My hearing loss is a funny thing. I can hear quite well even without hearing aids, but not perfectly. I miss conversations if I’m not looking at the person – I can’t really lipread yet (though I’m taking a class this fall) but I do need to focus on them visually to understand. Who knows, maybe I am doing a bit of lipreading and I don’t realize it, but I need auditory cues to help me out.

With my hearing aids, I hear very well, but not always perfectly. I still prefer to be looking at the person, though I’m better at conversations with my back turned when my hearing aids are on. I don’t like to wear them at home because I wear them all day for work, so I like to take them off and let my ears have a rest at home, but sometimes I do for TV or talking with my wife. During the school year it’s the opposite, I don’t need them at school so I’m more likely to wear them at home!

Interpreting is a funny business for me now. I work in VRS for my job, and that’s something I can handle because the headphones pipe the sound right into my ears. I really like “community” interpreting, that is, in person interpreting, but I can’t do it as much now. I do it occasionally for GLBT stuff and nerd stuff, but not really anything else. I can do doctor appointments and other strictly one-on-one things but I tend to just stay in VRS. It’s steady work anyway.

Three years after it happened, I’ve finally come to accept the hearing loss. Every time someone new finds out about it, I have to explain it all over again, and that gets a little tedious. People are constantly saying “thank goodness you already knew ASL!” and so forth, but to me it’s just part of my life. I have to live with hearing loss every day, but I go about my life pretty much the same as I did before. The hearing aids make it possible, so they were well worth every penny (all $5700 of it)!

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Holy crap, the iPod Touch 2G has Bluetooth capability. It’s going to be unlocked with iPhone OS 3.0, which was announced today. Touch users have to pay $10 for the upgrade, which firesign3000 tells me is the same thing that happened with the 1.0 to 2.0 upgrade – iPhone users get it free, but once a Touch is purchased there’s no monthly kickbacks to Apple, so they get it out of us this way. (I bought my Touch after 2.0 was released.)

Over on Engadget, people are griping about having to pay for something that’s supposed to be part of what we already bought. (I guess these people missed the fact that the App Store will also allow developers to sell new levels for games, etc.) I don’t care though, I was already planning to pay for the update, but now I’m really planning to, and I’m really excited. I have Bluetooth capability with my hearing aids, and in order to use them with my iPod Touch I had bought a Jabra A120 transmitter. Now I won’t need it anymore! It will be awesome to hook my iPod straight into my hearing aids. I am really looking forward to this update!

In fact, if it didn’t require switching to AT&T, I’d go whole-hog and get an iPhone. That’s more hassle than it’s worth, though, so I’m still going to use my Blackberry Curve on T-Mobile. My iPod Touch will just be even more awesome now.

I need to get another audiogram done. Right now I have the TV cranked above 30, and I had the radio cranked up in the car this morning, too. I haven’t been able to hear any of my professors this week; several of them speak along with their signing, usually just above a whisper, but after Tuesday I couldn’t hear any of it. I used my hearing aids today and I could tell things weren’t as loud as they should have been. So I need to get another audiogram done and have my hearing aids adjusted, because this just isn’t right. A friend of mine said “it’s okay to be deaf!” Well, yes, that’s not what I have a problem with. If it were not correctable, I would grieve, and I would adjust. But this is correctable, I just need to get my hearing aids adjusted. Those suckers cost $5700 (out of pocket) for a reason…they are suitable for a wide variety of hearing losses. And to be perfectly frank, I don’t especially want to be deaf right now, because interpreting is the perfect job for me right now. Pays a lot, flexible with my school schedule, etc. – I don’t want to have to stop interpreting. I was already thinking that I should stick to VRS before Tuesday happened, but now if I don’t get this corrected I will have trouble even with VRS. I need to see the audiologists at school ASAP I think.

I joined Second Life back in 2005 or so. For a while I didn’t have a computer that could do it at all so I only played at friends’ houses. Then I had a computer that could do it, but not well, so I got frustrated and gave up on it. Now I’m back, thanks to aleja, and I’m getting more involved! (This is only in the last few days, even.) In fact, I just bought a home. Yup, I’m now a Second Life homeowner, paying RL cash for a virtual plot of land. Oh well, it’s not much. I did always kind of want a home…I was a total vagrant before. Anyway, here are some pictures of my renewed second life.
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Today I got fitted for hearing aids. I am getting open fit Oticon Epoq XW’s with the Bluetooth option. Total cost is $5,648 and I’ve already put down a $200 deposit. I got them in “beige silver” – the closest option to my skin tone. I was surprised to find that the little tiny tube is fixed in a certain shape, not flexible. I got to try on a demo model; the BTE piece is about half the length of my ear. It plays a cute little jingle when you turn it on. They should come in 3-5 days so I’ll be picking them up sometime next week.

At first the guy said, “your hearing isn’t that bad” but I told him I’m an interpreter, and explained that I need to hear everything right the first time, he understood immediately and said “you’ll love the Epoq, I think it will be perfect for you.” So there you go, I did my own research beforehand and made the right choice.

My prank on :A: was so good, she thought it was Google’s prank! I had changed all her iGoogle stuff to be in German, including widgets all in German and a different theme and everything. I used Google Translate to put instructions on how to restore the backup I made beforehand, but she didn’t bother with it – just went to the tab where I had stashed all her real widgets. It wasn’t until tonight that I prodded her about it and she said “oh that was you!”

Tomorrow I am going to these people to see about buying my Epoqs. VR has new rules that mean I would have to wait more than a year for service, and very probably longer, so I didn’t even bother opening a file. I will get a trial period through these people, so I get to figure it all out and stuff.

I left school early today – skipped linguistics class and College Bowl practice – because I am all anxious and depressed and don’t feel good. I think I am better now though. :A: and I just finished watching Gypsy 83 and I feel okay.

Also, my story and picture finally got published in Budget Travel magazine’s funny travel stories contest! check it out!