'Is that loud enough?!'

It's great having a housemate that can fingerspell. We often have conversations (true, they're rather short, but still) where she mouths to me so I can lipread and I reply back by fingerspelling. Works out great. It's definitely useful when I quickly need to tell her something then and there. Often, when I'm outside having a smoke, I'm reminded of something and I think 'oh yes, I must remember to tell CH1 [Crazy Housemate 1] that'. However, once I'm back inside I tend to forget as other things grab my attention.

So, fingerspelling and lip-reading through the kitchen window works out perfectly. Like the other day. I'm standing outside and notice a frying pan. Outside. On the kitchen doorstep. Why on earth is there a frying pan there? Is this a new trend that I hadn't heard about? Put your cooking utensils outside to avoid washing up. Of course! So simple! When the kitchen gets over-run by dirty dishes (I live in a student house, of course the kitchen is always overrun by dirty dishes) just put some of the offending articles outside. Simples.

But this time CH1 was in the kitchen while I was outside so, using a mixture of basic sign and fingerspelling, I ask her about it. She mouths back that they'd put it outside when it was smoking it a bit to cool it off and had completely forgotten about it. Ah, not a way to get out of doing the dishes then. Oh well.

Speaking of CH1. Her room is directly above mine. Which usually isn't a problem. Sometimes I suffer from insomnia and just potter about downstairs - reading, watching DVDs etc. Am usually pretty quiet. Apart from the other night. I had two friends over, we just relaxed in my room (get your mind out of the gutter people). At one point we started singing. They were slightly intoxicated and I'm deaf. So none of us could judge the loudness of our singing. Turns out it was pretty loud and CH1 was not impressed when it woke her up at 5am. Oops.

That's often a problem for me (not the singing part, the loudness part - although I'm sure plenty of people would say that yes, singing is a problem as well!) I just can't judge if something is loud or quiet - I either hear it or I don't, I don't hear the volume. Often people either have to tell me to speak up or quieten down a bit because it all sounds the same to me. The same goes for if I'm watching TV or listening to music - I can't judge the volume of it. When I'm at home, my parents have to frequently come down at 2/3am and ask me to turn it down as it's so loud. It's not intentional, I'm not talking/singing loudly or have my music/TV blaring on purpose to be obnoxious, I just honestly can't judge the volume.

Until next time,
Deaf Girl