Deaf Girly and the FaceTime fear

Ever since the summer disappeared, I've been in full-on hibernation mode. I'm like a squirrel that won't see food for the next six months – snaffling peanut butter-themed things that FJM and Big Bro sent me, all of which you can imagine are tremendously low in sugar and calories!

So anyway, yesterday after seemingly forgetting I was actually a member of a very expensive gym, I decided to go and pay it a visit and actually work out. It involved getting in my car and driving somewhere. It was cold and getting dark. The traffic was on the cusp of becoming murderous. I almost wavered as I locked the front door. But I didn't.

One minute into my cross trainer workout I was wondering if I'd done enough to work off the three peanut butter cups... but then my phone rang.

Well FaceTime went off to be exact and it was Big Bro calling me on his way home from work. My knee-jerk reaction – probably stemming from my forced-phone call days is to reject any call to my phone. Sometimes I forget that I can actually follow FaceTime.

I looked around the gym. It was basically empty. So sod it, I thought and hit connect. And there was Big Bro and there was I, sweating it out on a cross trainer. After he'd finished laughing his head off, we had a great chat. Me getting more and more out of breath and red in the face, him finding it more and more amusing. Although I have to confess, it is quite hard to lipread while striding along like a mad woman on a cross trainer.

But what was amazing was that by the time I'd found out how he was and told him how I was, 30 minutes had flown by and I'd actually done enough to work off about one quarter of a peanut butter cup, which is better than nothing right?

Obviously, I'm not going to make a habit of FaceTiming at the gym. I don't really want to become the most hated person there, after the ridiculous person who does handstands at the top of the only staircase to get in and generally makes a complete nuisance of themselves while putting the whole thing on Instagram, probably with a scowling me in the background. But it was reassuring after yesterday's blog about not communicating well with kids, that I can keep in touch with people. Not in the email and text sense (which is easy), and all very well and everything but there's nothing quite like hearing (kind of) someone's voice and seeing their face to make you feel connected.

I need to remind myself to FaceTime people more. To ring up the people I miss and love and see their faces rather than relying on text messages and email. OK, so it's not as simply as just picking up the phone. Outside of the big cities, you need a reliable wifi connection to FaceTime and you can't just pick up when you're out and about if you want a reception good enough to lipread on, so yes, it takes more planning. But I need to make that effort.

It's so easy sometimes to sit back and go 'Woe me, I can't use the phone, I can't listen to podcasts, the radio is no good, cinema is only good once a week in July at 4.30pm on a Tuesday,' but the reality is things are so much more awesome than that.

I think I just forget it sometimes. And if I'm honest I am a bit nervous about the whole phone thing. The idea that you're not disturbing people if you call them unannounced as I've always had to plan FaceTimes and have never really used the phone.

Silly really.

So in December I've decided to FaceTime someone once a week (aside from my rents or FJM who I do talk to more often) and keep in touch with the people I miss and love. Be spontaneous...

First on my list is my 93 year old Gma who has just got an iPad... she's not that keen on it, and I've been putting off FaceTiming her in case it's not switched on, or she gets stressed out... but I'm just going to give it a go. After all, this is a women who sends text messages in text speak and can beat most people in the completion of The Times daily crossword... so if she's up for it. So am I.

Happy Tuesday.

DG
x

Deaf Girly and modern technology

Today I was able to do the most fabulous thing – chat to one of my best friends Miss K who lives in South Africa over FaceTime and, with the help of my pink POP phone handset, I was able to follow everything.

Amazing huh?

What I am a bit horrified about however, is that Miss K has lived in South Africa for three years now and that was the first time I had FaceTimed her. You see, after spending most of my adult life unable to use the phone, I still forget that I can call people over FaceTime and actually 'hear' (OK, lipread) them, thanks to the perfectly matched picture and sound.

I am still amazed that I can follow what is going on, after years of simply pretending.

For example, when I was a teenager, one of my good friends used to call me on the phone on my birthday every year for a chat. He was from Kent and had a very strong accent that I found hard enough to understand in person, let alone on the telephone. He'd call up and we'd chat for an hour, with me guessing the whole time what he might be saying. By the end of the hour I was absolutely exhausted and also slightly nervous that I'd said something random, answered something wrong, or he thought I was completely mad. I have no idea why I didn't just not have that phone call with him. But that was back in the 90s when email wasn't the norm and I was still years away from getting my first mobile phone.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how I would have got by as an adult in the 90s. With crap internet and the main form of communication for everyone being the phone. I think there would have been a massive chance that I would have lost contact with a lot of people. Or just had totally misunderstood phone conversations with them a lot of the time.

I feel so lucky that I live in a time where technology makes things easier. Where restaurants and hair appointments can be booked online, where texts can be sent in the place of phone calls and emails are a perfectly acceptable. Where I can call my friend, over the internet and lipread what she is saying for free. Where there are apps for song lyrics, subtitles on most things and a world where I know longer have to fight with plugging in the caption reader.

Anyone else end up in a rage about the amazing puzzle of wires needed to get those words up on the screen?

I can still remember the look of horror on my friends' parents' faces when I showed up for sleepovers armed with my Caption Reader and proceeded to trash their carefully set up TVs just so I could watch a video. And even then you had to make sure that the video in question had the CC symbol on the side, which back in the 90s was also a rarity.

I think that also explains why I don't really watch movies. I forget that I can. They never really became an integral part of my life. I'm missing a huge chunk of movie education. And the last new release I saw at the cinema was Sex & The City 2.

So I've made a pact with myself. I'm going to remind myself that modern technology makes lots of things possible that I forget about. I'm going to FaceTime more, watch movies with subtitles more and generally see if  I can embrace all the things I learnt to live without but no longer need to.

I'm on a mission.

Starting with another FaceTime conversation with Miss K very soon.

DG
x