I know others will add some great local resources for learning ASL and finding a community of other deaf people. The
MA comm for deaf and HOH can point you to or provide local ASL lessons -- they sent a teacher to our home on weekends -- and we were encouraged to invite family and friends. We have also taken classes at the Learning Center for the Deaf in the evenings -- deaf, native ASL using teachers teach ASL to the community, whether deaf, related to a deaf person, or you just want to learn. Sorenson will install a videophone for free in your home if you or a family member are deaf, and several organizations offer ASL instruction by remote (and then you also have a way to practice with others far away -- there are several people here who are extremely generous with their time and patience when it comes to new learners). You have already explored college-level instruction, but you may want to revisit that.
But I'd also recommend that you go back in for a few new mappings and push your CI clinic to help you get it to the point where you aren't missing words and frustrated in groups. I can describe intimately what a prelingually deaf baby encounters in the mapping process, but I've heard that it's not too far from what an adult recipient goes through, in terms of mappings: Typically you have 2-3 mappings during the first month you are activated, and then taper off from there to just 1X every 6 months to a year. So with 2 mappings in 4 years, you are probably only using the most primitive aspects of your CI (no specialized programming, no refinement of sensitivity and volume) -- just a flat unfiltered wall of sound from whatever direction you are looking at. My daughter could access and respond to sound right away, like you, and yet more than an hour after initial activation we were still with our audi, and her brain had adjusted: she could no longer hear what she had previously heard, the map already had to be adjusted. That's a good thing. They probably sent you home with a number of settings you can adjust yourself, right? Raising the volume higher and higher as your brain becomes accustommed to a new way of accessing sound. And you return the next day or week to add a new cycle and do it again. This continues until it stabilizes, sometimes over 3-4 mappings and then you move on to do the same with sensitivity, varying the amazing programs all of the brands have for groups, for one on one, for music, etc.
I know people who've had CIs for years and are still pleasantly surprised to discover new and better sounds after a different MAPping. I did notice that my daughther immediately went from removing her processor at about 4 each day (she was tired of hearing) to insisting that they remain on until she falls asleep once she had two -- I suspect it's somehow more comfortable and less tiring to be getting sound from both rather than just one.
She began wearing her Freedom BTEs at 3 without a problem -- but we found that the new N5s were much less likely to flop, they are so small, so we were very happy to upgrade -- do you have an older BTE? Some people get the long coil cords and attach their processors inside their shirt pockets when doing sports or rough work, so only the coil is on the head and nothing near the ears. We wrap my daughters' processors in her ponytail holder when she's doing gymnastics, soccer, or kung fu and flipping around a lot -- so they are nowhere near her ears. Headbands are another good thing -- you can get joybands for sports that tuck the processor into the band, not using the ear as a rest at all.
