Sweet revenge

I just deleted the last of my engineering programs on my computer. SolidEdge and Maple will no longer give me fits.

I have been back at school for a little over a week and have already had four days of classes. I love my new classes...every single one of them. Unlike engineering, I can actually read this stuff and feel like I will and want to be able to apply the majority of what I am learning to a career and/or everyday life. Accounting is useful almost anywhere...loads on beams are pretty much useful only in select careers and applications, few, if any. of which I could see myself doing.

This semester, I am taking 18 hours. My schedule consists of the following: Honors Sociology, Public Speaking, Business Statistics, Business/Technical Writing, Business Computer Applications (an online pass/fail class that tests my knowledge of computers...go figure), and Accounting. So far my teachers are great, and the subject material is already much more entertaining than anything I ever did in engineering.

I have also chosen this semester to limit the amount of captioning I receive in classes. I received captioning in three of my four classes last semester as I adjusted to life in class with an implant and a hearing aid. Unfortunately, while captioning has many advantages, it also has the disadvantage of allowing me to tune out for a few minutes and then tune in and quickly scan over the caption on my computer to 'catch back up'. While this may be every college student's dream, I tried to refrain from doing this last semester, but when I found myself taking classes that I disliked, the temptation could be so great sometimes that I could not help but let my mind wander.

So, for this semester, I have chosen to practice developing my listening skills again. Ever since I lost my hearing temporarily in my right ear a year ago, I feel like I have lost the valuable ability to listen, pay attention, and process what I am hearing as I am hearing it. This is something we all take for granted, myself included, until I realized these were skills I no longer possessed. This semester, I am only receiving captioning in Sociology, which is an intense discussion based course. The rest of my classes are predominately lecture classes in which the majority of the material taught in class can also be found in the text book or from teacher notes.

It is these classes that have already brought about some striking changes that I hope will remain with me:

1 - so far I have had little trouble getting to bed early. Those that know me know this is something I have struggled with during my college career so far. :) Now, I need my sleep so I can be fully alert in classes, because lip-reading and listening can be exhaustive at times.
2 - my implant is way better than I give it credit for being. In speaking with friends and teachers alike, I find myself gazing off into the distance rather than looking at their faces. This is not born out of rudeness or because I think they have ugly lips, but rather I am still shocked that I can understand and carry out a conversation without the need for lip-reading. In class, this is beneficial in the few times in which I am unable to see a professor's face. While lip-reading still helps tremendously, I am able to hear a lot when lip-reading is temporarily unavailable as a teacher turns his or her head.
3. I am now challenged to stay ahead of the game in my classes. I find myself trying to stay on top of my readings (which are typically assigned BEFORE the class in which the reading material is taught) so that I will be familiar with the lecture material when it is taught. Having a familiarity with the material being taught in a lecture helps me figure out words that are unclear or sound new to me. If I have some sort of idea of what a person is about to say, I can generally understand them better because if there is a word or two I cannot understand, I have trained myself to be able to quickly eliminate words that have absolute basis in that particular conversation. For example, if someone is talking about food and they say something that sounds like feet...I can generally assume that what I thought was the word feet is probably meat.

Those are just a few postiive benefits I have noticed in my classes. So far, I feel like I am learning and understanding all of the material as it is presented to me in class. I would also like to point out, that should I ever feel like I am unable to listen well enough to learn in a class, Clemson Student Disability Services is fully prepared to provide whatever services I need...whether in the form of captioning or some other method. That is definitely a nice thing to fall back on should I realize I need additional listening help.

That's all I have for you guys now! I'll try to post on a more regular basis now that I'm back at school. Hope your Christmas went well, like mine did!

By the way, in case you haven't noticed...check-out the countdown at the bottom of the side bar on the right side of the page...it's never too soon!

Christmas, Bowl Games, Visitors and New Year's Resolutions!

After an extended post-exam stay in the Clemson/Anderson area, I finally made it home for winter break. It is always fun to be living the college life with no exams or classes to worry about, but at the same time, I needed to get home so I could recover from exams and spend some time with my family. A few days after getting home I got my grades and was relieved to see that I didn't fail any of my exams miserably. While I didn't achieve the sort of success I like to strive for, I realized awhile back that this was definitely not my semester. That is especially true, considering I applied for a change of major request halfway through the semester meaning my classes would not apply to my new major. I fully expect next semester to be a much better semester, and can't wait to get there and start my Business classes. After getting my grades, the rest of my break consisted of focusing on everything non-school related.

That focus started with Christmas Eve service and has continued since then. It was great to return to my home church and sit with my parents as we celebrated the birth of our Savior. The next morning was equally as wonderful with everyone getting some great presents. The present of the day for me was definitely a brand new video iPod. When iPods first came out on the market awhile back, I remember being so frustrated because I had no way of listening to music through an iPod. The headphones that come with the iPods are of the in-the-ear type, which I cannot use because the ear mold in my right ear blocks access to that ear canal. In the past, I have also had limited success with regular over-the-ear headphones as I am forced to wear them at an akward position so that the actual sound is directed towards the microphones on the top part of my hearing aid behind my ear. Because sound enters my ear through my hearing aid, when I wear headphones, they don't even cover my ear. To make a long story short, it was pretty much useless for me to consider getting something as cool and nifty as an iPod because I simply wouldn't be able to use it well enough to justify its cost. However, my implant changed all of that. I have mentioned before my ability to plug a personal audio cable from my implant to a variety of different sound producing objects, including laptops, steroes, tvs, and more recently, the iPod. The audio cable is definitely my favorite addition to my life as an implant user, as it allows me to function as a normal person when it comes to situations that require the use of headphones. For a teenager who happens to enjoy music as much as the next person, this is a welcome relief and I only wish it had come sooner. My struggles with being able to hear and and enjoy music are slowly disappearing and this is a critical part of me feeling like a normal individual with very good hearing.

I already have over 17 hours of music on my iPod and I'm sure much more will be added soon!

The day after Christmas, my family - and a friend of mine from school, Alan - headed down to Orlando to witness the Tigers take on the University of Colorado in the Champs Sports Bowl. It was great to witness the final Clemson game of the season, and even better to close the season out with a win. The star of the night was clearly Clemson's freshman running back, James Davis, and he is seen above after receiving the MVP award.