Public Speaking

A couple of days ago, I went to Smitha, the middle school I went too, to speak to a class about blindness, the possible changes it will bring about, and how if dealt with properly, those changes will not prevent a person from leading a normal life. Of course, I had Mason with me, and he was a big hit with all the students. If you ask me, he's the reason they paid attention to half of what I had to say (lol.) Anyway, I was expecting to have to come up with some sort of speech. The problem with this was I never viewed myself as different so it's kind of hard for me to understand some of what others want to know when it comes to living a life like mine. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about. The students took care of everything for me. I gave them a short introduction about who I am and what I do and spent the rest of the 45 minutes letting them ask questions and answering them. I was surprised at some of the things they wanted to know. Questions such as how do you get along with your roommates, how do you do your work and get to class, and how do you go to the store, among many others were ideas that I've never put much thought in to. I guess it goes to show you that there is a lot about blindness, along with other disabilities, that people are clueless about.
All of this got me thinking. If this one class of students had so many questions, there were bound to be many others who needed to be educated. Then I thought about how many places and people I could visit to help change this. Of course, it would be nice to have others doing the same thing, and maybe that will happen one day. I'm sure there is a career oppurtunity for people out there somewhere. The trick is to get the word out there that you're willing to make these types of visits. If that happens, there will surely be many people who would want to meet and here from me and many others.

The Art of Being Understanding

The other day, I got a real test when it came to holding my tongue and trying to remember that everyone makes mistakes. A student at our school with a mental disability that I won't go in to was trying to find a professor that would be accomidating to her needs. When she approached my professor, he said that he would be more than happy to have her since he already had another student just like her in the class. I figured out this was me because he said that this student had a dog. I realize that blindness is a disability. However, I would hardly call that a mental impairment. Therefore, I'm sure you can imagine how I felt about this statement. My first instinct was to approach the professor and explain to him exactly what I thought about this. However, I realized that it would just start a big dispute. Seeing as he is great when it comes to instruction and I'm planning on taking more classes with him, I figured it might be a good idea to not go about it in this way. I decided that it could have been an honest mistake and it would probably not happen again. There are 2 things to be learned from this. The first is to stop and think before immediately getting deffensive with a person. The second would be to not let this kind of treatment continue. For example, if this professor were to continue making such comments about me or any other students, he would definitely be taught that he should conduct himself in a more professional manner. Therefore, it helps to step back and examine a situation before reacting to it, and working out a plan before acting will allways be the better route.

The Joys of Fire Drills

Tonight, Mason and I experiensed a fire drill in the dorms. In these situations, I don't like to put him in harness because I don't want the harness to be ascoiated with stress, which he is under when this happens. However, no harness means no working for the dog. Unfortunately, people are not allways willing to help. So, the main thing to remember is to not get disoriented. You do this by keeping your exact movements in your mind as much as possible so you can use them to backtrack afterwards. Also, you want to remember to not get frustrated with your dog since he or she may be anxious about all the excitement and noise. As long as you keep all this mind, fire drills will still be annoying, but they will be manageable.

Back to School

So, a new semester begins this week. Actually, it was supposed to begin last week, but we had snow days from Monday untill Thursday. I have no classes on Fridays, so Mason and I got an extra week of winter break. Actually, I was pretty surprised since it's rare for Georgia to get 1 snow day let alone a whole week of them. Anyway, I'm doing things a little differently this semester. I'm normally one of those over achievers that tries to take as many credit hours as I can. After all, the more I get done, the sooner I can graduate. However, last semester was a rough one. I put all my energy in to one class, and neglected the other 4. In the end, I passed the 4 I neglected, although I could have done a lot better. As for the one I put the efort in too, I got a d. Technically, that's passing. However, since it's a class for my major, a d means no credit, which means I have to retake it. This along with the ones that were also lower than normal caused my grade point average to drop. So, I decided to only take 4 classes this semester, the minimum you can take as a full time student. With less to do, I'm hoping I can raise my grade point average and keep my scholarship. Also, I can enjoy the college experiense a little more. Like I said, I originally thought that it was good to rush things, but I decided that I'd rather have the better grades and the fun memories than a quick deploma. Besides, a higher GPA will be a necesity when I apply for graduate school. So, wish me luck. I'm definitely going to need it. lol

The Joys of Airport Security

The other day, Mason and I went to the airport to pick up my friend, Nimer, and his dog, Abbie. Since Nimer and I are both blind, I decided it would be easiest for me to meet him at his gate instead of waiting at baggage claim. Getting a pass to do so was no problem. However, this meant Mason and I got to deal with the new airport security. In the past, I would walk through the mettal detector, have Mason sit behind me, and call him once I was done. His harness would set the detector off, which would result in a pat down. However, since they have new body scanners that are too small for both of us to fit in, we went straight to the pat down. Now, the thing to remember durring this is to keep calm, and keep your dog under control. Although the airport security officer conducting the search may try to get you to have your dog do stuff you wouldn't normally have him or her do, just go along with it. It will make the whole process go by much more smoothly and quickly. Seeing as your dog may be uncomfortable with someone touching you, and him or her, keeping control will put your dog at ease and will let him or her know that everything is okay. Seeing as the security staff is usually in a rush, they usually do not have the gentlest of hands. Therefore, it's not unlikely that they could make dogs feel a little anxious. So to sum everything up, keeping your dog calm and letting the airport security officers do their jobs will make your airport travel much more pleasant.

The Joys of Visual Learning

Lately, I've had to have a talk with 2 of my professors involving different assignments that I needed to complete, but that were too visual for me to do so independently. My history professor wanted us to do an on line geography assignment that involved identifying countries on a map based on a number system. I have news for you people. Yes, my screen reader can read text on my computer screen, but no, my screen reader cannot describe pictures. Therefore, there is no way I could do this assignment on my own. Even if someone helped me with it, they would basically be doing it for me. So, even though I don't reccomend making this a habit, (being blind doesn't make you unable to work) I had to ask for an exhimption. Luckily, my professor was able to grasp the situation, and understood completely. I was planning to offer to do an alternative assignment, but he just told me not to worry about it. Not because of blindness, but because of tipical college laziness, I was happy to hear this.
The other professor was not as easy. This was a psychology class, where we had to learn how to enterpret different graphs and make statistical calculations from them. In this case, I get to spend some extra time in her office before the test going over how to do them. As much as I'm not thrilled with the idea, I'm not going to try to get out of it. Blindness should not give me a right to not put forth an efort. Therefore, I guess I know what I'll be working on for the next couple of weeks.

As Told By Mason (The Trip To Albany)

This weekend, Sam and I went on a road trip. I'm not exactly sure where, but I heard Sam refer to the place as Albany. Anyway, we left on Friday, and arrived at an apartment I'd never been too before. However, Sam seemed to know what we should be doing since he got out a key and let us in. I sniffed around for a while, and recognized the smells. They belonged to Sam's friend Sean, and his black lab, Franklin. We hadnt seen them in a few months, and I spent a while looking for them. After all, if their scents were here, then they must have been here at some point. Finally, Sam took me outside, and there they were! Franklin and I were thrilled to see each other, and got a little too excited.
After a while, Sam and Sean put Franklin and I in our work harnesses, and we went out to enjoy a night on the town. First, we went out to dinner. Unlike the dining hall experiense I described in last week's poast, I was a verry good golden. I lay down next to Sam's chair and slept. However, Franklin was horrible. I guess only a lab would never learn that standing up, laying your head in laps, and drooling will not help you get any food. Later, we went to a few stores, and Sam got me some toys and treats. However, I wanted to take a few extra bags with me. Too bad Sam caught me trying to sneaque them off the shelf. That night, I was delighted to discover a soft sided crate kind of like the one I have at Sam's mom's house. I'm a good dog, and never have to be crated, but I like sleeping in an open one anyway. So, since it seemed more portable then the one I keep at Sam's mom's, and since Franklin doesn't use it, Sam let me bring it home. Basically, the night was perfect accept for one thing. I had to share Sam's attention with Franklin. Basically, that involved having to share my late night and early morning park times with him and Sam gave him his breakfast the same time he gave me mine. Sam claims it's because Sean goes to bed earlier and sleeps later, so he figured he might as well take Franklin out with me since Franklin and I like to start playing in the middle of the night and he wanted to make sure that wouldnt mean we had to go out. However, I still wasn't happy about it. Oh well, I guess I'll forgive him. After all, isn't that part of the duty for us loyal canines?
Yesterday, we went to Sam's baseball game. I had to be tied up next to Sam's dad the whole time. It was hot out, so I used that as an excuse to be far away from him, under the bleachers. The game was pretty uneventful for me, and we went home afterwards. I've spent today napping and thinking about what a fun weekend I had. Of course, I allways have fun with Sam, but I enjoyed getting to see a new town where I had never been before. I wonder where we'll get to go next!