Though I lack your power, I will still persist.

I keep forgetting to update when things actually happen. Like when I started making little tiny hats for The Big Knit. Or last weekend, when I had to grill a cake (cool trick for if the oven stops working - just put the cake under the grill at the lowest possible heat, and don't forget to cook both sides of it). Or Wednesday, when I went to a BSL Cafe, which I then totally forgot to post about when I got home, because my hard of hearing badges arrived (my own design, made by Kool Badges):


However, I do have a decision to make, and therefore a question to ask.

Halloween this year falls on a Monday. My BSL class is on a Monday. Therefore, I think it is only proper for me to go to my class in fancy dress. (I also think it is only proper to take in a pumpkin pie instead of the usual cake, but that is another story.) I am going to go as a witch. This has the upsides of being able to make my walking stick look like part of the costume (a broom!), and being able to wear my black dress.

But the dress is short. Too short for me to feel comfortable wearing outside on a cold night without something covering my legs. Like leggings. And I have found somewhere (Yours Clothing) that does colourful leggings in my size. Only there are 5 colours to choose from, and that means making a decision and I am not very good at making decisions.

Like a good amount of the UK (if the trending topics on Twitter are anything to go by) I was going to watch Spirited Away earlier. But after a while I found that I couldn't understand what was going on because only half of the dialogue was subtitled.

In a way, I feel like I shouldn't complain: I ended up watching most of My Neighbor Totoro on another channel (I missed the beginning of it), and it was just beautiful and I probably would have never watched it otherwise (and as it was in Japanese, I didn't have to worry about subtitles, because it was shown with subs for an English-speaking audience!). But at the same time, I really would have liked to watch Spirited Away and been able to understand and enjoy it as much as someone who could hear all the dialogue. Which is pretty much the point of subtitles, right?

Thing is, I don't know where the problem is: the problem could be with my TV/cable box, or with my cable company, or with the broadcasters. If I watch something on normal TV (i.e.: not using the cable box), I can't have subtitles, so I can't rule out any of the three on my own. What I need is to hear from other people in the UK who regularly use subtitles when watching TV to see if they have had similar problems. Only I don't think I actually know anyone who does.

This doesn't happen often and it's only something I've noticed on the BBC channels (but that's probably because the subtitles on those channels are generally quite good, and I do watch a great deal of their stuff). The last time I remember it happening was during the most recent season of Merlin - it happened so much through the first few episodes that I just gave up trying to watch it at all. It might have happened since then, but it's only something that I'd remember if it happened during something I really wanted to watch at the time. I nearly always have the subtitles switched on and the way my cable box is set up means that it's pretty obvious when the subtitles are being switched off/on.

I don't know what to do about this.



In other news, the big cookies I made while playing FFX yesterday are lovely - I've eaten the caramel cookies (caramel flavoured with bits of caramel wafer), which were delicious but turned out a little more like a flattish cake than a cookie. I ignored the recipe's instruction of "do not flatten before cooking" for the second batch (chocolate chunk) which turned out much more cookie-like - that said, I probably went a little too far when I flattened them again halfway through the cooking time (you can still see the marks from the spatula I used to flatten them with!), but you live and learn. Also, I'm not sure that they're quite as good as the cupcakes I made last week while playing Devil May Cry, but it's difficult to tell, because the cupcakes no longer exist. Not that the cookies are expected to last much longer. Which is pretty bad seeing as I'm by myself this weekend (and possibly most/all of next week). Also, choosing between cookies and cupcakes is ridiculously difficult thing to do anyway. You'd have to be a really horrible person to make people choose between the two.



Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find the bottle of washing up liquid that I've somehow managed to lose today.

I finally finished my little tiny mini-hats for The Big Knit! My original target was ten mini-hats. I made twenty five. I guess I should feel proud of that?

I've also finished putting details of all my DVDs on dvd-subtitles.com. More than two thirds of my DVDs hadn't had the presence (or not) of subtitles confirmed! It kind of makes me wish I had more DVDs so I could add more to the database, but I'm refusing to buy DVDs that don't have English subtitles available anymore, because DVDs without English subtitles are pretty much useless to me.

Other than that, I'm okay I guess. I guess, because knitting is still eating my life, due to me making the unfortunate decision to make a scarf. I'm not clever, okay?

*knits more*

PS: This is the yarn I'm using right now (the green one). Pretty, y/n?

I'm back! I swear, I didn't mean to disappear like that - I don't actually know what happened there. I mean, I was over in Newcastle from Friday until yesterday, but normally I still update but this time I just didn't. Instead I mostly spent some time talking to fizzyblogic, meeting shirasade, waiting for leanwellback to come home and playing Lego Batman.

Remember that BSL course I was talking about last week? I got in! Now I just have to tell the Jobcentre, and hope that they don't come up with some reason against me doing it.

Anyway, I'm going to go lie down - I trapped a nerve in my back yesterday morning, and am still really suffering for it.

Yesterday I decided to watch a film I loved as a child: Labyrinth. I hadn't seen it since I started losing my hearing over two and a half years ago, but for me it's one of those films I can say the lines along with the characters, because I remember it that well.

All the same, I decided to turn the subtitles on to make things easier for myself. I wish I hadn't.

( Can the examples really be considered spoilers if the film came out in 1986? )

( Bonus rant - subtitles and songs )

Dear Guy Who Tried To Get Me To Subscribe To LoveFilm Today,

I know that, when you decided to stop me earlier, you were just trying to do your job. However, there are three things that I feel that you should note for future reference:

1) When a person tells you that they have hearing problems, and therefore would need subtitles on any DVDs they rented, turning away from that person when speaking is a really bad idea.

2) Subtitles and audio description are two totally different things, needed for different reasons. While knowing that at least one of the DVDs available has audio description is great from an accessibility standpoint, it's possibly the most useless thing for someone with hearing problems.

3) Upon realising that you don't actually know how to find out if a film has subtitles on your website, don't decide that it's not actually that important and start signing that person up to your service without asking them if it's okay first.

No love,
Me.

So, um. It's been a while since I last updated (a week, I think?), mainly because my body decided it needed it be weird (period-related symptoms, but no period, WTF?) and then my brain decided it needed to be extra scary on Friday, which I'm still recovering from.

Other than that, the main reason I haven't updated is because I haven't really been doing much while dealing with the above...

But while I am here, a question: does anyone know if the new Shrek film is worth seeing? It turns out that my local cinema will be showing it on Sunday with subtitles, but it's the 3D version, so I don't know. Part of me is tempted just to go to see how well subtitles on a 3D film work, but at the same time it'll cost me £8.20 (+80p for the 3D glasses), which is kind of ridiculous seeing as seeing it in 2D would only cost £6.10 (but that wouldn't have subtitles, making it pointless).

... Damn, now I need something to cheer me up after working that out :(

After last weeks post about the amount of subtitled showings at my local cinema that week (22 - 28 June 2010), I decided to have a look at the figures for this week (29 June - 5 July 2010) - [Note: The weeks given start on a Tuesday, as that's when I happened to check the listings].

I have to say, they're just as fun as last weeks figures. 20 separate films are being shown (last week: 21). The total amount of showings is 362 (last week: 353) - 8 of those are marked as having audio description available (last week: 14) and 1 will have subtitles (last week: 1).

What is interesting is this - all the showings marked as having audio description and/or subtitles over the two week period that I have looked at are for the same film (Sex and the City 2, in case you were wondering).


I'm going to keep collecting weekly figures for a few more weeks to see what happens, although I probably won't update with the new figures for a few weeks (unless you all really want me to). I'm also going to collect the figures for each day in July, so I can see what the figures are like on a day to day basis.

Not that there's any real point to this, you understand. I don't expect things to change as a result of this. But it is something I will be able to show people when they ask me why I can't just go to the cinema to see films whenever I want - although it's kind of sad that I need something like that in the first place.

I've been volunteering for a local charity now for nearly a year (since 2 June 2009!) and I have to say that I love it. It's not just because it gets me out of the house (for once) or because I'm doing something that I like (mostly admin work), but because the people there are just so accommodating.

I have some hearing loss in my left ear, which affects my general ability to hear things, and also my directional hearing (i.e. working out which direction a sound is coming from). This can be a bit of a problem if you're trying to answer phone calls in an office where there are 15 phones (I think) spread across three departments. Even though I only actually have to worry about two of them, I often can't tell which one of the 15 is ringing. Once I've worked out that it's my phone ringing, I have to hope that I can actually hear the person on the other end.

My boss and the main administrator are okay with this. They'll nudge me if the phone next to me is ringing and I haven't heard it. They'll take phone calls for me if they think it's too noisy in the office for me to be able to hear the person on the phone. They both have no problem with me passing the phone to them if I can't hear the other person due to a bad line, or if they speak too quietly.

They accommodate me in other areas too: my boss is very good at calming me down when I start panicking, which means I get to avoid having panic attacks, and the main administrator is massively patient with me when I forget how to do things, which ends up being most of the time due to my memory problems.

I can't help but feel that I was extremely lucky to get this voluntary position - not just volunteering in this office, but with these particular people. If it wasn't for the fact that I work with these particular people, I would quite likely be (to put it bluntly) completely stuffed.

That might seem melodramatic, I know. But the thing is I'm not the first person they've dealt with who has problems like these, because they deal with some of these things in their own lives. The main administrator uses hearing aids, and has been working with my boss for years. My boss has a child who has anxiety, and knows what that looks like. Because of their experiences, the two of them had actually thought about what accommodations they themselves were able to make for volunteers before I came along, which I'm thankful for.

The problem is that I'm looking for paid work, as I can't afford not to. But I'm scared that no-one will ever give me a chance once they find out that I need help like this. Or that they'll give me a job but not give me the accommodations I need, meaning that I will eventually have to quit (or end up getting fired) because I'm not able to cope.

The thing is, if more places were like the office that I volunteer at, then I wouldn't need to worry - and I wouldn't need to write posts like this either.

I've just seen my Grandad (and his dog) off to the train station.

Basically, he's going off to see my mother (his daughter) and that bit of the family for about a week, maybe more. Which means that I'm going to be completely alone in the house for about a week, maybe more.

Meep.

I've known about this since Sunday, so I decided to be extra nice to myself so that I wouldn't get all stressed before he left. Stress does nothing for my anxiety. Neither does the fact that I'm half-deaf and live in a mid-terrace house - all those tiny noises that come through the walls terrify me, because I can't tell that they're coming through the walls and I end up convinced that someone else is in the house. And with how bad my memory is, I end up panicking at that point because I won't remember whether I've locked the door or not. And because of some strange things going on in my brain, I will end up convinced that whoever has come through the door and is now in my house is here is hurt me.

Which is why this would be a very bad time for some bodyfail.

You know where this is going.

Basically, after messing up my back at the end of last year, my doctor told me to stop using my walking stick in January because I might "get too dependant on it" (actual quote). So I did, and I did reasonably okay without it - I couldn't do as much as I could when I was using it, but I wasn't in ridiculous amounts of pain either. Fast forward to this week. I've been into town twice this week, and my back has gone within ten minutes both times.

When I was using my stick, I could still walk when my back went. Today I had to limp in stages to the bus stop, occasionally stopping to lean against a convenient wall. Of course, I was inside one of the shopping centres when it went, and the only seating in there is in the cafes/etc. Also, the shopping centre staff don't like it if you end up sitting down on the floor outside one of the shops, no matter how close to screaming in pain you are.

(That said, the staff at Lush aren't too bothered if you just sit down in their shop, and will even bring you water if you look like you're going to pass out. A+, would collapse there again.)

Anyway, the point of this is that I was thinking (this morning, before all this happened) about asking people when the right time is to ignore what your doctor says you should do (i.e. not using my walking stick) in favour of doing what your body needs you to do (i.e. using my walking stick). Except that now that post would be useless, because I'm pretty sure I've found that point.

(Bonus useful fact #1: I didn't gain any weight over the time I was using my stick before, even though that period of time included Christmas and New Year. I have gained weight since I stopped using it, mainly because I haven't been able to do as much without it.)

(Bonus useful fact #2: I may have the world's lowest pain tolerance threshold type thing, but that might be because ( of something that is almost certainly TMI and involves much swearing )

.)




Okay, I promise my next entry will be something a little more... well, not positive exactly. But something more thinky and less ranty, because I am slightly confused. But it's not negative. Does that even make sense?