YouTube

So I just submitted this blog for a possible "unpaid social media internship." It sounds like I'd be getting to do the same stuff I always do, but I'd get to put on my resume that I did it for a company, albeit one that's just starting up. Anyway, here it is.

The day I discovered YouTube was a very unproductive day. Here were thousands of videos available to watch as I procrastinated on school projects and looked for things to entertain myself with. However, since that day, something had always frustrated me as a hard of hearing person. There were no captions available for most videos. The only time I saw words on the screen was when the audio consisted of a song playing in the background and the visuals consisted of the lyrics to the song. Don't get me wrong. That can be cool sometimes, but I've gotten frustrated with user-made videos in which people speak at a fast pace or mumble or have a funny accent. Unlike my friends who were born deaf or lost their hearing at a young age I'm not very good at lip reading and my mom always worries that I'm doing even more damage to my ears when I wear headphones with the volume turned up. Naturally, when I heard that YouTube was going to make it easy for users to add captions to their videos I got pretty excited. I'd been waiting for something like this to come along.

Then I realized- months after this announcement had been made- that hardly anyone was using this option. The little [cc] button was there for most videos, but 95% of the time rolling over it just gave me a message that read "captions are not available." Recently, I decided to investigate. I made a YouTube account and a short, 20 second video on my digital camera. Then I posted the video and researched how to add captions. I figured when YouTube said it was "easy" to add captions that it was a simple cut and paste sort of thing, the kind of mindless activity that allows any moron to post a blog. Apparently, I was wrong.

The first thing that was a bit annoying was that I had to "research" how to add the captions. It was not clearly explained on a main page on YouTube, though there were a few videos explaining the process, and it was easily found among “help” files on YouTube. With the help of my comp sci major boyfriend, I finally figured it out. You have to create a special "SRT" file that can be created in notepad. It involves numbering the captions in order and timing them within the video. It looks something like this:

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000
(hr:min:sec to hr:min:sec)
Hello, everybody
Welcome to my video

Now, this was fairly easy to do for my entire 20 second clip. However, I can see how it might get tedious for a 5, 10 or 20 minute video. An entire movie would be extremely time consuming. Consider writing the file, uploading it to the video, playing the video, fixing the timing or wording accordingly in the SRT file, refreshing the page and going through that process over and over.

Google has come up with technology including voice recognition and automatic timing. However, the use of this new technology is limited. It's only available to some government channels and Google partners. Feel free to watch this interesting video about the need for captioning and the new technology that's being developed.

If you'd like help adding captions to your own YouTube video you can go to the YouTube help page .

I appreciate captions on videos that I watch even more now that I know how much work it actually is for most people to add them. However, being the lazy Web 2.0 user that I am, I can understand why most people don't bother. We're not all the type of pros who make fancy html web pages every day. All I can say is that I look forward to the day when Google perfects its captioning technology for mass use and all web content will be fully accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.

Hearing Aid

Apparently I was wrong about how old my hearing aid is. According to my records at the audiologist, I got my current hearing aid at the beginning of 2004, the second half of my junior year, not the beginning of high school. So I was a couple years off. It's 6 years old, not 8 or 9. Still, it's falling apart, and I read somewhere that the life of a hearing aid is typically 5-7 years, which would make sense.

Going to see various audiologists and researching the features of various hearing aids online has been fun. Technology is so cool. Now nearly every hearing aid is blue tooth compatible if you buy a separate little device. I hear the sound quality should be much improved as well.

I "sold" my parents on the Phonak Versata after various audiologists told me that it was the way to go for my specific hearing loss. My current hearing aid is a Phonak Perseo. They don't even make the Perseo anymore, apparently. Amazing how fast technology moves along these days. I'm going to HearX this week to discuss my options with Kaiser discounts and such. I went through the whole rigmarole with voc rehab and they said based on my family's income I would be responsible for the whole amount, so I'm not going to bother to go through their vendor anymore.

At any rate, it'll be really cool once I figure out where I'm going to purchase it and how much it'll cost. I'm trying to decide if I want to get a funky color or something or go with a plain gray like I have now. The Versata comes equipped with "whistle block" (feedback reduction) and "wind block" (for outdoors). The best thing is that with blue tooth capability I can get sound from the tv, phone, my laptop, etc. to go directly to my hearing aid, so my mom won't have to worry about me taking my hearing aid out and blasting the sound through headphones, possibly doing even more damage to my hearing. I'm so excited! I can't wait to actually purchase it. Oddly, it feels weird to always be using singular to talk about my hearing aid,
since usually one buys them in pairs. Thank goodness I can only use one, because typically hearing aids are a couple thousand dollars each.

New Year!

I am terribly sorry to have let this blog go during the holiday season. There's been a lot on my mind what with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, looking for a job and sorting through my resources. Now that I've apologized for the absence of new posts over the past month and a half, let the new blog commence.
What do I plan to do this year? In 2010 I hope to continue to get more involved with the young adult movement in the hearing loss community and attend the convention in Milwaukee, to maintain this blog more consistently, and to use my resources wisely towards landing a great job.
Although, I’m having some issues sorting out the resources I have available to me. I have connections with the Department of Rehabilitation, but the state of California is flat broke right now. I went through the rigmarole to try to get them to pay for a new hearing aid for me, but I’m still claimed as a dependent on my parents’ tax return so I’m not considered impoverished enough to get help. Although I have to rely on my parents right now monetarily, I’d really like to start becoming an independent adult, which is what most of these services are supposed to help me do.

I am realizing more and more that I need to practice my ASL. I am usually sent to "deaf services" departments and the people who help me are sometime interpreters but sometimes they're deaf themselves, and I feel kind of bad when I start talking more to an interpreter than the person I came to see.

I feel like some of these services were meant to improve on the independence of people who are poor and people who have mental or mobility issues. I am simply hard of hearing. I am a highly intelligent young lady, a college graduate, and a self-advocate as much as possible. I merely lack money and some of my hearing. Do I really need these services, or do I just need some cash and a confidence boost?

I’m supposedly getting help obtaining interview clothes. There have been some issues with this, however. I have been authorized to receive a couple of outfits, but setting up an appointment has proven difficult. The organization has called me and left a message telling me to call a certain number and set up an appointment. I called said number and was informed by a recording that I was to leave a message with my phone number in order for someone to call me back and schedule an appointment. I’m hard of hearing. I don’t always hear my phone. Even if it’s right by me I may not figure out exactly where it is until it’s too late. You can imagine how this goes on. Not being a fan of phone tag, I informed my job developer at Goodwill about the situation and she has agreed to help me get this sorted out. Still, the issue has not been resolved… yet.

Anyway, it sure is nice to have a couple other people at various agencies helping me look for appropriate jobs and work on my resume. It’s also nice to have a back-up advocate, just in case. I suppose that’s it for now. I’m still recovering from New Year’s Eve/Day. I camped out for the Rose Parade with a group of friends. Now I can say, “Never again.” I don’t actually recall having too many hearing issues. In fact, if I could hear even less maybe I would have been able to sleep a bit more. Of course there was the ever-present “group” issue, but that wasn’t too bad. All in all it was exhausting and- in my opinion- not worth the effort and lack of comfort and sleep.

Happy new year, everyone! May 2010 be a great year for the advocacy efforts of young adults with hearing loss in California and across the nation!