One of the things I find fun is to play my flute (though honestly I don’t do it as much as I probably should). I’ve been playing it for years now. My biggest issue is reading sheet music. It’s hard to read beause you have to notice what note is on what line and be able to keep up with it as you play really fast. Having the music enlarged makes it worse in some ways because I have to flip through a whole bunch of pages. I originally picked a flute with the idea that it would make seeing the music easier, but it really wasn’t. I try to listen to what other people play and go off that. Though I have the most fun just oming up with music on my own time and not worrying about the music. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what I just played but I just like the sound and the feeling of playing something. I love just sitting down and playing away and seeing what comes out.
Category Archives: Hobbies
Last Day of Poetry Class
Now sure, it was the last day of every class, but this was special. I’ve taken several creative writing classes ove the years and none were really like this. It’s not really anything to do with my vision, and honestly there are things I want to say that have no relevance to my ability to see (or lack thereof), but I want to share with people. The class had an effect that’s hard to make. A place were everyone can share without anything being held against them. We all were trying hard, and the change in our writing is great. The fact we had a community and no one felt like they couldn’t share everything. Going to school from 6-9 PM two times as week isn’t easy, but when I went I forgot why I doubted myself in the first place. It’s a beautiful place. The power and energy of the class is something I think I will always remember. I think the night that I had the idea for my favourite poem of the class is one I’ll remember. I’m glad I had the moment at the end of the class so I could near run home and write. To give some context I was presenting my poem ( a sonnet) and I’d been doing forms for half the semester which was fun to play with. So my teacher asked me what form I was going to use next and I admitted I didn’t know and one of the students suggested a sestina and challenge accepted. Still I had a memory of a poem I wrote before where I had two voices in the poem. So I wanted to write a sestina with different voices. At first I thought I should write two sestina’s that related to each other, but then… I came up with an idea. I an’t really explain it so I’ll just show you: Moon and Sun
I was going to copy and paste it, but well… it’s hard to make it show up the way it’s supposed to so I just pasted it. For those of you who don’t want to a sestina is it’s a poetic form where the last word of each line is repeated in a certain pattern:
1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE
That’s basically how the lines are laid out (which yes takes writing it down to remember. I won’t say more than that about it, but you may be able to see the pattern (though some people didn’t realize it was a sestina in class) since we have to do half the poems were we comment in class and half were we take them home ( I wish I’d done this one where we could read it in class). Still this was just something I wanted to talk about.
Poem!
During my Creative Writing Poetry class we had to look up poets and read some of their poems and make a presentation on them. I finally decided to look up a poet that my teacher has been recommended that I look up. That being May Swenson. She’s a really good poet, but my reason for mentioning this is because one of the poems I found (after I took out the books of poetry the library had to offer) I found a poem that spoke to me. A lot of them did, but this one spoke to me on a certain level, yu’ll see what I mean.
The Blindman
The blindman placed
a tulip on his tongue for purple’s taste.
Cheek to grass, his green
Was rough excitement’s sheen
of little whips.
In water to his lips
he named the sea blue and white,
the basin of his tears and fallen beads of sight.
He said: This scarf is red;
I feel the vectors to its thread
that dance down from the sun. I know
the seven fragrances of the rainbow.
I have caressed
the orange hair of flames. Pressed
to my ear,
a pomegranate lets me hear
crimson’s flute.
Trumpets tell me yellow. Only ebony is mute.
See what I mean? One time when I was writing something some said I needed more detail in my writing and I asked them how I would do that being visually impaired and they told me that I could just use my other senses as well. I find it interesting to use colour a sounds and feelings instead of what you see.
Listening too fast?
I’ve already talked about how I love listening to books rather than reading them because it’s just easier for me. When I listen to books I usually have it on a faster speed just because I’m so used to listening to books that I can listen to them at a higher speed. I don’t reallynotice that I’m listening to them really fast, but others have asked me how I can understand what the book is saying when it’s going so fast. I guess it’s the same thing as people’s reading speed. Some people can read really fast and some not so much (I can’t read very fast). If I’m paying attention to what I’m listening too I can listen to things at twice the speed (which is helpful when one of my school books is 35 hours long).
Characters in Books who are Blind
One thing I like doing in my writing is adding people with disabilities. Especially people who can’t see and showing that they can do a lot of things that other people can in a different way. I don’t feel like it’s expressed very well in media and a lot of people don’t know much about it. I like it when people try to add things like that into their story because it feels nice to know that people are thinking about things and trying them out though sometimes it can get a bit frustrating with hose some people pertray people with disabilities. Or even just badly characterize someone. In a story I read once which was a fanfiction story based on a show I watched someone got on my nerves bout that. There is a character in the show who has white hair (though since this is anime and the main character has hair that’s three colours I wouldn’t really say anything about a white haired character).. His eye colour is different, but that’s besides the point. The person said he was albino which would be fine if they knew anything about albino people. At the time I had a few friends who were albino so I wouldn’t have called myself an expert, but I knew a little bit about them. Given the character had dark brown eyes and no issue going out in the sun or seeing it was just an animation choice to give him white hair. I brought it up with the author who said that they just used it as a way to describe the character which got me more upset than I already was. I decided not to push the issue any further, but it was frustrating. It was only one time and there are plenty of times where I’ve seen characters with disabilities done really well and it always makes me happy to see people take the time to look up or ask someone about how to do a character with a disability instead of just doing it. I don’t want to sound negative about things, but that’s just something that stuck with me. I’ve seen one story where a character (ironically and albino) was in the story and it turned out really well and I loved the story as a whole. In my own writing though I like to have visually impaired or blind characters to show that we can be as strong as anyone else. In my novel I’m working on one of my main characters is blind and I love her to death!
Braille in Pokemon?
When I came home from school today after doing my homework I was watching a few videos and I was reminded of something interesting. In some of the games you were able to catch a certain trio of legendary Pokemon, but in order to get to the areas where these Pokemon are you have to go through a few things involving a certain “code”. The interesting thing is that this “code” is in fact braille writing (though written out as the dots so you can visualize them). They were considerate enough to write out the braille alphabet since most people wouldn’t be familiar with the language. Though I understand complaints about how this would be tough for most sighted people because they would be unfamiliar with the system of dogs that make up the language for the blind I find it interesting. It’s a rather remote thing in the games being optional after-game material that you can unlock, but they went through the detail to make the braille spell out what they wanted. Thee is more to the puzzle than that, but being able to read the braille is essential for unlocking the Pokemon. Sign language and braille I find are usually rarely known by people who don’t need them (or in the case of sign language translators). It’s especially unlikely that a fully sighted ten year old would be able to read it (and of course a blind ten year old wouldn’t be playing Pokemon very easily if at all), but it’s almost nice that the Pokemon Company did this. I’m not sure how it’s written out (or if it is) in the Japanese release since I’ve never looked it up, but I know for the English version it’s there. I would assume it’s similar in other versions. I appreciate that they put the time and effort into making it accurate and bringing a language that is a “blind” language to people who can see so they can at least appreciate it to an extent (even if that means looking it up because even us blind people mix up letters, stupid i and e, r and w, d and f and j and h).
I remember when I had to learn braille at around that age and I hated it because it set me apart. It made me different than everyone because I was taken out of class in order to learn it. I was the only one who had to learn how to read it and write it (maybe I would have been happier being the only person who could have told them easily what to do when it came to that part), but I didn’t want it to set me apart. So it is nice to see that it’s used in a way that isn’t solely just so us blind can read
So if I ever look at videos where someone is playing through that part of the game I look at the braille and read it to myself so I know what it’s saying because even though I’m not familiar with contractions I do remember the letters (even though I mixed up i and e on a present I made someone who then told me a helpful trick to remember which one is which). But it’s a nice touch, and despite the frustraton it causes people who have to try and figure out what it’s saying I think it’s a nice homage to a language most sighted people would never come across.
Animated versus Live Action
I’ve already mentioned that I like anime, but yesterday I was thinking about the differences between animated works and live action shows. I actually find animated shows more interesting and engaging to watch, and I think the reason for that is that I understand what’s going on better. With an animated show the colours are a lot more vibrant and the contrast is a lot clearer and stronger thus it’s a lot easier to understand what’s going on in the scene. With figuring out what is background ad what’s in the background and what a character looks like. I can actually see animated character’s eye colours and easily tell them apart. Where as with live action things are a lot harder to see an understand. There was a show that I was watching where there were two girls with blond hair and I constantly couldn’t tell them apart, but with anime that is so much easier for me to deal with. With scenes at night it’s so much easier to understand and follow what is happening. There re some live action shows that I enjoy, but I much prefer animated series where I can tell things easily.
The problem with video games
At one point when trying too figure out what to do with my life (and I still might follow the idea because I was pretty good at the class I took) was computer science and specifically the idea of video game making. Part of this is my love for telling a story in writing or in games. So being able to have another venue for telling stories is always fun, but there is another reason. That reason is the fact that a lot of games are usually geared to being able to see (“I know you want me to press these buttons in succession, but you don’t even let me see them before they’re gone so let’s take a few times to get this right”). So it was a thought of mine to make games that have ways for someone with vision loss to be able to play.
There was one game a few friends of mine told me about once that allowed a screen reader to read it, but sadly I found the game boring because for the most part it was just text on a screen with a small map on the bottom. The map wasn’t even very detailed just showing you what rooms were where with little boxes. For someone who can’t see this isn’t a big deal, but as someone who has some sight it wasn’t as fun.
So of course I had the thought “What if there was a game that was stimulating to people who can see, but also able to be played by people who have vision loss. I didn’t think it would be anything as exciting as a high action game, but there are various different types of games.
I play games myself and the most games I play are games where you follow a formula or games where there isn’t too much action. Games like Pokémon and my Yu-gi-oh game there aren’t much chances of things surprising me and I can take my time to read everything that’s involved in what’s going on (though sometimes I miss some things during Pokémon battles, but I get the general idea of what was going on so I don’t feel like I was losing anything). Other games like Siims 3 I sometimes have to get my magnifier out to read some of the things, but despite that it’s more of a game where I can just create my story and not have to worry as much about what’s going on. I do play some fighting games and they can get a bit out of hand sometimes if I have to press buttons, or pay attention (or one boss in one game that I have to let kill me because I just can’t beat them without running out of power even though I can easily avoid attacks, major rage!) but for the most part I push through those games. Another game that I slightly struggle with is when I play Minecraft because I love building, but sometimes the monsters come out of nowhere and startle me. When playing with my friends I tend to stay in an area where there is very little risk of running into anything (or having things sneak up on me). There was one time where I needed one of my friends to get on to get the monsters that were attacking me to go away before I logged on again because I was having a lot of trouble because I got disorientated and it was freaking me out. It was embarrassing! Still, I enjoy games but sometimes fine them hard to play sometimes.
I know it’s a possibility for games to be interactive, but still be helpful for people to play because I know Minecraft has the ability to write on screen what sounds are going on for people who have trouble hearing. I know hearing and seeing are very different things, but just think of it? If there were audio cues when you did a certain action. There are certainly ways.
Sometimes I enjoy watching videos of people playing games. I use that as “TV” from time to time and I enjoy the commentary of ertain people. A lot of the time when I watch them play a game I think “I love this game!” “I wish I had this game.” “Maybe I should play the game.” Though a lot of the time I realize that I probably wouldn’t actually be good at the games for various reasons so I tend to just watch the game be played.
But if games could be engaging for people who have sight, but also be passible enough that someone with little or no vision I think that would be a lot of fun for everyone involved.
Old game graphics
You know something my brother probably wasn’t complaining about when we were kids? Being able to play both his and my Pokémon games. When we were younger we were only allowed to play our games when we went to dog-shows, but back then games were really hard to see. We didn’t even have colour let alone good graphics. So it was really hard for me to read what was going on in the game so it usually involved me having to ask my brother to beat the games for me. I suppose maybe he was complaining about the more “girly” games I had, but certainly not the ones like Pokémon that we both liked. Then again, who in my generation didn’t like Pokémon as a kid? That’s a whole other story right there, ahh the joys of Poke-mania. These days games are a lot easier for me t play, but looking back at the old graphics and systems reminds me of how horrible I was and how I had to run to my brother to beat the game.
Horse Riding
While I was at a family friend’s house having dinner the topic of horse riding came up, and it just made me miss the days I would ride horses in high school. It was a lot of fun even though I had a lot of strange things happen. When I have more money and time I’ll have to pick up horse riding again.
One time when I was trying to trot my instructor tried to show me what I was doing wrong, the only problem was that since she was in the middle of the ring I had to remind her that I couldn’t see what she was doing. I just did so well for myself that she forgot about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see it, woops.
I also had times where the horse I as riding decided to be a bit crazy. Now this horse was very slow and lazy. Usually you would have to push her to get her going because she didn’t want to go, but maybe because it was a show (since the place I rode at put on their own little horse shows) she was feeling the excitement so she decided that not only would she make it easy to get going, but she would also go beyond what she had to do. My first experience with cantering and jumping, and it was unexpected.