Weird Experiences, A Rant And A Full Day

[chelseajmunoz]

In the blog entry where I recently wrote about a local gym calling me a ton unfortunately that particular gym has not respected my wishes to put me on their do not call list. So instead of calling that particular gym again I blocked that particular gym's number. In some cases I could understand why businesses would keep calling people: those businesses want people's money. Yet in a case like this one where I've specifically asked a gym not to call me anymore and that gym continues calling me, the way said gym acts definitely makes me not want to ever give said gym my business. Shortly after I'd written my last blog entry Tuesday I finished reading The Tao Of Womanhood. It was a good read but it wasn't one of my favorite books by any means. A while after I'd written my last blog entry Tuesday I called the paratransit company in this state to check whether that particular business had received my application. The first lady I spoke with from the paratransit company said that that particular business did receive my application and that I was now being asked to set up an evaluation appointment with the paratransit company. So the first lady from the paratransit company transferred me to another department where I set up an evaluation appointment for Wednesday the 28th of this month. The lady I spoke with at that point told me that I'd need to plan to be away from home for at least three hours on the day that I'd scheduled my evaluation appointment for. The second lady I spoke with also suggested that I bring food with me then in case I get hungry during the time I'm at the paratransit company's office. The second lady also let me know that I should receive a phone call the day before my scheduled appointment to let me know what time the paratransit company would pick me up. The second lady then told me that if I didn't receive a phone call from the paratransit company letting me know what time I'd be picked up by said company the next day I should call a certain phone number to find out what time the paratransit company is going to be picking me up the next day. A few hours after I'd gotten off the phone with the local paratransit company Tuesday I received an email from the local gym that's been bothering me. In the email that particular gym had sent me the person who'd sent the email said that she'd scheduled an appointment for me to meet with an employee at this gym within the next few days. I never fucking scheduled an appointment with any gym in this state so I immediately called the gym and explained the situation. I told the lady I spoke with that I'd recently asked someone from that particular gym to take me off that gym's call list. I then told the lady that I'd received an email from said gym that day saying that i was signed up to meet with a gym employee within the next few days. I then told the lady that i really don't appreciate all of this unwanted contact from the gym and that this gym continuing to contact me only makes me not ever want to give said gym my business. The lady assured me that she'd take care of the situation so that I wouldn't be bothered by said gym anymore. Later that evening I tried to fill out AVC's intake form for the OSD. However filling out that particular form proved to be much more complicated than I'd thought it would be. I mean a friend and I both tried to fill out that particular form and neither of us had much success with it because the formatting of the intake form was crappy for a person who only uses a screen reader. Yesterday morning when I woke up I read a notification from my phone that Be My Eyes has recently made it possible for its users to call on specialized help whenever he or she needs help with a particular company's products. I'm hopeful that Be My Eyes expands that new option because it really could be useful to soooooo many blind people who don't have sighted people around him or her to rely on for help. A little while after I'd read that notification on my phone from Be My Eyes I then called San Antonio Texas Vocational Rehabilitation to ask my counselor's assistant if she knew whether my VRC from San Antonio was going to transfer my case to this new state or not. In the message I'd left her I told her that my VRC is near impossible for me to get a hold of (it doesn't matter whether I call him and hang up, whether I call him and leave a message or whether I email him). After I'd left my VRC's assistant a message yesterday morning I checked the weather in this city. According to Alexa the temperature was 34 degrees outside!!! On one hand I really didn't want to go to the college I'm going to be attending because it was so fucking cold outside. Yet I did want to go to the college I'd be attending because I knew it's always best to be diligent about that sort of thing. As I was expressing my frustration about the cold weather to a friend said friend started to act playfully towards me. The thing is though that when someone is playful to me in a way that I interpret as said person getting too much in my space I don't hesitate to express my discomfort to him or her. In fact I'd say that I get angry when I'm put in a situation like that where I feel like someone is too much in my space. Like, I yanked myself away from the person and then physically removed myself from that particular situation. I totally understand how people could and do perceive my reaction to that sort of thing as me being a bitch but when that sort of thing is happening to me, in that moment I don't give a shit about the other person's feelings or perceptions. All I care about is that I was put in a situation where I felt uncomfortable and I felt I had to get out of that situation immediately. So I wasn't in the best of moods after that incident happened. However a little while after that incident happened with a friend I got ready to go to the college I'm going to be attending. Since I didn't have a good way to identify my clothes though I used Be My Eyes to ask whoever I spoke with if the pants and shirt that I'd picked out would match with one another. The lady I spoke with on Be My Eyes said that the outfit that I'd picked out looked good together. Of course there was no way for me to really know what that lady's fashion sense was but by that point I had no choice because I'd already made up my mind that I was going to go to the college I'm going to be attending. So once my friend and I were ready to go I continued to allow myself to sit in those feelings that the unhappy experience from earlier that day had produced. I even told my friend that it's impossible for anyone to be happy all the time and that part of my therapy has been to learn how to sit with emotions that are negatively perceived by most of society. I'm not sure how my friend felt to hear me say such a thing but I definitely felt great about having been assertive and confident in my presentation of myself. Shortly after I'd had that small talk with my friend he and I went to the college I'm going to be attending. We took Uber to the college and the Uber driver we had was an asshole over the phone. Yet the Uber driver we had was nice once my friend and I'd actually got into his car. That was interesting to me because when someone is rude over the phone I tend to think that his or her rudeness is reflective of his or her personality as a whole. So the fact that I had an experience where a guy was rude over the phone but nice in-person was different than anything I've ever experienced before. As if that particular situation was not eventful enough though once my friend and I'd arrived at the college I'm going to be attending my friend asked some people for directions to the OSD. The first couple of people he'd asked for directions seemed nice but neither of those people knew what it was that my friend and I were looking for. As our Uber driver was getting ready to drive off though I heard something like "As you know, Billy Graham died today. You must remember about Jesus Christ and the cross." I can't begin to explain how much that particular situation set me off. Because the guy saw my friend and I in the Uber car and just randomly decided that he needed to preach to us. Anyone preaching at me, no matter who he or she is, is unwelcome. The other thing that pissed me off about that particular situation though was the fact that the guy who was preaching at my friend and I didn't even consider for a moment whether we had things to do nor did Mr. Preachy Guy consider whether we even wanted to hear him spew such bullshit. He just presumed that we were Christians like him and that we therefore cared about what he had to say. I have a real problem with that sort of thing regardless of what religion a person is. As I've said in other blog entries before I don't take well to anyone preaching his or her religion at me. It's one thing if I choose to have a discussion about religion with someone on my terms and another thing entirely when someone forces his or her religion down my throat. That's the worst thing in the world to me. So anyway as Mr. Preachy Guy started to preach to my friend and I, I became animated and gestured with one of my hands for the Uber driver to keep moving his vehicle forward. He seemed confused about why I'd wanted him to move his vehicle forward though. LOL. Fortunately though my friend told the Uber driver to keep moving and the driver understood what my friend meant. My friend and I then made it to the OSD shortly after that particular incident happened with Mr. Preachy Guy. When my friend and I'd arrived to the OSD my friend went to class while I introduced myself and told someone from the OSD the reason I was at that particular office. I explained to someone from the OSD that I'd tried to fill out an intake form for that particular department Tuesday night but that it was more complicated for me to fill out the intake form as a blind person than I'd thought it would be. Fortunately the lady I talked to from the OSD understood where I was coming from and someone from the OSD was then able to help me fill out a paper version of the OSD's intake form. Having a sighted person fill out the intake form for me proved to be much easier and quicker than I'd imagined it would be. Once I'd filled out the paper version of the intake form someone from the OSD had me go to a computer with JAWS (Job Application for Windows with Speech) the screen reader that can be purchased for personal computers (PCs). Once JAWS was up and running I filled out an electronic version of the intake form that had just been filled out using paper. While I was there I gave the OSD the proof of my disabilities from my doctor that I'd found the other day. Once I'd given the proof of my disability to the person who'd helped me fill out the OSD's intake form the lady asked one of the counselors at that particular college whether the proof of my disability that I had from my doctor would work for what that particular department needed. Fortunately the counselor she'd asked that of said that the proof I had of my disability would be perfect for what that particular department needed from me. Once I'd filled out the online application for the OSD the Director of the OSD called me into his office. Although at that time I didn't know who he was. I just knew that he was blind and that he'd overheard the conversation I'd been having with the lady who'd been helping me fill out the OSD's intake form. So when the Director of the OSD called me into his office he and I talked about my educational goals. He and I also talked about the accommodations I'd need in order to help ensure that I'm successful throughout my schooling. As he and I worked through what accommodations I'd need he told me that the accommodation list we'd created could be modified at any time which made me feel great. the Director of the OSD and I then talked about the fact that the VRC who manages VR clients in this particular area is hard as hell to get a hold of. I told the OSD Director that I've been being the squeaky wheel where this particular VRC is concerned but that I haven't had any luck getting a VR case opened in this state yet. He then told me to keep calling and emailing the VRC in this area. Ironically shortly after the Director of the OSD and I'd had that particular discussion with one another my VRC's assistant in San Antonio called me. So I answered her call only to be told that she didn't know whether my San Antonio VRC was going to transfer my case to the new state I live in or not. So immediately after I'd gotten off the phone with her I called the VRC in this area to let him know that I was currently at a local college and wanted to talk to him ASAP. Shortly after I'd gotten off the phone with the VRC's voicemail the Director of the OSD told me that I could call Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and tell that particular business that I'm blind so I'd need help filling out a FAFSA application. Shortly after I'd finished completing all the necessary paperwork with the Director of the OSD my friend and I left the college with one another. The Uber driver that my friend and I'd had on the way back home though was an idiot. When my friend and I'd gotten into the Uber driver's car she had her music playing loudly. Then she took a longer route than necessary to get us where we needed to go. Throughout our ride with her she kept telling my friend and I that she knew that Apple Maps which is what she was using was not good at giving accurate directions to places. Yet she refused to use Google Maps even though she'd kept saying that she knew Google Maps gave accurate directions to places. Riding with that particular Uber driver was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced. Needless to say my friend and I were both glad to get out of her vehicle once she'd dropped us off at our destination. Once my friend and I'd gotten to our destination I tried to set up my college email on my Mac as well as on my iPhone. For some reason though my iPhone wouldn't let me set up my school email account on it. I think what makes setting up my school email account on my iPhone tricky is the fact that the college I'll be attending uses Gmail as their server. So even though my college has emails that end in .edu I think my iPhone gets confused because the college uses Gmail as its server. After I'd tried for a few times to set up my college email on my iPhone I then tried to set up my college email on my Mac. It looked like my college email had successfully been set up on my Mac but I wasn't sure. So I sent the Director of the OSD an email to test whether my school email account had successfully been set up on my Mac or not. After I'd played around with trying to set up my school email account on my Mac for a bit a friend looked up more apartments and housing situations for me. He even told me that a friend of his had seen some announcements on the college's bulletin board that advertised people who were looking for housing. My friend then texted the friend who'd seen those postings on the college's bulletin board to ask her if she'd text him the information from those announcements. While he and I waited for his friend to text him the information he'd requested of her he continued to look for a good housing situation for me. I want to continue writing about yesterday's events in another post though just because I don't want this particular blog entry to be confusing to my readers in any way. In other news all the books that I've written about on my blog have been recommended to me by people whose book-related opinions I highly value.