Survivin' and Thrivin'

I've survived my first week of high school.

And I actually sort of liked it. I'm one of those weird people who needs (and loves) routine. The first day was relatively uneventful. I didn't get lost, and was able to get to my classes on time. I feel really lucky, things have worked out quite well (so far.) My schedule is GREAT (well, now that I've changed it twice). My classes are pretty close to each other, I have at least one good friend in each class, and I've never been late (or even almost late). I was originally assigned a bottom locker, but I didn't want to chance hitting my head and breaking an implant, so I requested to get it moved to a top locker. My new locker is on the opposite side of the school, and I was especially concerned because it didn't seem to be near any of my classes. It is actually somewhat close to two of my classes, which is pretty good when you consider that most people are only able to make it to their lockers once a day. The best part is, I got one of the sophomore lockers. While it's not any different than the freshman lockers, the people around my locker are SO nice. Last year, the kid whose locker was next to mine smelled questionably like smoke (I'm not going to jump to any conclusions... but this deaf girl has a pretty acute nose!) and was constantly cussing at me to get out of his way. The snooty girl who had a locker under mine always had her posse standing standing in front of my locker who REFUSED. TO MOVE. Passing periods were somewhat traumatic last year.So, it was such a nice surprise for people to instantly move out of my way if they see I'm trying to access my locker! And they actually SMILE! A little respect goes a long way.

Hearing-wise, things are great! At lunch, thanks to now being bilateral, I am able to follow most of the conversation with ease! It also makes it much easier to hear in the hallways. The FM is a HUGE help in my classes (I don't use it in the cafeteria because of spills and such), especially the larger ones where we get into groups often. One of my classes is a two-year class for those in the gifted program that is a mix of History, Humanities, and English. Since it's two years, there are also sophmores in my class and I get an AP History credit in addition to that an Honors English credit, which is pretty good. It's known for being really difficult, but also for being a lot of fun and the teachers are awesome. Apparently I'm in the "small" class (a mere 40 students!) On the first day, one of the teachers took a minute to quickly explain what the FM was, how it helped me, and that any time someone was speaking and I needed to hear it, they needed to speak into it. We then had to go around the room and tell things about the person sitting next to us, and the FM was passed to each person in the classroom before they could start speaking. This set a great precedent for the rest of the year, and already we have gotten into multiple groups and it has made it SO much easier on me. I am so grateful that my teacher did this, and he said it pretty eloquently and didn't make it seem like too big of a deal. Another thing that helped is the actual design of the FM. The SmartLink vaguely resembles a cellphone/TV remote/ iPod and doesn't seem quite as fragile as the Campus FM did. Everyone is comfortable just holding it up to their mouths like a microphone.

The second day I did have a problem where the FM died halfway through the day, even though it had been charging all night. I noticed a big difference when it wasn't working. The FM I am using is a temporary (and sort of old) loaner, and I will be getting a brand new SmartLink as soon as the order arrives. However,  on Wednesday I was given a backup SmartLink to use in case the other one dies again. It hasn't, and now I have two temporary FMs to keep up wit1h I do still get a little bit of static, but not enough to make me not want to use it. I am going to trial using the FM in my right ear one more time. I don't think the results will be any different, but we'll see

I haven't had too much homework, but I'm apparently taking 2 of the 3 most difficult classes at my school, so I guess that won't last long.

Well, that's all I've got to tell! This first week has been really great, and I hope the rest of the year is the same.