Friday, January 9, 2009

Cochlear - ATC Swap Meet

What an interesting day yesterday. Lots of things happening and new experiences.
In the morning I went for one of my ear appointments and Sonja tested me by speaking behind me and asking me to repeat what she said, which I did with flying colors. She says I'm putting her out of a job. So I'll only have one more appointment with her to fill out a questionaire in about a month or so. See the differences between then and now type of thing.

While on route to the above appointment, I was hearing car engines and differentiating between the sounds. There was definitely one that needed a tune up. And I'm enjoying the sound of walking into my kitchen and hearing the quiet hum of my fridge. It's a reassuring sound. I've always been a little disquieted about the fact I couldn't hear that, because I never new if the power went off on my fridge. If it was the whole house it wouldn't be a problem, because I'd see the lights didn't work or something similar, but if only my fridge (and my freezer connected to the same outlet) went out, I'd have a ton of food spoiling...

So last night was our monthly ATC swap meet. We were about a dozen people there, 9 of which were actually swapping. It was so nice to talk to everyone and hear what they were saying. We were in lots of little groups and what I found difficult, was I was hearing the conversations of the people behind me and trying to concentrate on the conversation infront of me. So I have to practice separating those sounds. So I would say I understood about 60% last night. That's waaaay more than about 5% on previous swaps. BIG GRIN. There was also CBC people interviewing us and filming us. Quite an adventure. It should air around the end of Jan or begin Feb. The show is between 3 & 3:30 Calgary time on channel 6 or 9 and will be accessible on line as well. Will find out more and blog about it.

Also brought the journal as a sample of what I will be teaching on Feb 14th and the lettering inside the journal on Feb 26th. Everyone was quite impressed. After these four classes, and depending on the response, I might give a few evening classes as well for those who can't attend during the day.

Well today I have another ear appointment that I will be going to soon. And tonight I have my Guild's Fri Night Art Social. It's the first one of about 5 scheduled and we'll see what the response is. It's meant to get us out and socializing and doing art together. I brought my laptop so if anyone hasn't seen the Denis Brown DVD they can watch it. And I brought my little squares for my Alpha Challenge...

Oh I almost forgot. My friend Moe who was driving me home, cracked a couple jokes and I actually laughed and realized I was hearing the punch lines. Since in the past I was only able to catch a word hear and there and before my brain registered what was said, the joke would have been long gone.

The other thing, I got an email from someone to watch a video clip on line. WOW I could understand everything they said. I've watched a lot of vid clips without sound and so lost a lot of the understanding behind them. I'm going to be watching a lot more vid clips now. There's a ton of art related and calligrpahy clips out there. Who knows I might invest in a video camera and start doing some myself now that I can hear words on them. It wouldn't have been the same without words. So many adventures to come in the near future. I'm excited. Can you tell...
take care till next bloging

No comments: