Progress Report on 2005

I’ve done a lot of reading of journal entries from late 2004 and early 2005. Sometimes, it makes me feel strange that this anger, fear and resentment happened only one year ago. That by January 1, I had no idea what the second half of the year would be like, but it’d most likely not be nice. I can’t even remember what I thought about when I envisioned September, 2005. It’s so weird that I now do know what the second half of the year was like, and that I made it through it without “just holding on”. What’s even more surprising, given the writings from late 2004 and early 2005, is that I don’t just see these few months as a “delay”. You see, at one point I’d been scared that January 1, 2006 would be the same as January 1, 2005 except that it was one year later. After all, the demands placed on me for 2006 are pretty similar to those I would have had to meet in 2005, had I not decided to delay college a year. And indeed, I still haven’t applied at IBG and it makes me somewhat worried to realize that, but it’s more for fear that I might forget to altogether than because I don’t want to: I didn’t do it in December cause my IBG papers were lost and I plan to do it by the middle of January cause then I won’t have the hassle of changing addresses just after sending in my application.

When I remember in what circumstances I entred 2005, I feel I’ve made quite a bit of progress. Practically, you might say it doesn’t show itself, in that I still don’t do the housekeeping and that my arrangements for college are only a bit farther than they’d been in 2004, in that I did call the student counsellor. However, emotionally and also in my skills, the situation is quite a bit different. In December, 2004, I had to write a piece about what scared me about college and what to do about it. All my paragraphs ended in “But I’ll just have to arrange that.” Not only would I be able to elaborate some more on “just arranging” now – in that I am working on that list of needed accommodations and I know whom to contact to get an appointment to discuss my needs -, but “just arranging” feels a lot less overwhelming than it did last year. That’s an improvement on the emotional level, in that I feel better about mentioning my disability. Cause that is what it actually was that I feared: needing to tell a university folk that I’m blind. It still feels kind of scary, but it’s something I’m not ashamed of, or whatever it was, to say. Now I’m still working on figuring out the details, but the fact that I felt myself ready to go into that – contrary to in August, upon starting rehab -, signifies that I figured out that it’s not a question of whether to mention my blindness at all, but how to mention it.

Sometimes, you might wonder whether it’s actually significant that I’ve improved in this way. Whether I felt okay enough about my blindness to mention it at university or not, if someone had pushed me, in early 2005, to call a student counsellor and say what I’d said last September, I would’ve done so. The issue wasn’t so simple, of course. Cause once I’d told that folk that I’m blind, I also would have had to mention needed accommodations and I most likely would have had to remind professors about keeping them. This is something I’m still working on feeling better about, but the realization, in early September, that putting non-disabled standards into perspective is not the same as abandoning them, made quite a significant difference. I’ll sometimes still get “locked up inside” when having to ask for help or accommodations, and I definitely plan to improve this in 2006, but there are some situations I wouldn’t have thought about being able to handle half a year ago and that I do handle now, like the all-too-familiar example of the bus transfer.

Another verr improtant area I consider myself having progressed in, is to realize that it wouldn’t help me to be resentful, but that I, indeed, as I wrote on January 1, would have to take charge. It took me months to finally make my own decision, and maybe there are still people who consider that a sign of weakness rather than progress – or maybe there are parts inside of me -, not to go to college by September, but to want to learn new skills at rehab first. I felt rather bad about that decision in some way, in that I thought I wouldn’t have needed it, but looking back, I think it’s been quite useful. Of course, the feelings repeated themselves by December, when I had to make the decision of whether or not to go to “De Boomgaard”, but at least it was me who made the decision, which you can’t say quite fully about rehab: everything leading up to the eval week in June was another person’s decision and it was only my decision, in April, that whatever the people would advise me, I’d not go to college.

Still, there are things I’ll have to work on in 2006. There are practical arrangements to be made – getting college worked out -, and there are issues of 2004 and 2005 that did not resolve themselves completely. I still wonder about the significance or insignificance of some of my difficulties, and this is likely going to be an important issue in 2006, just as it’s been ever since 1998. Many of my other difficulties, like the “rub along” thing, have been worked on significantly in 2005, but are still not settled. These are very deep issues that I don’t get resolved in eighteen weeks of rehab and a few more weeks of critical thinking. It’s a continuous process that I don’t think I will decide to leave behind me soon. And even if I were to decide on it, that wouldn’t mean that on an emotional level, it’d be over. Some people may feel that as a sign of failure, but not all of the resentment with my parents and confused feelings about myself were settled by simply “taking charge” and seeing that I could be successful practically. Taking charge was the first step, or maybe even realizing that I had to work on these things was, but after deciding that I had to do something about it, that still isn’t totally fifnished. But I hadn’t expected to solve every single thing upon the end of the year: some stuff, you just don’t settle easily, and most certainly not when you first have to wonder whether you’re allowed to consider them.

I feel a lot better about the turn of the year than I did last year. It still sometimes scares me, but I’d told you already that I’m scared of large numbers and the inevitability that 2005 will be over, is somewhat frightening. However, that’s not cause of any particular reason – it’s just there. I still have a lot to do in 2006 in many respects, but at least I know I’ll allow myself to do so. Fear of being overreactive kept me from allowing myself to work out some stuff in 2005. It isn’t going to in 2006.

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Updates from “De Boomgaard”

I had my admission interview at “De Boomgaard” on Wednesday. Thony went with me and that was a good thing cause sometimes I found it hard to explain stuff. First, Arda (some important folk there, don’t know what her function’s called) asked me for my personal info, like date of birth, etc. She also asked me about the aetiology of my blindness and somehow we got to speak about its having gotten worse, in that I used to be partially sighted but am now blind. For some reason, we got to speak about my tiny bit of vision. I didn’t feel like explaining too much, so just said I had light perception, but Thony got into a more detailed explanation. Arda made some comment about sunny weather and the effect my little bit of sight might be having on me, and I mentioned my light sensitivity. I’d forgotten my sunglasses and the light was very bright, so it made for a good reason to express it.

We also got to speak about my schools and I mentioned the many places I’ve been educated and why I kept changing schools. It was one of the times I mentioned over-protection as a reason for not liking the agencies – I’d mentioned it before cause it was one reason to doubt whether I wanted to go to “De Boomgaard”. We also got to discuss my planned college career briefly.

I was, of course, asked what I wanted to learn at “De Boomgaard”. I explained that my skills in themselves are pretty good – they could still have some improvement, but are not really bad -, but that my most important concern is planning them with other activities. Thony mentioned ergonomics (my not quite ideal posture) and explained the stuff I’d learnt at the physical therapist’s – I was like “How did you know?” so he said he’d discussed it with the PT.

For some reason, the socialization issue came up. I eagerly told Arda and the other folk in attendance that I had a doorknob’s social skills. One of the folks asked how I knew and I explained that it was mostly adults telling me so but of course age peers don’t tell one another about their poor social skills. Thony got into some explanation and supposed that I understood. I didn’t but I said I did, so Arda asked me to explain, which I couldn’t of course. We got to speak about the issue some more, and I explained that part of it is a social skills issue, but of course not all of it is: some of it just has to do with my having unusual interests and not going out much cause I don’t like, for instance, partying till latish night.

I think we discussed some other thing, but I can’t remember what it was. They asked me if I still had any questions. I asked for how long a client would be at “De Boomgaard”, and they said it was at most two years – but that’s out of the question in my situation anyway -, but that further you’ll discuss the thing with your coach and it’ll be determined in the process. So it’s not that if I and my coach etc. think I’m ready to leave, that there’s some bureaucratic rule that requires me to stay. I also asked about the AWBZ fee – the moeny you pay to live in a facility – cause I wondered if it’d be different cause I’d previously been at rehab, cause there’s a low fee and a high fee. Arda explained that it didn’t matter whether I’d been at rehab: in the first six months, I’d pay the low fee and after that, I’d pay the high fee.

Arda explained that after this discussion, she and the care consultant (hmmm, the bad terms are the only thing I have a problem with…) were going to discuss my case and they’d also speak with the manager and some other folk, and then they’d tell me if/when I could come. We got into a discussion of when I wanted to be called with what they’d decided and when, if I was going to go there, I wanted to start. They were going to try to call me on Friday. With regard to when I wanted to start, I said I wanted a few weeks of free time after leaving rehab, but that by the middle of January it would be the sooner, the better.

I left the discussion with Thony and we were going to the bus, but on our way there we came across a quick-lunch bar, and since neither of us had had lunch, we decided to get some food. Well, it wasn’t really a *wuick*-lunch bar, since it took pretty long for us to get our food. Then we went to the bus and back to the centre.

On Friday, Arda called me at home to say that I could indeed come to “De Boomgaard”. I could start in the middle of January, even though my re-indication at CIZ (the company that decides who gets AWBZ care) was not yet finished. She apparently thinks my training at “De Boomgaard” will be approved anyway. I’ve already filled out the form CIZ sent me with my rehab counsellor on Tuesday, so I hope it’ll be worked out soon.

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Last Week of Rehab

I’m almost completely done with rehab – in fact, the only things I still have to do are some occupational therapy on Wednesday and the CPH training on January 6. That means that I did a lot of evaluating over the last week, not only cause most rehab folks asked me what I’d learnt from their instruction and cause I got a survey on Tuesday, but also cause I’ve done some looking back.

I started on Monday with the last discussion with Kira. In advance, I’d written down the explanation of my visual impairment – that I’m blind but still have a little bit of sight that I sometimes use but that also bothers me due to light sensitivity -, and I just read it to her, cause last week when I just had to explain plainly, I got completely “locked up inside”. This time, it went reasonably well – I was still noticeably nervous, but at least got somewhere. I said that if I’d written that my name was Peter and I lived in Amsterdam, I’d have read it just as easily. And that’s exactly what function this just reading what you’ve written stuff has. I’ve known that, but it feels somewhat embarrassing, cause I usually need far fewer written reminders than most people going for discussions or the like (I never bring any with me) but I use it when I can’t say something. It’s kind of strange.

I also had some questions about where to get an uplighter – in regular lamp shop (only there’s no in Apeldoorn) – and where to get the sunglasses I want. We ordered them at a shop I’d never heard of. They’ll probably arrive next week, but I was allowed to borrow the sunglasses I’ve worn at rehab till January 6.

I also had four hours of textural arts and did some sewing and made a Christmas decoration. One of my works is unfinished, but I was allowed to take it home. I also took the bin I’ve been making in crafts class home. It isn’t really finished, but sort of.

Mobility meant the same route as last week, which is a route full of objects which I have to avoid. We also evaluated mobility and I think it has been going quite well. It’s still something I’ll have to pay attention to, but I can – and besides, using your cane properly as to avoid bumping into objects is something you’ll have to do all the time.

The same applies to physical therapy: I really have to pay attention to my posture in order to correct it – my natural posture is still very bad -, but I can do that, and Thony by the way also mentioned it when we went for the admission interview at “De Boomgaard”.

Occupational therapy is almost finished: we discussed and tried out the MPO (a kind of organiser with braille) on Wednesday and ironed on Thursday. Next week, we’re still going to cook and eat a meal together, so that Ellen can still give me some tips on using cutlery correctly.

My discussion with Hennie on Tuesday was a kind of evaluation as well. As I assumes she’d sort of noticed, our discussions have gone well at times and bad at other times, and I realize this is something on my side. However, mostly I’ve found them pretty useful. We by the way also got to discuss socialization somewhat, but this is still a pretty complex issue, as you might guess.

Cause everything eventually ended up going quite well, my discussion with my counsellor on Tuesday also went quite relaxed. We did have quite a bit of paperwork to fill out cause of my re-indication for “De Boomgaard”, but the talk was not troubled or anything.

That is not to say that I did not feel it necessary to mention the poor evaluation as a comment at the survey given to me on Tuesday. It was my only criticism – there are some policies I disagree with, but that’s politics and not my personal situation. I forgot to mention that the way I was treated surprised me positively – but maybe after eighteen weeks I’m used to it, cause even my parents seem to have lost their prejudice – unfortunately to the point of having lost their critical stand towards agencies, which I haven’t.

My week ended kind of interestingly with the Christmas dinner, which was very cool and nice. The theme of the meal was something about Dutch provinces and that meant that they’d put provincial names before the names of each of the foods, even if the foods didn’t come from that province anyway. It was still very enjoyable.

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Thoughts on Blind Children’s Quirks and Behaviour Issues

Yesterday, I read the article The Great Tactile Defensiveness Scare by Christine Faltz. The essence of the article is to warn parents and professionals against attributing every quirk a child has to their blindness. The example she gives is professionals getting real concerned when a blind child doesn’t like a particular texture, while every child may have likes or dislikes and it wouldn’t be a major concern to most professionals if the child had been non-disabled. Faltz advises parents who are concerned about a blind child’s behaviour to observe non-disabled children in the child’s age group and to note similar behaviour before deciding it’s a consequence of the child’s blindness – the only consequence, she asserts, may be that blind children might not realize that their age peers have stopped a particular behaviour.

Mostly, I feel this article is positive, in that it makes the point that blind children are children and hence they do have their quirks. I hadn’t really expected such gentleness of anb NFB person, cause honestly I’d expect her to urge parents to extinguish every quirk in a blind child. Of course, unacceptable behaviour should be addressed and the author doesn’t deny that, but I’m somewhat surprised that she allows blind children some form of quirkiness.

Unfortunately, as a blind person who’s still not sure whether she’s just a normal blind adolescent, I recognize a drawback to this philosophy: as much as some professionals are concerned by every little quirk as soon as they realize the child is blind, as much can people decline to address behaviours that are a true concern cause they think that they’re a part of blindness. My situation is a little different, of course. I’m still not sure which one of the two theories about why my behaviour issues have always been ignored is true – that my parents thought I’d grow out of them or that they were afraid that admitting I had problems equalled admitting I wasn’t intelligent, as Bartiméus thought. I don’t even know if I ought to or am allowed to care, since as I said, I’m not sure if it’s in fact a reason for concern. On Wednesday, I had one particularly appelling incident: we were making Christmas decorations and I got rather frustrated at every little thing that went wrong. In itself, this incident wasn’t so appelling, and even the fact that it occurred at rehab instead of at home, didn’t particularly interest me. However, after the activity, a residential staff folk took me aside, and the reaction I got made all the difference: she explained that the behaviour didn’t fit an adult and that people may not take me seriously for it. It wasn’t something I hadn’t known, rationally, before, but it struck quite a chord. It was more confronting than a much blunter reaction like “You seem like an [insert psychiatric label here].” It made me realize that I ought to quit this behaviour instead of making me feel sorry for being misunderstood. I realized that in any case it was neither a blindness quirk nor normal behaviour. In some ways, not being taken seriously is similar to being seen as insane, but this time it somehow made me understand. It’s the same that happened in CPH training when Ellen commented on my appearing not exactly bright cause of my mannerisms: it sort of dawned upon me what influence my behaviour was having, and it motivated me to try to alter it.

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Updates on “De Boomgaard”

I decided I plan to go to “De Boomgaard”. I think many fellow blind people won’t understand my decision – at least, when I wrote about the question to the BlindKid and ROP-support lists, I got all replies wondering if the programme was mandatory and reassuring me that I could be independent. My situation indeed would’ve been different had I been going to college by January or had I had an option of living independently at this moment, but I do neither: I won’t go to college till September – and, in fact, I need this time -, and the waiting list for housing is so long that I won’t even have a room by September, let alone before. People asked me stuff like: “Why can’t you do housekeeping in your parents’ home?” Well, I can, theoretically, but Mum has already told me that she doesn’t want a housekeeper and even if I’d convinced her to allow me to, she’d most likely jump in and help me (ie. do things for me) anyway. I do still have the feeling that going into another programme equates having been in a bad programme before, but I don’t know why I should care: I’m not lowering my expectations in any way by going to “De Boomgaard”, and at the admission interview that will be next Wednesday, I’ll have to ask pretty critical questions.

I discussed some of my concerns with Ellen (the OT) last week. She told me that my assumption that many people in the programme are less skilled than I am, is correct, but that the programme will be individualised. I have positive experiences with this at the rehab centre. I asked her if she thought the programme would still be beneficial to me, given the fact that I’ve learnt quite much in occupational therapy already. She said that for me, she thought that organizing my activities would be a good thing to learn, like planning when I do what activities and balancing housekeeping with other activities. Indeed, I think this is something I can improve, cause too often, duties get skipped cause of lack of planning. Of course, it could be something I’d learn naturally while in the college dorm, but now that I have these months anyway.

I’ll see at the admission interview what is coming from it. I’m curious if/when I can get there. Last month, they told me that by late December there may be a place for me, but it’s of course possible that another client has come before me – and besides, I want at least a few weeks of free time before going there.

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Thoughts about My CPH Case

On Monday, I had a very difficult discussion with Kira. Well actually it didn’t really get anywhere. I tried my CPH presentation on her, which failed totally cause I got stuck almost immediately. I was so confuxsed or something like that, which is strange since I think I should know what is at least important and then I only run a risk of leaving out important info. Still, I got stuck and I couldn’t get anywhere. Kira was somewhat concerned cause I seemed so uncertain. I am and I don’t want to be. Maybe I should be more concerned with the form of my statements and less with their content, but I’m still confused about that. I’ll discuss this situation later.

On Tuesday morning, Hennie asked me about CPH and I said we’d discussed cases but not mine yet, which we were going to on Friday. Somehow, we got to speak about my case and what to explain and not to explain. For some reason, at that moment, she asked me the question whether I see myself as partially sighted or as blind, even though I have light perception. I’ve not gotten this question in any other tone than neutral – which this question clearly wasn’t meant to be – for nearly eight years – since the 1998 educational evaluation -, but for some reason, it didn’t surprise me that in the course of CPH I would sometime get the question. It’s meant to signal a connection between one’s explanation and how one feels about one’s vision impairment, and I’ve questioned the existence of this connection many times over the course of these seven weeks. It was what I explained in one of the first CPH meetings: that my parents always connected any mention of or reference to residual vision to poor adjustment to blindness. Ellen has commented on this statement of mine many times, and each time it prompted me to evaluate the facts around the topic: I couldn’t say honestly that I was totally fine with my blindness, but I could say that the reality of my vision or the lack thereof was something I accepted fully as it was – and, indeed, not as what it might become: total blindness. I mean, sometimes I hate my residual vision and wish I could turn it off, and sometiems I’m happy I have it. Either way, it is exactly the way it is. I answered Hennie’s question by saying that I saw myself as blind, cause I do. Then she got into some questions about how I felt about my blindness which I didn’t fully understand. She somehow connected it to a statement I once made about my father telling me not to “handicap” when I falsely connected a problem to my blindness. She asked if blindness at that moment didn’t have a negative connotation? Of course it did, in that I irrationally attributed difficulties to it, but I must honestly say that I’ve improved pretty much in not “handicapping” over the past while. Meanwhile, by the way, I’d lost the thread of discussion.

For some reason, Hennie got into an explanation of my being functionally blind, apparently to rationalize why it made no sense to explain anything beyond “I’m blind” to a professor. A pretty strange question in this context was whether I use my vision for mobility. Yes I do, but I mostly use alternative techniques and besides, I wouldn’t consider that to be relevant to a professor anyway, and as far as fellow students are concerned – they could just ask. I agreed to all she said and tried my explanation on her several times, each time leaving out more and more details, but eventually each time getting stuck. “Aren’t you done with that?” she asked after one of my explanations ending in my getting “locked up inside”. She meant to say that it was most likely enough info. I can’t remember if I thought so or not, or why I got stuck in that particular situation. I couldn’t explain why I got stuck anyway. We’ve been discussing the “locked up iside” feeling before and she asked me if this was a form of it. It obviously was. In this case, by the way, I wasn’t finished with my explanation yet, and I knew exactly what I would also have to explain, but I could do nothing with it. It’s almost a standard course of the “locked up inside” thing: I know perfectly well what to say or do, but for some reason I feel kept from going on. I know, rationally, that I can and should do whatever it is, but often I sort of feel like I ain’t allowed to. Hmm, I’ve always believed, and still believe, strongly in the power of “mental alarm clocks”, as Monika calls them. Hennie theorized that if I thought I couldn’t explain my situation, I truly couldn’t. I guess this idea does contribute.

On Tuesday afternoon, I decided that Hennie was right that there was absolutely no relevance in mentioning my vision – if people were interested, they’d ask me anyway. Explaining vision is something much more controversial than appreciating it, and using it is in between: no-one can ever tell me not to appreicate the vision I have, people can point out the effect using vision too much has on me – like Martin on Wednesday correctly informing me that I was concentrating less on my cane cause I was concentrating on my vision -, and of course people can tell me that it doesn’t have any relevance to explain vision to professors or fellow students, for that matter. I don’t contend, by the way, that this has anything to do with adjustment, cause the average professor or college student doesn’t give a damn whether I’m adjusted or not, and no-one except for me can conclude accurately how well-adjusted I am.

On Friday, I eventually had my case discussed. I can’t remember how exactly it all went, cause we discussed and roleplayed in many different situations. Sometime early in the discussion, we got to speak about what I was going to explain and I mentioned my intention not to explain vision, since the more irrelevant details you provide, the more likely the chance that people will forget truly important information, like that they need to provide their information in a digital format. No-one seemed to agree. I once again mentioned the fact that if you say you’re blind, they’ll likely attribute anything they see to your blindness. No matter how incorrect this is, it’s not in itself a reason to explain about vision. I said that with fellow students the situation might be different cause you don’t have only academic contact with them, but a professor wouldn’t give me a minute less of class if they didn’t understand something about my situaation.

I could, of course, use some politically correct term like “nearly blind” to identify myself as, as to avoid confusion should my light perception be an issue but as to not overemphasize vision. However, I didn’t really understand why people, no matter their relationship to me, would actually wonder about my situation given the information that I’m (totally) blind. I mean, to take the classic example of looking for sidestreets: that could just as well be some blindism. Monika, who attended the training, contended that most people didn’t know about blindisms anyway. That doesn’t matter: it matters that they’ll think that of course it’s the way it is cause after all she’s blind. Ellen explained how my behaviour is clearly different from that of a totally blind rehab folk she knows: not as in a negative or positive way, just different. Monika also gave the example of my looking at an agenda. Well yeah, still I guess hardly anyone at high school would have known or even wondered about my residual vision had I not at one point mentioned it. In the eleventh grade, Mrs. Van O. asked me about it, while she’d taught me in seventh and eleventh grade.

Of course, there’s the one difference of my currently being very light sensitive and wearing orange sunglasses – well, if I can get them, which I still can’t -, which according to Ellen are far too light to be seen as glasses to hide a blind person’s unattractive eyes. I never wore sunglasses in high school – during twelfth grade, when I finally had them, I felt embarrassed about wearing them in school cause at that moment they couldn’t be seen as camouflage glasses anymore cause I’d not worn them before – so I don’t know if people would wonder about them.

We roleplayed many situations. One was a situation I had encountered in crafts class where I reacted rather curtly to another student (who is in my CPH group) offering me assistance. I can’t remember how we got to speak about this situation, but at first I was asked to play “me”, ie. to act how I’d act. Then, Monika acted “me” and then I was asked to act like Monika would. Monika is a very spontaneous woman, so that’s how I acted. It didn’t surprise me that the result was quite different, cause I’ve always known that I’m a quite good roleplayer and have in fact, hopefully unnoticeably, often used my abilities in getting out of “locked up inside” situations.

We also got to do the explanation to professors. It went, at first, totally wrong and I got stuck. I later tried to play the spontaneous person once again. We drew the conclusion that it would be a good idea for me to write some “introduction” in advance for the professors to read, which I could then later explain further about. It would also somewhat settle the issue of what is and isn’t relevant, cause I could ask the folks if they had any questions. By the way, eventually the explanation to professors went pretty well, and so did the explanation to fellow students I tried, cause I only gave a brief introduction but made clear that questions were welcome.

In the end, Ellen asked me to make a list of all the adaptations I’d need in college, as to build my introduction upon. She divided them into technical adaptations, like a braille display and computer, human assistance, and other things that would make class more comfortable for me. I made a start with the list, but it’s by far not finished yet. I think I’ll ask my father if I can have the introduction he wrote for the high school.

Next week, Ellen can’t give the training, so we were seeking another moment. On December 23, I could come wihtout difficulty, but the student who will have her case discussed than couldn’t attend. December 30 would be fine if it were discussed with my counsellor, who told me that if I wasn’t completely finished by December 23, I could do some activities in the next week. However, then another student couldn’t attend, and we are only three or four people in the training. Ellen proposed January 6. I said I thought it wouldn’t be a problem but asked her to discuss it with my counsellor. Another option would be some other time next week, but Ellen has a very busy week then, so it’s going to be January 6.

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Rants on a Frustrating Fifteenth Week at Rehab

This week was pretty frustrating at rehab. Monday and Friday were good, and so was most of Tuesday, but Tuesday evening and Wednesday and Thursday were bad. I had something called an “experience trip” on Wednesday and Thursday, but none of the activities were particularly new or challenging. All we did was having to travel to a particular bakery in a nearby village by public transit. When we found it, we had coffee and a spiced biscuit. Then we had to find a particular farm, where all we did was cuddling cows and having lunch. The walking trip that followed wasn’t particularly difficult and that was the end of the day, except for chatting which we do each evening. On Thursday, we did horseback riding, eating pancakes and abseiling or tandem biking, all of which I’d done before. I wasn’t the only one who found this: all of us did. The only “challenge” was that all of it had to be a surprise and for the folks who hadn’t attended the summer programme last year, most of it probably was. Of course, some blind people, especially those with additional conditions, find it challenging to even walk such a distance, and for some I think that travelling by public transit was a challenge, cause not everyone is as far through the programme as I am or has the same experience using public transportation I do. I mean, of course, as a congenitally blind person, I might have an advantage, though I got some questions that implied that I had very limited experience, like if I’d ever been to a farm – of course I have. Others got those same stupid questions though, so it’s not that they assume that as a blind person you won’t go to farms, while as a sighted person you will.

While having lunch on Wednesday, I resolved not to think about what I could’ve done at the centre had it been a normal week. I couldn’t. It’s my fifteenth week and I felt as if I were wasting my time cuddling cows and eating spiced biscuit. Maartje, one of the mobility instructors who went with us, said that I’d had my mobility instruction for this week by getting to the bakery, the farm and the sleeping place. Well, it was nothing more than following the other students, and finding out that one person had used a portable tape recorder to record the route, which is a useful technique I hadn’t thought about before. In short, I feel that the surprise effect does not at all outweigh all the far too easy activities. Team three folks (partially sighted people) do far more challenging activities, and it just can’t be the greater amount of vision, cause I did many at the summer programme. We found it better to prepare for it in advance, like having to shop for dinner, etc. Oh, Maartje also commented that I’d already had my Occuptional Therapy cause of going to make fried eggs on Thursday morning. Well, that used to be my only cooking skill before I got OT classes, and its only novelty was frying them in the microwave. Now the folks are thinking of preparing for the trip in the OT workshops – I hope they’ll follow through with the plan.

I was pretty grouchy throughout Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday. It all had to do with a very bad discussion with my counsellor on Tuesday afternoon. I didn’t get to speak to the rehab workers on Monday cause they give classes then and of course all my classes were cancelled cause of that stupid trip. I do realize that I have a responsibility in discussing my concerns and goals with the folks and I eagerly admitted that to my counsellor, but it’s frustrating when all of your classes are being cancelled so you have difficulty speaking to the folks. Besides, I find it utterly annoying that I just don’t get any reaction beyond: “Then you’ll do it next week,” followed by the question if I had news about “De Boomgaard”. “Is he nagging about ‘De Boomgaard’ again, huh?” the folk commented. Well, I felt like: apparently he realizes that he’s nagging about it each week, so why on Earth not quit it for a change, especially cause he asked me if I had any news and I said I didn’t. Of course I didn’t have news, cause I’d said last week that I’d talk to Ellen, and I couldn’t cause she was on holiday and my classes were cancelled this week – besides, Ellen hardly ever attends them and they are on Wednesday and Thursday. The counsellor would tell her about my wanting to talk with her about “De Boomgaard”, so I hope she’ll finally attend my OT next week. Still, I felt like: what does this all mean? It was six weeks ago that I first expressed my concern about OT and mobility. The reaction then was that everyone has limitations to what they can and can’t do and a conclusion that it was going well, and I wanted to agree cause apparently the folk had not heard negative comments about me. Two weeks later, he asked me if I had enough mobility instruction, and I said I didn’t know cause I had nearly as many classes as I’d already had. Maybe at that time I should’ve been clearer about what I was concerned about, but I felt I did learn some things and couldn’t guess at the time what could still be learnt in seven more lessons – after having had eight. Three more weeks later, so last week, I was really seriously concerned and expressed it, and was told to discuss my concern with the workers. So I wanted to but didn’t. Then this week I was told that then it would be next week. It’s my fifteenth week! I have only three more weeks and feel sincerely that I’m going to be kicked out of the centre by December 22. That’s also what I expressed, in somewhat more subtle terms, when the folk commented about “De Boomgaard” as if it were no problem at all that I hadn’t yet had a chance of discussing my concenrs with Ellen so to make a decision: I don’t want to leave on December 22 without any plans for what to do next except for studying. The folk likely understood.

In the evening, another student told me that after nine weeks or so, the rehab workers should’ve evaluated my case and this should’ve been discussed with me. Either the evaluation wasn’t done or it wasn’t discussed with me, and this made me really pissed off, especially since I rarely get any feedback, from either my counsellor or the workers, beyond “We’re almost done” or the like. I feel that the mobility instructor agrees with me about what I still have to do – I’m just scared I don’t have enough time -, but the OT trainee apparently doesn’t. Oh well, maybe he does but my expressing my concerns a couple of weeks ago was just not clear enough. Clarity is not among my strengths when addressing this stuff, and I realize therefore that it’s as much my responsibility to make sure we evaluate the process appropriately as it is anyone else’s, if not more mine. The other students I spoke with on Tuesday didn’t agree, but I do think it’s reasonable for my counsellor and the other workers to expect it from me. After all, it’s my rehabilitation, not anyone else’s.

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