientation to define who I am. A case in point: do straight people let their heterosexual preferences define them? No? It is such a "non-issue" that we really don't need to worry about, right? It's the same approach I have towards my deafness and sexual orientation.

I once did an online test, where it stated that I have Type A- personality. It's like a person who knows how to work hard to get what he wants, but also knows how to balance himself with playing hard. I treasure adventures, and love to take advantage of every opportunity I can out of my busy schedule to do fun stuff such as hiking, skiing, travelling, etc... I don't really stick to one area, as my interests are very eceletic. I'm always open to trying new things, and my latest craze is keeping myself busy with Sudoku puzzles. It's so much fun to solve. Same can be said for crossword puzzles.

A major passion of mine is travelling. I love to go out and see the world. I love to experience different cultures and ways of life. I love being challenged with different ideas and thoughts. I was very fortunate to have had the experience to study abroad for a semester in Darmstadt, Germany in 1996. It was one of the best experiences in my life. Since then, I racked up some serious debt by travelling more elsewhere. Heh! Fortunately, that is being paid off now.

Another thought I would like to share: I don't view myself as a follower, nor do I like people who are followers. The only thing I could "follow" is a discussion group of open-minded individuals sharing ideas and thoughts. I HATE people who try to impose their thoughts upon you, as if it was the only right thing. One fine example are religious zealots who cannot respect boundaries and spew anti-homo or anti-buddhist messages. I have tried to reason with them, but they were not ready to listen, so I am washing my hands off from people who claim that they want open discussions, yet they accuse and judge people. People fail to see the ownership of their own statements. I would rather people say: "I believe that being gay is wrong." than "God says it is wrong." I'm interested in what people think, not what God thinks!

I think that this long profile sums me up. :) Peace out.