Some Forgotten Things, Thoughts And Updates

[chelseajmunoz]

In the last blog entry that I'd written yesterday I forgot to mention that when I'd met with my new VRC his assistant thought that the insurance card I'd given her was from Texas. She had me scared there for a minute but when I told her that that insurance card was definitely from this state she looked at it again and saw that I was right. LOL. In the last blog entry that I'd written yesterday I also forgot to mention that when I'd met with my VRC the same day he made a big stink about the fact I use a Mac rather than a Personal Computer (PC). What I mean in saying that he made a big deal out of the fact I use a Mac was that he expressed that he wasn't convinced that a Mac would meet all of my needs. More specifically he was talking about the fact that many places of employment use PCs rather than Macs. I assured him that I'd been a PC user all of my life until last year when I'd attended WSB and learned how to use the Mac. Not only did I learn how to use a Mac at WSB though I also learned that Macs are far more accessible than PCs are. My new VRC then brought up the fact that he didn't think that there was any way I'd be able to chart things using the Mac. I suggested to him that we cross that bridge when and if we even come to it. Because I personally own a Mac and I haven't run into anything that's been problematic on my Mac yet. However if any of my blind friends who read my blog know whether the Mac is able to do charting using VoiceOver or if you have any counter arguments that i can tell my new VRC about how great the Mac is please let me know through any way that you know of to contact me. Interestingly though when I walked out of my new VRC's office with his assistant yesterday morning she told me that she understands that my new VRC has a negative view of Macs because he only knows what he uses at work as well as what agencies like the agency he works for will pay for their consumers to have as a screen reader. All of those agencies are the same in that regard in that each similar agency purchases Jaws for Windows With Speech (JAWS) for their consumers. Those kinds of agencies don't really look into getting their consumers Macs which is puzzling to me because those kinds of agencies wouldn't even have to pay for consumers to have a screen reader on a Mac. Because Macs already have a screen reader that is built-in to the computer. When agencies like these purchase JAWS for people those agencies are spending money in addition to the PC that they've probably also purchased for their consumer. Because JAWS does not come on PCs. In fact JAWS is thousands of dollars in addition to the thousands of dollars that these kinds of agencies spend on PCs. So logically it doesn't make any sense to me why VRCs still want to push Windows computers onto people. In the last blog entry that I'd written yesterday I also forgot to mention that during my meeting with my new VRC the same day I asked him if he'd give me Orientation and Mobility (O&M) because I needed to learn what's around in the place where I currently stay as well as how to get around at the local community college that I'm going to be attending soon. He then asked me if I'd had O&M training before to which I immediately told him that I'd had O&M training before. I then told him that I'd gone to the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) years ago but that I don't agree with that particular training center's philosophy that blind people are all expert cane travelers by the time those people leave the LCB. I expressed to my new VRC that I don't know whether the last brain surgery I had a few years ago was what set me back but I think that's exactly why I feel the way I do nowadays regarding cane travel. My new VRC then told me that there's a relatively new piece of technology that's out that has a GPS feature in it. According to him this new piece of technology also has the ability for a person to set landmarks for the different places that he or she goes to. I said that sounded neat but I definitely want to talk with him again about why he doesn't want to get me O&M when I feel that I'd hugely benefit from receiving said service. A little while after I'd written my last blog entry yesterday I posted an FB status update to my blind friends who also happen to be Mac users to ask those people if any of them knew of any Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanners that worked with the Mac. Given the fact that I tagged several of my blind friends in that particular status update though I knew that someone would likely tell me something helpful. Fortunately I did receive comments on said FB status update by people I knew as well as people that I didn't know who were not on my FB friends list. One of the people who commented on said FB status update said something like "It is not your VRC's job to decide which kind of computer you use. It's his or her job to get you the things that you're going to need in order to ensure your success. It's called informed choice." So for anyone who doesn't know what "informed choice" means in terms of having a VRC, what informed choice means is that the client of the state agency for the blind has the right to choose what cane, computer, ETC that he or she uses. His or her VRC is allowed to suggest different things to him or her but that is the extent to which a person's VRC is supposed to be involved with his or her clients' decisions. When I read that particular comment on the FB status update that I'd written earlier in the day I felt renewed and refreshed about the freedom that I have to make adult decisions about how I move through the world...and part of moving through the world is having the freedom to choose to use a Mac computer over a PC. So I'm going to stick to my guns where fighting for my continued use of my Mac is concerned. I'm going to do my best to educate my new VRC about how the Mac is far more powerful than the PC in many ways. At least as far as a blind person is concerned. A little while after I'd read through the comments that had been posted on the FB status update I'd written earlier in the day I left my new VRC a voicemail because I wanted to clarify something before I forgot what said thing happened to be. What I wanted to clarify for him was related to one of the items I'm hopefully going to receive from him at some point. I left him a voicemail that same night because I didn't want to risk forgetting what I'd wanted to tell him because the thing I'd needed to tell him was important for him to know ASAP. This morning my new VRC called me. Since I wasn't up yet though I didn't return his phone call until a couple hours later. When I'd returned his phone call he wanted to clarify some parts of my story to make sure that he wrote things down accurately in my IPE. During his and my conversation with one another he verified that I'd worked at my stepdad's family practice clinic for a bit when I was in high school. He and I then talked about when I'd graduated high school. I told him that I'd graduated high school in 2007. He then asked me a specific question about why I wanted to get into social work. Since he asked a specific question relating to my longterm goal I gave him a direct answer. I told him that my upbringing was traumatic and that the reason I didn't stay in college when I was a young adult was because I felt that college wasn't for me. I also told him that I didn't know how to care about going to school and I honestly didn't believe that i was cut out for that particular path. He seemed to understand that. He then asked me if I wanted to work with disabled people specifically to which I told him that no, I don't want to work with disabled people specifically. He and I then talked with one another about the fact that disabled people wouldn't be able to pay me and I chuckled to myself because as my situation stands right now I'm a disabled person who can only afford to pay for what my insurance or social security will allow me to pay for. So it was kind of pointless for my new VRC to bring up this particular argument to me, given that i'm living in such times myself. LOL. A little while after I'd gotten off the phone with my new VRC I read some more comments that people had written on my FB status update regarding my new VRC having negative things to say about Macs...when he probably has never even used a Mac himself. Some of the comments that people had written in that particular FB status update gave me the names of some OCR scanners that he or she has used with the Mac that have worked well for him or her. So my thinking is that when I go to the place that's going to do my AT evaluation I'm going to ask those staff members whether that particular place trains people on Mac computers. And if that particular company does train people on how to use Macs then I'm going to ask those staff members what OCR scanners they know of that work well with the Mac. Because I think that's my best bet: to find out exactly what I want to know from people who know this kind of stuff. Then once I get those people to write me recommendations of AT for my new VRC to purchase maybe he'll think about things regarding Mac computers a little bit differently. I doubt it but I have hope that that's how this chapter of my life will turn out. A while after I'd read through more comments that had been posted on my FB status update regarding my new VRC not liking Mac computers I read a status update that one of my friends posted on FB saying that that particular person was leaving FB after today. It always makes me sad to hear people say that they're leaving social media because those people feel that social media is too much for them to handle. I mean I understand people not liking to read certain kinds of status updates that others post. Yet if a person doesn't like what he or she's reading on FB he or she can just scroll away from said status update. Because the thing is that FB is a platform for people to share things (whether those things be personal about the people who share those things or whether the things that are shared on FB are quotes and such that other people have written). So given that fact I don't understand what people's problem is with FB. Because no one has to post to FB if he or she doesn't want to do so. And if he or she does post to FB he or she only has to post what he or she wants to post. So when people say that they're leaving FB because they don't like to read certain kinds of material I seriously wonder what it is that those people like to read. Perhaps I just have the perspective that I do because I enjoy reading what people post on FB as well as posting to FB myself when I feel I have something valuable to say. Also, if I start to read an FB status update that I don't like I simply skip right over said status update. I don't have to leave FB to express my distaste in certain things because I'm comfortable in who I am and the content that I put onto FB. Although I've left FB in my younger days because I felt that was the best course of action at the time...but of course I ended up coming back to FB just as quickly as I left FB. LOL. The last time I actually left FB was in 2015 when I was dating a guy who didn't want me to be on said social media platform. Thankfully I've since learned that it's best for a person to do whatever makes him or her happy...and if a person's happiness includes being on social media like FB then no grown adult has any right to tell another grown adult how he or she should live his or her life. Or if one grown person tells another grown person that he or she isn't living correctly according to him or her then the second grown person can either choose to abide by what the other person had told him or her to do or ignore the first grown person completely. Honestly I just feel like people are missing out on an aspect of life by choosing not to be a part of social media. Like, it isn't FB that is the problem. The problem is that for the most part people don't know how to use FB as a tool. All people know about FB is that more often than not that particular social media platform brings out the worst in people. And it does. That particular statement is true.