Subject: Auto-reply for the Deaf Library (was: $SUBJECT) From: "Karen Nakamura" X-Version: Version 2.1.6 of my bouncy message X-Philosophy: My life is a potato. [This is an automagically generated reply.] Table of Contents ================= i. Table of contents ii. Disclaimer iii. Life Updates 1. Welcome message 2. Top 10 Silliest Questions people have asked me (with sarcastic answers) 3. Top 10 Frequently Asked (Serious) Questions (with semi-serious answers) Disclaimer: For the humor impaired ================================== Much of this automatically generated message should be treated as a joke. Seriously. -------------------------------- Hi - You received this automatic reply message because you've e-mailed me with a message. It *doesn't* mean that I've read your message, in fact the opposite! It's produced because I haven't been good about reading all my messages. This autoreply is designed so that people writing to me about questions concerning the Deaf Resource Library can get some additional tips and hints while they wait for a "real" reply. The main gist of this autoreply is that I'm unable to assist in over 90% of the inquiries that I get regarding the Deaf Resource Library. Requests for assistance with term papers and homework projects are best handled by your local research librarian. Your teacher is testing you, not me. I can offer scant assistance in finding universities and colleges appropriate for hearing people who wish to enter Deaf studies -- except to heartily not recommend Yale and to suggest NTID/RIT; Gallaudet's MA programs; and CSUN -- the classic choices. In terms of scholarships, if you are deaf, you should ask the National Association of the Deaf about their scholarship programs, but otherwise the pickings are very slim. There aren't enough rich deaf people to donate money to scholarship funds so that financially challenged deaf students can get good university educations. Hopefully this will change in the future. If you're writing about GPSy, you've reached the wrong e-mail address and your message may got lost. Please re-send your message to for proper handling by GPSy's support staff. If you haven't heard from me in an inordinately long time, your message may have been lost in the shuffle. Please write to me again. Oh.... and if it's not obvious from your message that you wanted a reply, it may sit in my mailbox for a very long time... And if your question was answered in my FAQ below, I might not answer it at all. Again regarding the Deaf pages, I get a lot of questions from people who ask me for help researching their term papers or papers for classes. My best suggestion is that you should first try my bibliographies and see if there is anything there. If not, then try your local librarian at you town, school or university. They should be more than willing to help. I also cannot send copies of articles that are referenced in the bibliographies or elsewhere. You should try to obtain them through interlibrary loan. A good research site on the East coast is Gallaudet University, they have copies of most everything. On the West Coast, Cal State University at Northridge is also a center of Deaf resources; as is the new public library in San Francisco. A *lot* of people send e-mail to me with a "broken" reply e-mail address. I truly hate these because I usually don't find this out until after I've written back to them. Fix your e-mailers! This is one major reason you might never hear from me! I will try to answer questions, but please be patient with me. Cat lovers, family and "family", people with interesting names, Babylon 5 or X Files fans, Honda CX and other V-Twin bikers, and pre-post-Modern scholars have priority. Sincerely, Karen Nakamura Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology Macalester College 1600 Grand Avenue Saint Paul MN 55105 (815) 371.4029 fax nakamura @ deaflibrary . org ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top 5 Silliest Questions (and their answers) ================================================ 1. "I am trying to get a ALS [sic] picture of the hand shapes for sign. I learn't it years ago and look forward to using it for scuba diving" ---- this was the entire e-mail message.... verbatim.... ALS???? ALS (n.) 1. amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?????? anyway, the handshape for "sign" is index-finger out (as if you're pointing), thumb tucked in..... oh... did you want the movement and location as well.... what? i'm being sarcastic? me???????? 2. "Did you know you look like K.D. Lang?" ---- really??!??!?! swwwwwwwwwoooooooooooon! 2a. "Did you know you look like Yoko Ono?" ---- really? bleehhhhhhhhhhhhhh! 3. Do you know about ... "Evacuation for the disabled in high-rise buildings" --- yes, don't take the elevator... don't panic.... follow the guys in the silly flourescent yellow suits.... ..... sorry, i know i should be more sensitive, but.......... come on, really...... 4. What is the phone numbers for all the schools for the Deaf in Arizona? Please call me back at 515-555-1234 9-11pm. Alternative Question: Where can I learn ASL in Portland, OR? ------ Oh. I really hate being used as an online phone directory. It doesn't surprise me that *all* these requests have come from hearing people. I wonder about people who expect me to call them back long distance at my own expense (aside from the fact that I hate speaking on telephones). I'm sorely tempted to call you *COLLECT* using tty *RELAY*. Hehehehehe... If you've e-mailed me about getting the phone number for somewhere, then please expect a looong wait for a reply. My suggestion is to buy the Deaf telephone book (aka, The TDI National Directory of TTY Numbers) for $15 from TDI (301-589-3006 tty; 301 589-3786 voice). It has lists of most national and state organizations for the Deaf. Your local library might have it as well (if they don't they *should*). Oops. this turned into a real answer.... 5. Hi Prof. Nakamura, nice to meet you. I like your WWW page! I'm writing because it's Friday night and all the librarians have gone home and I have a paper on deaf children due next week! I know I shouldn't have procrastinated, but I was hoping that I could find research articles on the Web. Can you help me? -- No comment. 6-10. [to be announced! Be the first on your block!] --------- Prof Nakamura's Top Ten Frequently Asked Questions (the serious ones) ===================================================================== 1. I heard about a CD-ROM that teaches ASL... --- It doesn't teach ASL. It does show sign equivalents for english words using full motion video. But it doesn't teach any syntax or grammar. This is like learning French by reading a English-French dictionary. See my notes on learning ASL on my home page. But here the info anyway: Martin L. A. Sternberg 1994 _The American Sign Language Dictionary on CD-ROM_ New York: HarperCollinsInteractive (There is both a Macintosh and Windows version) Other CD-ROMs are coming out as well. On a grad student budget, I can't afford to buy any of them, so they're not listed... The various vendors on my home page also sell additional CD-ROM packages that teach fingerspelling and so forth. I haven't seen these but doubt they will be anything more than a *supplement* to real live education from a native ASL signer. I'm asked if I know of anything else, well, if I knew, I would put it on the pages. Since I haven't put it on the pages, it means I don't know. Since I believe strongly in getting human-based education, computers have not been a priority for me. Yes, you may live in the boonies somewhere, but there *are* Deaf folk everywhere, don't let social isolation (or monetary cheapness) be a cover for intellectual and physical laziness. 2. Where do you get time to do all this? ---- Social life? Sleep? What's that? 3. I'm teaching myself ASL from a book.... or from videotapes or PC... ---- Did you even read my information on learning ASL? You can't learn ASL from a book or from a computer. You *must* have a native ASL signer teach you. Where do people get the crazy idea that they can learn a language from a book? Or even a computer? You *must* have interaction and feedback, especially in ASL. A book or a computer can't see what you're doing, ASL has no writing system (because it's a multi-linear language), so how are you going to know if what you're signing make sense or is absolute nonsense? This makes as much sense as learning French from a book without a pronunciation guide (says the gal who pronounced "faux pas" as "fox pass" for about 10 years). 4. How can I become an interpreter? --- Aside from the "practice, socialize, practice" mantra... you should enroll in an Intepreter Training Program (ITP) that is recognized by your State or the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) -- (301) 608-0562 tty; (301) 608-0500 voice. Since each state has differing requirements, the best thing to do is to contact either a local Deaf organization or an interpreter who works nearby and ask them. Or ask the RID since they will know of what the requirements are for you. Note that in general, going into an ITP is considered professional training (just like becoming a doctor/lawyer), so there usually aren't any scholarships. Your bank would most probably be happy to loan you money, though. :) 5. How come there isn't more ______ (fill in the blank) stuff on this site? --- See Q#3. 6. Do you know about ______ [something easily found in any entry-level book]? I'm writing a term paper about it, can you tell me more? --- See Q#3. Gallaudet University Press and the other bookstores have many wonderful books that you can purchase and read. You'll be support a Deaf organization at the time as supporting Deaf authors, a double plus! 7. All of your links are dead.... --- Sometimes, links come and go. Thanks for letting me know. But if it seems like *all* my links don't work, it's almost always the case that something is wrong with your site. This has happened about 3-4 times (someone telling me my links are all bad, then later figuring out that something is wrong with their site). However, you've noticed a link has gone down or moved, please let me know. Thanks! Oh, the official URL of the Deaf Library has changed to: http://www.deaflibrary.org/ 8. Hi, can you send me photocopies of the following references that I found in your bibilograpies. [several references]. I couldn't find them in my local library. Here's my address: ---- I'm sorry, but I think it's really unreasonable of people to expect me to be able to do this, especially people who I don't know, have never met, and will most probably never meet. I don't know why the Net makes people forget polite behavior... I've already gotten several of these requests (including one from someone who wanted me to photocopy half my bibliography and send it to him!) and it's just physically impossible (as well as financially) for me to do this. 9. There is no question #9. 10a. How do you design your pages? What type of system do you use? 10b. Do you do commercial WWW design? 10c. Can you place our company information on your page? 10d. I have some information to share with the Deaf community... ---- OK. So I cheated and snuck four questions into one answer. I do all my WWW design by hand using vi (a really really primitive editor, circa 1960s) -- a holdover from my days of writing machine code by hand and debugging using a hex dumper. I'm aware of newfangled HTML editors, but for pure speed, I use what I'm familiar with: vi. I used to use EDLIN on the PC until they finally took it off MS-DOS... The Pair.com WWW site is hosted on a FreeBSD and uses an Apache HTTP engine. I do not do any commercial WWW design. If you'd like referrals I'd be happy to recommend some excellent people in the deaf community. About placing corporate info on my page, I only do it in the context of linking in Deaf information. If you can send me a one paragraph summary of your company and contact information I'd be happy to place it on my page, however I will not place anything that is obviously an advertisement or endorsement. If you've written some info that might be useful, I'd be happy to place it on the page. Please e-mail it to me and please clearly indicate that you're willing to have it published on my site. I do all my Macintosh programming on a PowerBook G3/2000 and the CodeWarrior development platform. Oh, feel free to link me to your site! ----- Last updated 2002/08/28.