We have a lab at work with lots of servers. These servers have lots of fans to cool things down. So, the company provides ear plugs to protect people spending a lot of times in there.

I normally don’t work there, but I had to talk to someone in the lab, so while I was waiting around for him to finish his discussion with another person, I picked up a pair of ear plugs and tried them on. They don’t completely block all sounds, but they seem to act as a band-pass filter.

Anyway, after coming back to my cubicle, I decided to have them on while I was working just to see what it felt like. I found it very interesting that I became very self-conscious about the sounds made within my body. It was definitely different from being deaf because I can still hear, through the bones, my jaws moving, my teeth grinding, my clothes brushing against my body, etc. At first, despite my assumption, it actually was more distracting because of those sounds. I became aware of these strange sounds that I would normally not be conscious of.

But I became used to it as quickly as I became aware of it. After a while, I didn’t notice it much. Another interesting thing was, when I finally got them off, I realized how much ambient noise was in the office, mostly from the fans in the computers.

Anyway… Maybe, it means nothing much, but I wanted to say a few things about it.