Enough playing around...

I've ordered a couple personal alarm keychain things whose advertisers rate it at "140 decibel". These will serve a dual purpose: some sort of protection when walking to and from work. It's getting dark earlier and I'm not very imposing. It's also a crime to carry pepper spray where I love. D'oh. They will also serve to damaging my hearing. I'll worry about where I'll find a place to use such a loud device later (People would tend to come investigating).

It should be well and truly painful but as the lame saying goes: no pain no gain.

Frustration

Last week I bought a pair of in-ear earphones (Etymotic ER-6i) on the recommendation of a good friend. They're easy to get a comfortable seal but they earphones are really good when they get a good seal: Good sound, loud, and there's no leakage! A coworker sitting next to me couldn't hear anything with my iPod at maximum.

The frustration comes in when I know for a fact that these are perfect for "noise therapy" but when I'm at home alone for a long weekend I'd rather enjoy the relative quiet that is just computer fans (and, alas, the typing - but it's much quieter with my new MacBook Pro). I don't want to listen to noise when I don't have to but I need to in order to damage my hearing. This is a side effect of the paradox: need noise so one doesn't can't hear, but one don't want to hear the noise needed to damage hearing!

I'll probably limit my listening to commuting to and from work and when at work because as much as I'd like to be deaf I'd like nothing more than to not hear noise! (Work that one out, dear reader!)

So that one thing

I say tongue-in-cheek that bacon is the one thing that would make me ever reconsider atheism. There's one thing that would also, in the same way, make me reconsider bringing deafness upon myself: a cat's meow.

As I was walking home today from the job centre interview for a NI # one of the neighbourhood cats let me pet it and it meowed at me. I thought: "I'm going to miss that." Strange how it's not "I shouldn't do this!" but "I'm going to miss that."

I was having a slightly crummy day, fighting with my employer's VPN and the stress of the interview (I was out for 90 minutes in total!) and the kitty made my day! I love cats and believe them to be a higher form of life (no, I'm not kidding).

In fact I think top mounted ears like a cat's would be... the cat's meow! But I wonder how BTEs would be fitted to them... ;-)

(edit: Negated a key part of the 2nd paragraph for clarity. Thanks K. for pointing it out!)

Clarity

I seem to have an issue with vocal clarity at work. I believe that some of it is due to the accents of my coworkers but I (hope) don't think it's limited to just that. I am usually very good with accents. In fact I was able to watch Trainspotting with no subtitles and was able to understand most (if not all) of what everyone was saying. Anyways, accents don't usually throw me off.

However the two guys I deal with daily seem to talk gibberish!! On first pass they don't make any sense but when I stop and piece together what they've said and what I've understood into a complete thought it then begins to make sense.

That's what is annoying me.

Why do I have to hear every other pathetic noise (like pidgeon claws on flagstones! Fucks sake that's REALLY quiet!) but struggle with voices.

It's annoying to strugle so much with one thing but hear another thing so clearly.

Work

The people I work with are really cool. Most of them are my age. But there's a few problems (TA-wise):

They all seem to

1) be soft talkers
2) prefer talking over IM or Email

Getting to work requires a lot of speaking: train ticket type, bus ticket type, and talking to a taxi driver if I take a taxi. (Taxis seem to talk to their fares a lot here.)

I love the work that I do but I hope it doesn't drive me mad! I think I'll send a note to my group (did I mention that I'm a 'team leader'?) and say that I prefer typing when possible. Obviously (and this is a practicality thing, alas), some topics are time sensitive and require a verbal explanation. Or, talking to a group...

Many issues, they'll all be fixed soon, one way or another!

Hrmm... work!

So yesterday I was made an offer for a role in Leeds doing website programming. I accepted it!

At the interview they gave me the dime tour and I noticed that a lot of the coders were using ipods and other headphones. This gives me hope! :) I can get away with listening to music all the time to drown out noise.

I liked talking with the interviewers: they seem genuinely geeky like me and it was fun to talk to them about a pet project of mine. The people that work there seem really cool and I think it'll be a great place to work!

We'll see what happens DW-wise with this job...

The Job Interview

So this week I had an interview for a Linux Sysadmin role at a UK-based company. I haven't heard from the role yet but I want to write a few things down here: I think the interview went "okay" - as well as it could go; my skills aren't a perfect fit for the role and everyone knew it.

I decided to play it safe and not pretend to be HOH/Deaf although the two men who interviewed me seemed to be muddled slightly at times. I was very tired on the day and I think that lapses in concentration affect(ed) my ability to concentrate on what they (and others) are saying.

I should hear about the result this coming week. With luck I'll earn the role! Wouldn't it be nice to have money to spend on things...such as hearing aids? ;-)