While watching the 7 habits of lifelong learners, I actually had my first good experience using the third program in my hearing aids. Called "Telecoil," its purpose is to amplify electronic sound, such as voices, coming over the telephone. Until now, I've nearly always had some problem that prevented the setting from working according to design. The list of problems is long, but the most common are: if a telephone was connected to a computer, the Telecoil would amplify the hum of the computer drowning out the voice at the other end. Indeed, even if the telephone was not connected, the hearing aids would pick up the hum of any nearby equipment. Another problem was if the telephone ear piece was flat, it would cause painful feedback. As you can imagine, after many attempts, I gave up using the hearing aids with the phone in favor of the tried but true "huh?" method of telephone conversation.

To watch the slide show, I needed to use headphones, which immediately gave me that tense feeling. After a little negotiation with headphone position (to prevent feedback) I began, but immediately discovered that with my hearing aids on the regular setting, I still was unable to make out narrator. Did I mention that closed-captioning is next to God? It just a shame that regular conversation doesn't come in those easily understood lines of text. This time, rather than suffer through while reading the translation, I tried the Telecoil setting. It worked so well that I understood everything perfectly. I enjoyed it so much that I refused to read a single closed-captioned entry.

So, I've already learned that sometimes technology can surprise you. Now, if I could only get it work as well on the telephone!