Over the past few weeks I’ve been meeting with my mobility specialist at the CNIB once i a while in order to find new places that I may want to go. Places like the super market and mall, but also interesting places that are along the way or around. I had her help first year to learn my way around campus and also to learn where the bank was and other such things, but after that I kind of fell out of doing it. Now I’m learning about all sorts of fun places. It started with me needing to find my way to the CNIB building for something, and just went from there It’s always good to have someone help you find places and find the place you’re thinking about. Sometimes the hardest thing about Google Maps is that if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for or what it might be called it’s harder to find, and if you don’t know it’s there (like she told me about a really neat cafe that I would never have known about had I not been told) there is no reason to find out. It’s pretty fun and I have to do it more especially since I plan on living here.
Category Archives: Mobility
Posts about mobility issues.
Why I don’t trust elevators
This is a more silly thing that happened to me once. Well it happened to a good friend of mine, but I was actually the only other person there ate the time. So we were at a conference for visually impaired and blind people of New Jersey with a program we were in. We were at the hotel we all were staying at going to go to supper. We’d gotten to the elevator earlier than the others (I can’t remember why we were so early actually). So we went into the elevator, but were going to hold the door open. Still his cane got stuck in the gap between where the door closes. He tried to pull it back out, but it slipped out of his hand. Perhaps it was because his tip was worn down, but somehow the cane managed to slide through the hole and fall down the elevator. We stood there in stunned silence for a while listening as the cane clattered down the shaft. Needless to say that cne wasn’t recovered. We laughed about it afterwards. I would have lent him my cane, but I was rushing and forgot it at home. Still it’s an interesting moment and I always think of it when I go into an elevator.
Interesting or not?
Sorry for not posting in a while. I think I’m going to keep thse to one post a week because I had a lot of school work this week so I didn’t have a lot of time to write.
One thing I’ve found in life is that things are very interesting to people who don’t have to deal with them. What I mean by that is is that people will find some of the technology I have very interesting and cool. Though I agree that some of it is amazing, most of the time it’s more hassle than it’s worth. Still, it’s a conversation starter because a lot of people want to know what it is and how it works. Especially when you’re in school. I suppose it goes off the idea that things are so natural to us that we take them for granted, but when something else comes into the mix we pay attention to it. We take things almost for granted that they’re the way we thin they are. If someone constantly gets coffee from the coffee machine at their work, but suddenly their office bought a new machine they would notice.
My point is that with some of the things I have it’s so unusual to other people that they’re interested in what it is and how it works. They want to test it out and play with it for a bit It’s not that I mid that, but that I don’t see why they’d be so interested in something that for me is a normal thing.
I’ve had plenty of “toys” in the past including computers with cameras so I could see the board or machines that could read the text on the page and make it bigger. So many people wanted to play with them and explore them.
I also had one time a young girl ask what my cane was to her mother while I was walking past them one day. her mother told her and I showed her a bit how it worked.
It’s also interesting to think how sometimes you take tings for granted. I had a program during high school that was set up for blind and visually impaired students and at one point my high school had four blind students (including me), but my girlfriend when she first met me was very curious because she’d never met a person who was visually impaired before.
So I guess we really just assume things are mainstream that we’re used to, but when something is common to us it might not be so common to others.
Dorm room living
Well I’ve been living in dorm for the past years of university (and I’ve had the same room for all but the first year, and technically last year because I switched rooms, but I was originally in this room). Still it’s interesting living in a residence because you’re surrounded by people, but at the same time you have your own space [or a space shared with one other person, or a few if you have roommate(s)]. Still, you have a space out of your parent’s house to call your own, while at the same time having other people who are around to help you out if you need them. Also a bunch of people who are in the same boat as you are in regards to being new. Well there are people like me who have been here for more years, but most students in residence are in their first year as well. It also means that you are close the university so finding and getting to classes is much easier.
Well that wasn’t very helpful Campus map
So I was looking at my classes and I had to go to a building that I’ve been to, but not very often. I had a feeling I knew which building it was, but I wanted to double check with the campus map. The thing is that some of the buildings have similar names so the building I thought was the right building wasn’t actually right. So I spent time walking around the wrong building. Guess I should have trusted my instincts. Good thing I gave myself a lot of time so I wasn’t late for class. At least now I know where it is.
The need for (no) light
One thing I’ve gotten used to being visually impaired is not having lights on. Sometimes I’ll go around in the dark and do things because I know where things are and I don’t have to see everything to understand it. I’ll also feel around for things instead of looking, but that’s a different thing all together. I’ll sometimes go around the house with no lights on. I mean who needs light when you know where everything is? Of course if people move things around that can be a problem, but hey, that’s part of the fun!
There really is something exciting… somewhere
One thing that’s always been a struggle for me when it comes to my dog is the fact that my dog can see things that I can’t see. Living out in the country side has it’s perks but it also has it’s disadvantages. One bit one is that we have rabbits, Coyotes (which there is a family of them now apparently. Two coyotes and four pups), foxes, deer and even a bear. This wouldn’t be too big of a problem (well okay, maybe the bear is a problem), but that’s not what I’m talking about. The point is that of course my dog sees all the rabbits and naturally wants to chase them. It’s hard to react when I don’t see the rabbit or deer for myself so he startles me by suddenly going wild wanting to go after them. There are some signs I’ve noticed about him like how attentive he gets with his ears pricked up and how he walks differently, but it’s always a shock when I’m just trying to have a nice walk, and he decides that he just has to chase the rabbits and deer.
Nope, that is defiantly a postbox
I’m not sure why I thought of this since I’ve been inside for the last two weeks because of getting surgery on my foot to get rid of a cist. Either way sometimes when I take my dog for walks I tend to daydream about various things like my stories. The problem is that sometimes it’s a bit hard to see what’s around me. Of course my dog is great at seeing things like that, but still. So somehow when I walk sometimes I see mailboxes, but I don’t actually see them as mailboxes. If I’m too far away from mailboxes I see them as people. Not sure how that happens, but yes, I’ve mistaken mailboxes for people before, at least I didn’t try to say hello because that would have looked really strange.
The great need for landmarking
Now I know everyone gets lost even people with sight, but there is just something spectacular about getting so lost that you can’t even find where you were going or where you came.
Let me preface this with a bit of an explanation: My parents enjoy showing dogs, and when my brother and I were younger we had to tag along with them (which was alright given the fact we were allowed to play games for hours). One particular one that sticks into my memory is getting utterly lost at an outside show one time:
At a certain age we all get it in our heads that we can do things on our own, and so… that’s exactly what I got into my head when I needed to use the bathroom at the show. Instead of having my fully sighted brother show me how to get to the bathrooms (which were porta-potties so it wasn’t a case of just going to a building). I decided I could do it. Well needless to say… that didn’t work out well.
I managed to get so completely lost I didn’t even find the bathrooms. I tried then to go back to get my brother’s help, but… I couldn’t find that either. At this point (since I was only around eight) I was very upset. Some very nice people showed me where the bathroom was then took me to the announcement table so that they could call for my mother (who was also wondering were on earth I’d gone at this point).
One thing I learned from that experience was the need to landmark. What is a landmark? Well a landmark is simply a tool that you can use to easily figure out where you are. So a landmark in essence is a bread crumb (think Hansel and Gretel), but unlike bread crumbs the best landmarks are the ones that aren’t going to be taken away.
What makes up your landmark depends on where you are, but even though I said landmarks are like bred crumbs you should try to avoid using something that might move. If you say the car is parked next to the white car in the parking lot, well that white car might not be there next time you come, but if you remember that the car was two parking spaces from the end you’ll be able to find it.
It should also be something easily recognizable and unique. During my second year of university I had to spend the second semester in a hotel because of a flood in my residence building. At first I had to ask the bus driver where to get off, but after a while I recognized a building that was always across the street from the bus stop so every time I saw that building I knew to get off.
The best advice I can give is find your own landmarks. I find that if someone tells me about a landmark it’s harder for me to remember it. If you notice something interesting on your way then that is what you should use as a landmark. What you notice is far different than what someone else might notice.
Have as many bread crumbs as you want and as few as you need. You can never have too many land marks for one route. As long as you have enough to tell you where you are, where you’re going and where you came you’re good.