Reason #5827469 why I love Eddie Izzard:

Visited the London Olympic Stadium. Took video but will post later. Anyway, 1000 days to the opening of the Para Olympics. I aim to be there
[source]

Okay, so 1000 days to the Paralympics sounds better than 967 days to the Olympics, but the Paralympics don't get anywhere near as much press, and... I can't explain it, but this is ace, okay? I've had a bad day, and this is the ace-ist thing I can think of to post.

(Bad things that happened today included breaking my computer, breaking one of the bank's computers, having to talk to a cashier who's speakers & microphone weren't working, having to carry out a bank transaction via mime (due to lack of speakers & microphone), and hurting my back while doing mime. It was a very energetic mime.)

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Nothing much has happened over the last few days. Today however, I learnt three new things:

1. I learnt that I have a build-up of fluid behind my left eardrum, so now I have to take a nasal spray in the hope that it'll help drain some of it. It'd better, because this spray is horrible.


2. I went to my introduction-to-therapy, where I learnt that I'll be starting Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in two weeks time. Not that I have any idea what will actually happen, but that's life.


3. There is a company that makes yogurt that is called NOM Dairy.

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Dear bank I bank at,

Why do you hate me? I know I'm not your best customer, but you have made a lot of money out of me by way of fees in the past, so it balances out. You know my logic makes sense here.

All that aside, why do you keep insisting that I need to be signed up to telephone banking? I asked you to take my telephone number off your records months ago (which it turns out you didn't, thanks for that) because I can't hear properly. I can just about understand people over the phone if I try, but it's tiring and I make a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that I really can't afford to make when banking.

Can't you do something about this, like maybe putting a note on my file saying that I can't hear properly or something? Anything so that I don't have to explain it every single time I go into the branch. It wouldn't just help me - it would save several of your cashiers from having to hear me complain about it (the one I saw today went from having body language which said "stop whinging" to "oh shit, sorry!" so fast when I said I couldn't hear properly, it was almost funny. Almost.).

No love,
Me


Crossposted to hard_of_hearing - I'm not advertising the community, I swear.

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Seriously, is it really that hard to get subtitles right?

I don't know if it's a fault with the people who code the subtitles, the broadcaster, or the digital TV company, but having subtitles just show up for a fraction of a second (barely long enough to notice, nevermind read) isn't actually useful. If it happens on a big programme (it's happened on both Merlin and Doctor Who this week, for example), it's nearly always sorted by the time the programme gets repeated (normally less than a week later), so I have no idea where the problem actually is.

(This happened loads with last night's Doctor Who special - so much so that I ended up making up my own story. It was probably pretty similar to the actual story, but with much more swearing and a rendition of Craig David's "Walking Away".)

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When I'm dealing with a low point I try to do positive things, so I ended up watching an animal rescue programme featuring a pot-bellied piglet. Unfortunately, the channel showing it never has subtitles available, which is how I ended up hearing the phrase "bacon sandwich" twice in three minutes, even though it was probably never actually said.

I'm a vegetarian, honest!

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1. I can still transcribe things, but only if I concentrate really hard and take a really long time over it. It took me nearly 2 hours to do a 3 and a half minute passage this morning, and I was knackered afterwards. I'm not entirely sure that it's anywhere near accurate either, but there you go.
2. It's still entirely possible for me to have panic-induced asthma attacks, and they still frigging hurt. I was trying to pack my shopping into my bag at the supermarket, when I noticed that a queue was forming behind me, so I kept apologizing. Both the cashier and the customer directly behind me started to tell me it was okay, and I started panicking because I couldn't get my card back in my purse, of all things. While the customer behind me was explaining that this happens to everyone, he touched my arm lightly to ground me, which made me realise just how badly I was panicking. By the time I got out of the supermarket, I pretty much had it under control, but the asthma attack decided it was going to happen anyway. Naturally my inhaler was in my bag - buried under a pile of shopping. This just about proves that cleverness is something that happens to other people.
3. Even when panicking, I still have the mind of a 12 year old. In trying to explain that everything was okay, the customer behind me (while gesturing towards my overflowing bag) said that I had a big package. Yes, my mind went there. Even while panicking.
4. It's likely that I have a thing for umbrellas. Every year, my grandad gets a "Presents For Men" magazine and a "Gifts For The Girls" magazine (by the same company) in the mail. While they are so unbelievably faily (hell, even the titles are faily when compared to each other), I'll still look through them. When looking through the men's one (the design of which includes a lot of dark blues), there's a good chance I'll really want about half the stuff in it, whereas in the girls' women's one (pink, obviously) there's a few things I kinda like and only one thing I really want. Last year, that thing was this light up umbrella (which would have been useless for me, because I'm rarely out when it would be dark enough to make use of it), and this year it's this heart shaped umbrella (which only comes in a colour that I hate with a passion, but if it'd been red it would have been perfect). How odd.

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I wish I could stop being a pain in the arse for two minutes.

Unfortunately, in order to do that, I'm going to have to stop asking people to come up with transcripts for audio and video clips that they post - even when the post is just the clip on it's own and I have no idea what's going on, because the clip relies on people being able to hear to make full sense of it.

Or I could, you know, actually learn that I deserve to understand what's being said like everyone else, and to stop being so self-conscious about not hearing as well as I should. Only that'll never happen, so.


(One of these days, I'm going to be a lot less easily depressed, I swear ♥)

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Recently someone (who has now deleted their blog) made a post about privilege. There were a few problems with it^*, but it was still linked by several people because it had a good metaphor - the writer compared privilege to a gun on a table that can be used against the non-privileged if so desired.

I'd like to propose a new and (in my opinion improved) metaphor: privilege is a knife that the privileged person has had surgically grafted onto them by society.

The privileged person cannot get rid of this knife. Sometimes, they're not even aware that they have the knife - maybe they've had it so long that they forget about it. And that's when they make some small unconscious movement, and they cut someone that they're talking to. They don't mean to - it wasn't something they did on purpose - but it happens.

If the privileged person has enough sense, they keep an eye on the way they move after that, and the nothing of the sort happens again. If not, it keeps happening over and over.

The ones to watch out for, however, are the vindictive types who wonder if they could get away with doing it again. After that, they wonder how deep they can cut the other person. Maybe they even go as far as to wonder if they can kill.

Getting rid of the knives is hugely difficult. It starts with some people wanting rid of their knives, but then they have to convince society that getting rid of the knives is a good idea. The problem is that society won't listen to small groups of people, so the small group has to convince more people. And even when you've got enough people to convince society, you'll still have people who refuse to have theirs removed because it makes them feel superior to other people.

Which is why it feels like we'll never get rid of the knives, I guess.


^*Details of which can be found almost anywhere - if you know where to look.

Why am I the one who has to apologise when I get snippy when people are being unthoughtful?

I mean, come on. Most people who post links will at least give some small description of what it is, so why do people in communities think that embedding videos without any real explaination is okay? Just because someone can understand a post, doesn't mean that they can understand a video - it could be that they can't hear or that they're using a screenreader.

Am I being unreasonable getting upset about this stuff? Maybe, but I am getting hugely pissed off with this trend.

And now I'm going to let people know how much so.



[Edit] After mentioning this in a post where this has happened, someone wrote out a complete transcript of what happens in that video for me. Weirdly, it wasn't the person who made the post who did it.

My hat arrived! Let's have some pictures.

( Me, my hat, and other things )

On the subject of the way I look, I had one of those laugh-or-cry experiences yesterday. There are these three little kids who hang around the area where I live. At a guess, I'd say that the oldest was about 7 years old and the youngest about 4, and they're probably siblings. They play wherever they want and as much as I want to say that an adult's probably looking out for them, you can never see anyone doing so and there's no way you could see them all the time from any of the houses here - the layout of this place is a little weird to say the least.

Personally, I was already worried about their safety before they suddenly decided to start talking to me. I was always taught that talking to strangers wasn't the safest thing to do, and I thought that parents were meant to be more safety-conscious now than when I was younger?

The oldest kid decides that shouting is in order, because I mustn't have noticed that I was being asked anything (this happens a lot, generally).

Oldest kid: *shouts... something*
Me: Pardon?
Oldest kid: What's your name?
Me: Sammie. Why?
Middle kid: *whispers something to oldest kid*
Oldest kid: Are you a boy or a girl?

Oh yeah, let's shout that in the middle of the street. Real polite there. Deciding that, if they're going to ask stupidly impolite questions then they can have an answer that most people don't know what to do with, I settled for "Both" as an answer. Of course, that led to "You can't be both!", to which I merely replied "Can!" before heading for home.

Talking about hearing, did you know that the RNID have set up a service for checking people's hearing? You either phone 0844 800 3838 or go to www.rnid.org.uk/123 and you do a little test. As expected, my left ear didn't do so well (I just checked - it got the worst result possible), and I've been advised to see my GP about it. Because I don't have enough to talk to her about already. Several people have asked me to talk to her because I sometimes have these ridiculously high highs, which make the lows so much worse. And ( this bit's potentially triggering. )

I swear, I need to write less depressing entries.

Someone in this room is listening to Ronan Keating. I don't know what's more embarrassing - them listening to it, or me recognizing it from several metres away when I can barely hear my fingers tapping on the keyboard. Being half-deaf for the win! \o/

Anyway, back to the reason for this post:

I hate clothes shopping. I've just bought a really random top, three pairs of knickers and eight pairs of socks. Well, call it seven pairs of socks - I plan on never wearing one of the pairs, but it came with some of the others, so *shrugs*. It only took a total of half an hour in 2 shops to do all that, so I guess I should be pleased, but still. It feels like half an hour too long for me.

And now I'm going to go home and go back to bed, because someone else has just started with their music that I can hear every word of, and I am not dealing with this crap right now.

I know, I know... You don't really want to hear me whining. I don't want to hear me whining right now.

I don't have the slightest clue why this is happening. My money came into my account today, I get to volunteer tomorrow, I get to see James and Patrick at the weekend. I'm even voting today, although I'm not telling anyone who for. Well, other than to say that I'm most definitely not voting for the BNP. Or UKIP, because their campaign people annoyed the living daylights out of me earlier by making fun of the fact that I couldn't hear them properly, which I should be more annoyed about, but I can't even muster up that much emotion right now.

Stuff it. I'm going to vote, and then I'm going to drown my sorrows (that I shouldn't even have!) in ice-cream.

If I'm about 4 or 5 metres away from someone, and I can not only hear but also recognise the music that they are listening to (Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift, in case you were wondering), and I can't hear all that well...

...Is it possible that they've got their music turned up just a little too loud?

Over the last few days, I've been getting these headaches. For the first time in a long while, they're not down to my eyes having done too much, no... Apparently they're down to a problem with my neck.

I'm not sure I get how that works.

Also, to the nice person earlier who suggested that the only reason I had trouble hearing them was due to the headache: I would like to suggest that you face me next time you say something like that. Mainly because I'd like to know what you're saying at the time so I can tell you how stupid you are being, rather than five minutes after the event when you repeat your theory and then rudely ask "Are you deaf or something?".

Oh, and I punched a wall earlier, so I'm in pain from that too. I'm just that clever.

Yeah, I know, I've been out of contact for a couple of days again. At this point, I should really point you in the direction of my Twitter, which I update at least once a day. I can't promise that any of it will make sense, but at least you'll know that I haven't actually disappeared off the face of the earth.

I've finally got the newest version of my Rainbow Child moodtheme up on Dreamwidth. This was mainly done in order to stop myself from killing someone who decided to be a prat about my hearing.

(Note to random computer course tutor guy: Of course you couldn't tell, that's why I told you - also, if you knew how it worked, you wouldn't have told me that I was doing well, and if you say anything like that in a few weeks' time, I will kick your arse¹.)

Also, I know that my hearing isn't great, but I swear I can hear thunder right now. It's raining like you wouldn't know, and I have no idea where my umbrella is. And I have to go and pay a bill O.O



¹I'm only going to tell you once Dreamwidth - arse is a word. Stop telling me that it isn't, kplzthnx.

For this BADD, I decided to look at my worst experiences of people trying to deal with one of my disabilities - my partial hearing - and see if there was anything (other than the obvious) that connected them. And I think I've found something: common sense and/or common courtesy. Or at least, the complete lack of it.

Below are three things I learnt by the time I was ten, and how three separate people showed that they either didn't learn them or just forgot that they existed for a while.

( 3 simple things )




For a list of all the other BADD posts, go here!

I know I'm posting a lot today (and I'll stop after this I promise), but I just found something hugely useful for learning fingerspelling in British Sign Language.

Introducing the Fingerspelling Practice Tool!



[Edit #1] One of the words that came up was rainbow \o/
[Edit #2] Of course finger came up XD
[Edit #3a] I keep mixing up my Ks and Ps :(
[Edit #3b] And my Us and Ss, but I totally blame that on the video angle.
[Edit #4] The word lion was followed by the word car. I can't even begin to explain how much that amused me.
[Edit #5] Ho-lee shit, I'm actually ~learning~ here. Or, at least, I must be, because it's not taking me five or so tries to recognise words any more. And I've only been at this for about half an hour!
[Edit #6] All these edits must be getting annoying - I'll stop now.


PS: Yes, that's my new tag for stuff relating to my hearing. Not funny, not clever, but the best I can come up with.

• No-one is going to take me seriously when I say that Lush's Chox Away soap smells like chocolate, mint and Play Doh.
• I can panic about anything if given five minutes and no-one to talk to.
• Reading Good Omens in less than 5 hours is completely possible.
• The easy way for me to get porn star style hair is to wash it, go to bed without drying it and have a nightmare.

Also, there is a free taster for a British Sign Language course on the 14th May. I want to go, because this could be five shades of useful to me if my hearing goes any further downhill. At the same time, this involves interacting with other people - people who will probably assume that I can hear fine at that.

Oh look, a decision. I guess you all know what's coming...

Poll #1390616
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

Should I go to the taster session?

I've only just heard about this (for this year at least), and... I don't know, should I do it?

For those not quite in the know, I am deaf in one ear (my left one, just in case you ever meet me), along with my depression/memory problems/etc (which I've been told count).

My main concern isn't whether I have the right to make such a post, but more of how such a post will come across generally - I'm not the world's greatest writer, after all.

Of course, that only means one thing... POLL!

Poll #1388591 Blogging Against Disablism Day
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

Should I do it?

Which should I write about?