My life is a whirlwind. Home seems so far away, and it feels as though I have been living in Ruston Louisiana forever. What a different world.
I have been training for five months now. I don’t know where the time has gone. It flies by. I am steadily progressing in all my classes. The progression isn’t as drastic as it was in the beginning; it is more of a continuous evolution of skills and confidence. Though my travel instructor still accompanies me on routes, I walk the majority of my routes independently. He gives me an address and I travel to it and return with a business card to show I successfully found the location.
The other day I travelled 20 blocks, 10 blocks each way. I did this in approximately one hour. My speed and accuracy is increasing. But occasionally I still make big mistakes. It’s funny because when I make a mistake, I really make one. Reminds me of an eraser I had as a child; it was six inches long and bright pink, with giant letters that read “for big mistakes.”
Last week I was traveling with confidence until I discovered I had walked in the wrong direction and down the wrong road. If it hadn’t been for the construction workers who notified me where I was, I might have walked to Canada before figuring out my mistake.
On Monday, I traveled down a busy street called “California.” To get down this road, you have to shoreline the whole way because there are no sidewalks. The street is lined with parking lots, which can be the Bermuda Triangle for the blind. I did well until suddenly the cars on my right jumped to my left. That’s when I realized, either the cars were driving off road, or I had veered to the other side of the street without knowing it. Of course the latter was the accurate explanation.
The “big mistakes” are happening less often than before. I am learning to focus and to concentrate on the parallel traffic to keep me in line and out of the parking lots. I have to avoid distractions as much as possible. If my mind wanders, my feet will follow.
In shop class I am progressing to the end of the requirements prior to starting my final project. I spent at least two weeks learning to use a tool called a router. The router and I don’t have the best relationship, but we are managing to work together. The first task was to learn to tighten and loosen the bit with two wrenches at the same time. This improves coordination and dexterity. It also significantly improves one’s ability to bite one’s tongue and stamp ones foot in frustration.
You have to tighten and loosen the bit ten times without help before progressing onto actually using the tool. For me, routing wasn’t much easier than dealing with the bit. After much practice, I am now able to use the router to smooth the sides and corners of my Braille blocks.
This week I learned my last tool of the series, the sander. The sander is beautiful in its simplicity. I have two more Braille blocks to make using all the tools, including the sander. Then I must make three perfect Braille blocks with out asking questions or getting assistance.
I’ve decided to make a memory box for my sons for my final project in shop. I will also spend a few weeks learning home maintenance, which includes learning to unclog a toilet, handle electric circuit panels, change a door knob etc.
My Braille is steadily improving. I am reading on average 30 words a minute, sometimes reaching 40. The challenge is finding the time without distractions to read. I am unable to read much on the weekends because of my children, but being a mother of small children while training has its challenges
Jeff is an amazing fulltime father. I certainly couldn’t do this training and take care of the children on my own.
I still have a few more dishes to make in cooking. Recently I made pasta from scratch, including the dough and running the dough through a pasta maker and making Alfredo sauce with chicken; the best part was eating it. There is usually much to eat at school, as everyone cooks and shares there creations.
I also made waffles from scratch, which involved separating egg whites twice. I had to separate them twice because another student accidently knocked my first bowl of egg whites over in the fridge. Patience is a virtue around this place.
I also made a blackberry pie with a bottom and top crust (this took me a week to complete); a vanilla cake with white icing (this also involved separating egg whites); fried a hamburger paddy on a skillet; made beef stew in a Crockpot; and as I write this blog my roast is in the oven.
In life skills, I changed a florescent light bulb in the ceiling, and failed. I found the light on the ceiling with my cane, (yes canes have more uses than you could imagine.) I climbed the latter and attempted to connect the new light. I must have jammed it because the light did not come on. I will have to do this again before I can finish this class. Yesterday, I answered a set of questions using the talking calculator. I found the calculations much easier than changing the florescent bulb, which says a lot because math was never my favourite subject.
Computers has been fun as I am doing searches on google, doing research, writing small essays and downloading music and learning to burn cds. Computer word processing, the Internet and Jaws, come easily to me, as I have been doing this for so long and I excel in this area.
All the students have classes in which they excel and those in which they have to work harder to keep up. There are 25 students here now. The school is getting crowded.
When a student walks into a room, people say “hello.” If there are several people in the room, the person is greeted with a chorus of hellos. It is a centre joke now and throughout the day, the “hello” chant reverberates down the halls.
Seminar is usually lively. It is difficult sometimes for everyone to get a chance to speak. There are always some people who speak more than others. On Tuesday, Dr. Schroeder, NFB first vice-president and LCB board member, spoke to us. I always enjoy listening to Dr. Schroder.
I am taking a Swing dance class with some of the students from LCB. We had our first class last night.
I took the kids to a flea market on the weekend. Rhys went on a bungee jumper. He was attached to a harness and jumped at least eight feet in the air. He was so brave and did so well.
Rhys is so athletic. My travel instructor plays basket ball with him in the apartment parking lot, and he is learning all the moves. Ronyn likes to do everything his big brother does. He runs after Rhys yelling “my turn,” in a sharp, high-pitched voice that means business. They are the best of brothers.
Love to you all back home. I think of you often.
Love
Elizabeth
