The immaturity of some deaf people

The first time in my life did I realize that there are some people who are simply immature for what they do or have done that disrupts the lives of other people. What I'm talking about is my experience at Gallaudet University where I first stayed at Benson Hall dormitory building which is located in the center of the campus. A dorm whose building was mostly occupied by incoming freshman students. What got me and others our ire was the fact that over the course of a year there were perhaps several d/Deaf people who disrupted the entire Benson Hall dormitory building of some perhaps 200 people or so by pulling the fire alarm at 2 AM in the morning. Sometimes on rare occassions a fire alarm would go off twice in a single night forcing the still sleepy and tired occupants of Benson Hall outside into the cold night while firemen with their blaring fire trucks would come and investigate the building. Not only was I embarrassed for the fire personnel to do that on a regular basis it was also a continuing safety hazard by forcing hundreds of people out of a building because of false fire alarms pulled by cranks.  This was an embarrassing and maddening scene that I come to experience so much in a single semester while living in that dormitory. The constant false fire alarms disrupted many students sleep impacting their education throughout the day because they couldn't get enough sleep. And it wasn't just Benson Hall but other dormitories as well that experienced the false fire alarm problem such as Peet Hall, Ballard West and Ballard North dormitories which consisted of mostly the younger students (e.g. freshman, sophomore). Although I believe Benson Hall was the worst of all dormitories. While at Carlin Hall and Clerc Hall they generally have more matured students who were either juniors, seniors or graduates. I certainly don't remember much about Carlin Hall experiencing false fire alarms, perhaps one or two, at least I got my sleep over there.

Not only was Benson Hall that bad with the false fire alarms but it was bad on a morning after a night of students partying on Friday and Saturday nights would I find vomit in the elevator, the stairwells, outside near the entrances, sometimes on a wall smeared with vomit, and one or two students strewn about in the dormitory lounge area still passed out. In fact, one morning I came across a passed out male student lying face down in his own vomit on the floor in the dormitory lounge area on the second floor of Benson Hall where I stayed. It was simply a disgusting scene to experience almost every weekend. And then, of course, you have a trash problem as well.

With Gallaudet University you had your good and bad things about it. But those false fire alarms were nothing to sneeze at since it was a regular occurrence at Benson Hall back in 1988. It was a classic case of how immature people behave.  It was as if back then d/Deaf people simply accepted that as part of their "community of culture." They just shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh, well, those things happen." I would just shake my head and simply say "That's not acceptable." It was one of those experiences I had while basically living in a closed off society on the campus of Gallaudet University did I get to see some of the prevailing attitudes people had at the time. It was a revelatory time for me.

ADDENDUM: Looks like things have not changed at Benson Hall as reported in the Buff and Blue newspaper written today about the problems of false fire alarms pulled by immature cranks.