Friday Link Day ... and How Random Stuff Relates to Being a Postacademic

Since I haven't got any cohesive thoughts of my own today, I'm taking my cue from Spanish Prof's Link Day the other day and featuring links I find noteworthy:

For starters, Steve Jobs died. Yes, he was very smart and too young but also very sick. Sad but no surprise. Why is it that EVERYBODY under the blazing sun thinks they have something to say on this subject? I think Comradde Physioproffe puts it best. Just because you have an iPod/Pad/Phone doesn't mean you have anything of substance to say here.

However, JC does have a great Jobs quote up about how our time is limited and that we should be doing what feels right rather than what we think is right. Unfortunately for me, I don't have a freakin' clue anymore! Up is down and down is up. I'm bored shitless and dissatisfied generally with where my life is right now, but I look around and don't see any alternatives. I'm glad there are people out there like JC and Anastasia who feel good about where they are as postacademics -- and are thriving in their new roles. I just wish I could figure it out. I'd gladly close the door on academe forever if I knew that doing so really would make me happy ... but I don't. I don't know anything anymore.

I've been posting far less about disabilities (in the workplace and everywhere else) than I thought I would be when I started the blog. I guess, honestly, after the few technology hiccups the first week, my lousy eyesight hasn't been much of an issue. But Steve Kuusisto over at Planet of the Blind posted a provocative paragraph today titled Vortex of Disability in which he elegantly and succinctly captures the experience of how a disability can creep up and surprise you --  there are so many ways, and he seems to condense them all. He writes, "Here comes your grandmother, disguised as a wolf, telling you nature is unfair."

For any of you who remember my posts here and here a few months back about being in a band, this article explains some of the back story on why things went down the way they did.That band is now defunct and the album project indefinitely on hold. A splinter group I'm in is putting together some new material, but it hasn't been worth writing about here -- long story short, I need a new band!! The guy that the article is about that I've linked to was not actually involved in the band by the time I joined, but he was part of an earlier incarnation. Our singer/songwriter and he had a major dispute over who had actually written the songs ... and now the album is indefinitely on hold because that singer/songwriter and the bass player/sound engineer who is producing the album have gotten into a dispute over rights to the finished product, among other things. Which is why the album is indefinitely on hold. Did I mention I needed to find a new band? What's the point of all this postacademic freedom if I can't be in a band whose members don't hate each other too much to get stuff done?

Grumble, grumble. I think I'm going to go see what these folks are up to in person, now that the weekend is here ...

Arrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh!

I broke my Kindle.

Have an iPad with Kindle app, but I like reading on the Kindle screen. So I'm getting a replacement.

Aaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhh.

If my eyesight weren't as bad as it is, I'd totally be one of those people against the e-readers. But, holy $hit, I can enlarge the text on these things and read without straining my eyes, and you have no idea how awesome that is!!

I'm sold.

I got the Kindle first, right around the time I was finishing the diss. Everybody talks about how nice it is to be able to read for pleasure again, at least for a little while, after finishing the diss. For me, with the Kindle, that was true on a whole other level.

Unwittingly, the tech industry invented something they hoped to make money off of from the general public but also ended up with something incredibly useful for a minority population.

No complaints here...

What's on Tap for You This Afternoon?

There's a bar downstairs from the office. They have a decent selection of beer on tap, vegetarian sandwiches (er, a few anyway), and free wifi. Apparently my predecessor used to hang out here a lot, but this is the first time I've migrated down from the office. Probably won't be the last.

The biggest reason I mostly stay in the office ist that I prefer to work plugged into a monitor. The laptop screen is hard to see (too small, too much glare), and to see it well enough to do anything of a serious nature, I have to hunch myself over in less-than-comfortable ways, especially when typing or doing anything that requires quickness.

But reading? Or, blogging leisurely? Not at all impossible. And on a beautiful afternoon like this, with the bar open to the outside and not much to do workwise except pay attention to the inbox? Well, who cares if it is taking me twice as long as it otherwise would to write this post?

So, what's on tap this afternoon? I'm going to finish my veggie wrap (served with sweet potato fries -- yum!), catch up on blog reading, maybe have a beer while going through the bibliography of a book that's pertinent to my own book project (and get a reading list started for this next step towards book), check my inbox and do whatever comes along (going upstairs if necessary), and generally enjoy the afternoon.

What about y'all out there? I know some of you are heading into summer break and/or sabbatical? What's on tap for you this lovely day?

Yoga Makes Me Happy

What does it say about me that the only time I'm really happy these days is when I'm doing yoga? It's not just true of my post academic life; it was true of a good portion of my dissertation writing days, too.

I've been a little out of practice lately, starting the new job and having had the flu for a bit before that.

I went to classes on Saturday and, with one of my favorite teachers, on Sunday. Today, I stood on my head for the first time in several months, and it felt amazing.

A funny thing: My vision impairment affects my Drishti, because it affects my ability to fix my gaze on a single point, which is especially important in balancing postures, like Tree Pose.

It's easier for me to stand on my head than to stand on one foot!

Indeed, "Not damaged. Not dysfunctional. Just different."

Disabilities in the Workplace: A Personalized Introduction

This post is the first on a subject I expect I may return to now and again. Since I have a disability and am in the process of adjusting to a new work setting, I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject lately and figured I’d start things off by introducing my perspective and raising some of the issues I want to consider in future posts. Ultimately, through this series of posts, I want to argue for the valuable role colleges and universities can play in creating equal opportunities for people with disabilities, both on campus and off.

Blindness Isn’t What You May Think

Although I am “legally blind,” if you met me at a conference, in a class, at a coffee shop, at a party, in line at the grocery store, or in any number of other everyday situations, you would never know that I couldn’t see very well. I don’t wear dark glasses (or any glasses at all, except when I’m reading or when everyone else is wearing sunglasses, too), don’t use a white cane, and don’t have a guide dog. I can read regular print in books and newspapers and on restaurant menus without accommodations, though my eyes get tired easily and I prefer some type of magnification (e-readers like the Kindle that offer text enlargement are the best invention ever!). While my visual acuity (what the eye doctor measures) is very poor, my functional vision (ability to use what I have) is very good. In most situations, I am able to “pass” as a sighted person, and, as a casual acquaintance, you would be surprised when I told you I couldn’t drive.

Georgina Kleege and Stephen Kuusisto have both written about their experiences as blind people passing for sighted, respectively in Sight Unseen and Planet of the Blind. I could write my own book on this subject (and may sometime, especially since some of my experiences differ from Kleege’s and Kuusisto’s), but there are some situations in which passing is impossible.

To give you a sense of what those situations might be, sit comfortably at your computer. Perhaps it is a laptop? Position yourself at a “normal” distance, so that you can easily read the screen and type. Now, slowly move away. Slide your chair back or get up and walk backwards, resting your laptop on a surface other than your lap but looking at the screen all the while. When you reach a point where you can tell that there are icons and text on the screen but cannot decipher the icons or read the text, you will have some idea of what I see when I am sitting a “normal” distance from a laptop. Cell phones are worse.

Blindness in the workplace

While many options do exist for making technology like laptops and cellphones accessible for the blind, someone who works in academia and has functional vision like mine can entirely evade them by evading the technology itself. I’ve never owned a laptop, because I have a desktop set-up at home that works excellently. With a 21” monitor positioned on a stand over my keyboard and just a few inches from my face, I can work comfortably without the need for text enlargement or text-to-audio software. When on campus, I would occasionally use computers in the adjunct office to check e-mail or in class to show a PowerPoint but never had to work for long periods of time on them. As I said in my previous post, in academia no one cares, as long as you get your work done. My dissertation director, who has normal vision, doesn’t have a laptop, either (nor a cellphone, unless something’s changed in the time since we last spoke).

However, when I showed up Friday for the first full day at my new job, it became immediately and painfully apparent to everyone just how blind I was. The laptop I am to use, besides just being a laptop, was configured in the worst way possible (icons and text on smallest settings, distracting wallpaper, transparent windows borders, along with room lighting that made the screen glare unmanageable). In addition to learning about my tasks while adjusting to Windows 7 and Office 2007 (I’ve been using XP and 2003), a modest challenge for anyone, I had to deal with an interface I could barely see.

The whole experience was overwhelming, awkward, and embarrassing.

Disclosure

I’ll end this post by saying that, after spending the weekend reconfiguring the view settings and getting comfortable with the software, I think things will be just fine. I have the option, if need be, of bringing in a monitor and keyboard and plugging them into the laptop and will be able to get a BlackBerry Bold, if it turns out the regular one doesn’t work out.

But disclosure remains a problem. How and when do people with “invisible” disabilities let employers know they might need reasonable accommodations? What if you aren’t even sure what you will need? What if “reasonable accommodations” aren’t possible?

To be continued…