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225 35 Middle School Amy By the time I reached middle school, I started to enjoy my time at the dorm and my involvement in sports. I was less and less homesick. At home were all my possessions and I missed some of them, but I felt they were safer at home. I never gave much thought to the fact that John stayed home and I went away to school. I just thought hearing kids go to one school and Deaf kids go to a different one. That was just how my life was. In middle school, I didn’t have a deaf house parent, but a hearing one with a strange name: Verda. She was an old lady with reddishwhite hair, and her clothes seem to have been frozen from the 1950s. She was not an excellent signer like my previous Deaf house parent, Kathy, but Verda would be my house parent for the next two years. Naturally, I got into more mischief, because Verda could not understand what I was signing. I signed dirty words or insulted her. I laughed, and so did the other girls. One winter, Verda had a cast on her leg, as she fell on the ice and broke it. I asked her,“May I draw a picture or sign something on your cast?” At first, she resisted, but later agreed. I took a brown marker and wrote “Lewob.” She asked me what the word was. I said, “It’s my friend’s pet’s name.” Actually, it was a word I had learned in science class several days ago, but I spelled it backward: Lewob meant bowel. I find that odd as Verda did not even bother to Amy Signs Main Pgs 1-320.indd 225 6/27/2012 10:37:47 AM 226 Amy Signs ask why I wrote friend’s pet’s name instead of my name or pet. After several days, the other house parents figured out what it meant and scolded me, but Verda still had no clue. The girls on my wing decided to create a song called, “My Pet’s Name Is Lewob.” Tricia, one of my classmates, brought a recorder with a microphone from home. Tricia and I sang so loud we drove Verda nuts! It was so funny. Finally I was caught when Verda figured it out. I no longer could sing the song called, “My Pet’s Name Is Lewob. At school, I usually was on my best behavior, not acting like I did in the dormitory. During the fifth and sixth grades, my classes rotated among three different teachers. It was much different from my primary years when I only had one teacher. Having three teachers and getting a chance to walk to the next classroom was fun. All of my teachers were not excellent in sign language, but I understood them anyway. I’ll never forget Mrs. Flowers, who loved to assign an overload of homework each day. I am pretty sure she set the Guinness World Record for giving the most homework. My hand would cramp trying to finish all the homework she assigned that was due the next day. NSD usually finished the school year on the first Friday of June. Mrs. Flowers gave me and my classmates piles of homework the last week of school. It looked like a whole year of homework. I thought, there is no way I can finish this by tomorrow. The school year is almost over. Give me a break. My classmates and I all complained. “We can’t do it. It’s way too much.” We were so harsh with her, she ended in tears, and told us not to do the homework. Of course, I was jumping with joy, and so were my classmates. In the seventh and eighth grades I moved to the opposite side of the hallway in the dormitory and had a different hearing house parent. Another old lady, this time one with dyed brown hair. Her name was Mrs. Jolly. She was funnier and less strict than Verda, but I still had mischief with her anyway. One night I really shook her brain, making her very confused. I turned the light switch upside down in my room and changed the white light to a blue light bulb. Then I screamed on purpose, so Amy Signs Main Pgs 1-320.indd 226 6/27/2012 10:37:47 AM [18.223.0.53] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 11...

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