Beep

I had my hearing tested today. We got a late start, the road we planned on taking was shut down for repairs, but we made it with 15 minutes to spare anyway.

The doctor was brazilian, she had a wonderful accent when speaking in spanish. All the "s" sounds were pronounced "z", and she spoke really clearly. I guess if you plan on testing how well people hear you, you have to make sure you aren't the one messing them up. It was kind of interesting to listen to her talk with that accent while my father talked in spanish with his english accent. Three people with completely different accents talking to each other.

She explained everything she was doing as she did it. Including the little graphs she printed out, the basic (very basic) anatomy of an ear, and how the tests spot where, exactly, the problem lays.

It was standard procedure. Put on some earphones and lift your hand when you hear a beep. At one point, they were placed on the ridge of bone right behind the ear, which means you detect the sound only with the inner ear, since it's actually vibrating all around your skull. Then they were placed on my forehead, again, only the inner ear detects it, and if your hearing is fine you should hear the beep equally with both ears.

The other part was just her reading a list of words/senseless monosyllables whose volume got softer and softer and having me repeat them.

I asked the doctor a bit about her job. It took her 5 years of college (in Brazil), and she's accredited in New York, as well. It only takes 3 years of study in this country, which apparently is because the private universities are a business, so they teach the students which buttons on which machines to press. That's about all they need to know to be able to charge for the results.

She spent a bit of time talking to be trying to convince me to look into that as a career. I actually will go into medicine if I study in the State University, but seriously doubt I'll go into Audiology.