The Lead Up
I’ve been to conferences and conventions a-plenty. That said, I still don’t know what the difference is. Not really. But this is not a blog on etymological and morphological nuances. This is a blog on a first for me. Two of them. Last weekend I not only tried my hand at being tech support for a conference but also travelled with a fellow hearing aid user.
In the months leading up to the Hearing Loss New England conference, I advised the organizers on all things tech; slideshow templates, cart captioning, and a website. The last of which is no small feat, even as simplistic as it was. I harbored no illusions that putting together a conference and a website was easy. I knew what I was getting into (mostly) and only mention it to set the stage. By the time we all gathered at the Hilton Garden Inn in Marlborough, Massachusetts I was more than ready to get on with the show!
In the months leading up to the Hearing Loss New England, Hearing things with Julie and Brad had really hit its stride. I’d come to enjoy the near chaotic amount of avenues of activism we were exploring. But what’s more, Julie has become a friend. Introverts don’t have a lot of friends. Don’t pity me. It’s by choice. I can be friendly with people and have good relationships with them. But I give so much of myself to my friends that I don’t need a stadium-worth of ‘em to be happy. I’m not well-travelled (also by choice…mostly), so this was the first time I travelled with a friend who was also a hearing aid user.
I’ve got a host of concerns resulting from both firsts.
I’m concerned about having to say no to presenters. The CART captioning software is on my laptop and they must use that. I’m concerned about the AV system fritzing out or the hearing loop not working out. I know the hotel and Shanahan Sound will be there for the last two. But I take ownership of technology even if I don’t have to.
I’m concerned about Julie missing something in her room. For anyone who knows Julie, they know that’s a ridiculous concern. Julie can, and does, take care of herself. But since it’s the first time I’ve had to keep someone else’s hearing loss in mind, I’m projecting the concerns about my hearing. It’s not lost on me that the conference is a hearing loss conference. There will be over 100 people in the building with hearing loss. No one ever said emotions are logical.
The Conference
The HLAA Chapter Engagement Coordinator likened running a conference to a duck. Above the water, everything is calm and collected. Below the water, the little legs are a flurry of feverish activity. That sums up my tech support experience, too.
There were pivots a-plenty due to tech issues; sounds and fonts and non-standard presentations, oh my! I even had to say no to a presenter because she wanted to swap out my laptop with hers. She couldn’t because the CART software was only on my laptop. Ultimately, though, the sky did NOT fall, nor did the world end. It was stressful but it was also successful.
But this is a DHH-centric blog. So let’s get to my thoughts on what it was like to travel with a fellow DHH person. We took our own cars and got to the hotel at different times, so I don’t have any notes on the actual travelling part. But I’ve got plenty of notes on the staying-in-a-hotel part.
We ended up next door to each other. And in the two rooms closest to the elevator. Some people hate staying so close to the elevator because it can be noisy. Yeah, that’s not so much an issue for us!
At first we thought it was great that karma smiled upon us by making us neighbors. And to some degree it was. It was reassuring to be so close to each other…and not just because we didn’t have to worry about being too loud for our neighbor. Because, being so close would have allowed us to swoop in tout suite should something happen. Fortunately, nothing did happen. It also cut down on the time we needed between costume changes and getting together to watch the Sox and Bruins games. Those did happen. But some of the challenges didn’t care how close we were.
The first challenge was one I expected. We couldn’t hear knocking at the door. Since it was expected, we didn’t try…at least I didn’t. I can’t say if Julie did. I fled to my room at one point to recover before dinner. She very well may have knocked.
In lieu of knocking, we took to texting. What did I text? Why “Knock Knock” what else? Some of you may have seen the potential pitfall in the plan: our phone has to be on our person to hear this ersatz knocking. We were in our respective rooms but rarely. And when we were, we were expecting a text. So that wasn’t an issue. But what about waking up?
Julie had a travel bed-shaker to wake her up, which is similar to the one she uses at home, this one ran on batteries and the vibrational activity was much, much weaker. And before I went back to my room Friday night, we discussed what we should do if it didn’t work. I still have my higher pitches and thus my phone’s alarm does its job. When it needs to. If sleeping were a class, I’d flunk. The unfamiliar bed and the anxiety about the next day meant I was up before my alarm. Which is good for me. But what of Julie? What would we do if she was not shaken awake? It’s not like texting her would wake her up.
As luck would have it, she woke up on her own and we didn’t need to find out. That said, the next time we travel, we’re going to book together, so that we can ask about connected rooms with a door. Not all hotels have them.
The other main issue I ran into was listening fatigue marbled with tech support fatigue glazed with presentation anxiety. To say we had a full schedule is like saying the sun is hot. I mean look at this: https://hearinglossnewengland.org/schedule/. There was a lot of great information, a lot of fantastic people. But my brain broke like a two-dollar wrist watch. I expected the speaker-after-speaker taxing my active listening. I didn’t expect the side conversations. I could never make out what was being said, but at irregular intervals a buzz would fly into the room. It wouldn’t last long and so didn’t derail any presentations but I was surprised just the same. I wasn’t surprised that it took all the subtlety of a toddler hopped up on Pixie Stix and Jolt Cola to get people to stop networking at the beginning of the day. In hindsight, we should have flashed the lights when we were ready to begin the presentations.
All this meant that after the speakers but before dinner I was suffering from heavy sensory overload. Even though we were both (hell we were all) hearing impaired, it got too loud for us. Both Julie and I had to retreat to our respective rooms. And whilst I was there, I found an introvert hack: meditation. A quick 15-minute session helped me be able to go back down for dinner.
I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff. But even now, a week later, I’m still dealing with an introvert hangover. I wanted to get this written before I got too far from it. If you were at the conference, I’d love to hear what you thought of it!
Heard the one about
The big hearing loss conference?
It’s deafening.
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