[nabs-l] my experiences and my take on the training centers

[Beth Taurasi]

Darn it.  My messages have been coming back as blank, so I'm going to 
say this: I don't know why a lot of Center graduates don't have jobs, 
settle here, etc.  I've met lots of interesting people who've both had 
and not had jobs, but I kind of felt left out of some activities, and as 
far as the "elite" NFB stuff, was really left out.  I was not elected to 
any posts as a student, and so I had to leave conventions altogether, 
worse yet, I couldn't necessarily find places to live without a huge 
waiting lists.  I finally found an apartment that didn't have a big old 
waiting list, and here I am, but my parents accuse me of sitting on my 
back and collecting welfare checks, but that's what I have to do at the 
moment because the jobs aren't here, but it's worse in my hometown in 
Florida, where all there is to do is stuff that nobody thinks I'm 
qualified to do.  I'm not interested in engineering and studying 
something something that I can't or am not interested in doing.  My dad 
being an aerospace engineer is a lucky thing, but I can't and am not 
interested in working in the only place where the jobs are, the Space 
Centre.  That's all there is in Brevard County Florida, just the Space 
Centre, nothing else.  Restaurants I am not into working at.  There just 
isn't enough resources also for dual disabled people in this old town.  
But Denver has all the resources and there's plenty more.  Arielle and 
others could testify that there are more support systems and agencies, 
more people to look up to, and if I want to raise a family, I hope to do 
so with a network of successful people who can mentor a possible set of 
kids that I have.  My boyfriend Blake, being in Arizona, is suffering 
the same fate as many center graduates, but he'll be back here soon.  In 
his case, I think he'll be back home again.  When Blake and I marry, we 
hope, and pray like crazy, that one of us gets a job, but Colorado VR is 
giving me trouble as usual.  But if we have kids who are blind, we know 
that there are successful blind people who can mentor the child(ren) we 
choose to adopt, and there are advocates out there like the ones who had 
kids naturally, I won't name names, but I am sure that if I couldn't 
have kids naturally, adoption as a domestic option would be good.  I'm 
going way off topic here, but it was the Center that gave me all these 
ideas, and if it weren't for CCB, I probably wouldn't have thought of 
how to get my life in order.  The thing is, the economy is bad, jobs are 
tough to find, and all I have is something that might pay pennies per 
hour.  I'd like to work for the CCB maybe as an extra tech teacher, 
maybe as an independent or something, I don't know quite yet what I"m 
going to do.
It doesn't always pan out in RJ's case that Centers aren't the real 
world, I think CCB is almost like the real world.  There's a big 
difference between no blind people and a host of other successful ones, 
but I am feeling like a failure in the CCB's eyes because I could not 
pay my way and get a job.  I can't marry because I don't have a job.  
But because spiritually, I am a Christian, I feel that God will provide 
that all important thing I might need and jobs are in some cases too 
fleshly.  Take the executioner or some company that makes the chemicals 
to kill murder suspects who have faced a death penalty trial.  Or the 
abortion clinics.  Or perhaps the greedy health insurance company who's 
hiring agents because they want to steal your money due to preexisting 
conditions, no longer legal thank goodness.  It's amazing how some 
people get by in those places.  Also, don't forget the meat packing 
industry, which is so dangerous it could mean the difference between 
disability and even death or life.  Those jobs are fleshly and not 
important, and neither Blake nor I will take those such jobs just to get 
married. The Center allowed me an internship, but worse yet, I don't 
think they were able to try a real job setting in Denver, instead I went 
to Boulder.  It was tiring, I had no stable setting in which to live, 
etc.  It was awful.
The end result was a job I can't have due to psychiatric illness and 
some other things I might not know about, and the Center, though they 
gave me more confidence in some areas, did not give me the confidence in 
dealing with the illness I fight daily.  The NFB centers should be 
trained in dealing with all mental illnesses such a schizoeffective 
disorders, bipolar, etc.  That means we should be learning all skills if 
blindness is the primary disability.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox now.
Beth Taurasi