Done with Work Adjustment Hopefully No Trials, Just Employment

Dear Diary,

Well, I”m done.  Work adjustment is so over, so yesterday.  I’m so done with having to go to BAyaud.  I”m so done having to deal with Access A Ride, and not getting paid.  Oh yeah, oh yeah.  It’s RJ’s birthday too, in Florida, midnight.  Holy crap, I’m happy.  Blake had a beer, a root beer from Taco Bell.  RJ doesn’t know what he wants for his birthday, and he needs a new computer.  Holy God, I’m so going to party all weekend and all through June.  Look out, Shelton I’m on my way.

My audition was welcomed by the ladies, Richele and Jessey, and they were like, “Oh my God.  That is so cool.”  They were happy.  Jessey knows I can make progress, but I’m so done with trying to have to demonstrate stuff, I just wanna be free of all the bonds that hold me in a box.  I need Blake, and marrying Blake is the only thing I really want to do that is significant.  I’ll try for a job, but I won’t be surprised if I’m turned down.  Blind people are not always hired.  Mentally ill people are never hired.  However, I need benefits with the job.  I don’t know quite what will happen.\

My real career goal is perhaps to record music, but if that’s not possible, I’ll try the teaching technology to others, or to teach Braille.  The Braille cert isn’t hard to get if you know your slate and stylus.  Plus I have to teach UEB or something.  I don’t know what else to do now.

Tribute to Maya Angelou

You had a difficult girlhood, something I don’t understand.

You could bring me to tears if you wanted, or sweep me across the land,

I could find wisdom from your pearls hidden in beach sand,

But Maya, your words are clearer to me than ever before

Before I shut the door.

 

You passed into the state of womanhood, fearing not what you’d find,

Looking carefully at your figure, you didn’t seem to mind,

Whatever the cause of your frustrations, you didn’t just give up

And sit on your behind.

 

Maya, I hope you rest now, knowing you brought peace

To all of us, across the nation, across the head full of grease.

You came of age at a time when things weren’t so bright,

So rest now, enjoy God’s Heavenly light.

Letter to You At 17

I wrote this shortly after Jessey, probably the more understanding of most people, and I had a heated discussion about the whole mess up with Blake.  Blake, of course, refuses to get involved with me and her, so she just can’t say I lied.

 

Dear Beth at 17,

                If I could only look at myself in the mirror, or at least you, you didn’t seem so beautiful.  What happened to you was uncalled for: everything from the whole dating scene to the guardianship to your unemployable situation at the Daytona Beach rehab place you went to.  Remember?  Do you even remember Jason, the trombonist in the marching band?  Hah.  At only 17, I wish the following:

1. That I was able to do things in the music industry.
2. That I was working at McDonald’s.  Yeah, it wasn’t the best job, but at seventeen, I wish I had an internship.  What was Danny doing at that age?  Need I remind you that Danny is your half brother, your brother by a mom who probably didn’t want you at that age and a dad who said, “Just put her away”, and guess where he was?  Internships, cross country track captain, etc.  No, I forgot who the captain was, but who cares.

                As a seventeen-year-old, the questions I had to ask were the following: who did I want to date, where were my desires, what was my true self?  But at fourteen, there were more complications.  My mother and dad literally tried to neuter me, worse than what you’d do to people in the forties.  What?  What does that mean, your seventeen-year-old self asks?  It is apparent that this letter isn’t directed at my current self, but at you.  When you were born, you were at first the cutest thing in the entire universe.  Sorry, but the princess act was deterred because your mother deemed it “Unreal.”  Now you think Rehab can bail you out now, but at seventeen, you are currently sick of the psychiatrist who treated you like dirt, sick of not being allowed to see Jason, and who was Jason?  Yes, Jason.  You forgot.  You asked about him, wanted to see him, could have dated him, and so on.  Because of you, I am here, sitting at a desk, not my desk, not a grand table in a grand dining room in a hallway that I purchase myself, but a grand, well, not so grand desk at a place where the lady calls you in to her office, says you lied to her about your boyfriend coming to see you.  What?  Did you realize that Blake Tucker, who would later be your future husband/boyfriend whatever you call him, could not come to see you after all because of money, family, and other things?  It is obvious no matter what I try to tell the people here that they believe that I am stuck.  Stuck in the state of stuck is more like it.  Beth, you haven’t got a clue.  At this age, you are about to venture out into a world that doesn’t like you, doesn’t care about you, won’t accept you.  At 27, I am poor, not able to pay debts, not able to pay things except for regular bills, and I still have to eat.  I still have to drink the water around me, eat food, brush my hair, wash myself, soap my body, shave my unfeminine legs, etc.  I still have to get the mud off my plate.  But absolutely not while getting a “relevant” job.  I cannot at the least do call center work that is fast paced and entails me to work nights.  Transportation would not be safe and reliable at night, and then there’s criminals who are willing to mug or rape or steal my phone, purse, or my sexual space.  What EVER!

                As a 30-year-old, what will I be?  I expect to be married by then, in my element, in a job that I enjoy.  What will I do?  Will Blake do what he says he’s gonna do?  I wanted to make some room for him to come, but alas, the one thing that is between us is between us: his mother.  She is so ill and unable to think about what she truly needs that now she can’t drink alcohol.  Thank God her own husband threw the liquor into the sink, into the trash.  What will you be at fifty?  Just like Cathy?  Beth, think.  You at 17 is not a pleasant person, and it doesn’t help that your parents don’t like you, abused you emotionally and psychologically, and now they come to love the woman that is 27 and in CO?  What the …?  This doesn’t make sense.  I can only think of a few things that could make that possible: that your parents are evil, that they are sucking you into a whirlpool of stuff you can’t get out of, that they are unworthy of you as a daughter, all of the above.  I guess all of the above.  At 17, this is how they were.  At 27, ten years later, this is what they decide: they will not bail you out.  I am seriously considering the last option.  I must become something that I want to be, and I’m sick of being compared to Christina and Britney.  I’m Beth for God’s sake.  I am a beautiful personality, but in body, I must be the worst thing ever.  But then why does Blake love me?  It’s obvious, there’s something wrong with anyone who does, according to your parents.  Your parents, as it turns out, are liars.  They lied about their intentions, lied about you because of their concerns.  Let them try, but they cannot violate your rights.  Help me.

Help me, you are my only hope.

Sincerely,

Beth at 27

Finally, an updated page

Dear diary,

I finally updated my page so that even Tumblr is visible and you can share my stuff on Tumblr.  I’d love to be called the world’s coolest blogger all over.  Yeah, I wrote two otehr posts already, but I’m a bit insomniac or something, can’t sleep much.  Now going to read a book.  To those I might have wronged in the last two posts, know that I had to be pretty stern with you guys.  I can’t have my dreams washed away with debts, call centers, stress the heck out of me stuff, etc etc.

Beth

Ok, let me explain myself …

Dear diary,

Let me explain myself.  One, I can’t sleep.  Two, the coworkers and friends at Bayaud are wonderful folks, but they don’t have the qualifications or registry certs to work with blind individuals.  So what if my teachers in school didn’t have the license to work with special populations?  I should’ve been a special ed teacher, perhaps.  Jessey, I must say this much to you and you only, I DID NOT LIE!  Blake had issues come up, and you, according to an ex of mine I confided this to, should not have gotten into me and Blake’s business.  You shoud have been a more flexible employer.  Regardless, I don’t want to hear about the lies I might have told.  What’s this life?  The Giver?  “Precision of language,” the announcer might say.  What’s this?  China?  Do I have to tell the truth all the time?  Come on!

It still haunts me to hear my mother’s yelling at me while I was fourteen years old, a little girl with desires, hopes, ambitions, and she was saying, all the while I was crying, “You won’t make it.  Only Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera had the luck to do it.”  Uh, oh Mother of Mine, you don’t know what you’ve gotten into.

I can’t get this out of my mind, and so I began to hide the music, hide the performance, hate the study of opera and high music.  So what if I didn’t study high music?  This is weird.  What will I do?  I was not a diva, no way will I be.  Britney and Christina are both unworthy of God’s places in Heaven unless, well, Christina may try and donate to children’s charities.  The only true way that anyone will ever get to Heaven is to get through a maze of things, including a way to get the blind folks who can’t sing or play an instrument or manipulate a computer some sort of job.  No, not data entry, a real job.  Something real that allows them to go to a place during the day when buses can roam the streets.  No, Jessey, you’re wrong about me getting jobs at night.  Women and night times don’t match.  Women have a much greater chance of being murdered or hit by drunk drivers at night, raped, or otherwise, they have a greater chance of not being hired.  A blind woman should ride a bus with people she trusts.  I was taught very strict safety measures.  One of which was to ride up front with the driver.  The drivers in Denver are so good, they let me right up there when I get on.  They know my place is with them because, well, you know the sort of people who ride the bus, Babbs.  You know, if you ride early in the morn, you see drunkards, homeless bums–not the ones who come here to Denver and go to things like the BAyaud program–but I’m talking BUMS who sit there and don’t do anything about it.  My good friend, Eldon, is one such wonderful guy who has been a great friend.  I have nothing but good to say about this guy.  He’s wonderful, though he has no place to live at the moment.  He’s sweet, wise, and effective in the ways of office work.  He’s getting there, searching for jobs, he’ll get paid for sure.  I can’t wait to see my best friend at work get paid millions.  Hey, I’d love to see him work an accounting firm and be a financier for some rich dude.  That would be cool.  But there are those guys who don’t make it to the Rescue Missions and other shelters.  There are those guys who are in trouble.  Trouble in paradise!

Oh, my God.  Trouble in paradise … Santa Monica, California, that is.  But here in Denver, there is a major homeless problem.  The homeless problem is so bad here that even I was among the “homeless.”  I forged and found a place to live but as a woman, I would’ve had to do a shelter outfit.  Sorry but even my best friend Jataya Taylor and I had our down moments at that time, and because of that, I was homeless.  The only time she’d even live with me is if I was in school.  Shoot, I want something better than a four-year-long degree that wastes taxpayer dollars and cents.  Rehab should lift me out of this debt because my dad can’t pay it, I can’t pay it, and they were the ones who said, “Drop out.”  My computer broke, and I wasn’t able to find the damn drop classes button in time.  I tried, tried, and tried to get started in my classes, but to no avail.  I dropped them slowly, but at the time, my computer was broken.  I need to do something about the debt, but the only way to get me out of it is if Rehab takes full responsibility for telling me to drop out and disrupting my life like that and putting me on a waiting list and telling me to go see some bum of a psychologist.  Yeah, I know, I should not have written Benson’s name in here, but ra ra ra, I’m going to do some head banging right now.

The first thing that Benson did that was wrong and was wrong through and through was make comments about the veil I was wearing.  The second thing that Benson did that was wrong was make further comments about oppression and make me look like a total sicko.  Sorry, man, but you don’t deserve a psych license or degree.  A guy like that shouldn’t be testing Muslims.  Let’s see, Elizabeth, one of my most faithful Muslim friends, says clearly that the psych doc thought I was nuts.  Elizabeth, as far as I know, should have a band of Muslim women gather in Dr. Benson’s office, canes, veils, and all.  Mary Sayegh, thank God, won’t be seeing that dude because she herself is Arab by descent, but if he made comments about her Arab skin color, I would jump and strangle something, whether it be him or his weird God.  Psychologists must work with diverse populations and respect all faiths as do the ones at Mental Health Center of Denver.  My therapist there is great, and I can’t wait to show her what to do.  Well, I’ll show her what this weird thing at Bayaud is all about.  I want to go to college, I want to go to school or trade school or something to learn a trade.  Broadcasting would put me in touch with indie artists at first, but then someone could pull me from the station I swork at and put me in a more prestigious position where … ah, Blake Shelton would sit in my studio and I’d interview the guy.  Oh Lord, Blake Shelton would say, “And I know I rejected her because she was blind.  Now look, she’s interviewing me about my stuff.”  I could use the four letter s word, but I won’t because somebody is wondering about this blog being too weird and angry.

\My seventeen-year-old self could never, ever, ever be as great as my 27-year-old self has been over the year.  Blake has been expecting me to call the damn clerk tomorrow.  I have to see if they can fax paperwork to Jessey in the back of the room, probably to Bayaud.  I hope there’s a Fax number, and Blake found it.  What a brilliant and helpful and faithful sidekicker.  Love that guy so much, and there’s nothing that concerns me more than just loving him.  YEs, he worships one God, a humane God that loves and cares about people.  I’m not saying Deq Ahmed’s weirdness and his God are any worse.  Deq is so weird that he doesn’t know God from the Dogs in Denver.  Well, if Deq knew what dogs were, exactly, he’d get one.  Come on, Deq, get a guide dog, you weirdo.

Ok, I better write some more because I have to get my hands at work with stuff.  Shoot, I wonder as I wander around my keys.  What will I see when I press the spacebar on my built in keyboard?  Nothing.  It’s broken!  Thus I use the actual laptop as a hard drive hooked up to a multimedia desktop keyboard.  Man, it sucks.  Look, I am totally sorry if anyone’s name should not be in this blog, but I say nothing negative about anyone whose name I put here.  IF I can’t say it to the person’s face, I’m gonna write it right here.  Blake will see me again, and this is not how it will end.  Blake, I love you.

I will see you again, this is not how it ends.

I will carry you with me till I see you again.

My Crappy Day At Work

Dear Parents, Jessey, and all others who’ve decided to accuse me of lying about the coming of Blake,

First off, I did NOT lie to Jessey, that’s right.  I didn’t lie.  Something came up in December right in the middle, and I held out hope that Blake would come, but the family came and took that away from me.  Second, I will not have you crushing my dreams, telling me I have to take an “entry level” job.  That will not pay off my debt.  I”m sorry, but that debt has to go away, and it will be paid by the entity who stole my dreams away: Rehab.  Rehab tld me I was no good at social work, could not go to college, etc.  They wanted “appropriate work behaviors.”  Give me a break!  I’m done here, done.  IF you want a performance review that says, “exceeds good standard behavior,” all entities written to in this note, you had better stop crushing my dreams.  I’m done trying to hide myself frrom you, Jess.  I know you want me to do this entry level work, but I’m sorry.  You can’t make me, and I won’t.  Why?  It’s too much, and transit will not be reliable at night if they ask for a night clerk.  I cannot work as a night clerk, period.  I can decide what employment I want, but a guardian is a predatory thing.

To Rehab, you guys just pony up and pay the debt yourselves.  This is not a valid debt, and I want to go to college so I can get a good job provided this Voice thing doesn’t work out.  It won’t.  The producers won’t let a blind person on the show because they won’t think I can take care of myself, and they want visuals: makeup, hair, poppish breasts, etc.  You don’t understand that this is what they want for television personalities too.  At least there was a lady on Wesh who was pregnant, the meteorology lady Amy Sweezy.  She got pregnant, and Mom I remember looked once at her and said, “Oh God, she’s gonna pop any moment.”  Jessey and Richele, do not accuse me of lying at work or at home.  Do not haunt me in my dreams before I explode!  I won’t, I repeat, won’t be going anywhere near college until Rehab pays the debt.

AS for the parents, it’s your guardianship that made things too complicated for my educational future.  I will not pay the college debt.  IF you do not pay it, parents, you’ll be in bigger trouble than you now, and it’s all because you got what you wanted.  You can’t have everything you want just because you’re so “concerned” about your poor baby’s welfare.  Well, guess what?  You’re being severely punished because all the times I’ve lived with you all, you’ve tried to stop me from writing things against you.  What do you want me to say?  Oh, I love you guys.  Oh, you are the best parents a girl could ask for.  Bull.  I’m sorry, but you people have tried to crush my dreams, and you have tried to do it, but you will not.  I will make the producers on the Voice accept the audition and let me on the show.  I will fly to Los Angeles, into the arms of my Blake, and when Blake in Arizona finds out what you’ve done, you will, I repeat will, I promise, have lots of money to pay.  You won’t do this to me again.  I can’t have your way with me.  I want it my way or the highway.  I’m sorry you feel that this is “inappropriate”, but you will not try and erase the writing.  You’ve tried to do it to me before.  Remember?  I was seventeen or nineteen at the time.  You refused to allow me to create things without you staring at it.  You had no respect for me, my privacy, my self worth and dignity.  Goodbye.

As to Blake, you are the greatest thing in the world that has ever lived, and you will always be on my mind.  Blake Tucker, you really have made my day better.  IF only you were awake at this very moment, in Denver, in my arms, so I could hold you tight, so I could kiss your wine-red lips, so I could hold your soft skinned hands.  I want to feel your breath around me, over me, through me.  I want you, more than anything else.  Blake, you were supposed to come here, and God almighty knows I’ll be on the phohne with the Clerk’s office immediately after I wake up at seven MDT.  Blake, don’t worry about me so much unless you mean to.  I love you, and I will never leave you.  Don’t leave me.

As for Lily and Deanna at Bayaud, you ladies rocked the house.  Deanna, you look lovelier than I thought.  Forget about the weight.  Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  Lily is cool, and she’s the first person I met at the place.  As for my coworkers, thanks a bunch.  I won’t give any more names of any more people for fear I might be going nuts.  Perhaps this blog will go down in history as the rant of the century, but I must go and do something else.

I’m not kidding.

Thanks a lot.

Beth

Audition jitters

Hey you guys. I’m still having a bit of a jittery feeling about my audition. My audition is coming up next month, and this … believe it or not is the last week of work training. Shoot, I think I’d like to go back to school and do a production job. I’d like to record music, and it’ll be a time before I can. What ever. I might just try radio, which I know is a dying art being replaced by I Heart Radio and apps and streams, but so what? People still enjoy it. I might make my broadcasting career a reality. Let me see where the Voice audition goes. I hope that Blake Shelton takes me in and teaches me stuff, finds good songs for me, and so on. Maybe he’s going to think me a good singer, hot at the most. Blake’s sitting here, getting drunk again. Well, not really. He drinks beer, but not beer as in Coors Light, but beer as in … yep, root beer. Blind and whatever else is going on won’t stop Blake from drinking a root beer every so often. I love Blake, and he’s just too sweet. He’s given me so much love, and yet he’s one of the strongest guys around. I wish Blake Shelton would please hear me sing. I want you to hear me sing, Mr. Shelton, and I want you to know that if you like it, I’ll be happy to win it for you. But most of all, for me.

Weird Day at Work … Yesterday

Tornados are weird.  Yes, I’m not kidding.  We had a storm incident here yesterday, and boy was it awful.  We were taken to a safe area so that I could not even get a cab or transit home, and I had to stay there till it was all clear.  Great.  The safe area is around where the lunchroom, breakroom is.  Thank God the storm passed to Aurora and didn’t come here.  It was weird how things worked but I was exploring careers at work too.  The careers include sound editing and production of music, which I think would be a better fit and get me employed faster than all this other classical stuff, the music auditions being the way they are today.  Why study Mozzart when I can sing like an angel without having to do so?  Why study Mozzart for $5 an hour when I can produce for a million more?  I may produce not for the rappers, but for modest artists like … well, should I dare say this … Blake Shelton.  I could produce for him and many others, the females included.  Editing is a challenge, and I would personally start a group to ban autotune.  Some musicians, I swear, autotune themselves out and do it to death.  Mrs. Hancock, the Mayor’s wife, I was told she had a gospel voice.  Um, someone will probably tell her, “We’ve heard this before.”  I don’t think I have that It factor because of blindness, and that’s all I gotta say.  Blindness doesn’t run in my family, so there you have it.

I could produce, edit, or broadcast.  I might consider getting a B.S. as long as the curriculum is accessible and the tech is accessible.  I’ve had to drop out of college because of access buriers and all that.  FSU, the supposed best music school in the Southeast, got sued by two blind people for their inaccessible use of inaccessible tech and that: they use clickers that don’t work, their math curriculum was awfully inaccessible because the coding wasn’t right, and now Chris and Jamie, my two friends who sued FSU, will need to have monetary damages because the college won’t let them back in.  I want the debt paid off, and I don’t know if Rehab can let me into UCD, and it’s on the Auraria Campus again.  But college and music are the only answers, and obtaining an A Plus Cert just won’t cut it.  I could do it just for the heck of it, but the good jobs that command billions of cash all require experience and college.  I’m so mad at Rehab for making me drop out, and most of all, my dad for making me use a pc that’s past its prime, dead perhaps.  The sound card is broken on it, so I bought another two soundcards to do something with it.

The card I bought makes the computer sing like normal, but then there was dust in the keys, and even when I used compressed air, the stupid keyboard keys are still not working.  Damn.  I really want a new pc and netbook as well.  I’ll be browsing Toshiba netbooks even if there isn’t such a thing.

I really could use a traveling netbook so that I can fly around.  If I make the Voice, and win it for Mr. Shelton, I swear I’ll buy the house and get my bf out of there, and Arizona will probably burn up.  I’m not the one burning AZ up at the moment while Denver’s being soaked like a sponge.

A Plus Test Results

A Plus Test Results

And Other Matters

I’ve noticed that the A Plus test results remain in the fifties. Exam Compass does not offer an option to simply learn from your wrong answers. I would not be able to figure out which answers are correct and if they are incorrect, the correct answer and the way it should have been. I’d like to do that as these are practice exams. Purely practice exams allow you to practice, but you can’t just crack the system by using different answers each time. I managed to pop an 87 today on the security portion of the A Plus 802 part. It’s obvious I haven’t learned command line as much, maybe I should practice it? I’m stumped here.
In other news, I’m getting a bigger apartment. Yes, a bigger apartment is in store for me if I call the right places. I’d like to find a place that has a one bedroom available for less than a six month waiting list. I’ll move in in about six months given the money and time needed. Plus I need to get furniture, a better setup, more space. This way, I could buy a keyboard and practice, and that would mean more space. I’m a musician, so getting a bigger unit is important.
In other other news, I am doing something serious. Serious enough not to be written on a piece of data on a work computer. It involves lawyers and family issues, and the family wants me to accept guardianship, something that could be predatory. I’m sorry, but my parents exploited my disability for personal gain. They did this without caring that I would need to learn how to manage money and so on, and after what Comcast pulled on me, throwing bills past due in my mailbox, I just want to kick someone right now. My parents don’t want me to marry, hold property, manage property, sign contracts, etc. They need to understand that I cannot afford certain things, so they needed to buy me those things I can’t afford because I’m on a severely fixed income. The budget is simple: food takes up a majority of the budget, then rent, then cable, then phone, then scanning documents etc. Serotek offers an affordable option so I can scan and read documents, docuscan plus, and I need that. I will need that stuff because it would cut the caregiver’s time down by a lot, and being independent means a lot to me. I have to pay for it, and Serotek has an option where I can afford to. Anyway, food and supplies are important, but food stamps are low because the House of Representatives and Congress decided to cut into the program because of the new Farm Bill. They need to be honest. I’m literally going to starve or become even poorer if I can’t get a job, but getting a job will be harder than ever if I want a technical job. From what my friend Jason has told me, tech jobs require weird hours, transportation of oneself or a car in other words, and sighted assistance. I’d rather work a helpdesk job that doesn’t require weird hours, bad transit options, and experience, experience, and experience. I have no experience except for practicing the test. I know a lot about internet security, and have exemplary tech skills on a computer, but employers want field experience that a blind person can’t get. What to do now!
As for all the other stuff, if I can’t get a job in the tech field, then I don’t know what job I can get. I don’t want to work at Bayaud Enterprises myself because they’re training me. What about a real world employer with a real world expectation without the illegal questioning and sexual harassment? What about the real world job that pays, pays, and pays even more? As a blind woman, I might get paid 70% of what my boyfriend Blake will make an hour, and that’s not acceptable for me. I want THE VERY SAME amount of money Blake makes, if not more because my pay should be based on performance. If I get a raise, great. If I don’t, it would show the employer that they’re not following the laws and initiatives set up to close the “gender gap” between men and women. I do not want to be treated as disposable property of someone else. Blake would want me to work outside the home, no doubt because the skill sets have to be in place. If we do have kids, so what? Tom and Linda Anderson, a couple we know, doesn’t have kids and they’re all about their relationship. Both work at CCB, Colorado Center for the Blind, where Blake and I met. As for me, I’m not willing to accept low pay because I’m a woman. I’m all about having to negotiating a starting salary that doesn’t compromise what bills and budget I have at the time. Sorry, dad, you can’t force me to show you what I spend money on. Sorry, Mom, but you don’t think me capable enough, so goodbye. Sorry, everyone else, but you absolutely should not tell me that I’m disposable and because I’m a woman, it’s ok to pay me less because I’m a woman. Just because I’m pregnant once or twice in my life doesn’t mean you can’t protect my rights. I’d rather do help desk work, not lifting work that requires much physical exersion because that could kill the baby. Protect pregnant workers, by God.
I’m not sure how much I’m gonna need to pay to take the A Plus certification, but it would be nice to do training at a college that will accommodate me. I’m thinking about moving into a bigger unit, and it has to be a unit that is closer to said college. I might go to Lakewood Community College just to do A Plus work. But I’m not sure that they’ll allow me to do that sort of thing because of what happened to another friend of my friend Jason’s: Anthony Lanzilotti, who studies at a college that totally babies him, doesn’t let him move around without sighted assistance, and doesn’t do anything to make his college experience first rate. I want top notch accommodations for something like this, and I’m not sure where to find that stuff. Top notch means:
1. No babying.
2. Allowing complete freedom of movement no matter where I go.
3. Accommodating me as far as textbooks go.
4. Scanning all research docs in to .docx or .doc format so I can read them, or an accessible PDF that is not an image.
5. No mean moods, no bad attitudes, and absolutely no discouragement. I’ve never been so discouraged in college when I was at FSU in my life. FSU discouraged not just me, but a friend who eventually sued the college because of their math curriculum being inaccessible. No kidding.
6. I’m gonna say one more thing: I don’t want this particular learning institution to be too expensive. I can’t pay, so if Rehab doesn’t pay, then I’m done. I’m going to have to be a housewife, and nothing better will happen. I am totally discouraged by a lot of people. It gets me down.

That’s all I’m gonna say here. In closing, I’m willing to do A Plus work, but I don’t know if I can simply work for pay that is less than a man’s, work in a hostile environment, etc. I felt that AINC was a bit hostile, but they had a problem with me because of who I was. That’s a bad match.

Letter to my Awesome Boss

Top Jobs I Qualify For

Dear Jessey,
This is going to be a tough decision to write this. But the main thing about the job hunt is that I don’t qualify a whole lot for some or if not all of the phone jobs. Some of them don’t have the start pay present on the posting. That doesn’t help a whole darn lot because I want to know where I would stand so far as I’m concerned. It would help if some of those employers would please put experience requirements or start pay up there. Some of the more complete postings require months of telephone experience, and I don’t have that. Even the entry level ones have all that experience required. Some of these companies flaunt diversity, but then again, everybody does. What I’m worried about is upward mobility, promotions to managerial positions, and the possibility that I could be paid less than, say, my bf Blake, who is obviously more competent because he is male. I don’t want to be paid 70% of every dollar, and I don’t believe in a wage gap. I’ve heard of female managers being fired, but I swear I don’t want to be a bad one. But the entry level positions at the bottom of a company aren’t going to help some of the stability issues I’m going through. Jessey, I must say this job hunt is weird. I’d love to do sound tech for music artists though since I’m good at sound editing if taught well. I’m interested in selling, writing, and recording or producing music. Yes, it’s an iffy profession. Yes, it may or may not provide bread and butter for my table, but no, other jobs don’t interest me at all. I’ve received years of piano and choral training, plus a bit of guitar and the rudiments of that. I know what a guitar sounds like, how it’s played, etc., but I only play open chords myself. I love singing, and I get inspiration from others’ music. I want to write a good many songs in my lifetime and bring hope to those who don’t have it. Blind people, let’s face it, have a 70% likelihood of being unemployed or infantilized. Infantile behavior from parents or SSI are the main things that keep blind people from going up the ladder to whatever position they want. There are good blind people and bad blind people. The good ones are the ones like me. The bad ones? Let’s not start with the ones who have excessive sexual appetites and live the easy life, don’t pay child support for playing around with women, etc. Let’s just say that I dealt with a Division of Blind Services Director who denied me the chance to come to Colorado till I fought her tooth and nail. Joyce Hildreth was stomped on, and equally was stomping on others. She almost dashed my hopes of getting the right training at CCB. The current director is sighted and knows well what Denver could bring for blind folks like me. Ms. Hildreth was a bad blind person. Not all blind people are good and employable.
As for what I plan to do with my future, I have been planning things to try and network with producers, singers, and the like to try and make this experience a good one. If I become the next Voice, I plan to get a bigger place to live, get Blake out of Arizona, and possibly marry him asap. Why do you think I’m doing this, you ask? Jessey, I could go into dark stories and a deep dark secret regarding the murder suicide I told you about. I was supposed to fly to Arizona in May to see Blake, but his infantilizing mother decided against it and called it off because I was trying to show Aunt Christine something. Blake’s aunt Christine didn’t like something I said, something I did, etc. She deemed me disrespectful and demanded change. I refuse to “change” because I have a personality already built in. and the foundations are set. I talked to a lawyer who is going to likely deal with my parents and the incompetence order that could prevent me from seeking a future at all. The Guardianship or Conservatorship as some states call it is not healthy and will cause me to lose everything. My parents take pleasure in punishments, it seems. They took pleasure in seeing me poor and unemployed and not doing music. The worst thing was that my mother, while driving me home from parochial school years back, said, “The Britney Spearses and Christina Aguileras get television appearances when they’re ten. You didn’t. So no, you are not gonna make it. Quit fantasizing about being in the music industry.” When I told Blake this, he was furious. Blake loves me and my voice and insists I follow my heart and soul and my dreams. Jessey, I am afraid to tell Richele what there is.
As for the assignment of going on ONet, I almost didn’t find the web address. I went to ONet dot com, and found it too tiny to think it was the jobs site, but found another O Net occupation site and explored it a bit. I am interested in doing any kind of musical profession: music therapy may be good for me as I have the right personality and talent for that. I might even try sound editing and tech stuff. Combining music and technology, I could easily produce tracks, but I won’t track produce for rappers. Please no. I won’t. If I want to get close to music, this is what I will do. I might even consider broadcasting school for DJ’s and be a disc jockey on the radio stations in Denver. I could make my broadcasting hobby into a career. I am not good at keeping hobbies, but I love writing. Writing skills however good they are are required for some of those office jobs I looked at. As a musician for years, I noticed a trend in the ones who were famous and the ones who weren’t. Most were sighted. I also think the more popular ones, sighted or blind, had something to do with philanthropy, and I have noticed Denver is a breeding ground for that too.
Jessey, I see potential to do music, and that’s all I want. I can’t see myself changing a career path like I have absolutely tried my darndest to do. Social work? “Inappropriate due to mental illness and instability,” said a doctor named David Benson, and he also made an oppressive comment about a piece of clothing I wore to his office: a hijab that Muslim women wear. Dr. Benson had no respect for diverse religions and women’s customs and habits were not dealt with properly. The guy was uneducated, even as a doctor, and my parents unfortunately sided with him. Making comments like he did about my dress, which included but were not limited to, “She’s pretending to be Arab” and “Child marriage happens in the Middle East/Africa,” were inappropriate of someone in the psychological field. Real psych docs should respect diversity as do I. I am a big advocate of cultural sensitivity, except where it hurts others. If it hurts a woman to advocate for early marriage, then there has to be a change. If it hurts blind girls to be thrown in the ocean because some Indian or Tamil lady thinks it not ok to have a female who is blind, then there’s no way that this culture should be completely advocated. If any sensitivities include allowing infanticide of females and blind babies, boys or girls, then there’s no way I would allow this to happen. A blind boy had a mass said over him. This is a Catholic family! They wanted their son to DIE! I just about had a heart attack when I saw the tidbit in a piece of literature I was reading. Babies who are blind are often not taught or stimulated or given the right modalities and therapies because the family might want to have nondisabled children or have older nondisabled toddlers and children of school age. Perhaps as a music therapist, I could help a blind infant gradually become a self-serving adult, allowing the person to eventually get a job. If the child has a terminal illness and is neglected due to that, as a social worker, I could’ve been instrumental in making sure the parents were held accountable. I can’t wield a gun or be a police woman, so there you have it.
As Richele was talking to me, I sat calmly in the Ross fitting room, but inside, my brain was screaming, “You didn’t go to work today. You didn’t go to work today. You didn’t go to work today. What the hell was your problem?” Richele simply acknowledged something or other, something about my Individualized Plan of Employment, IPE, and asked how things were going. She said there were no reports from you, which is probably a good thing. As I said before, I don’t know what is to happen to me later. I truly believe that if I were to release a couple of albums and hear the music I made on the radio, I would give anything to be in a position to make philanthropic contributions to the Denver area. I have been at the very bottom of the scum pile before: My best friend from high school threw me out of the household in Aurora, and I had to fend for myself and beg for food. I will never do that again, and I will swear myself to that. I know that there are some women who might need the help. I was fed among the needy at a church, and there were lots of disabled and homeless people among the ones fed. I tried to go to church there, but they didn’t get transit for me to and from the church. Thus, I went to Grace Community, and they offered their hearts and homes to me. I will hopefully give back to them, $200 million maybe. I could rig up their whole building with that much. I have ambitions, goals, dreams, and I don’t want to be fried for those.
The next thing I’d like to address here is the wonderful things you’ve helped me with all this time. In truth, I should say thanks a bunch for the work I have been able to do, and thanks to your kindness and patience, I feel a lot more competent in office settings. Hey, it’s only for backup purposes. Jessey, I’d like to thank you profusely for the good skills, and because Video Intercept manager totally sucks, Mavis Beacon doesn’t work. I think that’s what it is. At least that’s my theory, darn it. It’s really good that we’re doing this, but as a blind woman, I felt Bayaud could use a few improvements: why not grab a computer instructor who can translate mouse clicks into keystrokes if you have another blind client? Consult Chip Johnson and the folks at the Colorado Center for the Blind. I can give you their name and number if you ask. I could give you some ideas, and the two of you all could share lots of tips, tricks, and lots of ideas. Nothing like idea sharing to get the office better in a lot of areas. For one thing, I have a friend in Utah who runs his own business and he knows what business is.
The only thing I have to say about Bayaud’s GOST program is that it wasn’t fit for blind audiences, no doubt because it was Babs’s first time working with me, but she did a good job looking around and learning what she could. It helped that you had a sister who is blind. It never struck me once you could be a bad person just because I’m nuts and weird or I’m not quite there yet.
It’s gonna be hard to walk in here and not see me for you that is. I know it’ll be extremely hard to forget me, though. It’ll be really hard to forget the woman with the white cane. If you see me on TV or somewhere else out there, don’t hesitate to call me at work and say, “Beth, whoa. That was good stuff you did out there.” I’ll take calls any time of day or night, honestly. I’ll use you for a reference only with your permission, and I’ve worked hard for that. Blake was a good reference for my church membership form, and he said I adored kids. Yes, I want kids, and I adore kids, but still, kids are a lot of work. I might have kids later, but not now. Blake and I have to marry first, but that’s a long time away. For me, it’s long overdue after 2016 because his mother has been acting weird lately.
To close things off, I want to say thanks and good luck in you and your future endeavors. Maybe you should be saying that to me. But you really became a good supervisor. I’m not kidding.
Let me refocus the note, however long it is, since I don’t plan to write the Great American Novel. I qualify for janitorial work, call center work, etc. Janitors and all the other works I probably qualify for though require experience. What is with those stupid job postings saying, “Eighteen months experience?” I am floored by the things that happen with job postings. Thank you again for your support. In five days, I will not see you for a while, and after that staffing, it’s over. Done.
Sincerely,
Beth Taurasi