Today was my first day of school with the CI.
How was it? TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT I EXPECTED.
I have NEVER realized that there were THAT many sounds in a classroom, and were THAT audible from a distance. I was just AMAZED by everything that I could hear. It’s enough to drive you absolutely batty!
Bags zipping, pages flipping, pens scratching, people wiggling around in chairs, feet/legs swinging, chairs squeaking, water bottles crackling, laptop keys clacking, whispering, the rustling of food packages, people breathing/coughing/sneezing/blowing their noses, pens/pencils clicking, flipflops going clip-clop against feet, footsteps descending down the auditorium stairs, the sound of the keys on people’s cell phones as they text each other…I could go on and on…but that was just the beginning of what I could hear. HOLY COW.
I’m also hearing a lot more “pulses” and “clicks” for sounds that I don’t have resolution or an identity for yet, and all this extra noise is not helping my case of dizziness. The dizziness has made a comeback since I’ve arrived back at school, and it has been a bit difficult walking around as I lose my point of center sometimes and feel like Lurch.
My first class, a lecture with 340 kids (I think it’s a little more than half of that for this section), had an open-captionist there, as well as the interpreter for the 7+ deaf kids in that class. It was interesting reading the open-captioning and knowing that she was not typing word-for-word what the teacher was saying. I prefer watching the interpreter because the interpreter’s speed is closer to what the teacher is saying. However, it still bugs me that I can’t understand what is being spoken, yet the interpreter is behind enough, that I can’t match up what I thought the teacher said, to what the interpreter is saying, and then I just end up getting so confused. This is compounded by the fact that my teacher talks F…A…S…T. I can’t wait till I can understand speech consistently!
My other class, it’s just two deaf students (including me), and the two of us are partnered up for the project. It’s cool with me, but at the same time I feel as if I’m being pulled back into the deaf world because I will have to sign instead of speak and listen. I wanted to work with the hearing students (one of which asked me, but ended up doing otherwise). My classmate thought the two of us would need to work together because we’re both deaf, so that’s why she changed her mind about working with me. ARGH. Misconceptions.
I totally understand and empathize with the situation because being deaf and all alone in a class full of hearing students that you don’t know/hang out with is not fun, especially when they don’t ask you to work with them and are excluded. I do get the advantage because I know many of the students from my classes last year or from PH, so I’m comfortable interacting with them due to my connections. I do need to keep in mind that even though I have a CI, I still am deaf, and I cannot forget what it was like to be in that position before, and not treat my deaf classmates the same way the hearing classmates used to treat me.
Today, I’ve seen a lot of faculty/staff/classmates that I knew last year who were surprised that I got the CI, because I didn’t tell anybody that I was going to get the CI, and only made the final decision in June to do so. I didn’t want to tell anybody, because I was afraid that I might chicken out or be pressured into it, and have to answer all the questions about it. I like the element of surprise. But they’ve all been interested in knowing about the CI and how it’s working. The first question usually is “what do you think of it?” and I tell them “I absolutely love it, and it was worth it.”
The cafeteria was another interesting element, but nothing new to report there as I’ve already been to a restaurant a few times…just starting to be able to pick out different voices more.
In other news, I still don’t have my new phone yet, was supposed to get it on Friday. *whine* I admit that I am a technology addict and am just miserable being cut off from my hearing friends. No computer or telephone at my apartment, as things are currently in transit. Just a few more days!
This is definitely going to be an interesting year, that’s for sure. What new sounds will it bring? Only tomorrow will tell.
