Growing up Deaf - Part 13

Going to School - Grades 10-12 - Part 2

Some classes in high school have pretty much stuck with me no matter what over the years.

I had a Photography class where we did black and white photography and developing. I'm still doing photography today. Even though I bought a used manual camera back in college and digital camera years later, I still prefer the manual camera. It's been used for special effects photography like fireworks and dance floor shots using laser light and/or glow lights.

Electronics class was just as interesting. The teacher was a funny person and sometimes had a little laugh with me about my squeaky ear molds. He would sometimes have demos of things and frequent handouts, which helped me out quite a bit. At one point, he had this capacitor charged up to about less than 100 volts, less than its rated maximum. I started going a little nutty when he gave me the leads. "Ah, just hook them up to my hearing aids or my ears and watch them go poof." Then I hold the leads and *POW*. Whoo... We're talking instant body contraction here. I'm fine here, but my heart's going a little nutty as well as my stomach for a bit.

At one point, we have a project to do and I chose to build an electronic organ. Our project tables had power supplies where you adjusted the voltage from around 1.5v to maybe 18v or around that. I kept increasing the voltage on my little organ, making it louder til it pissed off the instructor. I'm wondering how much voltage would have made the circuit pop...

I think it was around my final year when I took accounting. That's pretty much stuck with me as well, as I've found it makes filling out the tax forms easier. At the high school, driver's education may have been a required course, with one of the PE coaches teaching it. With anther instructor, we had behind the wheel practice. I had two other deaf with me, and this instructor didn't point to where should go. He made up flash cards saying "turn left," "turn right," "park," "back to school," and a few more. I passed the DMV's driving test and then the road test on the first try.

Next - Going to College.