Nursing Building: Take 2

            Today, we headed back to the nursing building and Billy got his second shot at working in his building.  This time around, I was thrown off by the construction downstairs.  I imagine that would be really distracting (not to mention potentially dangerous) for a blind person.  The continually shifting environment would only add anxiety to an already confusing space.

            I noticed that Billy was having trouble in the first floor lobby, so I was trying to think differently about the space.  Perhaps the things that make rooms visually appealing (curved walls, open spaces) might make them a lot harder to navigate with a cane.  I also think those chairs in the entryway are really distracting.  I remember coming across chairs while blindfolded in the office suite in Stone, and each time I hit a chair, I has something new to square off against that threw me off.  I think Billy might be in the same boat.  When you come across a chair with a cane, you can’t tell which side you’re hitting, so you can’t really tell if you’ve found the front or side, since your cane only hits the base.   But, when you see one side of a chair, you can figure out how it stands in relation to the wall automatically.  I wonder how you figure that out without touching more of the chair and looking like a for real blind person.

            I’m pretty excited to go back to my building.  I’m curious to see what I remember, and I’d love to expand my understanding of the building.  Working under blindfold is such a unique and enlightening experience.  I wish we could do it more often!

First Time Teaching

Today, I got my first crack at teaching Lauren.  I did notice that my hesitation and tentativeness caused hesitations in Lauren.  There were times when I went to say something, but being unsure, I didn’t speak loudly enough or I didn’t finish my sentence completely.  Then, Lauren missed what I was saying.  So, in those moments, I feel like I compounded her confusion by giving incomplete/weird directions.

You see, I really, really, REALLY hate to be wrong.  It’s definitely one of my biggest faults.  The natural consequence of hating to be wrong is wanting to do everything right the first time.  So, I spend a lot of my time worrying about doing things right. 

I think there were times when I got overwhelmed with all the things in the environment that I had a hard time narrowing down what would be important to tell Lauren.  So, I either didn’t give her enough information or gave her unnecessary information.  That seems to be a real art – giving just enough to be successful.  I imagine that’s one of things I’ll get better at as I go along.

I wasn’t really sure when to say something and when to let her try it on her own.  Having the feedback from Mickey really helped.  I’ve just have no frame of reference.  I’m excited to get better.  I think it really might just take doing it – teaching Lauren and maybe not doing things the right way in order to figure out the best way that works for both Lauren and me.

Lauren’s amazing on the stairs.  I’m so jealous!  ;-)

Amber's Day

            I feel like I saw a lot of really great things yesterday during Amber’s lesson, but I’m not sure how to process what I saw.  I spend the whole class watching very carefully, but I’m just not sure what I’m seeing.  I’m a bit nervous about trying to help Lauren out as she learns her building tomorrow.  There’s just so much to pay attention to and so many different ways to help.  At this point, I’m just not sure which ways are the right ways and which ways are the wrong ways.  I certainly don’t want to do the wrong things.  For some reason, all the information doesn’t want to collate.  Maybe it’s just too early in the semester.

           

            The one thing that really stuck with me about yesterday was the incredible number of people who stared at us as we went along.  I’m not sure if it was because we were tracking along behind Amber like creepers or if it was because she was “blind.”  I just have to wonder if people who are blind get started at quite as much as Amber did.  It was just unreal.  People who weren’t staring were falling over themselves just to get out of Amber’s way.  I can totally see how social interactions are hard for blind people.  Once you combine the internal issues like not having concepts of personal space with the ways others perceive them, it’s really a miracle that any blind person becomes socially competent.  

Business School: Day 1

            Lots to think about this time… 

            I feel really accomplished today.  I had the chance to begin working in my building, the College of Business.  I was really excited for the challenge, but once the blindfold came on, I was more nervous than I thought I should be.  I guess the idea of entering a building I’d never seen kinda got to me.  It seemed like such an enormous task. Once inside, I had something tangible to tap or touch, and the anxiety left.  Having something to do really helped me feel more secure.  I really liked learning the route, and I loved working out the puzzle.  I typically have a really great sense of direction, but I wasn’t sure it would extend to working under blindfold.  I didn’t know how much of my sense of direction was driven or reinforced by my vision.  Apparently I still retained some sense of direction, but I can now see the tremendous impact of vision on maintaining orientation.   It took so much more focus to do what I typically do so naturally.

            I found that the building being busy was both quite intimidating and really helpful.  I was just sure that I’d run into someone or we’d have an awkward moment, so I tended to freeze up when hearing people approach.  I wonder if blind people do this too?  It makes you seem totally inept, though, like you’re afraid to approach a person.  On the other hand, having the people around gave me so much information.  I was dreading the open stairs on the first floor, but hearing others go up and down them, I felt confident that I was far enough away.  (Plus, you know, the cane helps too.)  Many times, I was able to hear doors open or people moving down the hall to give me clues as to what direction I needed to go.

            I was just blown away at how quickly I began to depend on another person for help.  It kind of disgusts me.  But it’s so easy to see how well meaning people (including me) let that happen.  I think it started off as I verbalized my internal dialogue, you know, “What was that?” or “Where’s the door?.”  As I moved on and I put together that checking out things tactually is way less efficient than having someone else tell me, I began to unconsciously solicit the information, because really, they can see it and I can’t, so they should tell me.  Right?  Wrong.  Figuring it out on my own was so much better.  My concept of the place was more fully formed when I did the discovering.  After Mickey called me on it, I walked with the “I’ll show you who can do this without ANY help” purpose, and it felt good. 

            So, those stairs…    I don’t even know where to start in describing the experience.  The anxiety was through the roof, way higher than doing the stairs in Stone, I think because I’d never seen these.  After I heard that the stairs spiraled, I had in my mind a tight spiral, but what I expected and reality were quite different.  I was totally disoriented on the steps.  There were times I thought I’d squared off on the steps and then noticed I was crooked.  It was like I was in a weird place without right angles.  Horizontal and vertical seemed tilted and wobbly.  Crazy disorienting.  I even froze at the top of one set, just totally unable to move for a few seconds.  I wasn’t thinking about how to approach; I was scared and didn’t want to move.  I’ve frozen like that before, but generally at much greater hights.  These are just stairs, right?  No mountain repelling involved.  It should be easy.  When Mickey said, “Want do the route again?” I didn’t think: “Man, I might not be able to find the bathroom,” or “Man, I don’t wanna bounce off walls.”  Nope.  I thought: “Crap.  There are stairs on this route.”  Going down the stairs again helped, but I really had to fight hard to push back the fear and anxiousness.

            After the stairs, I was so totally wrung out.  I had a really hard time keeping the rest of the route in my head.  I suppose this is because I first learned it after the stress of doing the stairs for the first time, so the route wasn’t terribly well engrained in my mind, and then the second time, I was still so distracted by my anxiousness that I was missing important things and I ended up totally disoriented in my route.  Thinking back, I’m still not sure how I got to the front door of the building from the stairs, and while doing it, I didn’t even know I was at the front door when I was standing right in front of it.  Oh boy.  Lots to learn.

            

9.9.10 - Stairs, Stairs, Stairs, and Guess What? More Stairs

            So, I didn’t die.  I was so sure that I would wipe out and break my face. My anxiety was so incredibly high.  I kept running thought all the things that could go wrong.  Those thoughts made it so hard to focus on anything other than the stairs.  At times, I had to take a moment to calm myself down, as if I were truly distraught.  There was a lot of tension for a simple set of stairs!  

            Though I couldn’t think about anything else, I couldn’t even think clearly about the stairs.  It was like I was just reeling from all the non-productive thoughts.  At times, I was focusing on so many thoughts and ideas that I couldn’t keep anything straight in my mind.  That’s when the big errors came in, I think.  It was also really hard to be sure I was doing the right thing without the visual feedback.  It’s hard to pay attention to how things feel (especially when I’m sure I’ll bite the dust any minute) when I’ve spent a lifetime learning by how things look.

            So, I stumbled several times, and once, I was pretty much a goner, but Mickey kept me from falling.  That really built a lot of confidence both in Mickey’s ability to keep me safe and by ability to not get hurt.  So thanks, Mickey.  I’m grateful.  I feel better about the stairs, but I’m not still crazy about them.  I definitely need some more practice before I feel truly comfortable with stairs.

9.7.10 - Jill and the Hill

            Here’s Tuesday.  First, Jill made her way down the hill.  She didn’t go as far as I would have thought, but still, I need to see some more proof.  The PVC pipe doesn’t weigh as much as we do.  If it were weighted more, then it might provide a more accurate idea.  I’m just thinking too much about all this.  I suppose I’ll have the real life version on Thursday when we go down the stairs.  Sorry Mickey, I’m still not convinced I won’t break my neck going down the stairs. 

            On Tuesday, we worked with the diagonal technique and two point touch.  It was really cool to have the cane in hand and begin learning to use it.  I was way more tense and in my head than I thought I would be.  I’d gotten pretty comfortable walking without the cane so that the addition of the cane felt weird and cumbersome.  It was a really odd sensation, carrying the cane.  I really didn’t know what to do with all the new information.  I suppose that’s where the over-reaction comes in.  I was really startled when the cane hit something.  I suppose I was ready to react like crazy; I’m not sure what I would have been reacting so strongly to.  I imagine that with greater practice, I’ll become more familiar.  I am really excited to learn more. 

About those stairs...

            Tuesday was a cool day in O&M.  I learned a few things.  The first was that I am really not okay going down stairs. The second was that in a crowd, the pausing that takes place to let others pass in front make it harder to gather clues about going up or down stairs.  A few times, Lauren paused while guiding me, and I was sure there were stairs coming soon.  Then, when she paused at the head of the stairs, I thought she was still pausing for the crowd.  So, I was surprised when I felt her go down the stairs.

            Speaking of the stairs…  My life is littered with falling-down-the-stairs stories, and you’d think that would make me more accustomed to the falling process, but the truth is, it hurts to fall down the stairs, so I like to avoid it.  It’s hard to describe what I feel when I head down the stairs blindfolded.  With every step, I have to prepare myself to not freak out during that split second before my foot hits the step.  That split second seems to last forever.  I’m just (irrationally) sure that I’ll just keep falling and falling.  So, all of these things run through my head with each step.  That’s enough brain movement to mess a girl up.  I’m just thinking too much.  In fact, as we headed back to Stone, I was having a hard time keeping up with conversation because I was anticipating the stairs, totally faking myself out.  We were pretty far away, so I missed a lot of time to chat with my classmates.  I can see how blind kids lose chances to make social contacts while they are walking because they are more concerned with maintaining mobility.