The calm before the storm

Tap tap tap. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tap. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tap. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tap.

Ignore that, if you can. Or give me A Look, whatever. That’s what Jase does. It’s the sound of me tapping my fingers on the table and I’m told it’s Annoying. Why am I tapping? Because I’m waiting.

We have finished the two back rooms and there’s nothing more we can do on the house until Sunday. Our house looks reasonably normal aside from a stack of unsightly boxes in the lounge room. They belong in the garage but we can’t move them until we’ve got the wooden flooring out of our garage. We can’t get the wooden flooring out until we’ve finished our bedroom. That, of course, involves starting our bedroom – moving into the lounge, ripping up the carpet and painting. And that’s down on the list for Sunday through to next Friday. The Saturday after that, we lay the new flooring down with the help of my brother-in-law.

Tap tap tap.

Last week was busy on the social front too. It started off with another concert meeting over at the Bionic Ear Institute. We CI recipients were broken up into small groups and we each got to talk to the composers individually. They either had sample sounds they wanted us to assess, actual compositions they’d put together already, or various questions they wanted to ask us. It’s going to be a wonderful concert, if that meeting is anything to go by! The concert will start being advertised from next month on the BEI website. I’ll list the details here too.

Wednesday saw me back in the city for an afternoon meeting with Neville Lockhart, the editor of CICADA magazine. A beautiful afternoon in Melbourne, we caught up at the Observatory Café in the Botanic Gardens then walked over to Government House for an awards ceremony for Professor Graeme Clark. What an honour to be invited to such an event. Professor Clark was congratulated for his achievements by the governor of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser and by Jan Boxall, the chair of the Board of Directors of the Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne. He showed us the Lister medal too, feigning apprehension as he searched around for it in his front suit pocket! (It’s actually quite large!) Was great to meet new people and chat away into the early hours of the evening. It was especially satisfying to see the ease at which we cochlear implant recipients were conversing with people, despite the noisy background and the string quartet playing off in a corner! Gotta love those noise filters. :-)

On Saturday, Jase and I took a break from the work on the house and went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was the second time I’d been to the cinema since switch-on, and another success. We had reserved seats at Hoyts La Premiere for the opening weekend and I hadn’t bothered checking for a hearing loop – had to book the tickets so quickly that I was just relieved to get any sort of seat in the first place! So I was surprised to find that I was actually sitting in the hearing loop after all – just a coincidence, I guess? Or maybe that part of the cinema is fully looped, no idea. During the previews, I played around with the microphone ratios until I was happy, then turned to Jase excitedly and told him the hearing loop was working. He smiled at me but then said, ‘shhh!’ with a grin. Oops, I was speaking too loudly. In the darkness, I frowned. I was embarrassed. If using the loop was going to distort the volume for me that much, I didn’t want to use it. I switched it off. Much better. Once the actual movie started, I’d reassess. As it turns out, I didn’t need to rely on it at all. I could hear about 95% of what the characters were saying, without it! There was one character I completely struggled with – Mundungus Fletcher. Very deep voice. Kind of mumbles. But he doesn’t have many lines, fortunately. The other sounds I loved hearing – the applause from the audience, both at the start and at the end. The spontaneous laughter at the jokes. The sniffles during the sad parts. Oh, I’ve missed going to the movies!! I must have been concentrating pretty hard because the slightest distraction – eg somebody walking in front of us to get their fifteenth free popcorn refill – would make me miss the lines. That’s understandable. And perhaps I was still relying on seeing the character’s lips moving to help me along too, that’s possible. But all up, a great success. I love being able to go to the movies again!

And now there’s this week.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The calm before the storm? The next couple of weeks are filled with social engagements and renovating tasks. So I should take advantage and rest up a bit. But I can’t wait – I love being busy!

Tuh-tuh-tuh-tap.

Guess it’s back to full-time writing this week then, broken up with intense piano practice sessions for the upcoming concert.

One more tap for good measure then, eh?

Tap!