Surdité.

Last night I had a pounding and stabbing earache in my right ear, this morning I was bleeding from said ear; my online self-diagnosis told me that either I was  going to die due to brain complications or I had an ear infection.

I rang into my school to tell them I wouldn’t be in because I was ill and the secretary said, more than once, “entendu”  which literally means ‘heard’ but put into context is ‘understood’. I wanted to make many a joke – “of course you heard, you’re not the one bleeding from your ears” however my French isn’t strong enough to be funny and I figured I’d get lost in translation somewhere and sound like my potential ear infection was in fact brain complications.

A quick trip to my doctor confirmed the latter, an ear infection. He prescribed me 5 (yes 5!!!) boxes of tablets and I went on my merry, partially-hearing way. Now, sat in my bed, feeling sorry for myself, surrounded by a wonderful array of boxes sporting long and unpronounceable names, and trying hard to understand Bones on the television without cranking the volume up, I got to thinking about what it would be like if I became deaf.

What would sudden deafness do to me? Well firstly I’d be forced to learn a new language, not out of want but out of necessity. I can spell my name in sign language but I’m not sure that would suffice. Not only would I be forced to learn the language but so would many people around me, all of my friends and family. It would throw a spanner in the works of my life plans; how could I continue to learn French without the ability to listen? I’d no longer be able to switch the radio on to hear the top 40, go to a club to dance to the top tunes or listen to my beloved iPod shuffle on the way to work.

I know that sounds very materialistic of me but hey, this is a material world. Of course there are technologies nowadays to aid those who have lost, or indeed never had, their hearing abilities. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I’m very thankful that I still have my hearing.

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Un nouvel an, une nouvelle décennie, une nouvelle occasion? Ou, simplement, un autre jour?

So it’s the last day of 2009, the last day of the “noughties” decade, a lot of stuff has gone on in the last decade both worldwide and personally. This past year I think I’ve grown up a hell of a lot and I know where my priorities lie in everything. Will tomorrow bring a new year, a new decade, a new chance? Or will it just be another day? I’m banking on the latter.

Yes of course It’s normal to make resolutions to aid a new start in a new decade (the likelihood of me, personally, keeping them fully are low to zero), but that in itself makes it just another 1st January, simply in a new year. Looking at what I’ve got planned for the next year shows me that it’s just pretty much more of the same, only this time I know how to deal with it all which in a way makes me glad that it’s not a new chance because I don’t want to have to go through the process of learning to deal with the way I’m having to live. Personally, that begs the question ‘why are people so set in trying to change everything each time there’s a new year?’ Changes take time to get used to and for the most part people try to change, fail and get stuck back in their previous ways, and whilst there’s nothing wrong with that, why not just cut out the trying to change part and live an easier life without trying to change yourself. Changes happen naturally, well good changes, anyway – I guess they’re more like adaptations – so my words of wisdom for this last day of 2009 are to quit the whole needing or wanting to change fandango and just go with the flow. There’s no right day to make any resolutions, why not make a resolution each morning that you feel the need to change just for that day? Surely that’s a better idea than piling on a load of hasty decisions that, 9 times out of ten, you don’t really mean and trying to stick to them for a whole 365 days, is it not?

Either way, that’s the way I intend to play it. No resolutions. No expectations. Simply going with the flow and learning more about myself along the way, rather than trying to change.

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