Sometimes I firmly believe if I wasn’t deaf that I would listen to many podcasts. I still remember years ago when the first podcasts started popping up and I was already deaf by then, how frustrated I was when blogs I liked to read switched over to podcast. Transcripts wasn’t eve … | Continue reading
Needing an escape from my warm apartment due to the unprecedented heatwave going on in Europe, thanks to global warming, I went to an early evening movie showing in the cool cinema and even treated myself to a slushy! I haven’t drank one since I was a kid. I gave myself two chest … | Continue reading
I’m not hardcore into travelling, maybe because every year or other year I travel to Aruba and Curaçao to visit family. This takes a bite into my vacation time and travel budget. Being a deaf solo traveller with a chronic illness also means I prefer travelling to cities that are … | Continue reading
Social media gets a lot of bad rep, most of it deserved. For me, social media, specifically Instagram, is a way to meet people and find connection and meaning. Being late deaf has isolated me a lot from society, but thanks to Instagram I can keep in touch with people I meet in re … | Continue reading
My resolve to keep my iPhone Mini 13 until it dies is crumbling. I still love the small form factor, but the battery capacity and small screen are becoming more and more of a hinder. Putting in a new battery won’t make things much better, as the iPhone Mini is known for less batt … | Continue reading
This late morning while drinking a glass of water after waking up to rehydrate, I was of course scrolling social media and saw a post about Julia Roberts mentioning Morrissey, cancel culture and art. Besides thinking, I see her point, I thought about that one girl whose blog I us … | Continue reading
Three years ago, I bought my first smartwatch after convincing myself it would make life easier. I wrote two posts about the Apple Watch and how it helps me with deaf accessibility. Before getting an Apple Watch, I wore an analogue or digital watch since I was 10-years old. I can … | Continue reading
Toen mijn neefje het jeugdjournaal begon te kijken, besloot ik de Instagram-account van het jeugdjournaal te volgen om te weten wat hij allemaal binnenkrijgt aan nieuws. Handig om te weten wat een 9- of 10-jarige allemaal al weet van de wereld. Dat ging prima, leuk account ook om … | Continue reading
Thanks to a random YouTube street photographer vlogger whom I happened upon just as they started vlogging, I picked up analogue photography again. He was on a trip to Japan and went to one of those tiny second-hand camera shops where he purchased a Yashica T5. He then proceeded t … | Continue reading
This year, I was asked again by Vasilis van Gemert to work with a group of students who followed his Human Centered Design course at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The students were tasked with designing visual captions for me for a movie of my choice. I asked them to … | Continue reading
Every birthday I get to celebrate is kind of a big deal to me considering I have a rare chronic illness consisting among other of a transplant kidney. To still be healthy enough to work, albeit part time, to travel and just to be able to walk to the grocery store. Never underesti … | Continue reading
This year, I was able to attend CSS Day 2025 again. A yearly two-day congress with 14 talks related to CSS and the web. I missed the past two years due to reasons. But this year, the organization managed to arrange live captions, so it was a no-brainer for me to attend. This is t … | Continue reading
April was busy with doctor’s appointments, medical tests, getting results of the tests, and I still had to go to work. My stress level was above the chart, and when I realised I had a week’s vacation coming up, I decided to book a last-minute trip. As a chronically ill person who … | Continue reading
April was busy with doctor’s appointments, medical tests, getting results of the tests, and I still had to go to work. My stress level was above the chart, and when I realised I had a week’s vacation coming up, I decided to book a last-minute trip. As a chronically ill person who … | Continue reading
Since day one that I lost the rest of my hearing, I have been using Skype to video call my mom, who lives in Aruba. I am fortunate that I can lipread our native language, Papiamento, well enough to be able to communicate without too many issues with most Papiamento speaking peopl … | Continue reading
Jaren geleden heb ik Lieke Marsman “ontdekt”. Via mijn werk, toen er nog veel papieren magazines waren waarvan we veel toegezonden kregen, las ik een interview met Lieke in een van de universiteitsbladen. Toentertijd was haar poëziebundel, ‘De eerste letter’, net uit. Diezelfde d … | Continue reading
Theatre is not something in my orbit. When I was a teenager, I attended one or two theatre productions when I lived in Aruba. But since I moved to the Netherlands at 19 it was no longer a thing I thought about. I do remember attending one production years ago, I think before I lo … | Continue reading
With 2024 winding down I decided to write down a review of my year. It’s the second time I’m doing this. After reading the previous one from 2022 I thought it’s nice to be able to read it back later. Public speaking This year I gave three talks/lectures. Each one was a completely … | Continue reading
I don’t know why I keep up with my yearly favourite reads. For someone who is decent at writing, I find that I suck at writing about books. I could just make this blog post super short with just one line per book. But I concluded that in the end, it’s for me. I sometimes […] | Continue reading
The couple of times I moved since I have been living in the Netherlands, most of the moving boxes were filled with books. I love reading and buying and collecting books. I can’t travel to a new city without visiting a bookstore and buying a book. That’s the kind of souvenir I lik … | Continue reading
My knowledge of music stopped 17 years ago when I became completely deaf. I don’t know any new songs after 2007 and before going deaf I wasn’t someone who listened to music all day long. Growing up in the 80s and 90s I listened to a lot of radio. The radio was always on in […] | Continue reading
Two years ago I wrote about getting back into photography and my choice of camera, the Panasonic Lumix LX100II. Since then I’ve taken the camera with me on my travels, and photo walks, I shot portraits for work for online use and shot family pics. Even tho I told myself after sel … | Continue reading
Travelling is not a high priority on my list. I’m a homebody and that only gets more so the older I get. But I do like travelling at least once a year just to be in a different environment and experience another place and vibes. Being from Aruba and living in the Netherlands for … | Continue reading
Sixteen years, that is how long since I lost all of my hearing. Before that, I was hard of hearing and used hearing aids. For sixteen years I haven’t heard a single sound, am dependable on lipreading, text and captions. Years ago I used a speech-to-text software for the first tim … | Continue reading
It was the summer of 2018 and I had just finished undergoing nerve-wracking medical tests the last months. When I finally received the last result and good news I was so relieved and so deeply aware of how short life is, that I decided there was no more time to waste and time to … | Continue reading
On Wednesday I joined a group of about 15 people for a group photowalk in the city centre of The Hague. For me, this falls in the ‘make yourself uncomfortable’ category. I’m an introvert and groups can be exhausting. Being late deaf also plays a big role because I feel vulnerable … | Continue reading
Tea has always been ubiquitous in my life. I remember we had Yellow Lipton Tea as a kid, and I sometimes drank it in the evening with my sandwich. In the Netherlands, tea is more popular than in Aruba. I mean tea is not very popular on an island where every day it’s hot. Over […] | Continue reading
I have been following the fallout from Jakob Nielsen’s betrayal of accessibility. Yes, that is what I am choosing to label it. He’s giving people and companies an excuse not to do their best. I have read some opinions of others about it and the one that resonates closely with my … | Continue reading
I woke up late at 10:00, on Saturday, February 24, the day that Chinatown in The Hague celebrates Chinese New Year’s. Thinking I missed the dragon and lion dance as the program posted online only mentioned the dance in the morning during the event at City Hall. When I went out to … | Continue reading
After 6 years or so of maintaining my own droplet on Digital Ocean, I moved my site back to shared hosting. Not too long ago, I wrote about having to create a new droplet because the other one, the Ubuntu version became deprecated. The server kept having issues, one of them was t … | Continue reading
Op 15 januari heb ik meegedaan aan de ‘Inclusieve museumervaring’-co-creatiesessie in Kunsthal Rotterdam. Deze was georganiseerd door Michel Witter, docent aan de Avans Hogeschool en onderzoeker bij de Universiteit Tilburg, als onderdeel van zijn promotieonderzoek. Michel doet on … | Continue reading
Recently I finished reading Disability Visibility – edited by Alice Wong. I’m still processing my feelings and thoughts about it. It’s a collection of essays by a diverse selection of disabled people. It’s also US-based, so some things (laws, society) differ from The Netherlands … | Continue reading
Six years ago I got tired of running my blog on a shared hosting due to downtimes and I decided to move it to a Digital Ocean droplet. Back then a droplet was 5 dollars and a couple of cents for each Snapshot. For all those six years it ran smoothly and I had complete […] | Continue reading
It has been seven months since I bought my first Apple Watch, mainly for the accessibility aspect of it. I can confidently say that it has been an enormous help. I have 0 regrets about buying it. I haven’t even worn one of the analogue watches I own since then. I decided it was w … | Continue reading
It has been seven months since I bought my first Apple Watch, mainly for the accessibility aspect of it. I can confidently say that it has been an enormous help. I have 0 regrets about buying it. I haven’t even worn one of the analogue watches I own since then. I decided it was w … | Continue reading
I got my first e-reader 10 years ago almost on the date. The Kindle Keyboard. Back then Amazon was the best available and Kindle store had the most ebook options. I wasn’t completely sold on the e-reader and after a couple of months, I was back almost full to hardcopy books. Then … | Continue reading
I got my first e-reader 10 years ago almost on the date. The Kindle Keyboard. Back then Amazon was the best available and Kindle store had the most ebook options. I wasn’t completely sold on the e-reader and after a couple of months, I was back almost full to hardcopy books. Then … | Continue reading
If you have been following my blog, or social media or know me personally, you know I’m late deaf. I lost all my hearing 15 years ago and can’t hear even the loudest sound anymore. Before that, I was hard of hearing and getting by with hearing aids. But it was progressively getti … | Continue reading
If you have been following my blog, or social media or know me personally, you know I’m late deaf. I lost all my hearing 15 years ago and can’t hear even the loudest sound anymore. Before that, I was hard of hearing and getting by with hearing aids. But it was progressively getti … | Continue reading
Normally I don’t write end of year reviews, but I decided for this year, why not. This year has been a rollercoaster one. Most people are not aware that I’m chronically ill. I’ll keep the details personal but suffice to say, it means I work part-time, and am under the care of sev … | Continue reading
Normally I don’t write end of year reviews, but I decided for this year, why not. This year has been a rollercoaster one. Most people are not aware that I’m chronically ill. I’ll keep the details personal but suffice to say, it means I work part-time, and am under the care of sev … | Continue reading
When the first Apple Watch was released 7 years ago I wasn’t interested in getting one. Being deaf means I don’t want to spend money on stuff that I can’t get a lot of use of it. Apple Watch is also mostly marketed towards fitness. I’m also a huge fan of a wrist Watch as […] | Continue reading
When the first Apple Watch was released 7 years ago I wasn’t interested in getting one. Being deaf means I don’t want to spend money on stuff that I can’t get a lot of use of it. Apple Watch is also mostly marketed towards fitness. I’m also a huge fan of a wrist Watch as […] The … | Continue reading
17-9-2022 To my great disappointment Apple did not include Live Captions in the official iOS 16 release. So much for deaf accessibility progress. But there is a work around. It is still in beta version, hence not very reliable. When smartphones started to become mainstream my fir … | Continue reading
17-9-2022 To my great disappointment Apple did not include Live Captions in the official iOS 16 release. So much for deaf accessibility progress. But there is a work around. It is still in beta version, hence not very reliable. When smartphones started to become mainstream my fir … | Continue reading
For the past two years, I have given talks about transcripts at the Dutch Podcast Festival and I have coached students on creating podcast transcripts. Podcasts have been gaining popularity for several years, soaring high when the pandemic started. Unfortunately, less than half o … | Continue reading
For the past two years, I have given talks about transcripts at the Dutch Podcast Festival and I have coached students on creating podcast transcripts. Podcasts have been gaining popularity for several years, soaring high when the pandemic started. Unfortunately, less than half o … | Continue reading
For a website I have implemented Post Formats as a way to indicate how a post should be formatted on the homepage. It’s an easy way to assign class name and style it with CSS. This way an editor can easily appoint a post as featured or as a post without featured image, thus makin … | Continue reading