Thoughts On Employment, Thoughts On Technology And Life Happenings

[chelseajmunoz]

A day or so ago I emailed a friend of mine to ask him what it would take for a person to get his or her Braille certification. My friend emailed me back Wednesday evening saying that I could fill out an application online on NFB's website. So I got out my Mac then went to NFB's website and searched for the term "Braille certification." I found exactly what I was looking for on NFB's website. Once I'd gotten to the actual Braille certification page that lists the different categories in which a person can become Braille certified I chose a particular category that I wanted to possibly get certified in. Before I go any further though I'll tell you all that some of the Braille certification categories were as follows: Literary Braille Proof Reading, Literary Braille Transcription, Braille Music Certification ETC. The people who actually provide the course materials for Braille certifications are the people within the NFB. Then once a person gets his or her Braille certification, the certificate actually comes from the National Library Service (NLS) which is the wider branch of the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped that I've mentioned in my blog before. So I first read through all of the things that NFB listed would already qualify me to potentially become certified in Braille: whether I'm a US citizen, whether I have a high school diploma and other things I can't recall. Another thing I read besides the things that qualify people to be certified in Braille was the fact that if a person has never gotten a Braille certification before, the most amount of time that it could take him or her to complete the certification would be an entire year. According to NFB's website the reason for this is that if a person wants to be Braille certified there are certain things that people have to look for according to a specific guide that the NFB would send people who want to pursue becoming Braille certified. Still I thought I'd give this a shot. So once I'd read through all the information on NFB's website I filled out the necessary fields within the application just as anyone would. Once I'd refreshed the page though all the information that I'd just spent time entering into the form was no longer there. What a pain in the ass it was to discover that, let me tell ya! So I then stepped away from my computer and did some reflecting about getting my Braille certification right now. I've decided that I'll keep becoming Braille certified as something to possibly do later because I've already spent a huge amount of money on this AppleCare Technician Training because I want to work for Apple. Period. No matter how long it takes me to get to that point. I also want to have time in my life for me to use as downtime because I only have one life and I want to live the life I have, well. I'm young but I've seen many, many, many people throughout my life settle for things (whether they're settling in their relationships with people, their job choice, ETC). I flat out refuse to be one of those people. I am not a copy of other people. I AM ME! There is only one me and goddammit I'm going to make of that what I know to be my calling. To many people, maybe what I'll go through to see my dream become reality would not be worth the struggle. Maybe there are people in the world who think it's pointless to fight for something like employment. However as someone who has multiple disabilities and as someone who is confident in myself and knows I deserve to see my dream become reality, I choose to fight for that dream however I need to. I realize the word "fight" has a negative connotation in some people's eyes so I'll try to explain what exactly I mean when I use the word "fight" in this context. When I say that I'm willing to fight to make my dream become reality what I mean is that since the world is often not made with disabled people in mind, those of us who have disabilities often strongly advocate for whatever it is we want or need. Given that sighted people read print which is what is most accessible in our world, sighted people don't have the same struggle of accessing information as people with disabilities have. So where a sighted person who wants to become Apple certified just reads the print on Apple's website, fills out the necessary information and reads the printed instructions that Apple sends him or her in the mail, someone who is blind and wants to have access to the same training has to go through numerous hoops to accomplish becoming Apple certified. So as has been a common theme in my blog entries thus far, we all have things that we struggle with, no matter who we are. So going back to my decision to become certified in Braille at a later time: although I think becoming certified in Braille would be a fun experience I feel like taking advantage of such an opportunity now would put too much on my plate. I want everything I do to be filled with joy and passion (whether i'm simply having a conversation with someone, getting a certification of some kind or traveling somewhere). Before I'd looked into getting certified in Braille Wednesday evening though I finished watching season 6 of Once Upon a Time. After I'd finished watching season 6 of that particular show I opened Hulu to see if the Hulu app would be accessible with VoiceOver. It was partially accessible with VoiceOver, meaning that I was able to read through the different categories on the app. However when I tried searching for Once Upon a Time the only thing I could do successfully was to enter text into the search field. From the search field though I was unable to get any further. Then it dawned on me: I had a brain fart! I'd completely forgotten that I could use the TV app that's already on my iPhone. So that's just what I did: I opened up the TV app and started watching season 7 of Once Upon a Time. Unfortunately though the TV app doesn't allow me to rewind, fast-forward, play or stop whatever it is I'm watching. So if I don't want to get interrupted by someone calling or texting me I have to watch shows later at night. Even then though watching shows late at night is not a guarantee that I'll be able to watch them without interruption. It's kind of crazy how something so simple as a person being able to rewind, fast-forward or play something that he or she's watching can either make or break his or her experience of using a particular app. I think it goes without saying that if I had my way every app that I know blind people use would be fully accessible to him or her. Interestingly while watching some of the first episode of season 7 of Once Upon a Time I thought about why this particular show has fully caught my attention. When watching Once Upon a Time people learn that the fairy tale characters go back and forth between knowing who they are and forgetting who they are. So given that fact, the fairy tale characters continually have fresh starts throughout the show. I can relate to having a fresh start in my own life because I'm doing things in my life that will help me have a fresh start myself. It's a great feeling actually, to realize that as an adult you are not powerless with what happens in your life. Each person can choose whether he or she wants to be a passenger in their life or whether he or she wants to be the driver in his or her life. For many years I've chosen to be a passenger in my life simply because I didn't know that I could make another choice. Now that I know I can choose to be the driver in my life though I never want to go back to the way I used to be. Yesterday morning the lady who is my new assistant came to my apartment along with the lady from the hiring company. So we filled out paperwork then my new assistant started cleaning my apartment for me. She had a lot of cleaning to do though as there were things in my refrigerator that had expired in October and September of last year. It sickened me to find that out because I'd thought that the last assistant I'd had was looking out for me. It just goes to show though that what I'd thought had happened and what had really happened were two different things entirely. The reason this makes me sick is because I let complete strangers come into my apartment because those complete strangers work for an agency who hires people to help yet other people. I let these complete strangers into my apartment hoping and praying that they'll be honest, good-hearted people who will look out for me and keep my things clean the way I'd keep my things clean. I put my trust issues aside to let these people into my apartment on a good faith system. Yet many of these people are the very reasons I have trust issues...because they do shady crap like leave old oil in a pan or a pot full of grease that they've used several times, sitting on my stove. I found the pot full of grease on my stove when I came back from my out-of-state vacation earlier this month. Some people sure do have nerve. I'm just glad that I never got sick because things could've really ended badly if I had. While my new assistant was here I texted my therapist to ask if it would be okay if I canceled this week's appointment with her. In the text I'd sent her I explained that I'd just gotten my new assistant and that I needed her to help me with things around my apartment.Fortunately my therapist was okay with me canceling this week's appointment with her. In the evening I got desperate to watch Once Upon a Time so I turned off VoiceOver on my iPhone. Then I moved my finger around on my iPhone's screen until something happened. Eventually my finger moved in the right spot and allowed me to watch the first episode of the current season of Once Upon a Time from the beginning. Interestingly though I used to be so afraid to press buttons on things or to move my finger around on my iPhone's screen until I found whatever it was that I was looking for. Going to WSB last year though really got me out of that bad habit. When I was a student at WSB I learned that it was more than okay to push buttons. In fact if people who are blind ever want to get anywhere with technology sometimes that requires him or her to get out of his or her comfort zone with technology. Because the thing is, I learned that I wasn't going to break whatever device I was handling and if I did mess something up, the thing could be fixed. So nowadays I'm all about pushing buttons and moving my finger around my iPhone's touch screen every which way because I know that eventually I'll stumble on exactly what I want. On another note I've been in this apartment for 6-and-a-half years! It's hard to believe that I've been here that long though because so much has happened in my life in that amount of time. If someone asked me how long i thought I'd be here I probably would say "a few years" at the very least.