Being An Official Blind Person, Day Four

Do you know that dream where you're given this test, and it has all of these impossible math problems on it, and you aren't even IN a math class, and the person who administrates the test is telling you, "This test will determine the rest of your life," and then your pencil tip breaks, and your eraser starts making holes in the paper?

That happened to me today in real life. I had to look down to make sure I was wearing pants.

Jealous yet?

So, today we had to take tests to determine our skill level, so that our vocational rehabilitation counselors could determine whether our career goals were realistic. I told them I wanted to be a librarian, so it's not like the math portion of the test was going to make or break me, really, but it was important that I show my counselor that I am the kind of person who is going to do her best.

I had to fight myself a little, just to take the test. I have this weird little person who lives in my head and she tells me that if I don't do things perfectly, I might as well not do them at all. That little person doesn't like me cooking or wearing fashionable clothes or, ESPECIALLY, doing math, and I generally don't like to make the little person mad, because angry little people really scare me, but I had to charge past her today, because I was going to finish the math portion, every portion really, whether she liked it or not. I was going to turn that test in and say, "I don't know how to divide with decimals, and I forgot the 'c' in 'acquiesce', and I have no idea what was going on in the listening portion of the test because I was working on five hours of sleep (thanks Harrison), but darn it, I am not here to be perfect. I am here to show that I want to work in a career that challenges me, and I won't give up.

Plenty of people didn't try. One guy opened the first page of reading comprehension and said he was too tired to read, and he just wanted to work in a factory, so he closed his packet and took a nap. I need my VR counselor to know that I'm not that person. I like to nap, but I also like to be successful and fulfilled, and I'm not willing to let pride or perfectionism or laziness or blindness, (I'm especially looking at you, Blindness.... don't act like you don't see me... er..... okay maybe you don't see me.......... is Blindness blind? .... now this is just awkward...) determine my fate.

I am driven by the desire to learn and not be stagnant (one of the vocabulary words... I'm probably still using it wrong). I don't want to shrivel up and die. I'm ready to scream Dylan Thomas and obscenities from the rooftops. That nightmare, the one where I don't know what a factorial is, and my pencil is a number 3 instead of the required number 2, and there's a disproportionate amount of urgency placed on whether or not I can recall if Bill and Mary went to the pet store before they went to the cineplex (by the way, how freaking old is a test that uses the term "cineplex"?) - I lived that nightmare today. I faced it head on.

And the entire time, I managed to keep my pants on. If that's not striving for success, I don't know what is.