Eleventh Month Home
To start the month of June, I started my last graduate course before completing student teaching this fall. The nice thing about this course is that it is only five weeks long and only meets twice a week via Zoom
In addition to completing my last grad school class before student teaching, I started a six week round of Occupational Therapy (OT). This has been a long time coming, as I have been requesting such assistance from my insurance company since before, I came home with Eve, as I knew it would help me build my strength. I am glad I have it now as I did not realize how many contractures I had built since not having OT since I was twenty-one.
In between summer school and my grad school class I found time to have Korean BBQ with @otc_drums, @loveuleslie, and @alexxisb.kerr. I had never had Korean BBQ, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into let alone having Eve with me. Thankfully we did not have issues with access denials, but I did learn a valuable lesson. When going to a place like Korean BBQ be sure to place your dog under your chair, as there is no other place for them.
Lindsay, Leslie, Sam, and Lexi taking a picture together while eating Korean BBQ.
The second week in June, I was given the opportunity to demo the Monarch for some of the Teachers of the Visually Impaired that I had during my K-12 experience. They thought this tool would be valuable to use with their braille students when it came to teaching spatial awareness and graphical knowledge. They were even more proud of what I have been able to accomplish because for some of them, they have not seen me since I was in elementary school.
In addition to demoing the Monarch for a few of the teachers that I had, the end of this week consisted of Eve and I attending my office's annual summer retreat and a veterinary appointment. This summer retreat took place in the student recreation center. During this retreat, we worked on summer projects that the office had neglected throughout the school year while serving students and also had team bonding activities in between. During my vet appointment, my vet could only say how healthy Eve looked and wished that all the labs he saw looked like her.
The third week of June consisted of preparation to leave for the National Federation of the Blind’s (NFB) summer conference. Some of this preparation consisted of me getting my nails done, a Trader Joe’s trip, and of course a target trip.
Eve sleeping while Lindsay was getting her nails done.
To end the month of June, I completed my Reading proficiency exam for California, which is one of the last exams I need to get my teaching credential in California. Unfortunately, due to Pearson’s strict rules about leaving the floor as an exam is being administered, I was not able to bring Eve with me, as there was no way to relieve her. I know I could have fought this, but I was already fighting hard enough to get a laptop with a screen reader, so I could take this exam independently. Thankfully I did get the laptop, but it was not easy to get Pearson to agree to this.
Not taking Eve to this exam was not the end of the world, as we flew to Florida for both a Disney World trip and summer conference less than twenty-four hours after I completed this exam. I will share the adventures of this Disney World trip and conference in my One Year Home post in late July.
