[TW: ableist language]
Santa Fe has been getting both better and worse for me.
I hate the "Standards of Academic Progress" class they are making me take. I passed all of my bloody classes so they force me to take the "you stink at school" class. I have a C average; at least a bloody 2.0. If anyone ever bothered to look at when most of the crap grades were given, it's from the week I was barely concious. It's a little hard for me to write and turn in 2 projects and a paper when I could barely function.
And the class is nothing! We watched a movie one day and have been talking about dreams of our future the others. I, for the most part, know my dreams. I'm starting the main bulk of the program that leads to almost all of them in three months. I don't need some professor constantly asking me what I want to be when I grow up. I'm frakking 21!
Every class he says something that sets me off. I can barely speak at the end of it. And if the girl assigned to sit next to me would stop talking about "'tards," that would be lovely. I have asked her to stop and she doesn't. I have asked the professor to intervene and he did. Once. I'm dealing with all of them and trying to do everything I'm supposed to. It's not working. I have to survive this three hour class on my own, twice a week. When I was forcibly assigned to it, I asked if there was a full Spring version instead of a Spring A only one. There wasn't any available, so I have to deal with almost 8 hours of class every week.
Except, I'm not dealing. Most of the class is verbal, and when I can't talk, I get no participation points. That's almost the entire class. I've taken to using up my entire store of verbosity for the day in the first hour so I can definitely get the points. But after that, it's like I don't exist. Last week, in that class we were talking about causes and how
to be happy. I stood up on my soapbox and told everyone what it was like
to be on the spectrum. I wanted them to understand how it felt. How it
feels. There hasn't been any change.
I see what's happening in that class and compare it to my Pathfinder group and there is a world of difference. Our GM knows I can't talk sometimes. The other players know that. And when I get nonverbal, they still include me and communicate with me, I just don't speak back to them. I'm rolling my dice and signing a bit, but they don't care. I'm still hanging with them. And I'm participating for seven and eight hours at a time. Do you know what my Mom would give if I could do that in real-world applications? It's because of simple accommodations.
The entire Society for Nerds group is like that and I am so lucky to have them. If people would just follow their example, that would be lovely. It's not that hard. There are multiple people who have disabilities in the group. We changed it so if anyone has an accommodation they want, we just have to ask. The online component to the group is big: I don't have to talk verbally. If I'm having a really bad day, I don't even have to go there in person. The best part is, when things are overwhelming, they are still there.
I see the difference between those two ways and it is like night and day. At the end of last semester,
we had a couple parties going on a the same time. There was the one with the pounding bass and the copious amounts of alcohol and the one with some of us eating dinner together and playing board games. It didn't matter which one I went to, because they were both available to anyone that wanted to go.
That night, me only having 2 meltdowns during the semester was celebrated with the same vigor as a different member making the Dean's list. It's not hard to accommodate. But not many people seem to be able to see that. I wish they could.
