Deer Poop!

I’m alive! These have been challenging times for everyone—the Covid-19 pandemic being only one of many events to kick off a new “Roaring ‘20s." I also chose to pursue a Master of Science degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Human-Computer Interaction. I just graduated in August and am coming up for air at long last.

I recently discovered several old articles that I never published… oops!

Here’s one misunderstanding that happened at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020!

~~~

Since COVID-19 started, I have been wearing my hearing aids less and less…. This has led to more conversational mishaps at home. Here is just one example…

Dad completed his annual trek up Wheeler Peak, New Mexico’s tallest (13,161 ft) mountain, the night before. I was slowly waking up and perusing the news while waiting for my coffee.

Dad, who had already been up for four hours, amped up with who knows how many cups of coffee, bounces over to the table with something in his hand. “I brought you a piece of deer poop!”

“... Eeeew!" ‘What is so fascinating about this deer poop? I think.

Dad tilts his head, “That’s not the reaction I was hoping for.”

The object in his hand is big, white, and shiny. Deer poops are neither big, nor white, nor shiny. 

“Wait, what is that?”

“It’s a piece of quartz from deer poop,” Dad said again.

“Deer poop?”

“Wheeler Peak!”

The penny dropped and I understood. “Oh! Quartz from Wheeler Peak is much better than deer poop. Thank you.”

I needed waaaaay more coffee. And my hearing aids!

The Talk, Part III

I should know better. I have lived on this wonderful Earth for 24 years—I really, really should know better. Alas, I need to write The Talk, Part III!

Why am I so melodramatic about this? My first The Talk article evolved from a 2013 high school assignment where the class was tasked to write a short memoir in 2nd person. I hate writing in 2nd person, but it does get across a sense of shared drama and angst with the readers. I chose to write about one of the defining moments of my life—the lecture and heavy disappointment from my parents after my dog chewed my hearing aids when I was eight.

Fast forward five years, three hearings aids upgrades, and a new dog later, I wrote The Talk, Part II based on leaving the hearing aids in a dog accessible zone. The new dog, Orion, discovered he had a taste for earwax too!

I should have learned my lesson then. Keep the hearing aids out of any and all dog zones at all possible costs. And yet…one hearing aid upgrade later with the same dog, I need to write The Talk, Part III!

To be fair, I may have been lulled into complacency while at grad school, living away from home. When I am home, I let the dog sleep with me because I’m a pushover for his puppy brown eyes. I always put my hearing aids on the way too dog-accessible bed side table—which coincidentally happens to be the same place I left my hearing aids in The Talk, Part II—I really have learned nothing since then!

The Talk, Part III

Thanksgiving came faster than you could blink. One moment you were reading the umpteenth research paper in your tiny student apartment and the next you were reading the umpteenth plus one research paper at home.

Reading the research papers was vital to complete the big research proposal due at the end of the year, but Thanksgiving is a much closer looming deadline to worry about. Mom has every meal planned Monday to Friday for Thanksgiving week with no deviations allowed. Holiday food holds a special sacredness, especially to the dog!

When you woke up this morning, you blinked away visions of citations and diagrams as Mom dragged you out the door to get the produce and fish for tomorrow’s big dinner. You had just enough time to grab the keys, the wallet, the mask, and to look vaguely human for your small-town grocery. You can’t help but feel that you’ve forgotten something though…

This is the same grocery run that you have done a million times before, but everything feels muted. While you ordered the big salmon for Thanksgiving, you realize you never grabbed the hearing aids from your bedside table. Oops!

You’re sure the hearing aids are safe on bedside table. Nothing will happen. The dog is locked in your room, but he has toys, food, and water. Everything will be just fine.

You and Mom return the car laden with enough grocery to last this week and the next. You unload the groceries—the salmon, the spinach, the feta, the beans, the bread. You release the dog once the front door is closed. He joyously greets you before he runs to greet Mom.

Just as you were about to finish putting away the groceries, something glimmers on your bedroom floor. Did you drop something last night? A pin? A needle? A thingamabob? 

No. Something much worse.

The hearing aids!

One hearing aid remains safe on the bedside table, but the other is on the floor in two separate pieces—the hearing case itself and the tubing.

The good news? The hearing aid case, the big money, high technology bit, is intact and unharmed. 

The bad news? The tubing is completely mangled with bite marks and the ear-mold has vanished without a trace. While not as devastating as the any damage to the hearing aid case itself, replacing the tubing and ear-mold requires a trip to the audiologist.

The dog comes back to see what was taking you so long. As you look into his soulful brown eyes, you know with absolute certainty that there was no one to blame but yourself.

Never, ever, ever leave the hearing aids where the dog can get them. There should be no reason for The Talk, Part IV!

Look at this face! Does this look like the face of a little dog that would ever get in trouble in his life? That knocks over trash cans? That eats hearing aids and ear wax? No way this little dog with that face could do it!

Conversation Mishaps II!

My mom and I were driving 75 miles per hour down the highway (that is the speed limit). The car is a terrible place to converse, but half of our deepest conversations occur when we’re stuck in the car for two hours. We have argued, debated politics, and told stories.

On this day, we were talking about my job and school prospects during COVID-19. We have discussed this a million times before and we will likely discuss it a million times more! There was a lot to talk about, especially when there are layers upon layers of planning, contingencies, and the next apocalyptic event!

Near the end of the conversation, Mom says, “You have a lot of boo… opportunities.”

I tilted my head and guessed the syllables I did not hear, “Boolean?”

“Beautiful! You have a lot of beautiful opportunities.”

“Boo…lean?” I tried again.

“No, brilliant! You have brilliant opportunities!” We also shouted a lot in the car.

“Ohh. Boolean would work too! Most of these opportunities are either true or false statements.”

“You’re a nerd!”

Indeed. There’s no turning back from the dark side now!

Essential Workers Appreciation

First, I hope everyone is in good health, good fortune, and relatively sane. If not, I wish health, fortune, and sanity will come your way!

Since the Coronavirus lockdown started, essential workers’ roles, traditionally low-paying customer service jobs, have risen to the same level of urgency and potential danger as first responders. Even with all the newfound appreciation for these workers—delivery, janitorial, grocery, restaurant—there can never be enough respect and kindness for all that they do.

And if you think about it, essential workers have always been essential. Always.

Essential workers keep everything running. Janitors, maintenance workers, and waste workers make sure that our environment does not fall into disrepair. Grocery story and restaurant workers literally feed us. Nurses and doctors do their best to keep us alive and healthy. Emergency workers operate under crises to save as many people as possible. Drivers and transportation workers get vital supplies from point A to point B. And there are so many more that still play a critical role.

So to all the essential workers — thank you. Thank you for all the work you do especially under crisis, threats from the virus and rude people!

it’s not just the running of society that the essential workers maintain, it’s also the community which is just as important as the day-to-day operations. Essential workers have ALWAYS been important to smooth operations, just unrecognized.

To that end, I want to shout out to one particular grocery story clerk for the services provided about six years ago.

During my junior year of high school, my parents and I took a week to visit colleges. It was a fun trip where we literally drove down the east coast and visited all the colleges that I was considering. Of course, we researched and prepared questions for each college. We signed up for tours and I brought my bluetooth clip-on microphone so that I could hear the tour guide better.

Our first stop was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And that’s when I was introduced to the delightful New England weather — rain! As a New Mexican, I normally love rain and since my parents were familiar with the area, we packed accordingly. Unfortunately, rain does lead to the itsy-bitsy issue of water and hearing equipments. Everything would be fine as long as I didn’t land in a puddle. We went to the first college in Cambridge and joined a tour. The tour guide was lovely, knew all about the campus, and when I went up in the beginning to ask her to wear the microphone, she was very agreeable. Everything’s great!

Unfortunately, the clip-on was not secure enough on the tour guide’s shirt and as we were walking outside from one building to the next, the microphone slipped from her shirt and fell to ground just inches from one of the many growing puddles!

The tour guide make a quick save and it was not on the ground for more than a second. I told her it was fine and still working and we continued. But there was still a problem. This was only the first of like 10 tours we planned to go on and if the microphone fell off on the first tour, the chances of it not happening again were not good.

The easiest solution is to turn the clip-on microphone into a necklace. I even have a fancy-schmancy neck-cord that came with the microphone … sadly still in New Mexico. None of us had a string to fashion a necklace out of so we went to the nearest grocery store and stopped by the balloon station.

My mom and I explained the situation to the attendant and asked if we could cut some balloon strings for the microphone. Not only did the attendant cut the balloon strings to the appropriate length, she also asked what colleges I was visiting and cut the strings in those school colors!

It was thanks to that balloon attendant that I could enjoy the rest of my college visits without worrying about the microphone. Without her, not only would I be unable to focus on learning about different colleges, but likely would have lost or damaged the teeny tiny microphone in the middle of some huge unknown college campus.

So thank you to that grocery store person in Massachusetts and thank you to all the essential workers out there!

This is Water - Piano Notes

This is an assignment that reflects on what ‘water’ is. It is based on a commencement speech by David Wallace Foster who tells a story “This is Water” (video found here).

The general story starts with two young fish swimming along in the water when they pass an older fish that says “Good morning folks! How’s the water today?” The fishes continue swimming on their way when one of the young fish turns to the other and asked, “What is water?” 

Reflecting on what is ‘water’ is reflecting on what seems so obvious and all-encompassing that it does not bear recording and thus is not … obvious. Here is one of my ‘water’ moments:

Hearing people can hear an actual musical note instead of a dull hammer thunk when listening to the higher notes on the piano. This was news to me when I was listening to Fur Elise for the hundredth time and only hearing half of the notes intersperse with ‘thunk thunk thunk.’

I know that there are sounds that I cannot hear without hearing aids but I recognized them with hearing aids because people talked about them regularly (fire alarms and bird whistles to name two). There are still some sounds that I know about that I cannot hear with hearing aids because they are too high for my ears to catch (i.e. an ’s’ sound in words still sounds like a gap of silence, ‘sh’ still sounds like a breath of noisy air).

Even with that knowledge, it still never occurred to me that hearing people actually liked listening to Fur Elise played on the higher notes of the piano - I've always played it one or two octaves lower. When I hear the higher notes on the piano, I'm not hearing the notes but the sound of the hammer hitting the string, the key hitting the piano. It's both a cool thing and a reminder. It's cool, because I hear something that normal people don't hear--by not hearing the high frequency, the lower frequencies pop out more--and a reminder because I can't take what I hear for granted and assume everyone else is hearing the same thing.

On a similar note, the first time I went to a Deaf Camp (age 8) coming from a 99.9% mainstream hearing school, it was an eyeopener for me. Much as the fish did not know what "water" was, I did not realized that not all hearing loss is the same, not all communication methods work for everyone, and what is the norm for one person is completely alien to another.

Latest Hearing Mishap - A Long Chain of Misunderstandings!

A friend and I were playing foosball at the beginning so it was a bit loud, but this is the longest chain of miscommunication I've had in a while!

Me                                                                               Foosball Friend

“So where are you heading next?”

                                                                             “I’m going to Ching.”

“... Ching?”  

                                                                        “Ng [pronounced 'ing'].”

“Oh, Ng.”

                                                                                               “No, Ink.”

“... Ink?”

                                                                                                    “Tink!”

“Tink ... as in Tinkle?”

                                                                                                  “DINK!”

“Oh Dink, that place right down the block?”

                                                                                   “Yes, that place!”

REU!

This summer I went to a fantastic internship in Washington D.C. at Gallaudet University! My internship was a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). For undergrads interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) subjects, I highly recommend looking at REU’s for any curious student. They are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and cover all areas of research at many universities. REUs are fantastic opportunities to learn and explore different areas of science.

My REU at Gallaudet was called Accessible Communication in Technology (AICT) led by Dr. Raja Kushalnagar, Dr. Christian Vogler, Ms. Linda Kozma-Spytek, and Mr. Norman Williams. There were 15 students on six teams. Each team had two mentors and a graduate assistant. The undergrad population was composed of aspiring audiologists, psychologists, and fellow computer scientists!

My partner and I studied captioning latency specifically in captioned telephones. We wondered how does the delay between the audio of someone speaking and a live captioner keeping up with the speaker affect the understanding by the deaf or hard-of-hearing listener.

Other teams were also working on interesting projects. In no particular order, the projects they worked on are:

• Hearing Assistive Technology and how users use them such as phone apps in restaurants, hearing assistive devices in theaters. 
• Punctuation in captions and how the absence of punctuation or correctness of captions aid or disrupt user’s viewing. 
• Voice assistance devices, testing the feasibility of substituting voice instructions with ASL instructions. Imagine waking up a computer just by signing 'Hey!'
• Captioning interfaces such as how long each line of captions should be and how fast should captions go - they tried to find the Goldilocks zone such that the captions were not too long, not too short, not too slow, and not too fast! 
• Captions in virtual reality and not only added captions to a few virtual videos, but also added indicators to show who was speaking.

For a full scope on each of these projects, visit the AICT website. You can also see past years’ projects too!

I learned so much from working on this REU, but not just about computer science. With this REU, I was living and working at Gallaudet University, https://www.gallaudet.edu. For someone who was mainstreamed like me, it was an awesome chance to see what going to a Deaf University and living in the Deaf World would be like. The rooms were already fitted with flashing fire-alarms and doorbells that flickered the lights. Nearly everyone I ran into signed using American Sign Language (ASL). The fastest ASL I learned was coffee— because I was waking up three hours earlier than normal coming from the west coast to the east coast— the cafeteria lady would ask (sign) what kind of drink I wanted!

I loved the days where I did not have to speak, but still communicated regularly with people. It was freeing. Many people signed and spoke at the same time, especially in mixed company. That’s the level of ASL fluency I aspire to because it’s one thing to learn another language, it’s another to think and communicate simultaneously in two languages!

This REU was an experience. I learned so much beyond the scope of the original REU, expanding my computer knowledge, practicing ASL, and interacting with people from all walks of life with different hearing abilities.

Are you ready for an REU? Go check them out!

Take a Risk!

Originally written March 14, 2019 (Happy Pi Day!)

Take a Risk

Last year, I took a social dance class in college. Not only did I learned waltz, salsa, swing, and tango, but I also learned many life lessons. My teacher, Richard Powers, gives halftime talks to the first social dance class that covers not only lessons for making the most out of dancing, but making the most out of work, career, and life.

One of many things I took to heart from my social dance class is that it is okay to take risks — encouraged even. Taking a risk and trying something new might end in failure, but it can be fun and even lead to something great!

Taking a risk does not mean being careless. All dancing classes have safety suggestions that should not be ignored. For example, it is common sense for partners to make sure they do not run into other dancing couples; it is highly recommended to avoid dislocating or spraining a joint; and communication is vital in any relationship. Without communication — spoken, visual, or touch — any attempt of trying something new will fall flat.

Communicating with a partner can be as simple as saying “Let’s try it!” or really listening to each other’s non-verbal cues, watching for feedback, and learning from past experience. If a partner looks queasy after a double turn, then a triple turn will not make it any better. If a partner is smiling after that leap that did not turn out quite right, then it is okay to try it again. Communication shows when it’s OK to take risks and how far to push the envelope.

It’s always a risk learning something new, whether it is a new move or a completely new dance. Rarely will anyone get it right on the first try. In fact, even though practice makes perfect, it is still possible to mess up even the simplest step. The key  here is getting up and keep dancing. Embrace mistakes as they happen. Repeat them if they make you smile. Change them if you feel if they could be better.

Asking someone to dance is another risk. It can be nerve-wracking to approach an unknown dancer. The worst that can happen is they don’t want to dance. That’s okay - they’re not the only dancer in the room. Otherwise, they say yes and there are two possible outcomes. One, maybe they are more experienced and you’re afraid to be left in the dust. That’s okay. Now you have a chance to make yourself a better dancer by trying to match your partner’s skills, to learn something new. Two, maybe they are less experienced and you feel like you are floundering. That’s okay too. Now you have a chance to flounder, to learn together, and to make something great, — maybe even start a new dance craze. Take a chance! Ask someone new to dance!

My class required us to go out dancing for homework—and this was a challenge for someone socially anxious like me.  My panic attacks always happen at the door to the dance floor. It is the point where I have a choice between dancing and having fun or leaving to try another day. Thoughts that are running through my head start negatively — “I don’t know enough,” “I’ll make a fool out of myself,” or “I’m not dressed for this.” That point at the door is the perfect time to challenge myself to take a risk. I switch gears and change my negative thoughts to “I don’t know enough, but I’ll learn from this experience,” “I’ll make a fool out of myself, but I’ll have fun doing it,” and “I’m not dressed for this, but who cares?” Sometimes it is easier to stop thinking and open that door and wing it. 
          It’s time to take a risk!

An Object I Wish I could Lose - Hearing Aids Of Course!

          A little over a year ago, I took an English story writing class and everyday we had a 5-minute writing prompt where we tried to write as much as we could without overthinking it. One day, my teacher asked us to write about either something we lost that we wish we could find or something we wish we could lose but cannot. There were so many good stories that came out of this, some were completely fictional and some were based on my peers’ lives. 

          The first time through this prompt, I wrote about a sentimental pin I had lost in high school around Christmastime. Then the second time through this prompt, I thought a little bit more about the second half of the prompt. What is an object I wish I could lose?

          The answer hit me like a lightning bolt. It might have come even faster if I had scratched my head and upset my hearing aids’ delicate sensibilities.

          Without further ado, enjoy.

An object you wish you could lose - Hearing aids

          Once the little girl called them party ears because they had glitter and were colorful. Then, she grew up and loathed them. She did not remember calling them party ears anymore. Instead, she called them the worst thing on Earth - hearing aids.

          Hearing aids. When they were on, they screeched and screamed. They tattled on and on, re-echoing sounds the little girl could hear, and inserting new sounds - sounds that the little girl supposedly could not hear. The hearing aids were like gossipers. They heard things, whispered them — more like screamed — to the little girl, added their own little embellishments, a wind here, a screech there, a howl here. The little girl hated these embellishment. She hated the little gossipers behind her ears.

          Every once in a while, the vile hearing aids beeped loudly to say the battery needed to be replaced. As the battery ran closer to being dead, the hearing aids beeped more frequently. The little girl hated how the hearing aids complained about low battery. Why should she care if the hearing aids are dead or not? At least when they were dead, they were quiet. 

          If the battery did not die of its own will, the little girl would turn it off. When the hearing aids were off, blessed silence would reign, but it would be too quiet. The bulky ear molds that went into her ears acted as earplugs when the hearing aids were off. And the ear molds never fit quite right. It felt like the shirt that was just a bit too snug in the armpits, or the tights with the knotty ends tickling the toes in all the wrong places. 

          The little girl cannot take off the dead hearing aids. If she takes off the hearing aids, the teacher will tell her parents and her parents would tell her to wear them. Her parents will say things like “You’ll hear your teachers better. You’ll hear your friends better.” But the teachers just taught from the book. And her ‘friends’ were too loud and never made sense to her anyway. Why should she listen? Why did she need the hearing aids to listen? The little girl listened to her parents. She wore her hearing aids, suffering and counting the minutes, the second for the school bell to ring so she could take them off without reprimand. She still hated the hearing aids.

          Everyday, the little girl wore the hearing aids. Some days, the hearing aids were heavy. It felt like the tube connecting her ear molds to the small chip behind her ears would cut through her ears. It hurt. She wanted to take them off and throw them in a ditch somewhere, never to see them again. The gully behind her house would be the perfect place to dispose of them. If she waited until monsoon season, then the rain will flood the gully and destroy the hearing aids beyond all repairs! She would never see nor wear the hearing aids ever again!

          But that would not make her parents happy.

          Her parents tried to tell her that the hearing aids do not make her different from the other children, they are supposed to help her fit in. The little girl knew she was different. She knew that the hearing aids mark that difference somehow, but why should she try to fit in? Why should the hearing aids help her fit in? She thought she spoke normally. She thought she heard all she needed. She thought the other kids were weird for being so loud and talkative. Being deaf did not matter to the little girl.    
          Only the hearing aids mattered and they were the bane of her existence.

          It would seem that nothing would convince the girl to wear the hearing aids happily. The sounds that came through them were ugly to the girl no matter how much it helped her understand the world and the language around her. Perhaps it was just not meant to be. Perhaps the little girl preferred a life of familiar sounds unfiltered by the hearing aids, not caring about the sounds she did not hear. 
            Except …

            Once, the little girl was walking to the bus stop and it was one of the rare times she wore her hearing aids outside. The bus came early in the morning and the little girl was barely awake. She walked with her eyes closed, knowing the path to the bus by heart. She heard a whistle, a song. It confused her. The little girl had never heard anything like it before. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was alone next to a copse of aspens and pines. She never heard that sound before, even though she spends a lot of time outside. Then, realization struck. The little girl had read about birds chirping and singing. She had read stories that romanticized birdsongs — Atticus, from To Kill a Mockingbird, said it was a sin to kill a mockingbird because it songs were so beautiful — but never before had the little girl heard it before. Never before had she believed it was so beautiful.

          The birdsong redeemed the hearing aids. So while her parents talk, her teachers drone, and her friends yap, the little girl listened to the birdsongs. The hearing aids are still heavy, whiny, clunky inventions of the devil, but they added something beautiful to the girl’s worldview. They opened the gate to the sounds the hearing took for granted, the sounds that people dismiss in a normal setting, but are no less beautiful.

New Look!

Time to give HearChloe a fresh look. Like the new orange?

Blogs coming up: a short story on why I wear hearing aids, and motivational avocado. They'll make sense when I publish it! :)

A Hearing Impaired Dude Walks into a Bar by Edan Armas

I have been writing this blog for 6 years now! I’m amazed it’s been that long!

And now it’s my first time having a guest writer on my blog! Edan Armas is a fellow Stanford Senior, majoring in Human Biology with a Concentration in Neurophenomenology of Emotion. He’s also an amazing writer and has a powerful voice. He grew up in Roselle, IL with hearing aids and part of a big family.

Recently, Edan introduced the Stanford Spoken Word Collective and recited his own poem at the Stanford’s Family Weekend Entertainment Extravaganza! The Entertainment Extravaganza represents a small sample of Stanford’s amazing art groups and artists. Edan literally had the audience eating out of his hands. His poem and voice just blew us all away. It was awesome!

I’m so glad Edan agreed to share his poem with my blog readers, because it really resonated with me. I don't go out to bars often but Edan's experience translates well to most noisy situations. His voice in the poem is an amazing and fresh way of looking at things.

Without further adieu, here is his amazing poem.

A Hearing Impaired Dude Walks into A Bar
so a hearing impaired dude walks into a bar and
is the joke
tonight
as I make my way through the mass of bodies
I know I have a limited number of opportunities
to ask people to repeat themselves before I become other
so I hold my hearing loss in my hands like a drink,
careful not to spill
and grimacing every time I have to take a sip

it is new year’s eve
the air is soaked with music
either Cardi B’s “I Like It” or maybe that one Havana song
but I am too embarrassed to ask which
content instead with bending my body to the muffled bass
as I silently pray for the countdown
because it will be the only set of lyrics I will
be able to shout along with everyone else

the day I turned 21
the bar was supposed to be this quintessential coming of age experience
but instead it was like rediscovering the dentist
because
1) it sucked
and
2) every conversation I had was like pulling teeth
people having to put their mouths so close to my ears
my hearing aids would come away wet with the
condensation of their tequila breath

it is here i realize that all those stories about
meeting the love of your life in a bar
probably never included someone like me
which doesn’t bother me all that much
considering these types of environments
are practically grad schools for able-bodied
frat boys who can’t seem to hear the word “no” anyway

my friends say
“alright so the bar is not your scene”
but here’s the thing
i am hearing impaired like i am latino
mixed, not quite one or the other
where identifying with either is always work
so i want to work on this
crawl into a beer garden and
plant a new story for deafness

i want to walk into the cologne fumes
of The Patio, dap a tech bro and say
tonight, both of us are going to have difficulty enunciating

i want to ask and ask people to repeat themselves
and ask again when i don’t hear it
because i cannot relearn damaged hair cells
but maybe i can rediscover what it’s like to be
unashamed of asking for what i need

and maybe
in the far and distant future
i will work as a bartender in a club
just so i can create a drink called
“WHAT?”
and confuse everybody

but until then i will dance alone
in my corner of the bar
my body owed to nothing
except the sound i create for myself

Pizza == P-Sets?

Here’s what happens when you misread lips! 

Wednesday night and people are gathering in the lobby for the weekly house social. The house social is a low-stress get-together with food and lots of people coming and going. It’s not too noisy because there’s rarely more than 20 people in the lobby at a time. The crowd does get bigger after the organizer sent out a dorm wide blast announcing, “Pizza in the lobby!”

I went downstairs to socialize, even though I was stressing out about all my p-sets — several papers to read and write; two classes were kicking my butt; and it had been a long day and it was not over yet!

Bernie was the first person I ran into. He waved at me, gestured at the pizza, and said, “Hey look! There’s so much pizza!” And indeed there was. There were like 15 boxes!

But that wasn’t what I heard. What I heard was, “Hey, I have too much p-sets!”

Enthusiastically, I responded, “I know! I have so many p-sets too! Two papers due Friday!”

Bernie tilted his head, but went along with it, “Same here. Do you want pizza to help you study?” 

Then my brain clicked. I laughed and explained to him what I thought I heard. Life moved on. It could have been worse. He could have been talking about p-sets and I hear pizza, yet there would be no pizza around! That would have been uber disappointing! I love pizza 🍕😃!

Hearing aids are like underwear!

Hearing aids are like underwear — highly encouraged but not required. They’re good to have, useful, and should be cleaned, but sometimes you want to go commando! Much like bras — though nice to feel supported — going without a bra feels very freeing! To wear or not to wear? 

The most common question I get asked is “Do you wear your hearing aids all the time?” My unfiltered answer is “H - E - double toothpick NO!”

Wearing hearing aids is a personal choice. Some people try hearing aids and decide “Nope, I don’t like hearing aids at all.” Or they might not want to miss a single moment of their day without hearing aids and so they slap on their hearing aids first thing in the morning and it is the last thing to come off at night. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of “What do I feel like today?” My feelings on hearing aids are somewhere in the middle.

I don’t wear my hearing aids when I fall asleep. Hearing aids and water never go well together and that means no hearing aids in or near the shower, the pool, or the ocean.  If I’m reading something, I’ll probably not wear my hearing aids so I can concentrate more. One person I know calls the ability to take his hearing aids out to focus his “super power.”

If I’m taking my dog out for a walk, well I might wear hearing aids … like if I want to hear birds singing or am worried about excessive traffic, I’ll wear hearing aids. Or let’s say there’s been an unprecedented amount of rattlesnakes on a trail, then yeah, I’ll definitely wearing hearing aids! Of course, even with my hearing aids on, I can’t tell a difference between a rattlesnake’s rattle and crickets chirping, but at least I get some advance notice!  But most of the time I don’t really want to wear hearing aids when I walk, because it’s freeing for me.

Hearing aids do help a lot. They amplify some of the missing sounds. They can be very useful, especially in communicating with hearing peers. If I’m talking to someone, I’ll probably wear my hearing aids, but if I’m running and apt to get really, really sweaty, probably not. I wore my hearing aids running one time in TX, and the battery cases got rusty from the excessive humidity.  Remember when I said hearing aids and water do not mix!

I’ll always wear my hearing aids to classes or in situations where I know I will encounter trouble understanding what’s going on. If I’m meeting with friends in the dining hall, I’ll wear hearing aids. If I’m going to the dining hall by myself, wearing hearing aids depends on how I wake up that morning. Will the background noises and clattering trays make me cranky? If yes, then I will not put them in. Especially if it’s a Monday.

Throughout my childhood, my mom was told I should have the hearing aids on during all my waking hours. That might work for some people, but not for me. True, wearing hearing aids during all waking hours probably helped me get use to wearing hearing aids. Background noises, whistling winds, hair brushing against the microphone, can all be annoying sounds. Listening isn’t just about hearing the sounds, but also about focusing on lip movements, facial expressions, filling in the blanks for those sounds my hearing aids can’t amplify enough for me, and mentally converting all these inputs to something intelligible that I can work with. It is exhausting and noise is the biggest energy sucker. Sometimes I like quietude.

As hearing aid technology improves over time, I find myself wearing them more often. I do believe everyone should give hearing aids a chance, but I believe hearing aids are just that, an aid. They are not the be all, end all of listening methods. I use them when I need them. I try to keep them with me so when I do need them, I can put them on. Sometimes I forget to take them with me though and that has caused issues. Other senses help with communication, especially vision.  If I’m not wearing my hearing aids, I be sure to turn up the “volume” on visual cues, such as speech reading and using ASL. To paraphrase Hamlet, “To wear?  Or not to wear?  That is the question.”

The Talk, Part II

Many of you might have read my high school essay assignment written in second person called The Talk, which was one of my very first blog posts (May of 2013). 

A short summary of The Talk: in third grade, my dog, Oreo, chewed up my hearing aids. My parents were disappointed and told me to take better care of the hearing aids. I loathed the hearing aids and did not care that the dog chewed them up, but was still upset that my parents were disappointed in me anyway.

There were a couple of lessons I learned that summer evening - 1) just because you absolutely loathed something does not mean you can let the dog eat it, 2) hearing aids are very expensive equipments and needed to be treated as such, 3) under no circumstances, put the hearing aids where the dog can get it!

We pick up the story ten years later:

The Talk, Part II

You took lessons learned from “The Talk” to heart. You never left the hearing aids unattended where they could get lost and whenever you did lose your hearing aids, they were usually in someplace that was really obvious and secure, but would be the last place you would ever look for them!

Sadly, Oreo died a little over a year ago. He was a good dog who never lost his taste for earwax as evidenced by how he loved to lick Dad’s ears.

You welcomed a new member to your family last summer. His name is Orion and he’s smaller and blacker than Oreo, but still just as sweet.  And mischievous. He likes earwax but not nearly as much as he likes feet. Honestly, socks and shoes are in more danger than any hearing aids. He’s ten months old and you have not have a single incidence where he even sniffed at the hearing aids.

Until last night…

You took your hearing aids off for the day and placed them on your bedside table, in your official hearing aid plate, also known as a spoon holder.  This is supposed to be a relatively safe place as Orion had shown no interest in sniffing around there though he does join you each night on the bed. You joined your family in the living room for a Sherlock marathon. Everyone's relaxed. Dad drifted off to sleep in his chair, Mom knitted a belated Christmas present, Orion napped on the little comfy chair Mom made for Oreo.

Orion got up from his comfy seat and wandered off for a bit. When he returned after a few minutes, you thought he had a bone. Good for him you thought. Wait … that tiny little bone is a little too shiny to be a rawhide … noooooo!

You dove for Orion as if he had chocolate in his mouth. He stopped chewing, but it took some force to get his jaw to release the hearing aid. You freed the lone hearing aid and hastily turned it on. You waited — one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, do do do doooo do do do doooo, wah. The hearing aid squealed a bit and started broadcasting the air as they always do before your ears get use to it.

You let out a sigh of relief … until Mom asked where was the other hearing aids. Your heart jumped back up to pounding level. You ran for your bedroom while praying the dog did not have enough time or interest to swallow the other hearing aids.

You reach the bedside table and looked where the hearing aids were supposed to be … and you see the other hearing aid resting innocently there. You let out another sigh of relief and sagged on the bed as the rest of the heart pounding tension left your body.

Both hearing aids were safe. You put them on a shelf that was four feet high, well above the reach of Orion. When you finally went to bed that night, Orion joined you and snuggled into your side as if he never tasted a hearing aid in his life. You mentally repeated the last lesson you learned from The Talk while an Elvis Presley song went on in your head:

You look like an angel

Walk like an angel

Talk like an angel

But I got wiiiiiise

You’re the devil in disguise!

(You’re the) Devil in Disguise by Elvis Presley

 

Isn't it obvious?

Every quarter, my dorm invites residents to speak at an event called the Real Roble as the dorm’s name is Roble. It is like a mini-TED talk where each speaker gets 5 minutes to talk about their passion.  There were so many good speakers in our dorm: someone who went above and beyond to reduce their carbon footprint, another who re-introduced Vines and how they share stories and comedy, and another who trained for half-marathons.

People are cool and Real Roble only shows a small fraction of my dorm alone. During Real Roble, people here tell stories that you would only find if you reach out to that person and listen to their story. Before I tell you my Real Roble story, I challenge you to find someone you don’t know very well and learn their story.

Real Roble!

Hi! I’m Chloe. Some of you already know me because I’m the RCC [Resident Computer Consultant, aka dorm IT person] that helped set up your wifi. Some of you know me because I’m the orange girl running through the hall so that I won’t be late for class. Oh and I’m also deaf. Is it not obvious? I thought it was!

I grew in a town that only had one high school and one middle school. We all grew up together and everyone knew each other more or less. So everyone knows I’m deaf, right?

So because I’m deaf, I brought a microphone to school everyday and gave it to each of my teachers. I needed that microphone to hear my teacher, otherwise everything goes over my head. I just can’t understand the teacher without it!

I hated the microphone. I still do! The microphone had horrible sound quality and headache inducing feedback. It is extremely sensitive and sometimes it amplified the teachers’ clothes more than their voice! But the thing I hated most about the microphone was that no one else needed it. I was the only one in my 1000+ person high school who needed a microphone. I was the only deaf person in my school.

Anyway, there was this boy in class a year younger than me, I’ll call him Pi. For three years, Pi and I had been in the same orchestra class. He was a violinist and I was a cellist. I gave the microphone to my orchestra teacher everyday. My senior year, I did not take orchestra, but I took AP Calculus. Pi was also in AP Calculus. Of course, I gave the microphone to my Calc teacher.

Then one day in AP Calc, we had a group project. I was with Pi and one other girl. I took the microphone from my teacher and put it in the center so that it could pick up all three of our voice. Pi looked at me and asked, “What do we need this for?”

"…What?!!”

I couldn’t believe it! We knew each other for three years! And every day, I went up to the front of the class to give the teacher my microphone in front of him. And every day, he had no idea what it was for!

I thought that it was obvious! That the microphone means deaf, that deafness was something obvious, that you could take one look at me or listen to my voice and know I was deaf.

Then I thought, maybe deafness is not obvious, not even to people who had known me a long time. So what should I tell him? How do I tell him something that I thought he knew for three years?

I could make something up - maybe say I’m an obsessive overachiever who records every single moment of lecture to go over later. It would be an interesting story and then I didn’t have to say that I’m deaf.

I could say that, but no I told him the truth. Why? I complained about the microphone, but I don’t really complain about being deaf. I’d even go so far as to say I like being deaf. Sure it has drawbacks - I can’t hear birds whistling without my hearing aids, I ask people to repeat things a LOT - but it also my normal. I never had “good” hearing. 

There are also some benefits too. If I ever get stuck in a boring conversation or lecture, I can turn off my hearing aids and pretend I’m listening. And there’s a really cool culture that’s both silent and noisy called the Deaf world! It has its own language and culture that is completely different from hearing culture and it is just so cool.

So, I told Pi the truth -- that I am deaf and I need the microphone to hear better. Now Pi knows I’m deaf and I know that deafness is not obvious. I have to tell people I’m deaf. Maybe you can guess why I’m doing the Real Roble talk!

Confidence

As I was preparing for finals, I attended a stress seminar where the aim was to teach you how to look at stress in a less stressful way.  While it was geared towards students frantically studying for finals, it was so relatable that I could draw many parallels to other stressful situations in my own life.

The three things the instructor emphasized we needed to remember just before finals are:

1. You are not alone!
2. You got this!
3. You are worthy!  You are loved, even if you did nothing.

There were times when I was felt like the loneliest girl in the world, when I felt like I could never get anything right, when I had worse self-esteem than a rock.  These thoughts resonated with me — throughout my teenage years, I felt scared, inept, and unworthy.  

It is not hard to feel lonely, even in a room full of people, sometimes especially in a room full of people.  I was the only deaf person in my school, the only girl in some of my science classes, and it seemed that all my friends from middle school were interested in different topics than I was in high school.  Sometimes, you can solve the root problem.  If you’re lonely because you feel friendless in a class or school, then make new friends!  I made friends with the boys in the science classes, found new discussion partners in my literature classes, and enjoyed new friendships in orchestra.  I realized that not everyone is aware of how much communication I miss, so I had to work harder to build communication channels.

But some things cannot be solved so easily, because they are beyond any human control.  If you are deaf or different in any way in your school, you cannot change that, but you can own it.  Owning it can be hard, and ties in to your self-worth, but the point is you exist, you are here, and you should ask for help, make yourself heard, ask others to repeat themselves, etc.  You got this.  No one else can do you like you can.  You are in control of your own deeds.  This can be a difficult point to take to heart, especially if there is a little pessimistic voice in the back of your head saying “It’s impossible,” “I can’t do this,” “I’m not worthy of extra attention.”  Don’t listen to that pessimistic voice!

The last point, “you are worthy” is something the lecturer spent the most time driving home, because it can never be overstated.  Self-esteem is something all teenagers struggle with a lot, regardless of deafness. We, the students, feel absolutely terrible after a bad homework grade or a crummy final.  One ugly final does not define you.  Friends and family do not love you less if you have a bad GPA.  Likewise, friends and family do not care if you cannot hear them.

It is never ideal to fail a class or to accidentally drop your hearing aids in water, but that does not mean you are any less worthy of love and life. Keep these three points in mind.  You may not need them now, but I hope you’ll remember them when you do, especially before a final!

Deaf Female

     I took a Gender Studies class a few months ago and the first assignment was a 150 word essays on what your gender means to you.  Upon reflection, being female alone did not impact me as much as being female and deaf as you will soon read.

     I am female and I am deaf.   I am deaf in a hearing world and to me that is analogous to being female in a male world.

     Just as females used to disguise themselves as males to get jobs and avoid discrimination, I can almost disguise myself as hearing to blend in and interact with hearing people.  It is hard.  When I am hurt, or misunderstood, I most often blame my deafness rather than being female.  Being deaf is not easy – there are so many more opportunities for miscommunication, misunderstanding for me than for most hearing people.

     I believe being female has impacted how I view myself as a deaf individual.  I describe myself as a silly little girl in my own head, not because of how I have been raised or how the world treats me, but it is how I feel with my own deafness.  If I cannot hear someone, if I misunderstand, then immediately I withdraw into myself because I do not feel brave.  I feel clumsy.  I feel weak.  Worse of all, I feel stupid.  All of these are unfortunately associated with the negative stereotype of a silly little girl.  

     Sometimes I find the courage to break the stereotype and ask questions and clarify things; sometimes I do not.  Either way, I feel like this can only be part of being human.  One thing I have learned from being human is that even when the world seems most inaccessible to a deaf female like me I know that there is always an open door somewhere, I just have to find it.  And I will!