Been 2 weeks of school so far... for the most part it's going well enough, although I do get a bit frustrated here and there. Frustrated with some of the math, trying to make sense of it. Seriously, fractions are NOT my friend! Also, the captioning set up for English is weird. Seems like I encounter some sort of issue with the set up during each English class. Last Monday, it was working fine for a few minutes, then boom nada. Turns out I didn't have the microphone charged. Ok. Last Wednesday and Friday, everything seemed to run smoothly enough, with hiccup here and there (the transcriber would disconnect the call on Skype, call me back and then it's running smoothly again). This past Wednesday, it seems like there was some trouble with the internet connection? The disabilities coordinator at the college had the IT department put in a blue network cable into the classroom so I could use it to connect my laptop to the internet instead of relying on wireless (the wireless signals in the room is very weak). Set up worked fine at first, then we ran into issues, but got everything working again. But today, nada. No luck right from the start. We tried everything, reconnecting, restarting the laptop, no such luck. I sent an email to the disabilities coordinator about the troubles, and told him if we keep encountering problems that I just may not want to keep using the captioning service. It's just not worth my time or the trouble, to have an issue arise and then having to spend time troubleshooting and trying to figure out what's going on, distracting me from the discussions going on in the classroom. I may be able to get by in that class with the FM only. The transcriber isn't able to hear the other students in the class when they have something to say, so either way I still miss out on what the students are saying. If I continue to encounter problems next week in English class with the captioning, I'm calling it quits with the service. It's a great service when it works well, but if I'm just going to be encountering issues every so often, forget it.
Now, as for the FM set up... I went back to the audiologist the 14th... The ML10i came in, and we got that attached to my hearing aid. Tested it with the Smartlink+, and it worked great! We tried fussing with the old MLx receiver for my Neptune yet again, and got no results. So we were quite stumped. The audiologist even spent some time on the phone with Phonak for some help as well. Oh well, I was sent on my way with the Smartlink+ and the new receiver attached to my hearing aid. We were starting to think perhaps the old receiver just isn't compatible with the Smartlink+. But during the week, I played around with the FM system some more at home, and boom I got it working! Excellent, now I didn't have to worry about needing to get a new receiver afterall!
Today, I'm usig the FM set up with my ipod, and it's fantastic. I connected the ipod to the Smartlink+, and music is playing in my ears without my needing to wear wires. Oh how nice it is to be wire-free! I love it! I don't need a separate set up for each ear device anymore. Sweet!
Update: The College's IT person checked the connection in the classroom, and even moved the network cable to a different desk. It seems my laptop was sharing the connection with the teacher/classroom computer, but now I should have my own network connection separate from the classroom computer. Will try it out on Monday and see how that goes, and hope the set up works better.
