So a few weeks ago, I was contacted by my disability services manager asking for participants in a study with a graduate student who was conducting research for her thesis. She was looking for anybody who has a cochlear implant, and naturally I replied saying I could help her out. We arranged to do it for this morning, and it went good.
I was expecting the tests to be easy since I do them at least once a year. Boy was I wrong. It made me realize that the tests I do at the audiologist for my hearing is quite easy! She took me into the coolest room there is on campus... a vibration-free room? Basically a room that is padded with many many many foam points, including the floor and the ceiling. I was walking on springy grates that was placed over the foam points on the floor. These points were huge and it overall was the coolest room I have ever been in. I should have taken a photo when I had the chance!
Anyways, she had me do tests of listening to a program that says sentences and I was to repeat them back in the best of my capability. There were different levels done, audio only, visual only, and both audio and visual. I found that the audio only in sentences was difficult for me to do. It was different voices each time and that alone made it even harder. I found that I heard the sounds but in my head just could not figure out the words or formulate the entire sentence. I kept forgetting the beginning of each sentence and could only repeat back parts of it, more towards the end of the sentence. However, with visual added in I found myself doing better and even aced quite a few sentences with just visual no audio... It's an awesome skill to have that not many can do... even hearing people. :) She said that I did fairly well on the tests and I really hoped my work helped her out with her thesis. She was in her third year of studying to be an audiologist, and has one more year left to go which is working in an job setting learning those skills for to be an audiologist. It felt good to help people towards a future in any way I could.
The experiment made me realize that I should work on my listening skills more but I was not bad off for only having this implant for three years.
In other news, I am currently in the process of graduating from college! My graduation is next week and I could not be more excited for it! Pat on my back for it. :)
Xoxo
-Annie
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Friday, June 22, 2012
Two Years
I know I've slacked on this blog, but I had a good excuse, England. End of story.
But, I couldn't let this day go past without posting something. Today is very significant to me, it is the two years anniversary of my surgery to get the implant. By this time, I had it put into my head, and was probably coming around from the meds a little bit.
Two years is also quite significant in how it is believed that everything I learned while listening in the past two years is all I can learn, and I'm determined to not let that stop my progress. I'm still a work in progress, but being a machine, you kind of are always a work in progress... you know, with all those updates and glitches. I know I just compared myself to a machine, but I am part cyborg now. That's just me. Part human, part cyborg.
Anyways, it is not the mark of the two years of having my implant turned on... I kind of forget the actual date itself... whoops. The surgery was much more major to that moment a little. But that moment is just as important.
Oops, running low on time! (I'm quickly writing this up right before I have to leave for work... Yes, my life doesn't stop, first England, now working at a museum this summer!)
Happy Anniversary to myself!!
until next time,
-Annie
But, I couldn't let this day go past without posting something. Today is very significant to me, it is the two years anniversary of my surgery to get the implant. By this time, I had it put into my head, and was probably coming around from the meds a little bit.
Two years is also quite significant in how it is believed that everything I learned while listening in the past two years is all I can learn, and I'm determined to not let that stop my progress. I'm still a work in progress, but being a machine, you kind of are always a work in progress... you know, with all those updates and glitches. I know I just compared myself to a machine, but I am part cyborg now. That's just me. Part human, part cyborg.
Anyways, it is not the mark of the two years of having my implant turned on... I kind of forget the actual date itself... whoops. The surgery was much more major to that moment a little. But that moment is just as important.
Oops, running low on time! (I'm quickly writing this up right before I have to leave for work... Yes, my life doesn't stop, first England, now working at a museum this summer!)
Happy Anniversary to myself!!
until next time,
-Annie
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
reflections
Today I realized that it is nearly a month and 22 days away from the two year anniversary of getting my implant. So much has happened in that 2 years, much more than in the combined 20 years of my life.
The other day, I received a video from my grandpa, one showing of my childhood, at least up until I was about 2 years old. I watched it and became obsessed with the fact that all of the signs were right there that I was deaf. I cried maybe once in the entire video, and I started to notice that I only made sounds when people were baby-talking to me, where I was just trying to mimic their mouth movements. The entire video I was screaming inside, shocked at how oblivious everyone was to me being so quiet. I guess I was an angel child, but even so just figure it out sooner that I am deaf! I was diagnosed for the first time at 22 months. Hearing aids by the time I was two, and I was terrible with them.
My childhood was different, where as soon as I was diagnosed as deaf, my parents focused on me. Now this meant that my brother was forgotten about. Years later, this is my mother's one regret about our childhood, that she forgot about my brother. My brother is older than me and he is the most brilliant man if he uses his wits and skills well. I can only say how proud of what he has done so far, and wish that he would realize his potential sooner, especially since he is a struggling artist fresh out of college. Even at 5 years old, you could tell that he was going to be something someday, where he just was full of knowledge and desire to do these things in life. At least I am glad that he has finally conquered his fear and his dream of going to Morocco last week, and I hope he continues on this path of conquering his dream, India next?
I'm writing this post mainly because I started thinking about how I would like to write a memoir someday, and I've gotten many feedbacks from people on my travel blog, saying how they love reading it. It's a funny thing, how writing can be good and bad. All through my academic life, I have struggled with writing papers and formally, but when it comes to writing my blogs, it just flows and it works. I love writing informally. Because of this love, I've toyed with the ideas of writing a memoir or even writing for a newspaper, doing my own column. But then again, I remember that I am nowhere near trained in that kind of stuff, and I should focus on my own major... Then again, who ends up working in their major from college? Only engineers I find. I just want a job where I am happy doing what I am doing. Happiness is the only thing that matters to me.
A few weeks back, I was actually contacted by a woman who goes to my aunt's church, and she just had twin babies recently. One of the twin is deaf due to meningitis, and she had talked to my mother already on the phone a few times about raising a deaf child. Eventually I told my mother to give her my email address so I can give her a perspective. I actually just emailed her back now since I realized that I never emailed her back! April certainly was a busy month for me after all.
I've run out of the brain flow for now, but I'll get back into updating this more often hopefully.
Until then,
-Annie
The other day, I received a video from my grandpa, one showing of my childhood, at least up until I was about 2 years old. I watched it and became obsessed with the fact that all of the signs were right there that I was deaf. I cried maybe once in the entire video, and I started to notice that I only made sounds when people were baby-talking to me, where I was just trying to mimic their mouth movements. The entire video I was screaming inside, shocked at how oblivious everyone was to me being so quiet. I guess I was an angel child, but even so just figure it out sooner that I am deaf! I was diagnosed for the first time at 22 months. Hearing aids by the time I was two, and I was terrible with them.
My childhood was different, where as soon as I was diagnosed as deaf, my parents focused on me. Now this meant that my brother was forgotten about. Years later, this is my mother's one regret about our childhood, that she forgot about my brother. My brother is older than me and he is the most brilliant man if he uses his wits and skills well. I can only say how proud of what he has done so far, and wish that he would realize his potential sooner, especially since he is a struggling artist fresh out of college. Even at 5 years old, you could tell that he was going to be something someday, where he just was full of knowledge and desire to do these things in life. At least I am glad that he has finally conquered his fear and his dream of going to Morocco last week, and I hope he continues on this path of conquering his dream, India next?
I'm writing this post mainly because I started thinking about how I would like to write a memoir someday, and I've gotten many feedbacks from people on my travel blog, saying how they love reading it. It's a funny thing, how writing can be good and bad. All through my academic life, I have struggled with writing papers and formally, but when it comes to writing my blogs, it just flows and it works. I love writing informally. Because of this love, I've toyed with the ideas of writing a memoir or even writing for a newspaper, doing my own column. But then again, I remember that I am nowhere near trained in that kind of stuff, and I should focus on my own major... Then again, who ends up working in their major from college? Only engineers I find. I just want a job where I am happy doing what I am doing. Happiness is the only thing that matters to me.
A few weeks back, I was actually contacted by a woman who goes to my aunt's church, and she just had twin babies recently. One of the twin is deaf due to meningitis, and she had talked to my mother already on the phone a few times about raising a deaf child. Eventually I told my mother to give her my email address so I can give her a perspective. I actually just emailed her back now since I realized that I never emailed her back! April certainly was a busy month for me after all.
I've run out of the brain flow for now, but I'll get back into updating this more often hopefully.
Until then,
-Annie
Friday, February 10, 2012
Adapting
I was about to write this post about how I have noticed that the British accent has become easier for me to understand and all that. But I just got back from class, and woa... that was heck of a listening experience for me. I do not think his accent was British though, maybe Welsh or Scottish. But it was heavy, and I tried to lipread him and it just did not make sense. Though this is where the implant came in handy! After a while I noticed that I could understand him if I just listened and it worked, which is really interesting!
I really have come a long way from nearly a year and a half ago, it is funny to think that's how long it has been, not a very long time persay, but so much has been accomplished in that time! I've gone from being extremely dependent on lipreading to now mildly dependent on it, but I can understand what is going on if I apply myself to listen.
Anyways I was thinking that the implant really has been very helpful in getting to do my dream of studying abroad in England. If I did not have them, I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to do it! But now it is one of my best decision ever! Anyways, just wanted to do a quick update, if you want to hear more about my travels in England, check out my tumblr: http://anniebe3.tumblr.com
Until next time-
Annie
I really have come a long way from nearly a year and a half ago, it is funny to think that's how long it has been, not a very long time persay, but so much has been accomplished in that time! I've gone from being extremely dependent on lipreading to now mildly dependent on it, but I can understand what is going on if I apply myself to listen.
Anyways I was thinking that the implant really has been very helpful in getting to do my dream of studying abroad in England. If I did not have them, I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to do it! But now it is one of my best decision ever! Anyways, just wanted to do a quick update, if you want to hear more about my travels in England, check out my tumblr: http://anniebe3.tumblr.com
Until next time-
Annie
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Nevermind!
So previously I had decided to make this blog become my England study abroad blog... well I changed my mind, and this is resorting back to my cochlear implant blog and I created a different blog on tumblr due to how much more fun it is to blog trips on there. To find that blog about England, its at: http://anniebe3.tumblr.com
Keep checking back at either blogs, but more likely the tumblr will be updated more often.
Until next time-
Annie
Keep checking back at either blogs, but more likely the tumblr will be updated more often.
Until next time-
Annie
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Another Year, hello 2012
Once again, i am welcoming another year. To me it is just another year. Another year of going to school and being successful, hoping to keep making progress in my life towards an amazing life.
In 3 days, I am leaving for England and I am quite scared of what to expect. It is something that I have never done before in my life, being completely on my own in a completely new place with nobody to turn to for help. In a way this is the time where I am growing up, no more being dependent on others to help me in any way. Sure I'll still have the support of everyone that I love in my life, but it is about time that I do things my way on my own. Yet that is scaring me the most of going abroad.
This year just crept up on me and it is a surprise to me that 2012 is here already, and yet it is just another year, another month, another day and another hour of my life. It is exciting to be able to do something different this year like going to England and experiencing something new.
I've been trying to prepare for all of this, yet it seems like I do not have much to say or have any thoughts about my upcoming trip besides how scared I am for this experience on my own yet I am also excited. Hopefully I can update this blog more once I am actually there.
In other news, my implant has been doing good, where I have become more dependent on the implant than the hearing aid. Wearing just the hearing aid is terrible now where I do not seem to recognize any sounds anymore, but often I do not mind having just the implant on alone where I enjoy the sounds now. I had an visit to the hospital a few weeks ago and was shocked to find that my audiologist left! No more mark! He had taken a job with Cochlear the company and did not tell me until I got there and had to find out from the receptionist! Oh well. So now I have a new audiologist named Melly I think... I cannot quite remember her name. But she was nice and I liked talking to her about everything. No new changes though to the map of the implant, it seems like it has gotten to the point that I am functioning well with it and do not need any experimenting done with it. Though there still could be some changes done next time, we will have to wait and see. But first, England, and surviving 5 months with british accents!
There is not much more that can be said until I have arrived there, off to London for a few days with my dad then we are heading up to the University in Norwich. I am glad for my dad to be coming with me to help me out with everything and I really hope that I'll manage fine once he leaves! Everyone keeps worrying about me where my parents keep saying that they are worried that I am going to be homesick. Yes that is inevitable but also it seems like nobody thinks I can make it through 5 months there and would hop the plane back and quit this dream of mine! What more is there to do besides making it through and enjoying life to the fullest.
Anyways, until next time, I shall hopefully be across the pond!
-Annie
In 3 days, I am leaving for England and I am quite scared of what to expect. It is something that I have never done before in my life, being completely on my own in a completely new place with nobody to turn to for help. In a way this is the time where I am growing up, no more being dependent on others to help me in any way. Sure I'll still have the support of everyone that I love in my life, but it is about time that I do things my way on my own. Yet that is scaring me the most of going abroad.
This year just crept up on me and it is a surprise to me that 2012 is here already, and yet it is just another year, another month, another day and another hour of my life. It is exciting to be able to do something different this year like going to England and experiencing something new.
I've been trying to prepare for all of this, yet it seems like I do not have much to say or have any thoughts about my upcoming trip besides how scared I am for this experience on my own yet I am also excited. Hopefully I can update this blog more once I am actually there.
In other news, my implant has been doing good, where I have become more dependent on the implant than the hearing aid. Wearing just the hearing aid is terrible now where I do not seem to recognize any sounds anymore, but often I do not mind having just the implant on alone where I enjoy the sounds now. I had an visit to the hospital a few weeks ago and was shocked to find that my audiologist left! No more mark! He had taken a job with Cochlear the company and did not tell me until I got there and had to find out from the receptionist! Oh well. So now I have a new audiologist named Melly I think... I cannot quite remember her name. But she was nice and I liked talking to her about everything. No new changes though to the map of the implant, it seems like it has gotten to the point that I am functioning well with it and do not need any experimenting done with it. Though there still could be some changes done next time, we will have to wait and see. But first, England, and surviving 5 months with british accents!
There is not much more that can be said until I have arrived there, off to London for a few days with my dad then we are heading up to the University in Norwich. I am glad for my dad to be coming with me to help me out with everything and I really hope that I'll manage fine once he leaves! Everyone keeps worrying about me where my parents keep saying that they are worried that I am going to be homesick. Yes that is inevitable but also it seems like nobody thinks I can make it through 5 months there and would hop the plane back and quit this dream of mine! What more is there to do besides making it through and enjoying life to the fullest.
Anyways, until next time, I shall hopefully be across the pond!
-Annie
Monday, November 14, 2011
England
Hello all,
thought I'll post another one with an update.
Not too many changes with my CI, but I will be in for the test of my lifetime by going abroad for my junior year of college. In January, I am off to England for a semester to study. It has been a dream of mine since I was little, and now it's actually coming true!
In a way, this blog is going to convert to being about England and the reality of how my CI is going to help me out somehow. I was talking to a couple british students studying abroad at my school last week and it was a huge shock to me of how my first few weeks in England are probably going to be my most trying weeks of my lip reading skills and my listening skills. I thought I was able to understand British accents pretty easily, turns out I've been a little off on that considering that most people that I know with a British accent or South African accent have been in the states for a few years now. Though I did feel confident after meeting my boyfriend's mother from South Africa for a few weeks, that I was able to understand her pretty well after a few hours of focusing on what she's saying. And she was a quick talker at times, so I survived lipreading and listening to her without becoming totally exhausted.
There are days where I just am totally exhausted by the end of the day from lipreading and listening, and I hate how people say how can you be tired, I just worked for 8 hours, and you were in class for like 2 hours... For me, 2 hours of class equals 2 hours of lipreading and talking to listen to, is equivalent to a full day of work for me. I feel like some people just don't get that sometimes. Listening comes naturally to hearing people usually, while I am not exactly a hearing person, nor am I a completely deaf person. I am an in-betweener.
Anyways, I rambled off. Back to my main topic of focus of this post, ENGLAND! I am going to be there for 5 months, and I am so excited yet so nervous about being away for so long, and to be in a completely new place with all this jazz on my head. I am crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly, and that I do not have any disasters relating to my CI or my HA. Ack! I get the feeling there are going to be days where I am completely lost, or days that I am at home with being in England. We just have to wait and see! The Uni I am going to I picked for the reason that they have a good disability service program there and that is a huge factor in any college that I attend. One of the reasons I left URI also, due to the disability program there being jerks to me and putting up a fight with me over everything I needed in order to do well... for example, they gave me the crappiest FM system ever, it was so outdated, and nobody had ever used it since they bought it in 1997? Therefore, it was analong, and also was designed for the senior people to use it, not really for everyday usage in a classroom. Oh and they also had the very nerve to say 'oh you're not deaf...' just based on knowing that I speak very well and can write decently! I may seem like I am a hearing person due to those things, but I still get the whole "accent" thing on a daily basis. It has become quite amusing to me, I am quite curious of what the Brits will make of my accent, if they say "oh! you're american? where from? new york?" I actually got that once when I was in Italy a few years ago... He was surprised to hear that I was from Boston, and started talking in a "Bostonian" accent. It was amusing.
Besides, England. Life is good, just need to start preparing for going abroad, it would be nice to have tips from anybody that was deaf and studied abroad of how to even pack or prepare for being out of my usual environment or having back-ups or someone to go to for emergencies with my 'ears'. Oh well, new experience for me, I'll figure it out! =)
Until next time, probably december since that's when I am seeing my audiologist next.
-Annie
thought I'll post another one with an update.
Not too many changes with my CI, but I will be in for the test of my lifetime by going abroad for my junior year of college. In January, I am off to England for a semester to study. It has been a dream of mine since I was little, and now it's actually coming true!
In a way, this blog is going to convert to being about England and the reality of how my CI is going to help me out somehow. I was talking to a couple british students studying abroad at my school last week and it was a huge shock to me of how my first few weeks in England are probably going to be my most trying weeks of my lip reading skills and my listening skills. I thought I was able to understand British accents pretty easily, turns out I've been a little off on that considering that most people that I know with a British accent or South African accent have been in the states for a few years now. Though I did feel confident after meeting my boyfriend's mother from South Africa for a few weeks, that I was able to understand her pretty well after a few hours of focusing on what she's saying. And she was a quick talker at times, so I survived lipreading and listening to her without becoming totally exhausted.
There are days where I just am totally exhausted by the end of the day from lipreading and listening, and I hate how people say how can you be tired, I just worked for 8 hours, and you were in class for like 2 hours... For me, 2 hours of class equals 2 hours of lipreading and talking to listen to, is equivalent to a full day of work for me. I feel like some people just don't get that sometimes. Listening comes naturally to hearing people usually, while I am not exactly a hearing person, nor am I a completely deaf person. I am an in-betweener.
Anyways, I rambled off. Back to my main topic of focus of this post, ENGLAND! I am going to be there for 5 months, and I am so excited yet so nervous about being away for so long, and to be in a completely new place with all this jazz on my head. I am crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly, and that I do not have any disasters relating to my CI or my HA. Ack! I get the feeling there are going to be days where I am completely lost, or days that I am at home with being in England. We just have to wait and see! The Uni I am going to I picked for the reason that they have a good disability service program there and that is a huge factor in any college that I attend. One of the reasons I left URI also, due to the disability program there being jerks to me and putting up a fight with me over everything I needed in order to do well... for example, they gave me the crappiest FM system ever, it was so outdated, and nobody had ever used it since they bought it in 1997? Therefore, it was analong, and also was designed for the senior people to use it, not really for everyday usage in a classroom. Oh and they also had the very nerve to say 'oh you're not deaf...' just based on knowing that I speak very well and can write decently! I may seem like I am a hearing person due to those things, but I still get the whole "accent" thing on a daily basis. It has become quite amusing to me, I am quite curious of what the Brits will make of my accent, if they say "oh! you're american? where from? new york?" I actually got that once when I was in Italy a few years ago... He was surprised to hear that I was from Boston, and started talking in a "Bostonian" accent. It was amusing.
Besides, England. Life is good, just need to start preparing for going abroad, it would be nice to have tips from anybody that was deaf and studied abroad of how to even pack or prepare for being out of my usual environment or having back-ups or someone to go to for emergencies with my 'ears'. Oh well, new experience for me, I'll figure it out! =)
Until next time, probably december since that's when I am seeing my audiologist next.
-Annie
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