Batteries Not Included

It seems recently that I fail to remember my most essential accessory on my person.

Imagine this as it happened to me yesterday. I was on the metro in Newcastle heading to Tynemouth (a wonderful beach!) with Luke and Fraz, who are fellow YDAGs (I'll discuss YDAG later) and we were talking about many laddy things (too vulgar to repeat on here) (I sure like my brackets...) and all of a sudden a warning beep with decibels of a roaring airplane going past your window, made me jump! As soon as calmed down my heart palpitations, I cringed inwardly. It meant that my hearing battery was running out of power and surprise, surprise...I didn't have any new spare ones on me.

After silent cursing, i announced to my fellow deaf friends that my battery was running out and they looked at me with reproachful eyes. How dare I, a deaf person, shame the entire community for forgetting batteries. Fraz offered me one of his hearing aid batteries but unfortunely, it was the 'big' battery. Yes, there are differing sizes and I seem to have the most awkward one, which is the 'extra small' battery. For those who don't understand, here was the variety of batteries below.

I knew I had half an hour's power left so I decided to switch off and rely on lip-reading and body language. And after years of relying on sound, I found this hard to do at first but slowly but surely, I began to understand them like I've never worn hearing aids before. It was strange as well, cos inwardly, I could hear-picture their voice!

Anyways, we stayed at the beach for 2 hours and I duly switched them back on the way home. Once getting home, I grabbed my bag, and found my 'extra-small' hearing aid batteries! Plugged a new one in and made a promise myself to carry spares with me. So today...was I? You guessed it. No.

Rise and shine and Buzzzzzzzzz!

Getting up a deaf person in the morning isn't easy. Each of us likes our peaceful bliss unaware of the house creaking, mysterious bangs or in my case the constant partying next door (for which my housemates hate me for!) So how would we get up you say?

Well, when I was younger, I used to hate the deafening silence so I used to wear hearing aids in bed. My trusty Wallace and Gromit clock would never fail to wake me up until I became a teenager when I loved my sleep too much. After a few years of wearing hearing aids in bed, your ears constantly gets sore so I decided to take out my hearing aids and put them to one side next to my Santa mug and Dalek moneybox. How can I wake up? For the following few years, I relied on my mum and dad to wake me up, each imagining new ways but I can tell you now that the most annoying from my dad that he would slowly tickle my feet! To this day, Mum's most annoying is a very sharp brutal prod of her walking stick on my midsection! Oh the torture I went through!

So, I had to take matters into my own hand. After visiting the 'NDCS Listening Bus' (see link below) I spied upon a portable vibrating alarm clock. All i had to do was attach the alarm onto either the pillow case or on your nighttop and then it would shake and buzz you awake. I hated it at first but then again it allowed me to wake up early andhave no nasty prods from cruel parents.

But alas, after 8 years together, it soon failed to wake me up and I need a stronger one. It would have to be a proper proper alarm clock and I got one! It's the most annoying thing on earth to have a big round disc shake the entire bed causing you to wakeup with a yelp and distangle yourself from your sheets and laugh yourself at the clock to furiously press the smallest button to turn it off! I time my mood of the day with this. If the vibrating goes on longer than 10 seconds...I'm in a bad mood!

So today? Was I in a bad mood? It was on the 9 second mark...I was grumpy but motivated. The cold shower soon woke me up anyways.

By the way, I don't like saying 'vibrating alarm clock' all the time as it's too long and a mouthful. So please don't be alarmed in future posts if I say '.....my vibrator woke me up....'

Happy Wednesday!

http://www.ndcs.org.uk/family_support/how_ndcs_can_help/listening_bus/

So what's this blogging malarky about?

Well boys and girls and Tara,

This blog is to give all of you an insight how a deaf person who can talk, listen and live like everyone else on a day to day basis. Hey, that's me. Sure enough, there will be what I call 'stumbling blocks', which means my profound deafness has given me a problem. BUT, I crack the problem, make a solution and carry on like nothing's changed. However, it doesn't mean to say that being deaf is a problem. It's a part of who I am and I embrace it most times. It also has added benefits such as sleeping blissfully unaware of the background noise. lol. plus, there are millions of funny stories that I must insist on sharing with you that's involved me as a deaf person.

Some stories will make you laugh or cry or make you deaf aware.

I want to give support for those who are deaf like me having a hard time, or to anyone who may have discovered that their kid is deaf and feel absolutely devastated by it, or to anyone even intiminated by the prospect of approaching a talking, listening deaf person and becoming friends with them.

So without any more rambling, I present you 'say what?' the blog of a oral deaf person.

'say what?'

'Ed! Ed!'
My head lifted up from the monotonous humdrum my head was occupying me, yes, it was pondering whether an eskimo could beat a red indian in a fight (yes, I'm aware I'm doing a Masters degree at University). I stopped dead in my tracks and swivelled my head all of the place like I was trying to follow a fly buzzing round but in fact, I was trying to find out who was shouting after me.
'Ed! Ed!'
The voice was coming near as I could tell through the noisy traffic the road was making through university campus...there! I spotted my friend Will across the road. I rose a half wave in greeting and he rolled his eyes and crossed the road in a jog. Coming up to me he spoke to me quickly but unfortuntely I couldn't hear him properly so i did what every deaf person may say...'what?'
He burst out laughing and punched me in the arm and did a Tim Henman style celebration pump!
'haha, all I said mate was...hahaha..' I stood there with a bored expression on my face and slowly reached my hand to the spot where he punched me, hoping he wouldn't notice he inflicted pain on me..
'haha...Loser says what!..haha...and you certainly did say that!...so Loooooooooooooser!' he said with a reverse L signal hand on his forehead.
I rolled my eyes and said 'I was just easy prey was I? Me, a deaf person?'
He replied, 'sure was!'
I stared at him intently with an eyebrow raised and then slowly but surely, a smile creeped up at the corners of my mouth and I shook my head laughingly,
'what are you like, you idiot!'
We both set off together across campus and after arguing whether an eskimo could really beat a red indian in a fight, and arrangements to meet up next time, we started to split to our separate ways when I cut in mid-sentence of his goodbye with a quick garble....'losersayswhat'. He surprisingly said 'what' back to me, to which I roared out laughing and walking backwards to him watching, I held the L hand signal to my forehead, this time...the right way round.

That's the story of how I got my blog name. I didn't want to have my first entry as a glittering profile of my life listing my achievements....that's the later one lol!