Shh … I’m booking tickets for musical events taking place later this year. If my audiologist finds out, I fear she’ll send me for a pre-implant psychological assessment, quick smart, to quash those Unrealistic Expectations.
Let’s start with Mildly Ambitious, scheduled for around 4.5 months after switch-on. (August 2010)
I am really, really excited about this one! Last night, I took advantage of an internet pre-sale and booked tickets to a theatrical production of West Side Story for August this year. I have always wanted to see this performed – am such a huge fan of the movie! And the best thing is, I had the good fortune of discovering this one in my ‘hearing years’, so I know the soundtrack very well. I plan to watch the movie (captions on!) many times before the show, to refresh my knowledge of the story. The music is a strong feature of this one, but there’ll be plenty of dialogue to break it up, and I also know the lyrics to the songs already. I’ll be sitting in the loop so I can make full use of the telecoil. So I think it’s safe to call this ambitious, but mildly so.
My, how time flies! I'll be going to see this production in a couple of days.
So at the 4.5 month mark right now, given my CI success, am I regretting booking the tickets?
Nope. I can't wait!
But that doesn't mean I'm expecting to perfectly hear this event. I'm retaining my 'Mildly Ambitious' expectations, in that respect. So, with my 4.5 months of CI insight, these are my expectations now:
- I should be able to hear a lot of the dialogue. There may be particular actors' voices that I struggle with.
- There's a good chance I'll be sitting next to theatre-goers making noise (rustling bags, coughing, snoring) and that might make me miss some dialogue here and there too. (Especially while I'm busy searching for something to throw at the snorer.)
- It is a musical soundtrack that I know and love, so recognising the songs should not be a problem. It is possible that the volume of the music may make it sound too rough and tinny to enjoy, so I need to be prepared for that.
- I do not expect the Nucleus 5 remote to leave my hand for the first 10 minutes of the show while I frantically adjust the settings to find the right sensitivity and volume balance to give me minimal reverberation without compromising the clarity of the voices. In fact, I might need to use it at various times during the show.
I'm still really looking forward to the event, regardless. (Even if I walk out of there, only having caught about 40% of the dialogue, that's still 35% more than I would have understood at this time last year!)
Will let you know how it goes. :-)
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