Gimme Gimme Gimme

Wow, I seem to have a lot to say today. Don’t know if it’s of interest to anyone, but here we go.

I don’t know what it is about some blind people who think they’re some how entitled to the moon because they’re blind. I know it’s only some, but they’re a loud little bunch. It disturbs me to see it. They’ll ask for something, like asking to move into a place early, wanting something for free or cut back, wanting special treatment where it really isn’t necessary, and if they don’t get it, they’ll pull the blindness card. I almost expect this conversation to unfold:

Whiny Blink: Is there any cheesecake?
Waitor: No. We’re all out of cheesecake.
Whiny blink: But I’m blind and so I need the cheesecake.

I mean it’s an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t put it past some of them to do something similar. I mean there are some cases where you need to ask for things because of the blindness thing. Like you can’t exactly expect me to hand-write you a note and read print. My eyes won’t heal themselves. But so many take it way too far. I especially see this crap happen if they want a discount. I saw one person actually try and haggle a discount out of a cab driver because he was blind. Dude, that’s not cool. That’s the cabby’s livelyhood, and sometimes it’s just easier to use a cab. But that’s a convenience thing, and you don’t ask for a discount! That’s just wrong! But do they speak up when there’s actually a legitimate complaint? Perhaps something to be done to do with accessibility? Nooo! That’s too much work. it’s only when it looks like they might get something for free that they fight tooth and nail.

This shouldn’t bug me. There are all kinds in this world, so I shouldn’t care. But it does. It does because the whiny blinks always seem to stand out like sore thumbs, and since there are so few of us compared to the huge masses, every single one of us is a representative for the whole group. So when I see them pulling out the “But I’m blind so…” speal, and I can tell the people they’re crying to are pissed off, I swear the pissed off ones are going to think we’re all like that. Stop setting bad examples! At least try to do what you can and don’t expect a damn free ride.

Double Screw-up

While I’m on the subject of school and gouging, it just pisses me off to see how unbelieveably unprepared universities are around here for the double cohort. For people who don’t live in Ontario, or Canada for that matter, in the good old days, there were five years in high school. Grade 9 through O.A.C. or grade 13 in the real real good old days. But around, hmmm, 7 years ago, the government decided that after a certain point, there would be no more fifth year of high school. But they didn’t just cut it off, ker snap, and leave the aftermath to be dealt with by the universities and colleges. No. They decided that for the grade nines entering in a certain year, and all students after them, they would not have the fifthe year, but for anyone already in high school, they still had it. This means that in a certain year, which happened to be last year, the last group of kids who had O.A.C. and the first group of the new structure graduated high school at the same time and flocked to get degrees. This is what they call the double cohort.

So why is it that the schools still were unprepared. They had at least 7 years to plan for it, and I’m sure there were stats on how many students there were across the province. I mean that wouldn’t give exact numbers, but that would give a general idea, and it would be a hell of a lot more useful study to conduct than the ones I see now coming out of schools on shit like whether or not overcrowding is hazardous to your health. Thanks for the update sparticus. But alass, in September when the new clump arrived, what were the schools doing? Still building lecture halls and residences. I’m not joking. And they tell us not to procrastinate. Practice what you preach.

And now it’s getting worse because this mass of students is getting older. So in first year it’s not so bad because the classes are big anyway. I mean it sucks, but it’s not insurmountable to get everybody herded into huge lecture halls and teach that way. But this year they’re in second year, and next year they’ll be in third! That’s when classes are supposed to shrink. But they’re not, so everybody’s freaking. Classes that usually have 40 students are going to have 90. A zillion courses are being offered distance ed now because they don’t have enough profs. I mean, what were they thinking? That they’d all fail out until we were left with the usual class sizes? Isn’t that just wishful thinking, and an awfully foolish way to do things? “Oh maybe the problem will just go away on its own.” Well no, boss, it’s not.

I’m just really glad I’m getting out when I am. But it makes me sad to see how screwed those kids are, and while everybody passes the hot potato of blame, they all struggle with the consequences of a serious case of administrative procrastination.

How can we gouge you today?

I swear things don’t make any sense any more. Here are two places where I just stand back and go, “huh?” First off is university fees. Yeah you guys know my feelings about the infamous print card. Did I mention in there the infamous graduation application fee? *Checks old rant*. Nope. Phew. I’m not recycling old material. Anyway, yes, you heard me right. You have to tell the university you want to graduate. What is the point of all that anyway? I mean, who’s going to work and practically sell their soul to get a degree and then just walk away and say, “no I’m not graduating today.” Of course you’re going to graduate. And what is the university going to do, provided you have all your shit? deny your application? “No we’re not letting you out yet. Give us more money.” Oh wait they probably will. I feel like I’m applying for parole. But the whole point is you have to pay for this application. And if you’re late in getting it done, you have to pay more money. Hell at this point they should be rewarding me with some money for all I’ve given them, or at the very least, let me graduate for free. I’m sure they have a surplus somewhere. I feel like the university is like the government. When someone dies, the family has to pay death duties. You’d think at the end they’d leave ya alone. But oh no, we have to get our last gouge in.

And here’s another case of legal robbery that makes no sense whatsoever. Ok, I’m applying for a guide dog, bla bla bla. But part of the application requires you to get a physical. Apparently, if you just want a physical for the good of your health, the health care system is fine with that. But if you’re getting a physical because it’s mandatory, like in this case, you have to pay for it, plus the charges for the doctor filling out any forms. I’m ok with the charges for forms. But it’s the same! damn! physical! The doctor’s doing the same job. It’s just for a different purpose. It’s not like there’s a mediocre checkup and a super duper one. If there is, there’s a problem. They should be exactly the same. That’s like you going to the store and if you’re buying milk for you it’s a certain price, but if you’re buying it for Uncle Joe, you have to pay more, cause it’s for Uncle Joe! It’s the same! damn! milk!

I can even understand if you had to pay more if for some reason you had to get two of them in a short period of time. But I’m just getting one, and I haven’t had one in a long time. I don’t understand. I swear it’s things like that that turn us into liars. When I actually book it, I’m just going to say I want a physical and then when I get there with the forms, it’s too damn late for them to gouge me. Unless of course the poor shmuck at the front desk reads this blog, in which case, I’m fucked.

Did I Write Something I Didn’t Write?

This was posted in the comments under my post from the other day called He Was Asking For It, the one all about how I refuse to feel sorry for people who find themselves in harm’s way because they choose to vacation in war zones like Iraq. I’m going to guess that this person took it upon him or herself to get offended before he or she finished reading the post or at the very least before what I actually said had a chance to sink in. At no point did I say anything remotely related to this comment and the one point that whoever this person is could have had me on I addressed in the first or second paragraph of the original post.

Hmmm, by that logic, if i was at the end of my rope, and i asked you to blow my head off….it would be ok, cause i asked you too?

and the troops that went over, they cchose to be in the army, they chose to be there…..are they are asking for it? Some things just just shouldn’t be said, no matter how logical they seem in your head.
WTF | 11.04.04 – 7:33 pm |

Here’s how I responded on the boards just a few minutes ago.

Had you actually read what I wrote you would have noticed that I said people who are there on business are different than people who choose to vacation in places where wars are going on. The army is a job and when you’re in the army you expect to be put in dangerous situations because it’s what you do. You sign up knowing that you’re going over there and you might not be coming home. Now somebody like me on the other hand, I’m not in the army and I have no purpose for going to a place like Iraq and my doing so would be completely stupid and if something were to happen to me there, it would be my own fault, which was my whole point.

And I forgot to ask this in the first place which is a huge oversight on my part, but just where in the hell did that bit about me blowing your head off if you asked me too come from? That scenario wasn’t even mentioned anywhere in the article. Did you actually read it? Maybe before you take offence to my logic you should at least take the time to figure out what that logic actually is. It would give your arguments some much needed credibility and validity.

But if you or anybody else thinks that I’m way off base here and that I actually did say what I’m being accused of saying, feel free to show me where that is. But since this is my sight, I get to fire the first shot, and my first shot is this quote, taken as directly as a quote can be taken from the post in question.

“Could somebody please explain to me why it is that I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who get themselves injured or killed in war zones that they visit of their own free will? I’m not talking about people who go their on business such as those who are there to provide humanitarian aid to the people in whatever country it is, I’m talking about people like
this guy,
who head off to Iraq just because they’re curious about what’s going on there.”

Good luck.

Too politically correct? Na! Never!

Ok, today I saw something that made me just go, “Huh?” I was surfing around and I was looking at a site for one of the guide dog schools, and I saw a link that said, career change dogs. That was just one of those statements that makes your head spin and if you don’t get it explained right quick, you might cause a blood vessel to burst from the strain of trying to discern what the fuck that could possibly mean. Is a career change dog a dog that didn’t make it into the guide dog stuff so is now a hearing ear dog? Is a career change dog a dog that somehow helps someone deal with a career change? Those two, although weird, make sense. But no no no. Things can never be simple in this world.

Get ready for this. A career change dog is a dog that doesn’t make the grade as a guide dog either for physical or mental reasons. So they’re selling them to the general public for 600 bucks or you can apply to help out in the career change dog program. So, face it dudes, you’re giving out glorified pets! Pets! that’s what they are. They’re not career change dogs, they’re rejects. Don’t worry, dogs can’t read, you won’t hurt their feelings, call it what it is! That’s just one way that we have too much political correctness around. I’d like to meet the brain surgeon who came up with that slogan. Then maybe I’ll tell him he’s a career change person. Let him think on that one, see how he feels.

This Is The Best Joke Ever

A person, belonging to an ethnic group whose members are commonly considered to have certain stereotypical mannerisms, met another person belonging to a different ethnic group with a different set of imputed stereotypical mannerisms.

The first person acted in a manner consistent with the stereotypes associated with his ethnic group. He proceeded to make a remark, which might be considered to establish conclusively his membership in that group. Whereupon his companion proceeded to make a remark with a double
meaning. The first meaning of which could be interpreted to indicate his agreement with his companion. But the other meaning of which, serves to corroborate his membership in his particular ethnic group.

The first person took offense at his remark, and reacted in a stereotypical way.

He Was Asking For It

Could somebody please explain to me why it is that I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who get themselves injured or killed in war zones that they visit of their own free will? I’m not talking about people who go their on business such as those who are there to provide humanitarian aid to the people in whatever country it is, I’m talking about people like
this guy,
who head off to Iraq just because they’re curious about what’s going on there.

Here’s a free tip from me to you. If you want to know what’s going on in Iraq, before you book your flight to check things out firsthand, try picking up a newspaper or turning on the TV. That should give you a pretty good idea of the situation there which last I heard, wasn’t that good.
And here’s a bonus piece of advice for you just because I’m a nice guy. After you’ve done the 17 seconds of research that it should require to rule out Iraq as your vacation spot of choice, call your travel agent and see what the prices are like for Mexico, or some other place where there aren’t quite so many tourist killings and where the worst things you’ll have to deal with are all the foreigners and the lovely tap water. Oh, and who can forget the odd mugging at gunpoint but that can happen to you right outside your own home so really it’s not worth sweating that too much. In fact, the more I think about it, why should you go on a vacation at all? If you want to see people from other countries and experience other cultures, go outside for a few minutes. If you want to drink water that will make you sick and slowly kill you, turn on the sink. And if you want to experience the pure rush that is getting robbed by an armed maniac, loudly count your money while standing near one of those outdoor bank machines and you should get your wish in a matter of minutes.

But getting back to my main point, I’m not sure why it is that we’re supposed to feel bad when some guy who decides that it might be fun to explore the fabulous hiking trails of Baghdad finds himself taken hostage and eventually offed by a group of extremists. Personally, I don’t and I’ve got a good reason for that. His name is
Mark Sokolov.
If you don’t have time to read the story linked above, I’ll explain him to you.

Mark Sokolov managed to survive the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th. He was working in his 38th floor office when the first airliner hit the other tower. He managed to safely escape and did so virtually unharmed. Gee, that was close. But even though he dodged a pretty big one there, Sokolov hadn’t had enough close calls. So what is a man who seemingly wants to get himself killed in the worst possible way to do? If you said go on a family vacation to Jerusalem and walk through the middle of a bomb blast, you would be correct.

For some reason his story made international headlines, not one of which was titled Douche Bag Dad Squanders Second Chance At Life, Kills Family At Same Time. Instead, he was interviewed by just about everyone and he was either treated like a hero or he spoke about his experiences lightheartedly complete with such quotes as “I was obviously a lot luckier last time, This one involved my whole family.”

Does that statement make absolutely 0 sense to anybody else, or is it just me?

But that’s beside the point. It seems to me that if somebody gave me a first chance at life let alone a second one, that I would do everything I could to protect it and treat it like something of value because without your life, all of your other valuables are worthless. What ever happened to that survival instinct that everybody by nature is supposed to have? Maybe some of us were born without one or maybe it’s simply a case of natural selection doing it’s job. But whatever it is, the only thing I’m sad about is the state of the human race as a whole, not the individuals who find themselves in these pickles of their own creation. No, they’re just here to serve as the entertainment while the stronger of mind among us sit back and watch the fun.

Pretentious bullshit

Well, aren’t I in a happy mood? There’s just something that’s been pissing me off, and it pissed me off enough to write it down. Like I said before, I go to school, and I don’t know what it is about other people who go to school that makes them think they’re better than everyone else. For me, I go to school for a reason. To get a degree so I can have a piece of paper so I can say I went to school and now I have some semblance of qualifications. I’ve come to find out that they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass what that degree is in, just as long as you have a degree. I know that this degree is a means to an end, to get out and join the real world.

But there are people who I see around me who think that because they are going to school, they are somehow enlightened folk, and they are better than those who don’t go to school. Let me give a couple of examples. Right now I’m taking a course which I can’t stand, but I’m almost done my degree, so I’m sucking it up. It’s about gender and organizational dynamics. Snore snore snore. Basically the whole course just keeps telling us that women are fucked because they’re women and they’re just doomed to get a big fat goose egg on the glass ceiling and never go anywhere. Talk about starting off your self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, I heard something in that class that pissed me off. The prof said, “Maybe not as much discriminatory behaviour happens here because this is a university. Perhaps it is more prevalent in the less educated population.” Wake up, sunshine, education doesn’t make a lick of difference in this case. If people want to be dicks, they can be a more educated dick or a less educated dick. They’re still inherently a dick. Open-mindedness and education are two different things. It’s about beliefs, not whether or not you’re used to having to use no. 2 pencils to fill out multiple choice tests.

Believe me, I know. I’ve met plenty of these educated dicks, and they often think they are among the enlightened folk. I worked for departments at the university, and that’s where I got treated like the most shit.

Here’s another example. A friend of mine who’s in my same program said this about her boyfriend the other day, and I wanted to take her and shake her until I didn’t have any rage left in me. “Maybe it’s because I go to university and he doesn’t that I can’t have a conversation with him. I’m just more articulate than him.” Ok, hold the damn poney. I’ve met some pretty inarticulate university students and some people who didn’t go to school who could talk circles around me. Don’t use your level of education as an excuse for why your relationship is failing. If you’re so damn incompatible, why do you want to be with him anyway?

And this was the one that provoked me to write this morning. I’m choking down this bullshit for the class I can’t stand which we’ve all started calling “Men are Pigs” class, and I read this statement:
“The person who fixes your refrigerator probably makes more than the local librarian.”
Well wouldn’t you expect that? I’d rather that my meat not give me salmonella than, woe is me, I can’t find the philosophy of socrates in the library. I don’t understand the theory that because this person has to do with reading, they obviously need more money than anyone else, even though fixing the fridge is kind of more practically important. I think the fridge dude should get more money. Fridge dude might save my life.

Don’t get me wrong, librarians are important and if we can’t read, we’re all fucked because we’ll just believe what we’re told, oh wait that’s happening already. But christ it’s a stupid comparison to make to prove that women aren’t getting enough money in that job, and it’s pretentious to belittle the person who’s doing a supposedly lower status job just because they didn’t go to school.

Ah. I feel better now. Now how to end this post. I just hope it makes someone think, even if they disagree with me and think I’m a raving lunatic. Hell maybe I am. But I’m a raving lunatic who doesn’t think I’m any better than another raving lunatic who didn’t happen to go to school.

Going to the Dogs

Well, if I haven’t already said somewhere, I’m blind. I don’t like that to be in only the second post you read of mine, but since the point I’m rambling towards kind of makes no sense without telling you I’m blind, there it is. I guess not technically completely blind, I see light and sometimes I think a pole is a person and vice versa. Yea embarrassing conversations with street signs and coat racks!

But anyway, I’ve been thinking about getting a guide dog. Har har har what a corny post title. So for people who don’t know, to get a guide dog, it’s not like you show up at the local dog pound with someone and they go, “Hmmm, this one looks about the right size for you. Get ’em a harness! Fleas? Ah they’ll go away.” That’s not really the way it works. Also, benevolent forces don’t run around and give unto blind people guide dogs like they’re the chosen ones. Believe me I have had people think both things. The dogs are specially trained and you have to apply to schools, and there’s more than one school. Yep, apply.

Ok, that was boring. Bla bla bla. But I’m thinking about getting a guide dog, so I called up a couple schools, and my god the differences between the packages the schools sent is like night and day. One sent this super sweet package and said that I could send back the package on disk, tape, email, on the web, they’d even let me phone back and have someone take my application down by dictation, hell if I said I had to send it back in hyrogliphics pounded into rocks I think they would have found a way. These people seemed so accommodating. Sure there was print, but everything that was in print was on tape, and a whole bunch of staff all talked on the tapes they sent, which was cool, cause I’m going to meet these people possibly, so it’s cool to hear them talk.

Now the other school. Let me just shake my head. First of all, they sent me a CD with some stuff about the realities of living with a guide dog. Sweet awesome cool. But on this CD, which only had 15 minutes of recording on it I might add, it kept saying there was a section about how to apply. Guess what? They neglected to record that section. Then, everything else in that package was in print, including the infamous instructions on how to apply. Luckily, through the joys of technology, I have something that will scan print and turn it into text that my computer can read. So I scanned every page of these papers, and there were a lot of papers. A ton. Among them I found a fliar! A fliar! What in the blue sweet holy christ am I going to do with a fliar? Post it somewhere? Are they really that broke for money? They seem to like repeatedly telling me that they are a registered charity, on every page of the papers, certain costs I will have to pay for, and instructing me on how to fund raise so the school will be there when I want another dog. Holy crap is the building I’m staying in during training about to cave in?

I also notice that it is repeatedly instructing me to please print on the form. If I’m blind enough to need a guide dog, how do they suppose I’m able to a. read the stuff without scanning it, and b. be able to print between the right lines? ” Oh crap. I just told them my name was Canada. Oh shit what do I do now?” I hear you. “But Carin, people with all kinds of different degrees of vision get guide dogs. Maybe it’s big and they assume you can read the print.” I stop you with this. Next, I came across something that killed me. My computer clearly said, “Guide dog application for training, small print version.” Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t remember specifying to them, “oh sure send me the small print version.” I do remember them asking me if I could read large print, but I said no. That does not mean send me small print. That’s like saying, “He’s in a wheelchair, so even small steps are trouble. Well how about we send him up these big ones?” I don’t know. You’d think, “I can’t read large print.” means “find another way than print to give me the shit.” Even if they sent the print along, cause I have to have other people fill some of this shit out. but at least give me another way to do the application.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a super nutty crazy accessibility advocate, so bad that if you so much as send me one piece of print, I cry discrimination. I accept that this is a sighted world, and of course sighties for sighted things are going to send me print first. I’ll ask if there’s a way for me to do it another way, but if it has to be print, so be it. But this is a school to help blinks get dogs to make sure they don’t hit things they can’t see. If I can’t see a hydro pole, how am I going to read this paper with little black specks on it, and write little specks back?

Ok now I have thoroughly bored everyone. I didn’t mean to make this into a preaching session. It was just shit that I was thinking about cause I just finished scanning every last blessed piece of paper from one of the schools. Maybe I’ll have something more interesting to say tomorrow.