Category Archives: Personal blog

“Life is fragile means that there are no certainties, and that adverse events (illness, disaster, death) can strike one at any time without warning.”

A quote from Creativemikely.

Life, so fragile~

To understand yourself is to understand that nature has given you life. What you give into it is what you’ve taken all along.
~Namaste~

Our youngest dog went out for her run along with other dogs this morning. She bought something home in her mouth carefully until she dumped on my feet. It was a dead baby startling bird which found in the camellia trees areas where we know there are nests in the trees. Our young dog does not attacked the baby bird. It was the second baby bird so far, and the other nights there was a few high winds in the middle of the night. There is nothing we can do; however, these birds remind me of something special and important thing in life.

We have lost several friends, a couple of cousins and a brother in 2020. We have not forgotten about the people who survived the Whakaari/White Island disaster and leaving twenty-one people from four different countries plus two tour guides of New Zealand killed/died back on 9th December 2019. Two people are still missing and never found on the Whakaari/White Island or surrounding the ocean. The disaster was a great tragedy, and the police have not yet laid down what kind of charge until another couple weeks to go. Where was the Health and Safety guidelines by the Tour Guides, the company who runs the business? Is there any communication about the warning level for the Volcanic Alert Levels by the Geonet between the cruises they sailed on, the company – I.D. Tours New Zealand Ltd, and Whakatāne City Council?

Yesterday I attended the funeral – an eighty-six years old Deaf fragile chap with a huge warm heart for his close family – a daughter, a son in law and two grandchildren only and to the other Deaf people he knew over many years. One of the highlights memories spoke by the late wife’s family members was learning the lesson on how to communicate a Deaf man and the need of another person besides this Deaf chap during the old days. The story was about the accidental of the fire sparks onto the next spot within twenty metres apart. In the old days, in the rural areas, everyone must report the fire station, checked the current of the winds and have water bucket handy so anyone does not need to pay the fines or to have the name on the list. The story goes here, one day the men, including the Deaf man – Mike (fiction name) were cutting rotten branches, pruning back the trees and piling up as a mould of hills. Mike volunteer to stay on the ground while the men were up in the high trees cutting more branches and do the felling branches onto the land. Mike picked up, cut up branches and piled onto the mould of piles and observed while the fire keeps burning. What Mike does not know that there were several fire sparks jumped out and landed onto another spot that created more fires? The men upon the high trees called out to Mike, and they forgot that Mike was Deaf. The men began to throw pine cones and broken small branches onto Mike’s head. Mike looked up and saw what the men were trying to tell him, and he looked over the new spot where there were more fires, Mike ran for cover as far as he could run. The fire engines came over and put out many fires. The fire inspector asked who was responsible for letting the fires loose, and the men could not put Mike’s name down for he was responsible for this incident, so one of the men volunteer to have his name down on the list without paying a fine.

Most of the Deaf friends does not realise how fragile he was over the last three weeks, and they visited him. His niece and I kept in touch regularly, and I knew his time drawing nearer to death. I saw one of his other Deaf brother – Sam (fiction name) for his weekly requests and stayed in touch to ensure Sam is okay. Unfortunately, I posted the sad news on Facebook for the Deaf community, and they were utterly shocked.

Many people are still grieving as they lost their loved one through COVID19, accidents, illness, or unexpectedly incidents. What about animals as well? What the disaster strikes anywhere like a typhoon, flooding, earthquake in the world?

We can not save or have the perfect life where we are, BUT we need to learn to understand how we can change the way of our life more comfortable and making it better!

As an essential deaf worker from home during the lockdown – many technologies bought wonder and useful for me to communicate with many Deaf, Hard of Hearing people and people in the community.

 

It is incredible to have the digital technology that makes any Deaf people’s life!

Life from the Deaf community was challenging to communicate in the past where there was no digital technology to reach out to other families, doctors, police, friends, and staff in the business.  Many television programmes do not have any captioning/subtitles for many Deaf people to understand what the stories were about or even a breaking new such as flooding. The Deaf people became dependent on their hearing children, hearing mother/father, even friends or staff to explained what the story was about or the breaking news. The children, mother or staff, told the Deaf person to wait until the breaking new finished then to explained to the Deaf person. Any hearing person accomplished was delayed and put up with the long waiting until the story of the program completed. The deaf couple drove out to their Deaf friends if they were home or not. If their Deaf friends were not at home, the Deaf couple will drove to another house. The phone was not helpful because many Deaf people don’t hear the phone ringing even can not hear the other end of the speaker calls. The Deaf people simply hang up or doing the work around the house.

What about an interpreter? In the past, there was no qualified sign language interpreter, only the children called CODA (Children of the Deaf Adults), mother/father, or friends to help the Deaf person. We, Deaf people, wrote down with a pen and paper during the conversation.

The reality is many other people do not realise that Deaf people, even Hard of Hearing, do not hear the voice of the speakers over the phone entirely, read the lips of the speakers, a conversation behind their backs, or to listen to the sounds. Deaf means are unable to hear the sound, except to feel the vibrating of the sound. Deaf people received around 25-30% of lip readings.

New technologies came along, such as faxes, digital computers, mobiles, texts, the internet, social media today. These technologies bring joys for most Deaf people than other Deaf people who struggle to get funding to get a computer, mobile for their work, studies at University.

Sign Language Interpreters are fantastic, and they make Deaf people’s life better by watching the news, the speaker at the University, public meetings, job interviews, and many other places such as at the hospital.

What about elderly Deaf people or Hard of Hearing people? Not all of them due to financial, not aware of the new communication within their family, doctors, or refused to use the latest technology on their choice. Most of the Deaf elderly do not understand the interpreter signing due to the level of their education in the old days, where the Deaf elderly use oral and gesture signs.

For me, it is fantastic where I can work from home in Eureka or work in the office in the city of Hamilton, even anywhere I traveled to meet the persons with disabilities, including Deaf/Hard of Hearing at their homes. I keep the fax machine at home because I have got three people who have their faxes at their home. The main problem is there are not many faxes out there today – it is difficult for many Deaf older people to keep in touch. The manufactures are no longer making faxes due to digital communication, and they do not think about older people. Of course, the manufacturers expect many people to pay latest technology than facsimiles.

With many digital communications such as Zoom, Skype, Viber, Internet are brilliant tools for me to keep in touch with many Deaf people, staff, doctors, and others. The mobiles are great tools in which I can download the limit of apps due to finances and the size of Gbs.

I use sign language interpreters for the public meeting, the Government meeting, the Advisory Group, my appointment at the hospital, and even through Zoom. The funding covers this area for me during the works.

Today you can see daily news where there was an interpreter inside the little box in the bottom corner on the right and it is for many Deaf people to keep updated. Recently, the screen where the interpreter in the little box was too small for some Deaf people to see. Recently there was a new channel on the television, and the channel called Kordia’s Pop Up TV service. This channel screen one hour every day at a specific time in the afternoon during the Covid19, where there is a full screen of an interpreter for most Deaf people to see easily. Of course, there is a hiding catch where not every Deaf people have got update Freeview or satellite tv. Honestly, I don’t watch it every day.

See photos here, for example. The picture on the right is during breaking new, BUT the camera tends to shift where there is another speaker on the other side through sideways several times

 

I do not spend my time on social media when I am not working, I choose to have a break from any digital technologies in the evening, BUT I regularly check if there is an emergency email, texts, or messengers via Facebook or Viber. My partner will let me know if there is fax come through our fax machine in the other room. Surely not 24/7 days a week. I choose to have a break to do the gardening, reading books, DIY, letting our dogs out for a run in the large property, or sitting out in the sunshine in the courtyard.

 

 

Quiet as a mouse today so far and no call outs by texts, even emails, and faxes.

Slept through until our young pup – Nova climbing and climbing over my head in bed as she wants to go out for the toileting. What a rude waking up?

A bit chilly morning to sit out in the courtyard with a large cup of coffee and pieces of toasts. Dogs ran outside to play and did their own toileting while not a sight of any humans passing by even any odd cars except large machinery such as harvesters, fertiliser truck or tractors around here.

Finally, the sun came out to warm our body while we were drinking our coffee in the courtyard. Fresh airs will do for us and anyone out there during the lockdown.

We were talking about jobs to do around here even we have not managed to finish before the winter hit within two months away. Easter Weekend is just around the corner!

Hopefully, the sunny weekend will bring good for everyone during the Easter weekend over the lockdown.

Rusty mention my birthday coming up and we will be home together for the whole time. Let hope I will not be working over my ‘birthday’ day.

My home-based office remains a messy office since the lockdown. Why not? I will some cleaning and sorting out from time to time.

Life as usual while the sunshine is out there today!