Monthly Archives: January 2026

Learning ASL

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Something funny happened to me last year. Shortly after I lost my mother, I lost my hearing. One morning I heard something click in my head and I couldn’t hear very well. It was a traumatic experience, one which I find difficult to tell. I feel much like a war veteran, reluctant to share. To make a long story short, I ended up with total loss, unable to hear my own footsteps, the dishwasher, the furnace, the neighbour’s snowblower, blowing right next to our house.

I have been very fortunate. I have gained back alot of my hearing. I can function very well with hearing aids. It took awhile. It took a lot of faith. Some days I did wondered how I was to live in such a state. I always had believed there’s a silver lining to every cloud. It took awhile to find it with this. All the energy was sucked out of me trying to hear. My head was so empty. I felt cognitively impaired and lost my confidence. But now my strength is back and my head is not so empty. It is working better. Most of the pistons are firing correctly.

I have always been curious about everything. I google everything. I’ve learned alot about hearing and not hearing, hearing aids and coclear inplants. With knowledge, I know I have options and how I can help myself. Technology is wonderful but what if there are hiccoughs? What if…What if…There are so many what ifs in my mind now. They led me to think of learning asl, American sign language. Learning another language would be good for my brain, help fill the empty spaces and spark new neurons. It is actually very fun, good exercise for my fingers/hands and I get to make lots of expressions with my face. I learned of Bill Vicars through the deaf and hard of hearing group of Facebook. He has lots of videos on YouTube. They have no sound. What a surprise, eh?

I found this wonderful Ted talk about the enchanting music of sign language presented by Christene Sun Kim. It shows that life can be beautiful after deaf. She is an artist and has been profoundly deaf since birth.

Feeling Good

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I’m inching my way out of my sad sack self. I can only handle so much gloom and doom and feeling sorry for myself. Enough is enough. It’s time to climb out of my hole and step into the sun even if it is a cloudy day. Here’s my course of action into feeling good again.

  1. Flood my Instagram feed with Asian cooking posts.
  2. Bypass all those posts about mothers passing and people with strange and horrible physical conditions and diseases. It doesn’t make me feel better knowing there are those who are worse off than me. They might have been inspirational at first but now they are dragging me down. I’m getting an impression that the world is not a safe place.
  3. Stop feeling I have to listen and help everybody with their woes.
  4. Making notes of things that make me feel good.

What felt good yesterday:

  1. Watching the movie Good Morning Saigon. I can’t believe that it was made 40 years ago and that the Vietnam War was 60 years ago. I can’t believe how talented Robin Williams was. Though it was a movie about a war, Robin Williams gave me the good feeling.
  2. Coffee with my father. Though he is 94 years old, he is still trying and growing. He is alwlays willing to go out every day with me.
  3. Making a buttonhole on my Bernina 790 sewing machine. It’s the first time using the 3A buttonhole foot. It’s a very good exercise for my brain learning all the ins and outs of my machine.

That’s it for this 4th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It felt good to write this post and that I didn’t have to struggle with it.

Making Sense of the World

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Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

It’s the third day of the new year. Too early to get stuck and give up. It’s too early to sink into negativity though there are so many reasons to. A New Year’s Eve celebration at a Swiss ski resort turned into a firey disaster with 40 dead and over 100 injured. Untimely deaths due to overstretched healthcare. Then this morning’s news of Venezuela’s president being captured by the U.S. Is this legal? Obviously it is possible since it’s already happened. The world is too much for me.

Closer to home, my father’s younger brother died suddenly before Christmas. I seem to be losing relatives at an alarming speed. We only learned of his passing because his youngest brother, my other uncle decided to phone him. His wife answered and just said he passed with no further information. It is distressing to get such a phone call when I was just sitting down to coffee with my father at the mall. I had to play detective to find out if this was indeed true. We have not heard much from my father’s brother or his family. My mother was the one who tried to keep in touch with them. But she’s been gone for a year. To make a long story short, it is true.

It is sad that though we are family, we are strangers. They live just 2 hours down that lonesome highway. They have a daughter living here in the city. If I had ever ran into her, I wouldn’t know. I did get 2 of their children’s phone numbers from my aunt. I texted 2 of them. The daughter here did not respond. The eldest son responded right away. He seemed like a very nice person. I feel I have at least gained one family member. I told the son that we will not be going to the funeral. My father is 94 and my mother had passed last October. We’ve had a difficult year. It is winter. the roads and weather are unpredictable.

It has been indeed a hard year. We’ve all weathered it well. But we are tired. This winter is a bit strange. I’m relieved the holiday season is over. It did not at all felt like Christmas or New Year. I’ve made no resolutions or set goals. In the last Ultimate Blog Challenge I wrote about a goal of losing weight. Guess what? I haven’t and I’ve gained a few pounds instead. And I’ve already not showed up for the 2nd day of this challenge. I’m not looking at it as failure. I’m not looking at it as anything. If I was to have a goal, it would be not to marinate myself in negativity. You know what they say about the law of attraction and algorithms.

A New Everything

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Photo by Judit Peter on Pexels.com

January 1, 2026. A new day, a new year. It’s the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. The challenge comes 4 times a year. I’m not a new comer. I’ve been participating in them for a number of years. The challenge ask us to or try to write a post a day for the month, publish it on our own websites, then share it on the UBC page. There are a few rules. We’re to read the 2 posts above our own and comment on them. It’s a good rule, exposing us to different interests/viewpoints and helps to build community. I like it ,too, that no promoting of products are allowed.

I enjoy being in a challenge. I enjoy writing. It’s how I inhale and exhale, and releasing stress. Otherwise, obnoxious thoughts go round and round in my head like a frog in a blender. It would be very messy and hurtful. This challenge sets up a routine. I come here every day, tap out a post and share. Somehow it gives me an extra incentive to show up and write. There is an audience (I hope so,anyways). I have no set plan. I just show up and hope for the best. Mostly I just mutter and stutter about the mundaneness of everyday life. I do try not to be too gloomy.

I hope you will come along and cheer me on.