Just popping my head out for a minute to write in my regular blog, so y’all will keep reading! Assuming I have anymore words to write.

Yup, it seems that weeks 4-7 in this program will always be the toughest. And man alive am I tired! I have: whacked out 2 blog posts, four pieces on the discussion boards, (including replies) read a 12-hour audio book in three days, (something I’ve never even close to tried before and found exhausting!), and wrote a paper on said book for class. It will go through a number of drafts, thankfully, and the final is due at the end of week 7. I guess it’s not too bad overall, but I know it needs editing.

Despite all that, the vast difference between this experience and last with grad school could not be more pronounced. All of this work, while hard, is actually making me feel more infused with energy and open to writing, as I have to keep banging stuff out whether I feel I “have it” or not. The thought of possible vacations sustains me in the short-term, and my mission to gain more desirable employment powers me from underneath. So just keep wishing me well, and thanks.

Otherwise, not a whole lot. I’m glad to see the back of Winter, of course, though lately I’m not so sure the East coast has gotten the memo. Our low last night was 29, BRRR! I guess I’m just glad that didn’t happen on a worknight.

Also, I still stubbornly continue my pleasure reading, even if at a crawl by last year’s standards. No 50-book challenge. It took me a month to finish my most recent two reads, bringing me up to 8 for the year. But, that’s ok. Any reading will continue to enrich my vocabulary and my background of possibilities from which to write.

And, the fun with Amazon Video and their X-Ray continues. Actually, this proved to be beneficial, as I had to watch a film on which a “Vlog” is due tomorrow, associated with our upcoming chapter on health care communication ethics. I chose Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams. If you haven’t seen that, I recommend it! It’s about a doctor who adopted unusual strategies in treating patients, wanting to forge a greater sense of connection and believing in treating the person rather than the disease. In fact, here’s the YouTube scene I’m going to use in my PowerPoit, (sadly I’m inept in actually embedding it within that medium but want to see if I have more luck here).

I suppose in light of what actually happened to Williams in the end, it was a really sad story and foretelling of his own real difficulties. Still, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, though the factid under X-Ray said that the real Patch Adams didn’t particularly enjoy it. I’d guess this is because of the over-the-top quality that Hollywood naturally brings to such things, as opposed to how his actual life may have played out.

Anyway, clearly I am still enjoying the work that this program is asking me to do, and that is what I think matters most. It has taken so long to find something that even remotely gets at my real passion, and so I don’t take this for granted.

Well we’ll see what I can bring next week. Till then, let’s have a good one.

It’s a huge, hulking piece of work. I bet you usually stop by on your way into or out of the office, not giving it a whole lot of thought. But at least in my corner of the US, it’s still stuck in the 20th Century, like the taxi waiting for a Uber to come along and supplant it. I’m talking about the vending machine, snack or drink.

Apparently one of the longest lasting forms of human machinery, my cursory Wikipedia search suggests that vending machines have existed in some form ever since ancient times, but that modern iterations began to appear in the 1880’s. These initially dispensed postage stamps, but snacks and games were added as incentives to buy more stuff. (Hey, do they still have those little machines outside of grocery stores where you insert a coin, back in my day it was only a penny but I know that would no longer be the case, and get a piece of gum or sour candy? My sister and I did that regularly on shopping excursions with our mom. Ah, the joys of childhood).

Anyhow, I have a lot of beef, or should that be chips? juice? with them, because of the way they typically operate. I don’t know if all of my blind readers will agree, but they can be quite a pain! As I did in my taxi entry, I’ll walk you through a use case, a recent one, that will show you every issue I have with them.

Picking a Product

Given that I work at a place that is mostly for individuals who are blind, it isn’t surprising that our machines, well at least some of them, have big, shiny Braille panels beside them that list their contained items. Only these numbers don’t always remain static, and I guess the cost and hastle involved in changing them is usually not deemed worth it. This means I might press 56 for a snickers and instead get a bag of skittles. Ah, I wanted my chocolate!

What happened to me as I attempted to get a drink was probably more annoying than that would be, though. On this particular machine, one with long buttons that allowed Braille labels to be affixed directly to them, one could hardly read the labels anymore, so faded were they with time. I had no idea what the first two choices were, but saw on the third (Unintelligible)(Unintelligible)awber(Unintelligible)(Unintelligible). Ok, strawberry? I liked that juice when I had it last time. Cold bottle cradled in my arm, I make my way outside with mouth watering in anticipation. And… that’s just what I got, water! For a dollar. Well I sure hope that stuff was vitamin enhanced or had run in the Nile 2000 years ago or would keep me awake as long as I needed to or something more than just what I get out of my tap.

Inserting the Currency

Ah, but of course we’ve actually omitted half the fun. I repeatedly smooth the dollar against my shirt, trying to remove the folds that suggest a well-traveled existence. I know also that the middle feels tender enough to tear, and the sides are kind of bent. So I’ll concede that it may not make the best candidate for acquiring something from a machine, but it’s all I had.

I wiggle waggle and get it to suck in once, and it slides back out. A second time facing another direction, out again. Flip? Reverse! Two more times. Out again and again. Soft unpleasant utterancs issue from me while louder ones come from the folks behind me who are wishing to get something.

“Hey, we only got 15 good minutes for lunch pal!”

“I’m sorry! Not my fault I have to perform calisthenics in order to get the darn thing to accept my dough.”

The sweet sense of relief when that thunk comes that lets me know the money has been taken for good.

Possible Solutions

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems my iPhone can do almost all of this stuff better than that machine can. For instance, I can take a picture of my money with an app, several apps actually, and no matter how I have it faced it will tell me I’m holding a 1, 5, 10, or 20 dollar bill. Can they not build readers that don’t need the money to be placed just so in order for recognition to occur? I did like the one we had at our university right before I left that would allow you to swipe your ID to get the goods. That or a debit card swipe might be nice, though I’ve heard talk that people fear large scale implementation of this as it might turn us all into roving monkeys. Well, perhaps.

And as for the selection of choices, can we get some sort of text-to-speech engine that would make it easy to know what is there? I guess practically speaking, it could take a while for people to make their selection if they had to scroll through the whole menu, but maybe things could be categorized. Which kind of snack or drink do you want first, then which specific one would you like. They could add voice recognition for more fun, and have folks screaming at the machine “No, I said snickers. … No, not dorritos, SNICKERS! Geez.”

Obviously this isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of problems that need solving, but it is something that I’ve been thinking about lately. I know that some of this stuff might actually already be in use, but as previously noted things tend to change a bit more slowly in these parts sometimes. That noted, have you in fact seen a better model?

Ah, we’ve reached that time of year when I do my annual review of where I stand in my job: what has changed and what is the same. It helps me assess whether I’ve grown or am becoming stagnant. I’d venture to say it’s no small part of why I ended up in grad school, about which I will wax a little at the end of this post.

RELATED:
Job Days
Job Days Redux
Job Days No. 3

I am, at least for a little while longer, with my same employer. I find it hard to believe that I’ve already gone through three plus years there, residing in this apartment also longer than I had been in Carboro. It seems to defy the possible that so much time has passed, but therein little alterations have slowly led to big change.

As I noted in the prior Job Days post, I figured that my time in Light Sticks, in which I stuff boxes with said items and fling them at an airport-style conveyor belt, is now more or less permanent. I had been initially hired to work in Master Lock, but this lasted only about five months due to a shortage of product that occurred that summer. It’s been so long since I’ve been over there that I have little memory of how that was even done.

Even though the change had been implemented a while ago, I’d still been assigned to the Master Locks supervisor up until really about a month ago. This meant I had to attend what they call “Huddle”, an employee meeting that happens in each section of the plant, in locks, then run over to sticks to work with little idea of what had been discussed there. Because of this, I didn’t understand the priorities applied in that section and the volume of work I needed to put out. I’m not really sure if the choice was mine, theres, or a little of both, but finally a slow transfer began to happen. Now that I also have that supervisor in Sticks, I notice that communication is easier; from getting the monthly bus passes I need to commute to and from, requesting days off, and even just being able to hear and talk to the coworkers with whom I collaborate all day. So I’m glad I have finally made that happen. It results in a vastly iproved quality of life, and given that work is so much of one’s life that is important.

Another important indicator of life quality is one’s routine. I don’t think my routine has changed a whole lot since last year, but in order to see how much it may have I want to write this year’s normal calendar without taking a look at the previous one. So, here we go.

• 4:30: Wake up. Fifteen minutes later than I used to, but this does make a little difference (when insomnia doesn’t strike, as it did today yawns).
• 4:45: Flick on WRAL News on the iPhone, so that I can leave a little more informed, and inevitably sadder. I do this instead of listen to music, because neighbors don’t wanna hear that at early hours.
• 5:15: Hopefully stumble out of the door on time to make for the bus, although I usually forget this, that, and then end up nudging towards 5:22, meaning I must hurdle towards stop for any chance of avoiding bus sailing through crosswalk as I arrive there.
• 5:50: Wait at Durham Station, which becomes more interesting as the weather warms. Listen to people nearly scuffle over sports and gossip about the latest work happenings, and hope next bus isn’t late.
• 6:00: Board next bus, settle in, and fire up podcasts and Braille display for some multitasking. Fight attempts to drift off.
• 6:30: Reach job, slide into chair at break room. Same ol same as previous years from then on.

Preparing to Move On

So the biggest change, obviously, has been my entrance into online grad school at Queens University of Charlotte. I haven’t talked much about my thinking on what it’s like going to school in this way. Well it’s different certainly, but there are some advantages. Namely, all I have to do is read the text; no lectures required. It’s also relatively easier to respond to people on the discussion board, resulting in even the shier among us, myself included, having a voice in class conversation.

I have talked about the challenges of said, especially with regards to making connections. but I think that something is happening by the blogging I have to do in class, as there seems lately to be an explosion of people noticing my writing and asking me for different sorts of things (hi, anyone who’s dropped by through search! I do appreciate you.) It makes me feel like things are starting to get on the right track, and that perhaps this will be my last Job Days post from the workshop? We shall see. More next year.

For the third time in my life, and yes that may be too few given that I’m 36 years of age, I have cast a ballot. This was my first primary, which feels different because it doesn’t have the same energy as the General Election. I think also that maybe the standards aren’t quite as high either.

The first part of successfully voting is ensuring that I arrive at the correct polling place. I knew that Facebook would have their little box at the top of the app when I launched it saying that the North Carolina Primaries are today and would I be voting? It has a section within where one can easily check where to go, but unfortunately I couldn’t tap into it with VoiceOver. Frustrating, but I guess I wasn’t entirely surprised.

So I spent the next hour after work trying to find another way. Through our local news app, I found a link to the NC Board of Elections site. It took me maybe 5 tries, but I finally got this neighborhood’s strange address inputted and verified that the polling station was the same as it had been when I voted in 2014. So I punched up the Uber app, one of the biggest reasons I can now much more easily go and do my Civic duty, and took the 3-minute ride over to the location.

When I arrived, there was no line extending off of the sidewalk as there had been last time. I went straight in and tried to plug myself in behind the person who was standing just inside, but the greeter plucked me out of the line and insisted that I go ahead in where I could fill out the form to check my registration and ID. I’d already known about the recently instituted Voter ID laws here in our state, so was adequately prepared. All of that went smoothly.

Next, I was taken to the automark machine, the one that talks and allows for blind people to independently fill in their ballot. I was somewhat disappointed though, because this time it was right in the room and I had about five people standing right over my shoulder and breathing down my neck, making me feel under pressure to finish quickly. The room volume was also loud enough to make it difficult for me to hear, so I had to turn the machine way up with the headset on. Even so, I took the time to deliberate and select the individuals I had intended to. I had also used the Voter Guide on our local news app to generate the ballot I would see and learn about all of the candidates. I have to believe that this technology is democratizing us in ways that have never been possible, but of course only to the extent that we are willing to dig deep and make our preferences known. Tired as I was and as crazy as the initial process had been, I had only to remember that people fought, lost everything, and in some cases even gave their lives so that I could be sitting in that seat. I don’t take that lightly.

Anyhow, I printed the ballot, inserted it, and exited. The entire process took fewer than 10 minutes, which is crazy. My return Uber ride, well not so much a return as a grudging trip to the grocery store, also showed up quickly. Oddly, all three fares (from Dunkin Donuts to the polling place, polling place to the store, and store to my apartment) were exactly $4.80. I won’t complain about that, though. They had slapped an “I Voted” sticker on me, which I think inspired my shopping assistant to go and vote too as she said she was getting off at 6. Good stuff.

If I can help it, I will continue to vote from now on. I will also constantly make an effort to become a better advocate and a more informed citizen. I watch the movement on Twitter called #CripTheVote that is attempting to highlight disability issues. Sadly, I’m not sure that many candidates give this much thought to this point. But this is a big reason why I write, right? More later.

February 29, a day that comes around only every four years. This means that in my 36+ years of life, I have encountered this “leap day” 10 times. Pretty rare, isn’t it?

At some point, someone realized that this day would be a good time to highlight the presence of rare disorders where they exist in the population. Long-time readers probably already know that I have a genetic abnormality called Norrie Disease, which results in total blindness from birth and hearing loss by about the second decade of life. As far as I know, blindness is near universal. But the way that hearing loss presents itself can vary widely, probably dependent on the level of other vascular issues one has as well.

Some individuals with Norrie can have more severe symptoms including mild to moderate Intellectual Disability and/or Autism. This happens due to the deletion of the NDP gene.

Norrie is usually passed on through families, but there have been some cases of spontaneous mutation in folks who have no previous history. There are believed to be only about 400 instances of it throughout the world. But given the Internet, Facebook groups, mailing lists and the like that bring us all together, I am led to wonder how accurate that number actually is.

For me, Norrie has been both a curse and a blessing. A curse, to the extent that it does create some challenges. While mine is definitely toward the less severe end of the spectrum, I still struggle with the fact that I can’t hear as well as I once could. This can dampen my confidence and cause me to feel less effective in almost every social situation, constantly having to rely on others to signal me when things have been said or to repeat themselves. Even though people reassure me regularly that this is “no big deal,” it still does deflate a bit.

Of course there are a set of broad based challenges I face as well, with regards to obtaining employment, education, and even maintaining a romantic relationship (but I have a great one, happy anniversary to us!) These aren’t necessarily confined to Norrie folks, of course, but they do confound my existence and present some extra things for me to overcome.

Not all is doom and gloom, though. I feel fortunate for the association to which I linked above, and of which I am currently president. This opportunity indirectly inspired me to get back onto the grad school flow and seek that Master of Arts degree in Communication on which I am now working. I have it in mind to write for or otherwise contribute to a nonprofit organization, likely NPR. So I acknowledge the importance of learning to help others and to understand how to deal with issues.

And on a more basic level, I feel that my main purpose here is to educate parents and other caregivers that we all can be worth something, no matter our situation. This is always my take-home message. And with the near daily advances in technology, our chances to do and be what others are have never been better.

I’m not sure if I’m in my most solid writing form at the moment, hey it’s Monday and a workday so what can one expect. As such, I thought I would provide a set of related posts that will hopefully give you more depth.

Intro Post
My Challenging Wax Cleaning
Five Years of the NDA
NDA 3: Takeoff and Tour

Four weeks down, four to go in my first graduate class at Queens University of Charlotte. And I’m not really sure how to feel, except that the line of assignments coming toward me are a bit like a column of ants: marching slowly, relentlessly onward.

The semester started deceptively easily. “Ah, I can handle this,” I thought as we only had to complete three discussion board posts and read a chapter. Then the next week, it was a bit of a written blog post added to the mix. Weeks three and four featured PowerPoint presentations that I uploaded to YouTube, the first being of my chosen article’s lit review, and the second a full summary of said article. As a sidenote, I’m still having a time presenting fluidly via PowerPoint. I guess I will always find that difficult, since I can only put so much text on each slide and must remember the essence of what I was getting at. I have, through much wailing and gnashing of teeth, learned a lot about how to interact with this technology, including recording narration with my slide show and banging on the keys, stomping on the floor, and chanting just so until I magically land on the “Export” button and can send it as a video. No really, I still don’t know how to actually do that but keep lucking up.

And on comes this week, when the swarm becomes the thickest. I’m just hoping not to get bitten! I have four (4) assignments I must complete in a relatively short time: a draft paper on my chosen movie, which I hope I’ve even adopted a title that is acceptable; a critique of someone else’s work, that part is gonna involve reading the text line by line and checking for issues; a blog post on APA style; and a podcast on the use of writing style guides in general. Fun, huh?

How’s a working man to find time to do that? I’m not really sure. I think someone has already decided it to be too much and headed for the hills, which spooks me more than a little.

I do feel still that this program fits what I’m trying to do, I just wonder how much stamina I actually have. But as my Carolina Panthers (ah can we forget about that sloppy Super Bowl please?) oft-repeated mantra goes, and an apt expression to ride the ant metaphor a little longer, I will keep pounding. I’m trying to at least get to the end of the course, where I will assess my standing and determine if it is worthwhile to continue. Whenever I ponder giving up though, a little bit of encouragement finds me and whispers in my ear “not yet! You’re on the right path.” For it is the hardest times in life where one is made.

One of the biggest challenges that I and my classmates are finding with the program being online is that sense of connection, of “shared-ness”, is a little slower in taking hold. But adversity is already starting to bring it out a bit more, at least on the informal discussion boards created for this purpose. We do still have 11 more courses over 1.75 years to complete, and I suspect by then we’ll know each other quite well. My limited previous experience in grad school suggests that this connection is not only necessary but essential, not just for what’s happening now but also for the attempts to find employment and establish a career that will occur later. So I’m starting to work on that part as well.

Overall though, I’m excited about how things are starting to play out. I guess I will be heard from again shortly after the beginning of March, assuming nothing interesting happens in the interim. Wish me well in surviving the craziest portion of the semester!

And what a week this hast been! In many respects, it reminds me of why I dislike Winter. Truly though, it enhances my good feeling toward humanity in general. I wouldn’t have survived without the intervention of many kind people. I thought it might be fun to take a look at how it unfolded. Stay warm and dry, and join me on the crazy ride.

THURSDAY, 1/21: Ah, I gotta admit to the sense of initial giddiness I get whenever a weather system rolls in that promises more sleep! I arrive home that night and quickly run through my checklist. A reasonable stock of groceries? Check. Fully charged external batter? Check. Phone loaded with books and podcasts? Check. Hot cocoa (because I wouldn’t be able to fill my coffee addiction for a few days)? Check. I’m ready to ride this thing out.

FRIDAY, 1/22: Work is reporting before I drop off to sleep on Thursday that they will open at 10 AM, but I know this is highly unlikely as that’s when the brunt of the storm is due to strike. Winter Storm Jonas, as they call it. When did they start nameing winter storms, and we’ve already had nine of them? Anyway, I roll over to confirm that the status has indeed changed to “Closed”, listen to the news about people attempting to slide around out there anyway, and greatfully submerge myself in dreamland till nearly 1 PM. What else is there to do but conk out, eat, and read anyway?

I finally force myself to be remotely productive, getting a bit of classwork done. Because of this, I allowed myself the reward of an Amazon Prime movie. I choose The Da Vinci Code, since I like Tom Hanks and figure the story will be easy enough to follow. In so doing, I make an interesting discovery. I somehow reveal a tab in the app with four options: Scene, In Scene, Character, and More (I Think). When I tap In Scene, I get a screen that tells me the gist of every scene, all of the actors who will be present therein, and interesting facts about its making. While not exactly description, it brings me to a point where I easily know what’s going on. It was also fascinating to learn how many errors were made while creating the movie.

THE WEEKEND: Not much happens during this time, obviously. I am starting to become bored of myself though, and after a day of pacing around on Saturday, I finally step outside to take in the glorious sunshine and nearly 50 degree temperatures of Sunday. And promptly get lost! Ugh, snow/ice still cover practically youngthing, including the sidewalk and grass. I have to stand and wait for one of my neighbors to deliver me back to my apartment. Escape attempt foiled, for now.

Then the one thing that could cheer me up on this day, the NFC Championship. By now, I suppose you know the Carolina Panthers took a weed wacker to the Arizona Cardinals, winning 49-15. They will face the Denver Broncos, who won a much more dramatic tilt against the New England Patriots, in the Super Bowl! Wordrobe malfunction, anyone? Still trying to figure out if I can do anything to enjoy that game, but too bad it’s on a worknight.

MONDAY, 1/25: Or maybe we’ll get another quick storm? I certainly stayed up to revel in our success, knowing that even if the job did open today there was no way I’d be trying to brave that mess just yet. It does delay till 9, but I opt to stay home and drive myself crazy for one more day.

It does demonstrate why I need to not have to work while I attend grad school, though. I manage to plow through a massive chapter on seven types of theoretical framework within communication, and to formulate my initial Discussion Board response. Because I must also record a YouTube video with synchronized PowerPoint slides (um, how do I do that?) complete a lengthy library tutorial, and decide which movie I will write about for a research project; this extra jump is a good thing indeed.

Tuesday, 1/26: On calling into work and hearing no status update, I know this means I must return as normal unless I wanna use one of my valuable offdays. I know that conditions are still not that great out, as our local school system remains closed, so I take the offer Sunday’s helpful neighbor had extended to me of a ride to work. I get there 10 minutes late, but saz to myself “better safe than sorry!”

As is so often the case when I return from such a break, LC Industries seems deafening. I turn my aids down to a whisper, hunker down, and try mainly to stay awake.

After work, I make my way to Chapel Hill. Thank God I have finally been able to get out, as I am running low both on hearing aid batteries and blood pressure meds. After picking up replacements, and encountering a “nice person, but must be taken in small doses” person in Starbucks, I summon the car sharing service Lyft for a ride home.

Wednesday, 1/bg: As it turns out, I would need Lyft to get into work today too. I finally attempt to negotiate the path to the bus stop, but am encumbered by a giant ice hill whose end I cannot find. A Good Samaritan then walks me to a stop, only it is on the wrong side from what I need. So I capitulate and call a ride. The neat thing about these apps too is that they can help find me. Not that I was lost, but if I had been it would’ve been nice to have the GPS component.

I opt to come home with another woman whom I’d met on the bus. We rarely get to chat anymore, so any opportunity to catch up is welcome.

And after Thursday’s attempt, which then caused me to get an Uber ride to downtown where I connected with the bus, the packs have finally receeded enough that I can again navigate. What a relief! I could do with no more of that for a while, but am certain we’ve got at least one more storm in the cards.

So I realized that I very nearly forgot a fairly important milestone. at about this time in 2006, I was finally cajoled, kicking and screaming really, into obtaining these bits of plastic and wire. on which I have become probably more dependent than I am the bodily organs into which they snuggly fit.

Hearing aids. A great invention, but not one I accepted happily at first. I can still recall the oddness of being in the return vehicle home, and listening to the rat-ta-tat of the tires as they met road. And the waterfall that was using the bathroom. The confusing maelstrom of voices as they surged in and out, making demands of me and others that my newly taxed brain simply could not process.

After all of that craziness, can you really blame me for mostly shoving the things into their box and continuing along without them? My audiologist at the Charlotte Speech and Hearing, a wonderful United Way agency that I hope still exists, told me that it would be a slow adjustment process, and so it was.

As with many things in my life, I finally saw the wisdom in fully embracing these new bits of technloogy after one too many an encounter with a neighbor, a soft-talking woman who was trying to get to know me. And once I accepted the need to wear them full-time, the rest as they say was history.

I am still quite appreciative of the good folks at Starkey, the company who had supplied me with the free aids, in conjunction with the state of North Carolina. They hung in there for 5 years, but it soon became clear that the quality was just not good enough for my use anymore, especially as I had started grad school.

So thanks to the good folks at a University of North Carolina clinic, I was upgraded to Phonak Exelia Art aids (in Tar Heel colors naturally). Even these took some getting used to. Initially, they were so loud that I found it hard to function in nearly all social situations.

Paradoxically perhaps, as my hearing deteriorated, I could suddenly make comfortable use of them such that my overall life has and continues to improve. The down side, of course, is that when I remove them at night I am pretty much profoundly deaf. This is also a concern because sometimes these fickle things do fail. I a so thankful, when that occurs, that I can just ask my audiologist usually on the same day for an emergency appointment.

The upside is that, for the most part, I am functional. Of course technology has just changed tremendously in the past 5 years as well. My online grad school attempt means that I can control volume levels, as well as easily participate in discussions on the forums. It remains to be seen, but I’m hoping that this will ultimately lead to much better outcomes.

Hearing aids themselves have gotten better, and more connected, as well. I’m guessing it’s about time for another upgrade, and this time I’ll likely get some kind of bluetooth component. I’ve heard all kinds of good and maybe not-so-good things about how well that works, but it does hold a lot of promise going forward not only for me, but for all of us with similar conditions. So here’s to 10 more years?

Doh! As memories of sunny boat rides and historic walking tours become ever more distant, I am forced to slip fully into the grasp of reality. For the next two years, that’s gonna mean grad school. I’m looking forward to this now, having seen the first course and its rigorous but useful requirements. But, I hadn’t thought it would be so hard to get the one text book I needed.

I went to the first site that had been recommended to me by Disability Services, textbooks.com. They wanted $50 for an electronic copy. Ok, not too bad for a college book I thought.

The issue at first was that I couldn’t get the book to show up on my phone’s screen, where I’d initially chosen to log in. It seemed that an image, I guess the cover, was obscuring everything else, and I had no idea how to remove it. So I tried to go back PC-SIDE, only it said my account didn’t exist! Created another one, and no access to the book. Sigh.

Next, I tried Google Play Books. If it’s Google, I reasoned, then surely it should be at least moderately accessible. Hey, they’ve done a lot better meeting this basic standard lately. Well it would’ve been, except the text-to-speech functionality was disabled both on the PC and phone. I’ve heard of this, but it was the first time I’ve encountered it. More frustration, this time for a $33 rental fee. Great.

Finally, it occurred to me to go and check in with my old friends at CourseSmart.com. Only they’ve merged? and become VitalSource, the same provider for the textbooks.com site. Even so, once I again paid a $33 rental fee and obtained it through the VitalSource platform I could finally! get it to work. They even have an IOS app that has a great layout, showing me where each paragraph and page clearly begin and end. This will come in handy when referencing.

All of those shananigans cost me $113 in total. I don’t know how much of a refund I can get, but am just glad to be able to read the chapter in time. As you can see, yes access has come a long way, but it is still too much of a crapshoot when one is attempting to make purchasing decisions. On Google especially, I tried to ascertain if the thing would work but didn’t see the “helpful” message to screen readers that they wouldn’t be able to interact with the material until I’d already wasted my dough. I wish it had said so more upfront!

In the hopes of avoiding more craziness, ah who am I kidding, there will always be more craziness, I’m referring to the graduate checklist I wrote a couple years ago when reflecting on what happened last time. I want to make sure I’ve done everything to the best of my ability, or at least know how I will do so soon. Here she blows.

1. Know your goals. As I’ve spoken of before, this is the one thing of which I am most certain.
2. Know the writing style. APA, ah the nightmare continues! We do have a really structured way of learning it in the first class, though, and will also do a podcast. On APA. Right.
3. Know the technology. Oh, book craziness aside I am far better at that than I had been in 2011. Now, I have most of my stuff in the phone, and will mainly only need the PC to do discussions.
4. Talk to professors and Disability Services staff about needs. Well? I’ve started that. The director of that office at Queens is excellent, and has gotten most things in line. Still must set virtual office hours to chat with prof.
5. Be financially able to survive first semester. This is the reason I’m staying on at the job, though it would benefit me tremendously if I didn’t have to work. Maybe I can win that $900,000,000 power ball lottery?

So come and join me as I begin this wild ride again. I anticipate that some classmates will be reading soon, so hello. I hope I entertain, educate, and inform. Off to what else? read.

Ok, I must begin with a sheepish confession: I didn’t officially win the challenge. Sad, right? But, well it can be argued that I did actually read 50 books! My mistake was being sucked into This New Ocean: The story of the first Space Age, by William E. Burrows. It’s a good one, which you’ll see later, but it’s like a thousand pages! Anyway I’m reading it and the one on Charleston, so those make 49 and 50 respectively. And I’ve read half of it, making probably near 2 regular books. Can that be accepted as finishing? Weigh in.

So without further delay, I give you the second 25 books I read in 2015. There may be diamonds, and there may be duds. Only you can decide that.

RELATED: First 25

Observations

Whew! That record-shattering challenge took a lot to pull off, at least to the extent that I did. No question, I won’t be able to try it again for the next couple of years at least. Let’s take a look at the trends.

Most of the books I read this time were via BARD, not surprising as I don’t have to pay for that ha ha. Eight were audio, and 5 in Braille. I did also enjoy the Joe Hill book that came free from Audible around Halloween.

< p>I also didn’t stick as closely to half and half men and women as I had last time, with only 10 being by women during this 25. I suppose that’s still a fairly decent number. The most important thing was to hear from a number of voices and backgrounds. Probably my favorite thing was taking in work from authors whom I’ve known, at least online, for a long time: Faith Cummings and Joanne Hall.

I don’t know what kind of challenge I could come up with for 2016, but think it’ll mostly be trying to survive grad school! Stay tuned, and thanks for your support.