Blog Award Nominees

Before I introduce the nominees, I want to wish everyone a very happy easter!

A little deaf humor for the holiday :)

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was awarded the “Treasured Blog Award” by KW over at Living the Questions and the “E for Excellent Blogger Award” by Jim over at Jim’s Deep Thoughts. I want to thank both of them again for giving me these awards, I am still in awe of the list that I was included in. I am very humbled and honored! The pair of them are awesome bloggers and they amaze me every time I read their respective blogs because they make you realize just how similar our lives are no matter where you are in this world.

Now the way these blogs awards work, when they are given to you − you pass them on to other blogs. After a long deliberation, I have rounded out my list and I am proud to announce the finalists! It wasn’t easy but here it goes in no particular order!.

*drum roll*

Treasured Blog award nominees are:

David over at the Life in a Cone Of Silence blog is a relatively new to the bloghouse and I’m totally hooked on it. Six months ago, this forty-something year old man lost his hearing due to a boatload of medical problems all at once. Just to name a few: bacterial meningitis, pneumonia, strep, respiratory failure and a stroke − and that is just a few. He was a normal hearing person up until the medical maladies happened − then he became profoundly deaf. Most people that I know, including myself, who suddenly lose their hearing do not have the best outlook on life but there is something different about him. He talks about his wife who beat cancer, his 13-year-old son and his adorable snow cone of a dog, Speeder. He elaborates about high quality butchers, lack of political scandals in Canada and Walmarts that are 36 square miles big. I’ve climbed aboard for his journey back to sound, he slotted to receive a cochlear implant soon but for someone who just lost his hearing, his attitude on life is amazing. I truly treasure your wit!

Valerie over at Tales of a CI Gal is someone I am proud to call a friend of mine. Valerie has been deaf for the past 36 years and she is one of 1,300 people in the USA that have bilateral cochlear implants. I am positive that she is part of an even smaller number of people because she also opted to have both ears done at once! (Oy Vei! I can’t even imagine!) Valerie is a wonderful human being, a loving mother and long standing special education teacher. I highly respect her because she has worked so hard to be where she is at today, at the front lines of the American education system. I treasure her friendship and her blog.

Geo over at Seek Geo is my absolute favorite deaf vlogger! He is so different from anyone else out there. Geo uses sign language and he truly ‘entertains’ his loyal readers AND he captions every single video that he does. He believes in providing equal communication access to everyone that coincides with what I believe in as well. We are both supporters of online captioning and promoting deaf unity. I happened to come across one of Geo’s videos over at Youtube.com. This one particular video talked about how he almost got a cochlear implant but his mother (god bless her) told him that she accepts him just the way he is and didn’t want him to change because of it. I thought it was an extremely profound video because it emphasizes a goal that people will accept you for who you are in the end. He covers a wide variety of subjects from doing hysterical recaps of the television show, “Hell’s Kitchen” to proving to a popular cable television provider, Charter, that the Fox channel does not have any close captioning. I truly treasure his blog for being nothing but his entertaining self.

*stretches fingers for a break*

Now for the E for Excellence award

Paotie over at Paotie's Green Couch is such an amazing writer, a kick ass snowboarder and to top it off, not afraid to wear pink! I wish I could just get inside his noggin and crawl around for a couple hours. He comes up with some crazy ideas but they all make complete sense. His religious use of deaf satire, witty humor and seductive pictures are feverishly appreciated by this bionic woman.

Raychelle over at Rays of Rachelle who is an ASL v/blogger and single-handedly shook some sense into the deaf community about cochlear implants. Let me explain, some of the cochlear implantees and deaf people online have unsuccessfully succeeded in debunking the myths of cochlear implants to the deaf community because I suspect they do not bother to read us for whatever reason. I know the reasons but I’m just not going to delve into it at the moment. While Raychelle does not have a CI herself, she has managed to grasp the fundamental understanding of cochlear implants and relay that information in such a way that anyone could understand. She did an excellent job in explaining why children should be implanted if they are not responding to hearing aids before they are five years old. The first five years of a child life is crucial for learning speech and one needs to be able to hear to be able in order to speak. In order to speak, you need to be able to hear and if you can’t with hearing aids, a cochlear implant is the next option. Raychelle, excellent job, you get the bionic hat tip from me and I am backing you up 100%.

Check them all out and again have a happy Easter!