[nabs-l] Equipment Coming In

[Joe Orozco]

Jewel,

I apologize, not for what I wrote but for still not understanding.  Several
suggestions were made for you on how to locate loaner equipment.  I wonder
if you contacted your NFB affiliate to raise hell on your behalf at the
agency.  I think it easy to utilize the organization's lists but sometimes
forget that there really is a machinery in place behind the lists to help
people in these types of everyday situations.  I specifically offered to
write or call on behalf of students experiencing difficulty in obtaining
accommodations.  Did you get in touch with your local Lions' Club?  Since we
spoke of accommodations on campus, did you fully assess the availability of
equipment at your school?

I am one individual who did not receive their equipment until November of my
freshman year.  Actually, the boxes arrived just as I was checking out of my
dorm to go home for Thanksgiving.  The only reason things sped up is because
after speaking to my counselor's supervisor I threatened to take my
grievance to the top of the agency, never mind regional office nonsense.
Until that point I was using an old desktop I'd scrounged up from my
parents' house and a slate and stylus.  Looking back, I probably took better
notes on the slate because I was concentrating on only taking down main
points.  But, fine, my abilities are not the abilities of others, and no one
likes being compared to other people.  Yet, I think it important for us to
realize that just as someone is out there doing something better than us,
there is also someone who is having it a lot worse.

My fear with your situation is that you feel the answer to your success in
school relies on the availability of a long list of equipment.  Technology
breaks down.  My freshman year was not the first time I found myself slating
notes, and so when one of your devices breaks down, are you going to drop
your classes midway?  Later in your professional career are you going to not
show up to work if your Braille device malfunctions and breaks down one day?
People have offered various ways to make the equipment that you do have work
to your advantage.  If you feel genuinely at a loss, perhaps training is
something worth considering.  I don't say this in a spirit of condescension
but rather as a feasible suggestion.  There is a lot wrong with forced
rehabilitation training but nothing at all wrong with voluntary enrollment.

Your schedule was a tough one but is not altogether an abnormal one.  First,
I somehow doubt your schedule was the same every day since you would have
had to have been taking a ridiculous number of hours for this to be the
case.  Since you've made it pretty clear that there is only so much work you
can handle, I do not think an exceptionally full load was the case.  I think
it possible for you to have caught up on transcribing notes during down
times, whether at home or on campus at a library somewhere.  Second, part of
your extended schedule is owed to your mobility.  It may very well take you
longer to walk about, but not using a wheelchair is a choice you
independently made.

I promise I am not nearly as mean as I may be coming across.  I thoroughly
enjoy reading your posts and think you generally have excellent ideas.  A
lot can be gleaned from a person's writing style, and although it is no
substitute to knowing a person, I feel it is enough to sense you are a lot
more resourceful than you are giving yourself credit.  I do not like the
precedent this sets for younger students who may think it okay to stop
something just because the situation is not perfect.  Life is not perfect,
but many people did it, and did it well, long before the idea of Braille
notetakers and screen readers were conceived.

Now, moving forward, let me first suggest you consider using Jarte.  It's an
editor that you might think of as WordPad on steroids and is fully
accessible with screen readers.  You can find it at Jarte.com.

Next, are there any online courses you can consider enrolling in?  Are there
perhaps any Hadley courses you can take and gain credit for one or two of
your college credits?  Time's too valuable to let a semester slide by.  I
might also consider maintaining contact with the professors you would have
had this semester to see about pre-arranging things for the next round.

Third, you may not be enrolled in class this semester, but this does not
mean you can't start to become active with some of the campus groups.  Can
you contact some volunteer organizations about potentially arranging
transportation for the spring term?

Finally, what can your disability office start doing to help reproduce some
of your textbooks?

The overriding point here is not to let challenges get the best of you.  You
can do a killer job at whatever you commit yourself to accomplishing.
There's nothing wrong with venting, and I'm sure during my undergraduate I
did plenty of it.  There's also nothing wrong with building ourselves up
with the support of other empathetic individuals, but just know that in
every supportive group there is at least one person willing to give you a
healthy kick in the ass to get you moving again.  It's not out of malice,
just a little tough love.  Ask Mike Freeman how many times he's set me
straight.

Anyway, there I go writing a damn novella again.  Whatever you do, I hope
you try your hardest, and whatever you do in the future, do, not, give, up!

Sincerely,

Joe

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jewel S. [mailto:herekittykat2 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 9:30 PM
To: jsorozco at gmail.com; National Association of Blind Students 
mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Equipment Coming In

I don't think you realize the computer I'm using...this computer is
over ten years old, doesn't have Microsoft Office (so I use WordPad
only), and has NVDA only, whic can be a mjaor pain. I use this
computer for internet use only, and it's not even reliable for that,
since it can randomly freeze up and require a reboot. It has also
completely crashed several times in the last year, requiring repairs
that left me without a computer for a minimum of a week (and once, it
was out of commission for a month, since I couldn't afford the
repairs). Other than what little I can do on this computer, I have to
go to the public library (which takes minimum half an hour bus ride
and quite a bit of walking to get to) or to the community college's
computer lab (which takes me two hours to get to). With my school
schedule, I was getting home at 6:30pm after classes already, so
staying after school really wasn't an option, and I was leaving at 6am
just to get to school 10 minutes before class started, so early
arrival was out, too.

Don't assume that I wanted to postpone classes for my own reasons. I
would do anything to be in classes right now, but now that I've
dropped, I can't get back in. I *want* to be in classes, and I thought
long and hard before dropping from classes, giving it a full week of
trial without equipment. Between my physical condition deteriorating
and my limited ability to participate in classes, it simply wasn't
possible for me to stay in classes and work at my full potential.
Sure, I could have stayed in and worked at less than potential, but I
need to keep up a great GPA in order to get into the college I want to
transfer to and get the grants and scholarships I need to attend that
school. Because I am a visual and tactile learner, the audio books and
recorded classes were difficult for me to work with. I needed hands-on
learning, which I will get with the refresthable Braille display and
the Victor Stream (which is audio, but allows me to spell words as
needed, so I can write things down knowing the right spelling, like
vocabulary and names).

Please don't make assumtions like this when you can't possibly know
the full story. You are putting the blame on me for not being able to
accept my fate and work at less than full potential. I *will* work at
full potential, and I will not allow other people to stop me from
that. Me stopping me is a different story, but other people stopping
me from being all I can be is not acceptable.

~JEwel

On 9/1/10, Joe Orozco <jsorozco at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jewel,
>
> How does that Darryl Worley song go?  Sounds like life to me? 
 You know, I'm
> not downplaying the necessity of equipment to successfully 
complete class
> assignments, but between a recorder and a computer that appears to be
> working reasonably well to write posts, I think you could 
have made it work.
> >From this position it sounds as though you were looking for 
reasons to
> postpone class, and now you'll have several months to 
contemplate why you
> should not give up too soon.  Circumstances will not be quite 
so forgiving
> when your sustainability depends on a job salary.  You may 
liberally yell at
> me for assuming and for pretending to understand your 
situation, but it's
> frustrating to see up and coming students generate much 
larger lists of the
> challenges than the abilities.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Joe
>
> P.S. You can hear the song here:
>
> 
http://s0.ilike.com/play#Darryl+Worley:Sounds+Like+Life+To+Me:10
5008242:s315
> 60646.12494198.9720862.0.2.233%2Cstd_a3cbac552e9145ca912afe1e8fdd407d
>
> "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up 
their sleeves,
> some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org
> [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jewel S.
> Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 8:38 PM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nabs-l] Equipment Coming In
>
> Hey all,
> I got my VictorStream Reader today, and have it authorized for RFBD
> already and have the process started for NLS books.
>
> DSB says that my equipment is coming in and as soon as all of it is in
> (except the VictorStream, which was shipped directly to my apartment),
> they'll deliver it and get me set up and start learning it. This from
> the people who said they likely wouldn't have it until the end of
> semester...I am so mad that I dropped my classes now, since it's only
> 3 weeks into classes now. I wish I had waited until the final drop
> date.
>
> So I'm saying Yay for my stuff, but Grrrrr that now I have to wait
> till next semester to get going with school.
>
> In the meantime, I'm going to be on DSB's butt about this. In NC, the
> funds are not released until August 1, which is two weeks before
> school starts...this gives no time for equipment to get shipped in in
> time for school to start. This means that any student who needs
> equipment to be able to work to their full ability in class can't
> start in the fall but must wait until Spring semester. That's
> ridiculous, in my mind. I wasn't able to keep up with classes on the
> first week even because I didn't have even basic tools, like a way of
> taking notes that didn't hurt me more than it helped or a good
> accessible way of reading textbooks in class. Now I have the
> VictorStream, so that'll be good for next semester, and they already
> have my laptop (though they won't release it until all of the stuff
> comes in).
>
> Does anyone else have trouble with late funding release in their
> state? My local president and state president are pushing me to
> self-advocate this, but I'm having trouble speaking up for myself (I'm
> a bit timid in person), and I'm really not sure what I should be
> demanding. Any suggestions on what I should be doing here? I think I
> need to advocate for the fund release date to be changed to allow more
> time, and I know I need to advocate for more students being allowed
> into the college prep class at the Voc Rehab (they have a 15 week
> maximum, and there was  a really long waiting list for college prep,
> so I was unable to get into the college prep class at all). I'm also
> hoping to see if they'll let me back in the voc rehab for intensive
> college prep training to make up for the training I didn't get when I
> was there full-time. They do allow intensive training (one week of
> working on one subject only), but it is usually computer training, and
> there is only one teacher there who can teach a scanner, one of the
> things I'll need to learn, and she's the one who teaches the college
> prep *and* consumer education classes, plus she has an intern she's
> supervising, *and* she teaches a cooking class)...they have this poor
> woman way overworked., and they aren't helping the students meet all
> their goals by having a limited college prep placements...
>
> It's all a bit mess, and any suggestions, ideas, or advice would be
> gratly appreciated. And horray for my equipment coming in finally!
>
> ~Jewel
>
> --
> ~Jewel
> Check out my blog about accessibility for the blind!
> Treasure Chest for the Blind: http://blindtreasurechest.blogspot.com
>
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-- 
~Jewel
Check out my blog about accessibility for the blind!
Treasure Chest for the Blind: http://blindtreasurechest.blogspot.com