Ok, so maybe that title got yanked straight out of an IM window, but that’s alright. When emails like the following drop into your inbox and then get forwarded, that’s what kind of response you get via IM.
From: “Morin, T”
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:16:04 +0000
Subject: Congratulations! You have made the Dean’s List.
To:
My school email
DIVISION OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
June 25, 2012
President Daniel M. Asquino, your professors, staff, and I want to
congratulate you on your outstanding academic achievement. You have
made the Dean’s List for the spring 2012 semester.
This is quite an achievement, and it required a great deal of
dedication and hard work on your part. You should be very proud of
yourself.
If you wish to receive an official letter, please contact
Academic Affairs Administrative Assistant, at
Best wishes for your continued success. If you have the time, please
drop by my office so that I can congratulate you personally.
Sincerely,
Melissa A. Fama Ph.D.
Vice President of Academic Affairs
Mount Wachusett Community College
………………………………………………………………………………………
Sent on behalf of Melissa Fama
FSU stupid
The Fmeeping Stupids strike again, this time in student form.
Something happened to me today that has me inclined to write about it in the hope that doing so will prevent one more sighted person from pulling this same retard move.
Now, today’s Tuesday. It’s my long day at school, and if I wrote about every retarded thing someone did on a Tuesday, well, you guys would get sick of me real quick. Not that some of you already aren’t sick of me but that’s another story for another time.
So, I’m standing at the shuttle stop, texting, shooting the shit, waiting for the shuttle, as is my habit. I miss one, curse, continue texting.
All is normal here. Dee de dee de dee…Ooh! shuttle! *stuff phone in pocket, proceed to vehicle door*. Or… Rather., try to.
*insert sudden frightened scream and stream of obscenities here*.
I see a thought bubble over your head asking, “What, are you cursing at, now, Krista? Seriously?”
Behind me you see a guy, who we’ll call Grabby McHelperson. this fine example of an FSU student body member has decided, in his head, on the spur of the moment, “Oh my god! it’s a blind girl! She doesn’t know how to get onto the shuttle! she can’t find the door!”
So from there he’s decided, “I’ll simply grab her by the shoulders, not saying anything, and push her toward it!”
Because in Grabby McHelpersons world over there, apparently that’s just what you do when a blind person is slowly approaching a bus door so she doesn’t errantly cane anyone to death.
Now, I would’ve been alright if he’d asked me, “Excuse me, do you need help?”
Or even, “Yo! Need some help?” would’ve been nice! Seriously! I would’ve just told him I was fine and buggered off about my business, thinking nothing of it.
But, (and I say this for the benefit of sighted readers), blind people aren’t cattle! Don’t ever, EVER*, grab *anyone*, sighted, blind, or purple, for Christ’s sakes, and try and *herd* them somewhere. It’s degrading, undignified, and a stupid move if you wanna get out of a place unstared at.
Before someone jumps on my tits, because I know some asshole’s gonna go for it, I get wanting to help. But this guy didn’t even bother to say “Hi, how are you, need some help,” et cetera. He just walked silently up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders and began pushing me forward. He was summarily disposed of by a flurry of screaming and cursing for the simple reason of, yes, I panicked. I mean come on, if you know me at all, or if you’re alive, breathing and in possession of a reasonable IQ, you know I’m not gonna stand there and let some silent stranger put his paws on me. Yes, it was a guy, I could tell once I could turn around enough to get a sideview on the dumb ass as he was backing away in embarrassment and fear of my cane which I had raised at a marginally threatening angle by that point.
So the question of the day is, who does that? How stupid do you have to be, or to think someone is, that you physically grab them and don’t say a damned word to them before doing so? Just… why? Why would you do that? Like I said. I get wanting to help. But if you wanna help someone, you open your piehole and *ask*, don’t just grab the person.
So apparently vodka's an issue, while mold is not.
I’d been contemplating this post for about a week, and then I said, “Screw it. Let’s go”
So if you don’t remember that I lived in a filthy hellhole all year long last year, you live under a boulder. That’s ok, we’ll deal. To recap: Mold, for weeks on end, huge ass bins of dirty laundry, furniture hazards galore…
And no matter how much I bitched, nothing was ever done to produce a safer living environment.
So the other night I learn of a fire drill in my former dorm, wherein some kid got his ass chewed for leaving abig-ass thing of vodka out on his desk.
Buddy. that wasn’t smart. No. Really. It wasn’t. I promise. I mean, I totally get why that university makes you wanna drink yourself under the table but ya could’ve shoved the thing in your closet or something at least, and tried to save yourself!
So, my least favorite person over there finds this gentleman’s… libations. She gives him a bollocking, and rightfully so. So again, I gotta ask the question, where were those bollockings when we had fire drills last year, and people knew that there were safety violations hangin’ out the ass in that room?
You can’t tell me nobody knew, that’s no excuse. There were notes all over their metaphorical floor. So apparently allowing someone to live in filth is ok, but indulging someone whom you could very well be driving to drink is not.
Why is that news article choosing this evening to roll across my desk?
Well ok. My floor. Since I don’t have a desk to speak of at this current time. . You know, because give it a few days and I won’t have a place to live. But we already went over that earlier. So let’s just um, go down here, use my limited web design skills, and learn about what happens when stupid people/organizations do stupid things.
So, there’s this dude. You know, the guy who wrote this thinggy over here.
That guy who wrote that thing up there that’s used for the social network which shall not be named of which I may or may not be a member, goes to Florida State University.
Well, Florida State’s math department, you see, has this nasty little habit. They like to force their blind students to use inaccessible software for math courses.
Well, this dude doesn’t like this very much. You se, he, ladies and gentlemen, is blind, in the event you didn’t read that thing over there in your other browser tab. So what did Florida State do that pissed him off enough to get the NFB involved? Well, to refresh your memories, and mine, because it’s half past holy crap o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even had dinner yett, let’s play a li’l game. One of my favorites. it’s called Peel and Stick. It works, kinda like this, wherein I take a piece of that article in that other tab of mine and go… Well, let’s see what they did, now, shall we?
The suit alleges that FSU’s Department of Mathematics discriminated against Mr. Toth
and Ms. Principato by failing to provide them with proper accommodations so that
they could successfully complete required math courses for their respective degree
programs. The violations include requiring the students to use an inaccessible Web-based
application to complete homework assignments, tests, and quizzes; requiring the use
of clickers that cannot be used by a blind person to respond to in-class questions
and obtain bonus credit; failing to provide Braille versions of the required textbooks
in violation of agreed-upon accommodation plans; and engaging in retaliatory actions
when the students complained of these violations. In all cases, faculty members
in the Department of Mathematics were generally uncooperative, unhelpful, and even
hostile, and did not provide meaningful alternative methods for Mr. Toth and Ms.
Principato to successfully complete the required courses. As a result, both students
are currently unable to continue their degree programs and find their careers indefinitely
on hold.
Who are you, FSU math department, to deny these two blind students an education? And who are you, FSU disability services, for allowing the math department to treat students who *you* are supposed to be assisting, so poorly? And don’t even get me started. Inevitably, some fucktard’s gonna waltz on in here and say disability services could have known nothing about it. I’m calling bullshit. I’m calling bullshit based on the fact that other students in other state universities all across the country get treated like this daily. But you know what? As long as the books look pretty, it doesn’t matter how students are treated. Because nobody who works for a state university actually gives a fuck about the students. No. All they care about is their form letters and their handbooks and their rules. as long as it looks good on paper, nobody actually cares! Nope, because as long as their reports look pretty for whomever the hell they report to, they can just carry on treating people like garbage and get away with it.
You can’t rightfully sit here and tell me Florida State didn’t know about the treatment these two students were receiving. (In fact, I wish I could grab the one I have on my mesenger and ask him what disability services actually did about the situation, but unfortunately, right now, I can’t seem to find him.) Um, well, it is 1:26 AM. You normal people that are lucky an that have everything, you’re sleeping right now, wile I’m scrounging for a place to live. yeah. Especially you lucky sighties, who have jobs. And you all sat at home, in your normal houses, with your normal families, this evening, and did normal things. While I bounced around the state with a backpack, a duffel, a cane and a person guiding me, trying to find a place to crash this evening that wasn’t gonna get a friend of mine from high school evicted from her apartment, you people, probably some of the very ones I’m currently being persecuted and treated like a criminal by, get to live your lives like nothing’s wrong. You get to sleep in your own bed, in your own house, while I worry about whether my next move is to court so I dont get put in a group home by my insane mother, or worse, end up under her guardianship, and living in my house for the rest of my pathetic, broken, useless life. Hope you’re proud of yourselves, because I would rather like to start planning ways of getting rid of myself so you all have nothing to worry about anymore. Yeah. remember how someone told me I should kill myself? Suicidal ideations. again. thanks assholes. Just how I wanted to spend an evening in an unfamiliar place. and I thought I was gonna get away with not being a medicated zombie for the rest of my life? Well, guess I’m quite sure who to thank for that.
That's… precisely how you do your job. Except for, like, how it ain't?
Yarfing all over the blog again to prevent me using something as a projectile that I shouldn’t. Screen readers, wanna skip it? H to jump to the next heading is your happyfriend, sighties, use those mice like they were intended.
I have officially hit the point where “I can’t fucking take it any fucking more,” writes, publishes, and sells the book on exactly how I feel right now. You, person, can sit there and lah lah lah, I’m nooooot liiiiiiistening, while I complain for months and months and months, on end, about mold. Filth. Dirty living conditions. Disrespectful treatment of my family. Ok, maybe sometimes my mother deserves it. But my grandmother didn’t deserve to have a spray bottle yanked out of her hand last year, nor did she deserve to be screamed and yelled at by the student who was my roommate at that time.
Nobody deserves to be ignored when your job is to help them. Nobody deserves to sit there in the middle of February, freezing their tits off in the middle of the night, while you sleep at home in your nice cozy warm bed. Why was I freezing in the middle of the night in mid February? Because the mold smell in my room was so awful that I had to keep the window open 24/7 just so I didn’t throw up! But as long as you’re happy, nobody else has to be happy, right? Obviously, that’s how certain people think. I’m not saying anymore here, because I fear for my personal safety and mental health. I honestly thought briefly about checkin’ myself into a hospital and gettin’ some downers shoved down my face. Only reason I didn’t do it was because it’d get people involved who didn’t need to be involved and hopefully won’t need to. I’m sick of discrimination. I’m sick of favoritism. I’m sick of ass-covering, and I’m sick of people simply NOT DOING THEIR BLOODY JOBS! No. I can’t take it anymore. We thank Shane for not allowing me alcohol this evening because if I had my choice, I’d go get stupidly drunk, induce alcohol poisoning because I have no tolerance, and end myself up in the hospital. We also thank my friend Minh for allowing me to crash on her spare bed. We don’t thank certain officials for putting me in a precarious position. I lived in a precarious position all summer long. I didn’t really wanna have to live in a mentally unhealthy unstable environment for the rest of my life. Thanks, people, you’ve ruined me.
But no, you don’t care. Of course you don’t care. Especially certain individuals who can sit on their couch and eat ice cream while a blind student lives in an unhealthy, unsafe environment, and the people who are supposed to help her aren’t doing anything about it. You had plenty of opportunities. Is it simply the fact that you hate me because I needed your help? Do you not like your job? Are you that unhappy in your career that you won’t help someone who’s getting urinary tract infections because her roommate’s living habits are causing them? I believe you are. And I will be bringing that up at my earliest opportunity. You had all the opportunity in the world last year to prove you were on my side. Obviously, you weren’t. That, is called favoritism. You let someone else make me sick while you plugged your ears, turned away from me, and pretended I didn’t exist! You didn’t care! And now that someone called you out on it, all of a sudden, you want me as far out of your face as you can get me. Because to you, as long as it looks like you’re doing your job on the books, and you’re getting paid for it, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or how other people feel.
Oh god no. This place? Care? About their disabled students? Oh, I’m sorry, that’s too much work. You might have to pay someone to breathe instead of filling the positions with robots who are preprogrammed for only certain functions. I…dude…I’m simply at the point where I’m done giving a shit. The simple fact is that nobody cares. Nobody wants to help. It’s too much work. I’m too much work. if you couldn’t help me, who was supposed to? You were supposed to be the person who walked in and told her, “Enough is enough!” But you didn’t. You failed me. You failed me once and now you’re failing me again. My opinion of you is that you’re a malicious, malevolent and disgraceful human being who doesn’t actually care about his/her job. And you know what? I’m entitled to that opinion. I’m entitled to sit in this train station and write down what I think of you, because surely it’s better than drinking myself to death and ending up in the hospital.
I shouldn’t actively be thinking about getting drunk. Alcoholism runs in my family. My grandfather still struggles with it. I also shouldn’t be contemplating ways to sleep outside safely tonight because my friend’s building manager isn’t thrilled with me crashing with her. I can’t go home. I can’t go home because if I go home I’m going to end up locked in a mental institution because my mother is of the opinion that I belong in a group home or something or under her legal guardianship, which obviously I don’t.
I also thought I’d let ya know that I’ll be doing a mass cleanup of my social media the minute I hit a place where I have net access, as the MBTA car I’m currently sitting in…well…there wifi works about as well as my eyes. Which is to say, um, how bout not at all? things, are leaking. Things, are leaking, that should not, be leaking. And I’m gonna plug that leak if it’s the last damn thing I do on this earth. Noone. Has any right. To be digging into my locked shit, nor does anyone have the right to tell me that I should kill myself.
Yes, it happened. Someone told me I should end my life. Not a joke. I’m still breathing, I’m sitting in this car next to Shane right now because a frigging cat saved my life in 2003. Yes, you heard me, I said it publicly. Someone who will remain nameless told me I should kill myself. then, that same human being told me I should pretty much be locked away in a mental institution. Is that what people want? Would it make everyone happier if I just ended my life or got put away somewhere so I could never be a bother to anyone again? I know there are certain individuals who would be happier that way and the only reason they don’t get what they want, well, he’s sitting to my right, if you must know. Yeah, you saw that. I said it here. The reason I won’t end my otherwise miserable existence is because someone got through to my hard ass head that I was actually worth a shit.
Where were you?
So as you may or may not be aware, in the event you’re living under a rock, Shane showed up here on Thursday. Not even an hour after he showed up, came a knock on the door. It was the building director, reminding me of the guest policies and threatening me with academic sanctions, and basically doing her best to make me feel about the size and worth of an amoeba. I yessed her to death for the purposes of getting her the fuck out of my face before I slapped her because I was already prepping for battle because I had afeeling stupid shit was gonna go down. And well, it did.
Then, I remembered last year’s continuous saga of the stupid. My questions for this woman, because I hope to Christ she finds this somehow, are as follows.
Where were you while I was living in filth all year?
Where were you while I sat there in a room which stunk of mold, with someone else’s belongings strewn all over what should have been my side of the room?
Where were you while I sat in health services wondering how the fuck I could’ve gotten a urinary tract infection when I was being a two-shower-a-day clean freak, living with someone who didn’t shower, or even perform the common courtesy of emptying her fridge?
Where were you while I had someone come in and take pictures of the room to make sure I didn’t get dingged hundreds in damages because I lived with someone who didn’t give a rancid shit about personal space?
Where were you when all those complaints were lodged?
Where were you when I was sitting up till 2 and 3 in the morning listening to this girl sob and scream and cry to her boyfriend because he was telling her the truth and she didn’t wanna hear it?
Where were you when I was sick every other week because I had to keep the window open in the middle of February just so I could try and scrounge up some breatheable air?
Where were you when I was washing the same load of laundry twice just to try and make it smell less like rotten mold?
What did you ever do for me when I actually needed you? Nothing. And now you’re threatening me with academic sanctions because I have someone here who actually gives a fuck trying to help me?
Lady, you may be marrie to the rules, I understand that may be the only gratification you get, but you never did anything for me when I actually needed you, so why should you bother with me now?
This is one of those weeks I wish I had an alcohol tolerance.
Below are various notes to the stupid, in no particular order because Window-Eyes and WordPress just had an argument and I had to intervene and force them to fight nicely.
1. If I tell you something 2 weeks before I do something with which you may or may not have an issue, and then sit on my thumb for ages, I’m going to assume you’re either an idiot who doesn’t pay attention to email which is the only form of contact I have with you, or that you really don’t give a goddamn what I do.
2. If I get an email hours before the deal’s already sealed, and then you don’t say word 1 to me after the fact, you have already put me in a precarious position, one from which I hav to do metaphorical gymnastics to rebound.
3. Whining to Mommy don’t get ya nowhere. Whining to the boss is not how you solve your problems like an adult!
4. If you don’t have any solutions for contortions which I can use to extract myself from the fuck shit stack I am currently stuck in, shut up and get outa my way because stuff’s gonna fly. A person 4 feet and 10 inches in height cannot easily extract herself from a pool of quicksand and dog shit 10 feet deep.
5. Communication is your happyfriend. Fucking use it and stop avoiding me.
6. When I’m already stressin’ right outa my mind, that is not the time to start hammering on me! Once again, I’ll say, step the hell off.
7. Again with the communication: there are multiple ways to, say, check your email. Hi, can we say I’m kissin’ data overages this month?
Done now. The humidity in this room is doing shitty things to this keyboard, and I think I’ve hammered my points to death in various other forms. If the dude across the room wants the floor on the situation at hand,he can have it.
Sidenote: Window-Eyes or wordpress has eaten my categories for an after-dinner snack. Damn it. Not cute.
May 18 Deserved its own blog entry, so you get it today.
Well, the one thing I can say for finals week is that it sure went out with one hell of a bang. May 18 was the last day, during which I had my stats final. FSU’s ever so awesome disability services department couldn’t seem to get it off the computer, however, and that reminds me I need to jump them about it first thing Monday morning. Why didn’t I get to that yet? Because from Tuesday evening on, until about noon today, I was computerless and attempting to figure out a way to not be in said state. Power socket on my Acer netbook’s shot, and I don’t have $100 to give to Acer to make them fix it. Lenovo charger met a horrible demise, and I needed a new one. It only now just got here, after I’ve been searching for the correct adapter for 2 weeks. That, however, is not why I’m here. Oh no.
You see, Wednesday afternoon, I got to watch something very interesting happen. My *former*, (Yes, I can finally say that now!) roommate, decides today would be nifty, just as I’m trying to check out of the dorm, to jump my shit for talking about her dirty gross housekeeping habits, or lack thereof, to my friends. Well, my mother saw her start on me, and sent me to the bathroom because I’d been sitting in a test for 4 hours and I had to go anyway. I turn around and start walking off, only to hear my mother turn around and *yell*, “With the way you treated her, and how you forced her to live, she has every *right* to talk about you.” I’m down the hall by this point, and Mom had stalked off to go look for an RA to do my checkout, presumably before she punched the offending roommate in the face. (Would’ve been fun to watch, not gonna lie…) So then the roommate starts going off on my grandmother about god only knows what. And this girl is literally, screaming, at my grandmother, in the middle of the dorm lobby/living room/common area/whatever the hell you wanna call it.
By this time I return from the bathroom to hear, “For one, I’m 65 years old, and you should learn to respect your elders. And for another, your boyfriend shouldn’t have been living in the dorm with you for at least 5 or 6 months out of the school year. I don’t care how long Krista’s boyfriend was here, and I know for damn sure he wasn’t there for 2 months straight as you claim. You started out a decent human being, but since November, you’ve been nothing but completely disrespectful to Krista, and I don’t give a damn if she talked about you or not. You made her live in filth for weeks at a time, and nobody here at the university did anything to help her, so of course she’s gonna complain.”
I’m hiding in a corner by this point going “Oh christ, oh Jesus, oh fuck. Somebody’s gonna get escorted off the campus, and it ain’t gonna be me.” I’m standing around waiting for an RA to show up, still. Doug finally shows his face, and he’s the guy Shane and I complained to about the safety violations, the uncleanliness, and the general disgustingness in the room. Mom and grandmother relay the story to him, and also the story of the time this girl decided to physically rip a bottle of air freshener out of my grandmother’s hand, and he’s disgusted. When they’re done speaking, he tells us, “We’ve been dealing with her all weekend. Her and her parents. She’s been running around like a raging bitch and disrespecting all the staff here, literally screaming at people, and her parents enable it. they let her get away with it. I don’t even know what her disability is, I’ve never seen her use a wheelchair.” He suggested we call housing. I guess I’ll put that on my list of calls to make Monday morning.
And yes, I did say above that this chick actually yanked a bottle of air freshener out of my grandmother’s hand. It was a Sunday afternoon, I think the week after Spring break, and the room still smelled like death, like it did before Shane had left. My grandmother immediately enters the room and snarfs the bottle of air freshener off my desk and starts spraying. She jumps up, keep in mind this girl’s supposed to be disabled, and a part time wheelchair user, hauls ass over to my side of the room, and *grabs* the bottle out of my grandmother’s hand.
“Oh, you can’t spray that, my boyfriend’s allergic to citrus.”
“For one, your boyfriend’s not supposed to be here 24/7, and for 2, yes I can spray it in here, it’s not a violation of housing policies and it stinks in here, therefore I’m spraying it.”
Mom finisheschecking the rugs like I’d asked her to, they walk out, and I’m left sitting there going, “Did she just grab that… Yes, in fact she did. Who the hell does that? I mean, besides her?”
So yes, indeed, Wednesday’s little explosion was fun to watch. I figured it was a long time coming, because I can’t even begin to count the number of times my grandmother was dying to say something to the roommate and I told her she couldn’t because then it’d come back and blow up in my face. I did tell my grandmother last weekend that yes the roommate was finally getting bagged for her uncleanliness, so I guess she decided it was time.
FSU disability services, what, exactly, are you hiding in there?
We all know Fitchburg State University is the bane of my existence. We know that they leave me beating my head against ]whatever available object on a regular basis. So, for the past few months, Shane has been trying to help me deal with their various levels of stupidity in whichever department decides to play Let’s Piss Krista Off on any given day. Shane is listed on my file as an alternate trainer, which means if fitchburg State University takes it into their head to fuck up somehow, he has various levels of verbal and written permission from me to assist me in jumping their shit. All that’s usually needed from me is an email to whomever, saying, “This is who he is, yes he has permission to speak to you and vice versa, now play hnice.” Ok, so it’s not worded that way, but it’s implied.
I’ve done this with several departments, up to and including maintenance, housing, and the dean’s office themselves, and I believe financial aid once too. I’ve been trying to do it with disability services for months. Obviously if you’re reading this you read the nastygram from disability services I posted about a week and a half ago, wherein the attitude is basically, “I don’t know who this Shane is but…”
My first question is, what kind of professionalism is that? Next, I ask, why isn’t the director of disability services herself asking me these questions? That email came from the woman who was the *interim* director, until the secretary got hired as the director somewhere between the end of last Spring and the beginning of fall semester. Yeah. You heard me. The secretary. Who, before she was hired, probably didn’t even know how to spit braille out of the computer and hope it was right. Instead of hiring someone who knew shit from shine-ola, Fitchburg State decided to give someone a salary boost. Great job, guys.
I got to thinking about it Friday night while shane and I were taking a few minutes to have a look at next semester’s schedule. (Yeah, I know. We prepare for stupid early.) It maybe took a while, but it registered in my head that every department we’ve dealt with has no problem dealing with an alternate trainer. Except, you guessed it, disability services. So my question now becomes, exactly what the hell are they hiding in that office that would bag them if, say, a licensed professional got his paws on it? If the dean’s office will speak to him, no problem, but refuses to speak to, say, one of my family members, namely my grandmother, then, yes, I understand. That office is doing something right. The director of housing has told him straight, “If there are any issues next year, and she contacts you, you contact me directly.” So obviously the director of housing has nothing to hide, nor does the maintenance department or the dean’s office.
Disability services’ open hostility toward him though, leads me to believe there’s definitely something in there that they don’t want someone with the appropriate authority to know about. We know it’s bad in there, we know they’re clueless. Hint: They’re using a standard JFW license instead of one that’s designed for lab use. Also, they only have jaws licensed on one machine, and there are 2 blind students at the university. Further, they’re using Jaws 11, Microsoft 2010, and Windows 7, which is a match made in hell. All they need to do is call I.t. and have them come in and upgrade. Shane and I made sure there was an SMA attached to that license and that the keys were reset so that it could be used on another computer in that lab. Hint 2: Shane should not have to rescan my books for me after they hand me an image PDF that I’m supposed to use as my textbook all semester. I ask for accessible documents, and I don’t get them. Instead, I have to send Shane pdf’s and he has to rescan the entire book, sometimes taking hours out of his day, to make sure I have what I need. And yes, now it’s public knowledge. Yes, I did just say that on the blog. No, there’s really nothing anyone can do to me for telling the truth. The other thing I have to wonder about in the back of my head is, does the Massachusetts Commission for the blind have any clue about the state of this university’s supposed disability services department? If they did, would they be paying for two, potentially three, students to attend the university? Just some things to think about. Thoughts? Comments? Anybody?
This week, we learn about 2 departments at FSU that give a damn.
Edit before hitting sennd: Yes, FSU stupid has its own category now. Yes,
I’m posting by myself now. Via email. Run for your lives. We now continue
with that thing over there that calls itself a me update.
So as any of you who follow my Twitter know, from Friday afternoon till
about Tuesday or early Wednesday, my body decided broken was the name of the
game. Not to gross anyone out but, trips to the little girls’ room every
15minutes to empty your bladder are not fun. So, Mom takes one look at me
when I get in the car Friday night and says, “From what you told me earlier,
you have a urinary tract infection. I bought you this for it and your dad
has antibiotics at home you can try for it.” The “this” ended up being what
I later found out was Azo, which causes some colorful side effects. But of
course I only found that out after the fact, thank you semi-retarded
rednecks that happen to be my family. Learn to read packaging, for Christ’s
sakes.
Friday night passes, no change. Saturday goes by, still zilch. By Sunday, I
was going out of my mind. If I didn’t do something soon, I was gonna flip
out. So I batted the idea of getting carted off to the ER around and decided
that would be a hell the fuck no. I get up Monday morning, hook myself up
with an appointment at the school health center, which, not gonna lie, I
thought would be a total farce. I thought for sure I’d get the same thing I
always get from medical professionals. Essentially, “There’s nothing wrong
with you, here, take this, and GTFO.”
I get there to find out, oh yeah, I have a urinary tract infection. Family
had been giving me expired antibiotics for 3 days, so um, duh, nothing was
working. The nurse practitioner over there was wicked super helpful, and
made sure that I not only had a prescription, but that FSU paid for my
cabfare to the pharmacy and back. I also asked her if the unsanitary living
conditions I’m subject to had anything to do with it, she said no. More on
those in a minute.
The cab company they have a contract with has a notoriously spacey and
bitchy dispatcher whom Shane and I have grown to hate, but I did manage to
get there and back with only one snafu. The dispatcher decides to forget to
tell him this got added to the FSU account. This guy remembered me from
before when I went somewhere with Shane, so once he saw me whip out my
phone, he knew it was getting taken care of right that instant. I didn’t
have time for him to drive around the block with his cranium up his rectum
while the dispatcher pulled her thumb out of her ass, so I made a phone
call, things went bounce. Got there, did what needed doing, GTFO. It’s all
good.
By today, Thursday, my body seems to have sorted out its issues for the most
part. But while all this is going on, (and oh, hello, stress isn’t good for
urinary tract infections), we of course have a subplot. We remember that
disability services has this aversion to speaking to Shane? And how I sent
them an email… Oh… Over a week ago in regards to this aversion and that
it should be rectified immediately? I posted it last week.
Well, I’m trying to get exams, papers, and homework done in between frequent
pottybreaks. Shane’s aware of this, so he didn’t think to ask me if I got a
response until today. I got nothin’. We’ve also got this matter of my
roommate having lived like a slob all year long, which nobody has thought to
deal with. Housing was SUPPOSED to deal with it, but they failed. I’m in the
middle of academic ohmygod because I have a paper due by Saturday, and meant
to have it in 3 days ago but couldn’t because of the health issue I was
dealing with. I give Shane verbal permission to speak to someone, I send
them a note, leave them a voicemail saying, essentially, “Yes, you have
permission to speak to him, now play nice.”
I hang out quietly in my corner typing my paper and watch his IM window.
Housing, whom he wished to speak to initially regarding the disgusting
living conditions, decides to not only avoid him, but duck out early, and
then the person he spoke to decided to tell him they didn’t have a superior.
FSU has done this to me a thousand times. I’ve gotten so good at their games
that I was pretty much giving Shane a play by play of what he dealt with,
while he was dealing with it, without even being in earshot.
I’m waiting… waiting… waiting some more… and then Shane asks me to
call and give somebody else permission to speak with him, and we find out we
don’t need to. I’m like alright? That’s weird? Somebody finally pull their
head outa their ass or what?
No, but somebody’s head’s gonna be forcibly yanked outa their ass at 9 AM
sharp tomorrow morning, I can tell ya that much. Shane got heaved up to the
maintenance department, who housing answers to. The woman he spoke to saw
notes all over my file, saw that I’d complained to housing, and disability
services, and anyone else I could find that might look like they’d listen,
and saw nothing got done. She was less than impressed with both housing, and
disability services. In fact, I’d wager a bet that she was just about as
impressed as I was the night my mother threw the shitfit about Shane wishing
to attend birthday festivities with my family. We remember how impressed I
was that night, right? Mm, thought so.
What it comes down to is this. Because housing didn’t get off their ass and
do their jobs, there really isn’t anything that can be done for me for the
remainder of the year, which is understandable. Disability services
should’ve been following up with this, since she is a disabled student, and
is living in one of their reserved rooms. They didn’t do this. Housing was
supposed to report this to them, they didn’t follow up. Are we surprised? Of
course we’re not. These’re the same people who thinkk it’s perfectly fine
for someone to put a straw in my drink and expect me not to pitch a fit when
it jumps my fucking nerves, but I digress. Anyway, nothing can be done for
me now. I’ve just gotta make damn sure that my room assignment stays the
same and that disability services doesn’t try to pull a card like, “Oh,
she’s disabled, she needs to live in one of our reserved rooms.” If they do
that, then I’m stuck living in a pig sty again with this child.
Tomorrow’s gonna be fun to watch, though. The guy in charge is marching his
happy ass, in person, to the disability services office first thing tomorrow
to tell them that this student is no longer allowed to work with them as a
workstudy student as of next year. If she can’t be a positive role model for
students with disabilities, and can’t keep a safe living environment for any
other disabled students in the room with her, she shouldn’t have that job.
I’ve been saying that for months. Also, next year, she’s not going to be
allowed to room with another disabled student. But as if this isn’t a slap
enough, she’s to be inspected, weekly. Her environment is to be looked over
weekly, to make sure it’s safe for her and whomever she’s rooming with, by a
member of the housing or maintenance staff. If she is consistently not
passing these inspections, she will be suspended. Does it help me, now? No,
but it prevents anyone else from having to deal with this bullshit, which as
the year progressed and noone did anything, became my aim. Do I wish
something could’ve been done earlier? Of course. Am I at least happy that
some other poor fool doesn’t have to go through this bullshit next year?
Sure. And no, it shouldn’t have had to be taken that far. Housing should’ve
done something about it after the 6 week old rotten egg incident. But
they’re to blame because they didn’t do their jobs.