So anyway, the girl I sat across from was a ninth grader who was in band camp learning clarinet, or playing clarinet I should say. We were able to have an intelligent conversation, and now I know a bit more than I'd like to about how band camp actually works. Seems pretty grueling let me tell you; you basically play your instrument all day from 8 to like 6 pm at night. She's done it three years in a row, so I suppose its not THAT grueling, and somewhat enjoyable.
Sadly, intelligent conversation all stopped when she left and Larry took her place ;). More of the same "urmumrurmurmrmrmrm ummrmrmrmr urm" transpired between us, with a few intelligent sounding grunts mixed in. He did give me some tasty home grown cherry tomatoes so that was cool. We went downstairs so I could wait the two hours until my next counselling appointment with Amy. We usually bs and don't talk about anything of importance, but we were sent off to pick up some random testing material, so it was at the Grad Ed building that I got to talk to the director of rehab education about one of his papers he wrote and I critiqued. The paper was about how blind people learn and understand math, and Larry and I actually picked the hell out of it. Our rationalle was that "it was good but needed some improvements" a lot of improvements actually. Note to Brent, the director, a screen reader is the correct terminology, not a browswer reader :). The cool thing as that I told him about my thesis and how it might be coo to try to get it published in a journal of rehabilitation as well as a chemical engineering education one. Basically, in my masters degree, I'll study how blind people learn science effectively, and I'll write down my experiences of learning the highly visual field of chemical engineering. So all I guess I'll have to do is do a short lit review for rehabilitation, and I'll get published twice for one thesis, how cool is that :D.
I came back, and had my meeting, where I talked for an hour and a half this time rather than last time's hour, and it was really cool. Talking to a counsellor, even if they're learning, is awesome.
I had to stop going to the Toastmasters meetings because I got hurt, and was really happy that today was the day to have another meeting. Most people welcomed me back, some were like "who are you again?" but it, as always was fun. Its a great oportunity to network, and I've met some really neat people. I hope more students can become involved, but
meeting people in high up administrative positions in the uni can be a good thing too.
So I'm stting here, trying to wind down. Fiona's so tired she's under the bed, hiding away from the light in her little fort under there. My next task is to search through my journals and find some writing styles I can send to Jen, the persident of NABS (the National Alliance of Blind Students (edited to make people happy and to preserve correctness). I've almost officially applied for the editor position of The Advocate
, their national publication by blind students. She was really positive in our mach interview, I'm apparently a "really cool guy". So now all I have to do is write up a little blurb with my qualifications and ideas for the publication. I'm really excited! It may take me some time to get into the position, but I'll get to publish some of my writings, and get back into journalism, something I really enjoy. I'll expound on it more when I know more. Until then, I must go searching :). Have fun guys, and sorry for the long lengths of my last couple of entries, as one of my friends says "you're quite a writer aren't you?" I sure am and I love being quite a writer, you must be quite the readers to enjoy the full posts that I throw forth so I hope you enjoy them.
