Introduction

 My name is Anniken Blaauw and I am a freshman here at Gallaudet. When I came here I was actually supposed to start at ELI, but after taking an english test I was told to start a bachelor right ahead. So I was not prepared to take those courses like math and english. I named my blog Heineken because that's thats my nickname some guys gave me (after the beer Heineken) and to me it symbolisms the time when I started to accept who I really was.  

I'm 20 year old and from Bærum in Norway (it's just outside the capital Oslo). Unfortunately my hometown is Norway’s answer to Beverly Hills where everyone is supposed to be perfect, which made it difficult for me when I was younger. When I started at middle school (in the age of 14) I started to hide the fact that I was hearing impaired. To make a long history short, I did it pretty difficult for myself.

All my life I have hade pretty huge ups and downs. Sometimes it feels like I have been trough more than an 80 years old person. When I was writing about my “history” I realized it was too complicated and confusing to write down if I don’t want to sit here in front of my Mac the next few days. So, the short story is that I was really alone when I was 13 and 14 years old. Slowly I have made more and more friends, and the last years have been nothing else then amazing! 

The most important thing I ever learned: self-irony. It's so important to not take things so seriously and that made my life so much easier. Actually, it changed my life dramatically. Today I have the life, the friends and everything I was dreaming of when I was younger and thought I'll never reach it. And I do believe that laugher is the best medicine. 

So, having big dreams also gives you many downs. But, if I hadn’t been stubborn, I would never come this far. I talked to my parents recently and they told me about all the times I had done things they thought I would never be able to do. Like when I decided to live in England for the summer with a friend when I was fifteen and couldn't a single word in English. But, to me, the biggest thing I ever have done is backpacking for five months around the world. I feel extremely lucky when I'm thinking of all the funny and unique memories I have. 

But sometimes, being between those two worlds (the hearing and the deaf) is both confusing and exhausting. Because my hearing loss it's getting worse and one day I'll become deaf. But today, I don't know how to sign and I'm struggling in the "hearing" world too. And in Norway it's too many people who doesn't understand the meaning of "hard of hearing" and when I was younger I often wished that I was deaf and then people would see that I had a handicap. But just because I heard one sentence some day, they think I can hear everything. 

Me and my friends when we were backpackers. The most amazing time of my life, no doubt.   

This blog will be used to do homework and to read my class mates writings and learn from them.  I think when the semester comes to an end, I will read this blog and see what I did wrong and what I did right. Then I will see how much I have learned.