Today's date is October 25th, 2008. For all of you who follow video games, you know that 13 days from today, Gears of War 2 is coming out - November 7th. It's going to be amazing, and it's one of the few things I've been excited for in awhile. So normally I start planning for the really exciting things, and so I planned to play some Army of Two this weekend since I had met some people online who wanted to play as well, then I figured I'd play some Rockband and Geometry Wars in the next week. After that, I'd play Gears until GoW2 launched, and I had a whole weekend planned. One of my best friends who's also enthusiastic about Gears 2 would spend a couple of nights here, as he switches places with my roommate so we can play Gears 2 into the wee hours of the morning without disturbing my roommate. But lo and behold, today I get the Red Ring of Death. It takes 15 days to 3 months to replace an x-box, and both time amounts as you can see are just not going to cut it. I'm probably going to have to wait 3 more weeks, and my whole schedule is thrown out of whack. I'm not pissed about just today, or November 7th, I'm pissed about two whole weeks planning gone, about a fun as hell weekend that would have been amazing gone, a great week of being on a video game high while classes slowed down right before finals, all of this, all of it, gone.
It's been awhile since I wrote this little ditty while I meant to expand on it. I've often wondered why I have such a fixation on certain games, or video games in general. Was it because of my hearing loss that I was led to play video games since it didn't require auditory skill? Or was it because I wasn't athletically inclined (I'm really not)? This is one of those what-ifs I feel wouldn't play any differently if I wasn't hearing impaired. Now I have some good news regarding that little ditty up there, a test the monday after the weekend has been moved to thursday, which means instead of spending all of sunday studying, I can study tuesday and wednesday. But now you're saying, as if it matters, you don't have an x-box. Well I do, a friend of mine who planned to play extensively with me is bringing his 360 from home despite his little brother's wishes. He's a great guy my friend, and couldn't bear to force his little bro the displeasure of not having an 360 to play on; which I completely understand. But I'm glad he decided to give it up for the weekend all the way through to thanksgiving (thank god neither me nor my friend are going home before then in which case we'd have to return it before thanksgiving). Things had a way of working out, until...
The dreaded roommate beared his fangs. In september, nay in August we warned him how enthusiastic we were about Gears 2 and how we were going to play it. We suggested he go home or sleep in my friend's room. He joked around and said he would, and now, mere weeks before the release, he's saying he wants to sleep in his room, and he doesn't want us to play past 12. He doesn't want us to play on sunday from 8-12 so he can watch the Giants game, and he didn't want me to play on Monday so he could watch Heroes. He then said he expects me to let him play Brawl. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK, completely out of left field. My TV, MY FUCKING 360, and he's telling me what to do. I say screw him, I'm playing anyway, and if he shuts off my 360 I'm shutting off the tv. Let me be the prick, let me be the asshole, I don't care. I've waited 6 months for this, and be darned if I'm going to let someone boss me around on MY WEEKEND.
Sorry, pardon the french.
December, 5th 2008, 1:08 AM
I am ammending this. The 'dreaded' roommate was not as bad as I made him out to be. Did he say those things? Yes, but did he do them? No. He was quite graceful about the whole thing, requesting we stop at 11 pm on sunday so he could get some sleep for an interview, which we honored. We had a great weekend, and despite a few hicks and bumps, (yes hicks, they make nasty roadblocks and slow down traffic too much) it went swimmingly (yes swimmingly, as in sperm swimmingly, swishing that tail back and forth with nary but a care in the world).
So fellow fans, fear not! This brave lad did not have to hurt himself venturing in weird places to unplug and replug TVs! All is well!
25.10.08
The Thinking Bowl
Why is it that whenever we head to bathroom we get most of our work done in there? It seems to be the only place void of distractions, the bland generic tiling and whitewash walls leave little room for the mind to wander. If you aren't armed with a book, you aren't going to be thinking about much in there other than your own thoughts. A couple blogs back I mentioned I was going to describe how I was feeling and how I figured it out while taking a piss. A bit delayed, but here goes.
It was a while back, I'll admit that, but I've found truth in it, I've found some lies in it, and I've furthered it even more.
I'm still sick of this bullshit hearing loss, just thinking about it frustrates me, but there's not much you can do about it anymore. It's here, I've gotta put up with, and I've just gotta push through it. But I'm getting tired of people who don't accept me for what it is and even people who do. You know all these people who become friends with people with disabilities, and then when someone says, "oh, you know I get angry easily because I'm hearing impaired" and they just shrug that off as an excuse, It's not an excuse, it's a legitimate reason as to why our behaviors are the way they are. People with disabilites are not normal people with less hearing, they are normal people with less hearing and the psychological 'affections' associated with a disability. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?
I meet all walks of people in life.
When I run for a leadership position, I meet the kind of person who says, you know, you are hearing impaired, do you think this will affect your job as a leader. It doesn't and it won't by the way, a one - on - one meeting with the boss is still considered the most effective way to garner information in the work force. Not only are people hesitant to say certain things with other people present, they are also hesitant to seem sycophantic, but a one - on - one I feel is probably the only honest ground we have left in business.
I also meet the person who doesn't understand why I get so worked up about something sometimes, and why I get so angry. Is that 100% because of my hearing loss? No, but maybe it's just the way I am. I happen to be a person, a regular person with a disability, who has this tendency to get extremely angry, extremely fast. But then they go and say don't give me this 'bullshit' (pardon my french here), about you getting angry easily and getting worked up. I don't want to hear excuses. They mean well, they really do. They feel it's necessary to make people with disabilites feel like everyone else. But that's just the problem, we are not like everyone else... We have problems, we have issues, we have needs just like everyone else. I need to change my batteries every once in a while, I need to sit to the left of people to hear them since my right ear is my only somewhat decent ear, I have two specific corners of a table that I feel comfortable sitting at, and both corners involve my left facing no one, and no table.
This blog is bookmarked on my toolbar, and I see the name of it every day - "Living with Hearing Loss." It just serves as a reminder that yes, I am living with Hearing loss, and yes I am dealing with it, but I am getting sick of it. So enough of this tangent (and boy, when I tangent, do I tangent or what?) So here's what I was thinking when I was taking a piss.
I have really active moments (active meaning social) and really inactive moments. During my inactive moments I feel rundown, tired, lethargic, tired of it all and everyone. I guess you could say I'm going through that right now. It might be 100% hearing loss it might not be. The reason why I attribute hearing loss to this 'phenom' is simple - early on I realized I spent more energy than the average person trying to hear what was being said, or focusing on the words and the actual speech. Do I feel my body is working harder to gather sounds? Yes. I know my problem are inactive nerves, but I'm not 100% sure on the specifics. I have yet to ask my parents, and I think maybe I will. Perhaps there is damage in my Inferior Colliculi - I do not have the instinct reaction to turn my eyes towards sound, but when someone I'm aware of starts talking to me, I do glance at them, so that rules out damage there. I most likely have a problem with my Vestibulocochlear nerve. It is a cranial nerve that deals purely with input from the senses to the brain. It also deals with balance, which I'd say I have a fairly average sense of. It makes sense, my balance isn't impaired, and my hearing isn't full lost. The nerves have to be partially damaged or numbed - so to speak.
I have a devilish habit of going off into tangents... I only wanted to explore the nerve theory because I know surrounding nerves pick up the duties of their fallen to compensate. And nerves use a lot, and I mean a lot, of energy to operate. So that was my reasoning for being tired; is it true? Of course not. Once I have a Ph.D I better hope I can diagnose myself a little bit better. But it is true that prolonged periods of social activity make me much more tired than usual. And these dips and valleys are not a fun time for me. I become highly insocial, people all of the sudden start complaining about my inactivity. I mean jeez, let me rest! Although there is an adaptive period, to be fair. I obviously talk with my parents regularly, yet they never tire me (unless of course, you know, nag nag nag). However with friends I have to get wicked used to their voices to be able to understand them without concentration. I find myself with people I know fairly well (as in 5 people total) I can just kind of release a little bit, and just let the words wash over me while I can pick up the easy words (the, and, etc) and piece the rest together. It works for the most part, and it's fun sometimes when I completely realize I've been carrying a conversation without thinking about it for the most part.
I don't know where I was going with this, but this is something I came up with while taking a piss. I love toilets, they open your minds and flush close-mindedness down the drain.
It was a while back, I'll admit that, but I've found truth in it, I've found some lies in it, and I've furthered it even more.
I'm still sick of this bullshit hearing loss, just thinking about it frustrates me, but there's not much you can do about it anymore. It's here, I've gotta put up with, and I've just gotta push through it. But I'm getting tired of people who don't accept me for what it is and even people who do. You know all these people who become friends with people with disabilities, and then when someone says, "oh, you know I get angry easily because I'm hearing impaired" and they just shrug that off as an excuse, It's not an excuse, it's a legitimate reason as to why our behaviors are the way they are. People with disabilites are not normal people with less hearing, they are normal people with less hearing and the psychological 'affections' associated with a disability. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?
I meet all walks of people in life.
When I run for a leadership position, I meet the kind of person who says, you know, you are hearing impaired, do you think this will affect your job as a leader. It doesn't and it won't by the way, a one - on - one meeting with the boss is still considered the most effective way to garner information in the work force. Not only are people hesitant to say certain things with other people present, they are also hesitant to seem sycophantic, but a one - on - one I feel is probably the only honest ground we have left in business.
I also meet the person who doesn't understand why I get so worked up about something sometimes, and why I get so angry. Is that 100% because of my hearing loss? No, but maybe it's just the way I am. I happen to be a person, a regular person with a disability, who has this tendency to get extremely angry, extremely fast. But then they go and say don't give me this 'bullshit' (pardon my french here), about you getting angry easily and getting worked up. I don't want to hear excuses. They mean well, they really do. They feel it's necessary to make people with disabilites feel like everyone else. But that's just the problem, we are not like everyone else... We have problems, we have issues, we have needs just like everyone else. I need to change my batteries every once in a while, I need to sit to the left of people to hear them since my right ear is my only somewhat decent ear, I have two specific corners of a table that I feel comfortable sitting at, and both corners involve my left facing no one, and no table.
This blog is bookmarked on my toolbar, and I see the name of it every day - "Living with Hearing Loss." It just serves as a reminder that yes, I am living with Hearing loss, and yes I am dealing with it, but I am getting sick of it. So enough of this tangent (and boy, when I tangent, do I tangent or what?) So here's what I was thinking when I was taking a piss.
I have really active moments (active meaning social) and really inactive moments. During my inactive moments I feel rundown, tired, lethargic, tired of it all and everyone. I guess you could say I'm going through that right now. It might be 100% hearing loss it might not be. The reason why I attribute hearing loss to this 'phenom' is simple - early on I realized I spent more energy than the average person trying to hear what was being said, or focusing on the words and the actual speech. Do I feel my body is working harder to gather sounds? Yes. I know my problem are inactive nerves, but I'm not 100% sure on the specifics. I have yet to ask my parents, and I think maybe I will. Perhaps there is damage in my Inferior Colliculi - I do not have the instinct reaction to turn my eyes towards sound, but when someone I'm aware of starts talking to me, I do glance at them, so that rules out damage there. I most likely have a problem with my Vestibulocochlear nerve. It is a cranial nerve that deals purely with input from the senses to the brain. It also deals with balance, which I'd say I have a fairly average sense of. It makes sense, my balance isn't impaired, and my hearing isn't full lost. The nerves have to be partially damaged or numbed - so to speak.
I have a devilish habit of going off into tangents... I only wanted to explore the nerve theory because I know surrounding nerves pick up the duties of their fallen to compensate. And nerves use a lot, and I mean a lot, of energy to operate. So that was my reasoning for being tired; is it true? Of course not. Once I have a Ph.D I better hope I can diagnose myself a little bit better. But it is true that prolonged periods of social activity make me much more tired than usual. And these dips and valleys are not a fun time for me. I become highly insocial, people all of the sudden start complaining about my inactivity. I mean jeez, let me rest! Although there is an adaptive period, to be fair. I obviously talk with my parents regularly, yet they never tire me (unless of course, you know, nag nag nag). However with friends I have to get wicked used to their voices to be able to understand them without concentration. I find myself with people I know fairly well (as in 5 people total) I can just kind of release a little bit, and just let the words wash over me while I can pick up the easy words (the, and, etc) and piece the rest together. It works for the most part, and it's fun sometimes when I completely realize I've been carrying a conversation without thinking about it for the most part.
I don't know where I was going with this, but this is something I came up with while taking a piss. I love toilets, they open your minds and flush close-mindedness down the drain.
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