I wonder how this local community college treats its students? Come January, methinks we’re gonna find out.
4.5 hours, 2 screams, a walk in the rain and a caffeinated beverage later, I’m still seeing red. And yes I did actually go outside for a couple of screams. I think I need about 8 more by the time the red blur wears off my vision. Mom cooked a dinner she knew I’d eat, I only ate half a bowl if that.
I really hope these people realize eventually what they’re doing to my head. But oh…wait… I’m sorry… I mistook them for a second for people who actually care. I forgot they’re all droids that are preprogrammed. As long as it looks like the droids are working correctly, noone actually cares about the living, breathing people involved. And when those people have had to start medication and start seeking counseling, it doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t matter at all because what they’ve done looks ok on paper and as long as they can go home and say they’ve put in a successful day of work, it doesn’t matter who they inconvenience.
It doesn’t matter that between now and the end of the semester, my family now has to shell out upwards of $1200 in gas. It doesn’t matter that in the winter, when we’ve got 2 feet of snow on the ground, but that campus is nice and clear, that I won’t be able to get to class because driving conditions are hazardous and nobody in my family should have to get in a car accident in order for me to get to class.
Yet, I still have no answers. Nobody can tell me how I fell through the cracks last year and why I lived in the filth I lived in. Nobody wants to take responsibility for that. Nobody can tell me why is it a girl got away with disrespecting my family the way she did. Noone can tell me why it was that people avoided me all semester last year because my clothes stank of mold no matter how many times I washed them. Nobody can tell me why the furniture safety violations I complained about weren’t looked into. Nobody can tell me why I sat there all of February with my window open praying for a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated. Best yet, noone wants to explain how and why the bacteria culture that was that room got so bad I actually got a UTI from it.
Yet, I’m the bad person here. Well, you know what? I’m tired of being the bad person. Fornicate this taurean dung, I capitulate!
stuff that fails
I wouldn't be putting this out here if we didn't need the help.
Anyone in MA, any floorspace? We’ll take it, this is my last ditch effort to save the rest of the trip and try to save myself from being tossed out on the street. Anyone who wants to help, you have our direct contact methods, if you don’t, you can get them. Anything’s better than a cardboard box, we’ll take whatever we’re offered and be fine with it. We will offer you gas money, but anything’s better than $500 in ticket change fees and US health insurance cancelation that neither of us has. Please help.
Thanks.
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.
Hicks and computers do not mix. I am living proof.
My brain officially aches. I have had the…what, almost 2 weeks? From hell. Naturally, this computer was the cause of it.
I woke up on the morning of the 5th to one hell of a mess. I restarted the machine, got tossed into a never-ending boot loop. I swore in all kinds of pretty and colorful ways, then I called Shane and explained the problem because at 7 PM on a Sunday evening when I finally got around to it, Lenovo technical support were the last people I wanted to talk to. His theory: My Windows install’s trashed. Well…Shit,
My next course of action, grab the 12-year old. “Here. Read this.”
“But why?”
“Because I asked you to, and this computer’s on crack. Now, read.”
So the child manages with my help to get Windows installed, but no drivers, because, well, going to hunt for those required an Ethernet cable that we didn’t have. So my mother gets it in her head that she’s gonna take it to our local fixit shop and they’re gonna wave their magic wand and make it all better. Yeah ok, smoke some more of that why don’t ya?
She takes the machine in on friday, the 12th, after loudly and screamily insisting that she could take it in by herself and me loudly and screamily insisting that no, I was going with her, it was my machine and she didn’t have to use it, I did. I didn’t care if she paid for repairs, but I wanted to speak to the person(s) fixing it. So grudgingly she took me with her, I suppose because I’m the only one who knew where my personal Windows CD was and well, they asked her to take it in with the machine.
So I walk in, described to the guy what the underlying issue was, what I did to fix it. Now I knew this guy was 1. an arrogant prick and 2. a stupid son of a bitch, because he’s standing in front of me saying he likes Lenovo, and that’s just not something you say to me after I get 2 phone calls within 3 months of each other saying that other students’ exact makes and models, same machine, had literally began smoking, in their faces. (Hi dead power supply nice to see you.)
So I tell the first dude, “We’re bringing this in for a software issue, but I want the hardware looked at too. I’ve suspected a dying hard drive since June.”
I get it back Friday night, hey, cool, it’s working, and they said the hard drive wasn’t dead. I wake up Saturday morning to discover I’m jammed in another endless boot loop! The word of the morning, at top volume, was “Son of a bitch!”
I leave for my grandparents’ place that day because I’m staring at this thing and I can’t fucking take it anymore. I was ready to overdraft my bank account and rush order myself a netbook even though I hate them on principle just because I needed a working computer, and my mother had just pissed $120 into this thing, having the Windows install fixed and putting a 2GB stick of ram in it. All I’d done the previous night was uninstall Open Office and VLC Media Player, which are two programs that are completely fucking useless with a Windows screen reader, and the next morning I wake up and it’s boot looping again.
So Tuesday, Mom drags it back down to the shop. The second ass-clown who worked on it was at least not a complete ass-clown, as he did discover the dead hard drive right away, even though his buddy over there swore to god that Lenovo hardware never failed, but now we have this other issue.
“Oh, she screwed up the hard drive by uninstalling software.”
What? What? As in, the fuck? Which is to say, are they smoking? Also, what kind of drugs are in the water over there? Uninstaling a piece of software should not fuck up the hard drive, unless the hard drive was already fucked over in the first place, which means that *somebody*, ain’t doin’ their job!
I blow up Shane’s phone again, and drop this cute little tidbit of bullshit on his desk. Naturally, he’s about as pleased as I am, but he’s got the net, he’s got a working computer and can do more than I could at the time. He busts out google, does a reverse lookup of their phone number which I had somehow managed to beg borrow and steal. Then, the Better Business Bureau gets involved.
I didn’t do it. During Shane’s conversation with whomever he spoke to over there, we found out that these twerps were operating under expired credentials. So not only were they doing this, but they were sticking inaccessible software on a disabled person’s computer, blaming said person’s removal of the software for their incompetence, then telling said person not to remove said software. Reportedly, someone from the state of Massachusetts paid them a visit yesterday evening. If we find out more, we’ll let you know.
So. that’s been, what, my last, 2 weeks? Freaking out over a broken computer, dealing with incompetent tools, freaking out because it’s broken a second time, sending it in, then finding out the retards who were supposed to have fixed it the first time blamed me for screwing it up, and finding that they were operating a repair business with expired credentials! And on top of all this, I start classes in 2 weeks! I almost didn’t have a working computer for college. Can we say heart attack? Can we say nervous breakdown? I can!
A note to the stupid
First, we start with the internal stupid.
1. Pitting everyone against each other and causing a major bitchfest, is NOT how you get your way.
2. Sitting on the computer all day, unshowered and in your pajamas, at the age of 12 is wrong. What the fuck are you thinking? Wait…Why do I need to ask that when I know you’re not?
3. Additionally, again. At 12, you should be DOING SOMETHING. Not sitting there telling me you’re too lazy to take a shower.
4. Yes, I did bitch you out, and yes, your father agrees with me, or he would’ve bitched at me when I went to go do morning meds.
(He didn’t. He was completely fine with me and recognizes this as an attempt to pit everyone against each other and have them fighting for this child’s amusement.)
Onward to the external stupid.
1. As the blog’s disclaimer says, “You have the ability to not read this blog, please exercise that right. That simple.”
2. Let me translate that for you in even plainer English than Shane did. “If you don’t like what someone has to say here, kindly do us the favor of getting lost.”
3. Additionally, if you don’t like something here, please have the testicular fortitude to tell us, and tell us who you are. One thing we hate here are anonymous comments, which get automatically heaved into the spam folder, but even worse, we hate it when people circumvent blog policy.
4. Noone who comments has the right to tell us how to run the blog, or how we can comment. I’ll say it again. “You have the ability not to read this blog, please exercise that right.”
5. Not doing the above automatically revokes your bitching license. Please be advised of this in future.
Assistant admin and co-writer needs a 2-liter of Mountain Dew, some lunch, and a week off from the stupid.
Government agencies, oh how I hate thee.
If you follow my twitter or have talked to me in the past month or 2, it should be common knowledge that I need a new computer like I need oxygen. As of around this time last week, I became fairly certain that there’s a piece of failing hardware sitting in this computer somewhere, but I haven’t determined if it’s hard drive failure, or even better, my video card. Either way, something in this machine is hosed good and proper. Shane knew this thing was fallin’ over in February when he was here and forced to use it for 3 weeks. We tried to get me a new computer back then, and got told to go to hell, since we didn’t go through the proper bureaucratic clusterfuck…i mean channels… to do it. So last week this thing really starts tanking hardcore. Graphics driver stops responding, typically when I’m viewing a graphic-heavy webpage. Sometimes it crashes the system and forces it to reboot by itself, other times it just hangs for a sec, then recovers. Oh, also? hey Windows7? there’s supposedly another gig of ram in this machine, please to be using it. Unless it, too, has gone south, which honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
That said, I did what every smart broke college student does, and contacted the guy who furnished me with the damn thing in the first place. His answer looks somewhat similar to, “Nope, sorry, can’t help you.” He referred me to one of the guys in the tech department who could *maybe* fix it over the phone. Well, of course he can’t fix it over the phone, because I can’t make the system misbehave on command, and I definitely can’t make it exhibit all its various “things that make ya go wtf,” during the span of one phone call. If he can’t fix it, then I can have my counselor put in a referral to have the guy come employ my restore disks and restore the system back to XP, which Microsoft will soon cease to support, and which therefore may or may not be useless on Fitchburg State’s network in the very near future. If it is indeed a hardware failure, then I have to send it back to Lenovo. And if the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind doesn’t pay for it, (which he sounded pretty sure that they wouldn’t), I have to pay for it. And I don’t even wanna know how much it’d run me to have any necessary hardware repairs done, seeing as Acer wanted to charge me $100 to fix a tiny little freakin’ power socket. Or, a suggestion from the mother, I could take it to one of the local repair shops, have them reformat it and pay them $70 to do something I could have Shane and a willing sighted person do for free. No thanks, I’m all set with that, really, I am. So that’s where I stand for now, but I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn’t end there, or at least it may try not to.
reasons why you don't trust rogers when it comes to router/modem combinations.
so… since my arrival here, I’ve been dealing with rogers. in one form or another,, from installers that just fail to tech support people that need to learn how to do their job, to hey, I get free internet because of idiots. Ok, so the main point of this entry. that thing that calls itself a modem/router gateway. Our primary router decided the other day to do a great impression of a corpse, forcing us to revert to using the gateway portion of the rogers SMC d3gn modem/router gateway they gave us, because their regular modem can’t handle the speeds we’re supposedly geting. Great, fine, dandy. Until the router portion of said device decides.
I’m gonna let you on the net, but fuck letting you do anything internally that might save you bandwidth.
so we beat it around for a few hours, swearing ensues. I get it in my head, hey, guess who’s responsible for this hunk of shit? You guessed it, my service provider. Ok, let’s dial them up and play fix my shit. We run into one minor problem if your the average customer, major if your me. Rogers *claims* it’s not their responsibility if the stuff in *their* modem/router gateway decide to fail. Their response?
If it connects to the net, we can’t help you, it’s not our responsibility.
You can imagine how well that went over. It didn’t. I then ask to speak to a manager. His favorite line?
Their isn’t one at night.
My response?
You report to *someone*. I will speak to that individual, .
They didn’t like that, so after arguing with this insensative morron for another 5 minutes attempting to make this individual actually understand, rogers provides the equipment, they *must* support it, both internally and externally, I hang up. Redial the office when the customer retention deps open, get someone with a clue who finally gets it in their head and realizes, hey, his equipment might be shot. Their’s nothing I can do about it right now, so their’s a standing note on my account so I can go in and replace this hunk of useless garbage first chance I get. On another note, when the person we’re talking to that has clue indicates these modem/router combinations suck? there’s really something wrong. Morral of the story. Get a modem/router from rogers? Have your own equipment and disable their commercial gateway and go about your day.
FSU: (fmeeping) stupid university? Yes, actually, it is, thank you for asking.
The last 4 days have been nothing but a fuck shit stack, with one quick break yesterday that lasted oh, an hour, maybe two? I’ll preface this by stating the obvious. I absolutely despise Fitchburg State University. Nope, not gonna lie. In fact if I still had this perspective legally blind freshman’s email anywhere in my files I’d email her from my personal account and tell her straight not to waste the state’s, or her parents’, money by coming to this hellhole. Someone decided on Monday they didn’t like my attitude. That’d be ok, if they, oh, I don’t know, *SAID SOMETHING TO ME ABOUT IT LIKE AN ADULT?* But nah. They bitch to disability services. Disability services bitches at me. Whatever. That’s over with. I refuse to deal with the individuals in question for a couple days because I was done with being treated differently and I damn near almost quit school right then and there. This causes a minor inconvenience to me, of course, but it’s not like I care, because in my mind I’d rather be inconvenienced than treated like an infant. So, whatever. Tuesday managed to go over without any kerfuckles, mainly because I stayed out of sight and literally only left my room to go to class, to the bathroom, and stepped outside once to pay a delivery guy. So yesterday I woke up feeling sort of like I’d been run over by a large vehicle. Ok, endocrine system, I get it, you suck, you hate me, stop telling me about it. this was quickly squelched with ibuprofen. Everything started out pretty nifty yesterday. I was all happy because Shane had thrown random surprises at me because he could, so I was bouncebouncebounce-ing off the walls for a good 3 hours or so. I sit down to do some homework and Blackboard decides it’d be nifty to pitch a major fit that included me metaphorically pounding my head against it for a good 3 more hours or so before all was said and done. I got out of my night class a whole hour and 15 minutes early, so everything was nifty. Nothing could go to hell from here, right? Of course it can! I walk back into the room… *sniff sniff, “Oh my god, what the fuck is that god awful smell?”* Sit back down and return to TeamTalk, because I’d left shane hangin’ there till I returned to class.
“I’m back, and something fucking stinks in here. A fucking gain.”
“Really? Like what this time?”
“Bad food again, I’m almost sure of it. I remember this particular brand of nasty from last time.”
So a few people walk in to visit the roommate, and I corner them and ask them if they think it smells in here. They of course answer yes, and the roommate tries to blame her boyfriend’s feet. It definitely was not foot odor. It was some kind of food product gone bad. Again. Keep in mind this is the same girl who left eggs in her fridge to rot for 6 weeks, had no clue, and tried to blame Shane, and say that he was unclean and didn’t shower. When that didn’t work she tried to say it was my rugs that stunk. Naturally this didn’t work too well for her either because I had someone come independently verify that there was nothing wrong with the rugs. This went on for 6 weeks, until we got back from spring break and she on a whim decides to clean out her fridge. Sure enough, rotten eggs, rotten food.
I complained to housing, who complained to disability services, nothing got done. Keep in mind this is after Shane and I complained to one of the RA’s while he was here that her belongings, which are spewing onto my side of the room, are creating a tripping hazard. So nothing gets done. Finally Shane busts the flip-a-shit-ometer last night, leaves a very pointed voicemail with the appropriate individuals that the room, once again, is smelly, nasty and disgusting. Little did I realize that he also had pictures that he took when he was here of the disaster that is this room. By this point, Shane’s boss has probably tanked the flip-a-shit-ometer himself. He’s followed us up through this whole disaster. I kinda feel bad for the poor dude, just another poor person that has to deal with this place and it’s rampant stupidity. But of course it doesn’t stop there. That’d be too damn easy. Because apparently somebody’s decided I’m responsible, 14 hours before a test, for them having the appropriate test materials and knowing how to use them. By this time all I wanna do is either strangle somebody or go to bed, which I don’t get to do until 2 AM because somebody decided that staying up till such time with the light on was the order of the day. So I get up this morning and I’m already apprehensive about dealing with disability services. They seem to have this inherent issue wherein, because I am reasonably competent with a computer, I’m supposed to be a walking, talking quick reference guide for any person who uses a screen reader who happens to need help. I stuff my face, I caffeinate, (twice mind you), and head over there. Our stats professor is literally loading the materials, which I had previously taken 15 extra minutes to go rechase and recompile onto a thumb drive for myself, (yes it did take that long, this computer’s a pain in the ass), onto the desktop, of the computer at disability services. I wanted to pound my head against the wall, but decided that sighing and rolling my eyes was a safer reaction and wouldn’t get me taken away in a straightjacket. Since when is it the professor’s responsibility to load the extra test materials onto the computer for us? And frankly, since when is it my responsibility to do Jaws training that I’m not certified, or paid, to do? A quick question here or there, I don’t mind. But a few short hours before a test, the individual in question should have already looked at, and figured out, the material days ago. I’m not a certified trainer, I’m not a notetaker, and I’m not getting paid to do either. So disability services, kindly stop expecting me to do those things. Shane left a very pointed voicemail with them about that, too.
I get out of my test, come back here, and find this wonderful email. You know, I was going to summarize it, but I think I’ll just press some buttons instead. and after that I think I’ll press another button or 3 and show you my response. So here we go.
Subject: MCB
Thu, May 5, 2011 at 11:19 AM
Show original
Hi Krista,
I was speaking with Cindy Hebert today and brought up the fact that you were working with a new counselor named Shane. Cindy let me know that you are in fact still working with her and that to her knowledge there is not a counselor at MCB named Shane. I am not sure who this Shane is that continues to call on your behalf, but I can no longer accept phone calls from him. Because of confidentiality I cannot speak to anyone that I do not have a waiver to speak with.
Thank you,
Julie.
Please keep in mind that I’d had quite enough of disability services’ crap this week already, and had Shane been on the grid I would’ve just whipped the message at his head before reading it. I almost quit on Monday, that’s how angry I was. Related sidenote: I am not 3. I do not need a straw put in my drink, especially if you’re not wearing gloves to do it. Anyway, my main bullshit filter was off the grid so I kinda borrowed James and he became my backup bullshit filter. Trust me, you didn’t want me to read the content of that message directly after a stats test while I was undercaffeinated. Some poor innocent fool may have died as a result. So at around 3:30 this afternoon, it was on. I tried to call her back, got one of the secretaries, said fmeep this noise, I want this in writing. And write, I did. More like beat over the head with a clue by 4, but my strengths are not with speaking, but with calculated writing. I cannot think fast enough to verbalize all I had to say here while processing being spoken to, so email was my happyfriend.
Thu, May 5, 2011 at 4:59 PM
Hi Julie,
Re: my alternate trainer, no, he does not work directly for or with
MCB. He is not being paid by them. He is not taking over Cindy’s job.
He is not a counselor, but an alternate trainer. Cindy Hebert is the
counselor, which essentially means she’s the one who pays the bills. I
send her my grades, MCB does their part. The alternate trainer is
there for the more day-to-day issues, (i.e., the fact that my laptop
charger has managed to die an hour before I finish this email), or, my
living environment is smelly and disgusting and it’s not my side of
the room because my side’s spotless and free of garbage. A similar
issue arose in February, and I later found out that the offending
party had eggs in her fridge for 6 weeks and they’d gone bad.) That
having been said, he does have my permission to contact you, and you
do have my permission to speak with him. If you need an official
looking piece of paper that says as much, one can be created upon
request.
Thank you for your time,
Krista
Needless to say, people have been, and will be, squished. You know what really pisses me off about this though? I can complain, whine, bitch, persist, irritate, annoy, advocate, generally jump down people’s throats while I’m living in a hazardous environment, and nobody does anything to help me. The moment someone whines to disability services that I took attitude with them, I get a slap on the wrist, and am basically told, “Bad child, go to your corner.” So I’m not allowed to be an imperfect human being and snap at somebody for treating me like an infant, yet it’s ok for my roommate, their workstudy student, to leave rotten eggs in her fridge and take over my side of the room. Can we say discrimination? Do we need to have another vocabulary lesson, children? I should hope not.