Jan (the folk who reaches out from the blind school to our school) is going to call the disability services person at Radboud University to make an appointment for me to speak with this person about next year. Also, the IBG sent the application forms. Why is it making me feel bad? I used to feel bad about the possibility of not having arranged anything for next year, and possibly having to move out (parents always threaten to kick me out if I don’t make arrangements). And yet now we’re seemingly getting somewhere and I’m feeling very bad. I know, I don’t want to go to university, but… Is it that? Is it that I’m scared that I won’t make it. But ain’t all high school seniors worried? So now someone is putting into effect a “kick her to college” method, as I’ve come to call all means of arranging college stuff for me. I used to be happy when folks went to arrange things for me. Not anymore, since I’m realizing that, even though there may be many other things, the most advantageous factor in this is that I won’t have to take this initiative, which’d surely have failed (as the fact that I’ve not arranged anything yet illustrates). It was the same with contacting the Loo Erf folks, but the situation was different, in that I in fact wanted to get in touch with them to see if they could help me. I don’t want to go to college at all, and now the fact that Jan is going to contact the disability services folk is coming across as a means of making sure I’ll eventually do what they want me to do. They still don’t seem to realize that the difficulties aren’t going to end magically once I get to college. Oh well, topics like independence and orientation and mobility (O & M) were addressed yesterday, and they do matter quite a bit, but they’re not what is going to keep me from making it at college, and I’m sensing that folks are too optimistic as to how I’m doing in these things, if it were to matter. And that is, of course, not speaking of social/communicative issues, that I won’t get over by September. But I’ll have to go to college, and with the application forms at hand and plan to talk to the university folk, it’s finally going to get somehwere. I’m wondering what this discussion with the disability
services folk is going to be like. My parens are likely not wanting to go with me, and I’m honestly not wanting them to go with me, for they’ll then get into things where they start making a statement and then get like: “Oh, have your say, Astrid,” so that I can say what they want me to say as if it were my opinion. But what else can one do? If people are going to leave me to make all the arrangements, nothing’s coming out of it, and if they’re going to do everything for me, that’s not quite high school senior appropriate. So Jan is going to call the disability services folk at the university to make an appointment for us (Jan and me and possibly my parents) to discuss things that have to be arranged, and then I’m going to explain everything everyone tells me to explain. I hope it’s going to work out.
The entire discussion with Jan yesterday went like this, besides that these kinds of discussions are a lot less important than college arrangements. It started out already good with Mr. De B. stating that we’d prepared for the discussion last week. He started out about exams and in the middle of a sentence said: “Well, let you say it, Astrid.” Firstly, I had no idea what he was planning to say, and secondly, I began to have a feeling as if I were only there to communicate another’s ideas (I’d not addressed anything last week) so it seemed as if I had a role in the discussion. If I had had the ability to arrange all my things on my own, this wouldn’t have had to occur, but it ain’t that way, unfortunately. Throughout the discussion, I got the feeling as if I had nothing to say besides repeating what I was supposed to say. There were times when I tried to communicate a statement, but it seemed to fail miserably - my poor communication skills again. Strangely enough, I’ve never before had a discussion in which the phrase “with your agreement” or something along those lines was used as often. I grew increasingly upset, but with the “stuff has to be arranged and how you’re doing doesn’t matter for a while” mindset, I had no ability to express it. Now I must say that I quite perpetuated it, with my statement that it wasn’t me saying so, when Mr. De B. said that *that* wasn’t the problem (I don’t remember what it was, but implying that something else, the social/communicative thing, is a problem). Afterwards, Mr. De B. asked me about the discussion. I said something that wasn’t all positive (I can’t remember what exactly I said) and Mr. De B. reacted that it was recognizable. That, to be honest, made me feel even more upset: I don’t care that my distrubed communication is finally recognizable to you folks, for you’ll only have to be involved with me for another three months, and at university they won’t recognize my weird communicative quirks. And all the folks may be optimistic, but I’m convinced that I’m not going to get over this problem by September.
Astrid
