Carnaval King Queens Competition 4.23.16

SO I admit, while being an assistant during tech at SF Carnaval King Queens competition, a part of me is frustrated because we didn't recognize it was the wrong music. In some way this reaffirm their concerns with Deaf not being able to hear the music even though it was just us not following our Deaf instincts.

Tech was moved along too fast literally, a rushed ten minutes it felt like to explain the lighting, do the spacing, run the dance two times all the while I'm interpreting and timing it to make doubly sure it doesn't exceed 3 minutes as points get deducted for that...I did notice the music was slightly different but I'm still DEAF even with my hearing aids and all the while focusing on interpreting in a darkly lit area (as a Deaf person it takes 300% of my focus) and the music wasn't loud enough to feel it so we thought it was the sound system.  It's a constant struggle with myself trying to be superhuman and do it all perfectly when I am in fact only human...What we should have done is stop and insist to feel the speakers, have them play the music louder until we could hear or feel it and basically assert more time for ourselves as equal rights and opportunity to ensure fairness among the rest of the contestants.  Self Advocate!  Sighs...Constant living, learning and reminding...

Additionally I wasn't allowed to go backstage to ensure my boss a timely arrival to the stage for his solo (two Deaf minds is better than one in those situations.)  As a result, the person backstage was clearly anxious or nervous around him and sent him out early in a panic deducting points off his competition score.  We are always adapting to the hearing world and often times accepting work with no interpreters and getting along fine by ourselves but I realized that in a situation like this where you're competing against other individuals, its crucial to insist for equal access and opportunity so we're on equal footing with our other competitors.  It is just exhausting to always have to advocate for our rights that sometimes we just want to go with the flow than constantly come up against brick walls.

It's funny because all my life people have always asked me... How do you do it? How do you dance to the music...how do you stay on beat? Do you feel the vibrations through the floor?

Let me tell you...Deaf Instincts, Inner Rhythms, tactics that we have developed using our other senses such as watching other people and their reactions or body movements, touching the speakers to reaffirm the beat, memorizing our movement and music...

It's still an ism we must face...The fact that people even question it and ask (let alone be intimidated or not accept you because they don't know how or are willing to work with Deaf people) is a form of audism. Often times I feel like I always have to go above and beyond, achieve perfection and never be off beat just to prove that Deaf can and do even better. Then when you do make that one mistake (of which everyone does yet we are just in the spotlight because we have to constantly prove that we are just as good or better) it throws everyone back into that age old perception of Deaf can't. We must keep going...keep going after our goals and dreams and never give up. We CAN and we DO just as good or better and are simply human just like everyone else...except Curry...

How we got started

It's been a long year and a half.  I used to cook delicious mouth drooling Asian food all the time, specifically Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.  If I can find some pictures from those times I will post them :).  But then my husband got slammed with health issues in October of 2012 and we've been battling that ever since.  We drastically changed our diet overnight and eliminated half of the food supply due to him being allergic to 19 out of 37 things!  NONE of them in the same category either, allergies and reactions were all over the place...We then eliminated GMO's (or of what we could eliminate) and started buying only organic foods which meant we threw out more than half our kitchen.  Our meals were very simple, basically rice with chicken and steamed vegetables with coconut oil.  We had to keep it simple because we were on a whole new territory with foods and already exhausted with trying to figure out Joey's issues.  


Still not out of the woods though we felt somewhat optimistic as we figured out by this time after plenty of research and feedback from his acupuncturist and such, that he probably has Systemic Candida Overgrowth and/or Leaky Gut Syndrome, if both, basically feeding off each other in my poor husband's body causing him tons of discomfort.  A few months later we went to the holistic doctor and he approved of our diet based on the symptoms we've figured out to that point. "Now I would only eliminate two more things" he said, "Dairy and Wheat".  "Do you mean Gluten-free?" I asked, and he responded "No, just Wheat."  So we followed suit and lo and behold saw some huge differences. He also performed a blood test to confirm that the Candida antibodies count is indeed high than it should be. Candida is curable, more so than Leaky Gut Syndrome as its still a new concept however neither is an easy task.  I researched into the Candida diet and found one that claimed to cure it in 4 months which is a lot shorter than the 6 months to 3 years healing process which is way too long to be on such a restrictive diet.  No white Rice for up to 3 years?!  I don't think so...

In May of 2013 we attempted to do the Anti-Candida diet, a diet devoid of any forms of sugar or starch designed to starve and eliminate the Candida overgrowth starting with a one week vegetable only detox.  You guessed it, we failed the detox miserably after 2 days.  Sugar withdrawal is a REAL THING and so NOT funny.  We just couldn't function at all, all those claims about sugar being in the same addictive category as heroin I totally believe it!  We were supposed to attempt it again but since the holistic doctor approved slowly re-introducing those "allergic foods" list items, imagine being able to eat all these different foods again after being deprived for several months and social engagement after social engagement would pop up further delaying the start of another Anti-Candida diet attempt not to mention I was way too busy with all my dance commitments having been invited to join Visionary Dance Theater and getting accept into Trolley Dances.

I was on an all time high now having received a promotion at work, loving my new dance schedule and commitments, happy to be finally getting somewhere in the professional dance community of San Diego.  I have to admit doing the interview for KPBS and being featured on TV and radio was definitely a self esteem booster and something I have dreamed about...dreams becoming a reality, how much better could life get?  Well that's the kicker, for every high you have you must have a low and that's exactly what happened.  I got bombed with an abnormal pap smear leading to the doctor finding pre-cancerous cells on my cervix that needed to be removed.

This is where we really looked into the Gerson Therapymethod  and took it seriously; it is a cure for cancer among other well known diseases even if Big Pharma bans treating cancer patients this way in the US.  Since I have pre-cancer and Joey is still battling with his issues and supposedly a raw diet is supposed to be a cure all, after faring better on a weekend trip to upstate New York when eating mostly raw food, we decided and proceeded to try the Young and Raw 21 day raw cleanse.  Our first attempt at this cleanse was cut short do to bouts of diarrhea, poor Joey dealing with serious Candida Die Off symptoms and detoxing too fast plus I was due for my LEEP surgery to remove those pre-cancerous cells.  We figured I would need all the energy I can get for my 6 week healing process so cannot continue with the raw cleanse.  From this point we dove into a mostly (at least 70%) Vegan diet afterwards.

In January of this year we had the privilege to go visit Hong Kong for two weeks, an experience I will never ever forget.  Let's just say our inner Asian that has been dormant for a year finally got to pop out.  Oh we vegged and we vegged and couldn't get enough of any of the wonderful goodness over there.  Every morning we got our dim sum from the street vendors, sometimes a scone, pigged out on authentic lunches and dinners and THEN?  Yes of course we partaked in delicious mouth watering Hong Kong Desserts!  Of course we still went to the market and bought fruits and vegetables for our daily green smoothies.  We were missing our daily juice but we were not about to buy another juicer as we already bought a portable blender which was only $30 US by the way, an absolute steal!  So as you can tell the best part was of course the delectable cuisine but the other best part was meeting and befriending the Hong Kong Deaf locals and learning HK sign.  These people are genuine and we are proud to have them as our friends now.


Are you confused yet?  We went from a chock full of GMO asian diet to a non GMO, organic lifestyle to eliminating wheat and dairy to attempting Anti-Candida diet to kinda gluten-free to eating a raw vegan diet to Hong Kong food, back to raw vegan and now we will be culminating in a just non GMO, non dairy and wheat Asian diet.  Whew!!  No wonder the past year has felt so busy because we did A LOT!!!  My head is spinning just from typing that!

So where are we at now?  Interesting you ask, remember the 21 day, err 12 day, raw cleanse we did in November of 2013?  The energy and results we felt from that were amazing so we decided we would attempt it again the full 21 days this time after Hong Kong.  I've read so much about the Gerson Therapy and how raw plant diets can heal autoimmune disorders and such.  The issue here is we learned this time around, the Raw Diet is good for detoxing the body and reducing the work load in the gut but NOT good for healing physical injuries.  I strained my lower back a month a go and can feel it getting progressively worse as we proceed into the cleanse.  Now don't get me wrong, you can get a lot of excellent healthy protein from a plant diet as spinach and kale take the cake in protein supplementation but it does make sense that I would need animal products, either fat or meat to replenish my muscles and allow my body to heal faster.  Big lesson learned here:  Meat is not good for healing gut diseases but it IS good for healing muscle and physical injuries.  You learn something new everyday right?

Now we are on day 17 of the Young and Raw 21 day raw cleanse, day three of the juice detox and are itching to get back to "real" food!  After our recent trip to Hong Kong where we felt drastic improvements, I decided we need to get back to eating Asian food again...this time clean healthy Asian food where I will modify and alter the ingredients to achieve this.  I'm already dreaming of this day, my first real Asian meals will be Korean Kimchi Jiggae and Jatjuk, Pine Nut Porridge.  I simply can't wait!!  Of course I will post my recipe modifications and lovely pictures for you to follow along with but I would recommend a protective cover for your keyboard or phone as some major drooling may occur ;)