Category: Blindness and Disability

Blindness and Disability, Science

More About Medicine

Chrys Buckley

premedFax From the Future: I don’t know if anyone’s seen the show Switched at Birth on ABC Family, but Daphne, one of the main characters, one of the girls who was switched at birth, is deaf and is also pre-med. In general, though her disability is different from mine, I’ve found the portrayal pretty accurate. In this past season (2015), she started her pre-med classes, and I found a lot of her struggles and interactions in that world to be really realistic (well except for on an exam she mixed up cations and anions, which I don’t find realistic at all, but that’s chemistry-related not disability experience). Sometimes the show stirs me up and gets me mad. Sometimes it inspires me to want to tell my own story. Sometimes it kind of makes me nostalgic for the time I was writing about in this post, taking those first chemistry classes.

Now on to the original post:

I announced on my facebook a week or so ago that I’m going pre-med in school, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and want to say more about. I’ve been thinking of it as “my big secret” for awhile, but really it was more just something that was so new, and I was so uncertain of, that I had to keep it to myself for awhile.

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Blindness and Disability, Science

Applying to Jobs with a Disability

Chrys Buckley

ADAFax from the Future: So, looking back at this post is a little disheartening.

I did not get the volunteer opportunity that the post centers around. But what is really shitty is I mentioned in passing later in this post a job that I really wanted, and I also did not get that job, which was almost definitely due to my disability and the company was really shitty about it, and it was a job I was super, super perfectly qualified for. Even the person at the Career Center who was helping me with my resume/cover letter for that job, was sure it was a sure thing. It was awhile ago, but it honestly still really bugs me, a lot, because it was so blatant and unfair, probably one of the times I felt most openly discriminated against. And maybe I’m a little mad at myself for not somehow confronting the situation (though I’m not sure how I could have in a productive way), I just feel a little shitty that I “let them” get away with it. It’s exactly this repetitive experience that makes me feel so weary and unmotivated to keep trying sometimes. This one was a pretty bad one. There’s a separate post about it somewhere in here, maybe I’ll post that next.

Now, for the original post:

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Blindness and Disability, Music, Science, Writing

I Am Not Your Touch Tank Sea Star

Chrys Buckley

IMG_0335So, for whatever reason, I’ve been feeling like putting some of my writing up, so here is a poem I wrote a few years ago, followed by the story of how it came to be.

I Am Not Your Touch Tank Sea Star

When I’m a sea star
I hold the sea’s mystery in my purple
Yet I live at the tips of my spines
Erected like walls to protect
My soft center from being hurt or feeling
The hurt I’ve already been.
As I scavenge along the bottom
For bull kelp and sea lettuce
I cling to any steady surface
With tube feel like a miser who knows
I don’t deserve the water
And I don’t let anyone touch me

Sometimes I’m a sea cucumber
Spikes only ward my demons off for show
I let them go tender
And as I lay exposed
My past creeps up behind me
Slithering inside my open sores
Carrying their torches of truth
I feel them settle in my gut
So I twist it around them, bunch it up
With a hurl I eviscerate my organs
And scramble to grow new insides

Once I was an octopus
Used eight arms to lift the top of the holding tank
Squeezed out, dropped to the floor and crawled
Through the crack under the door
Famished on the sand, inching forward
Telling myself I will not let them
Make me let myself die
If I can give me a little slack and a lot of love
I might make it
Back to the deeper seas I knew before captivity
Where they can’t coax me back
To put me in the big tank, captive
For their audience
I am free

On a blue moon I’m a blue dolphin
On waves with deeper frequency
Intelligence unfocused on rational thought
Feel no shame for stranding myself
To help a member of my pod in need
Sensed out with echolocation
Weathered harsh, howling storms
By surrendering to their windblown frenzy
I know the patterns of Earth’s turning
I have been to blue depths

Today I just want to be
Myself
Deep down
I am
The sea.

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Blindness and Disability, Science

I Just Had the Coolest Afternoon!

Chrys Buckley

cookeWow.

Okay, I just had an awesome afternoon. Today I met with a woman who works as a naturopathic physician who is totally blind. I mean, WOW. It’s one of those times that reminds me that my visual impairment is NOT an excuse to not do things! I mean this woman is a doctor! She went through classes like gross anatomy and diagnostic imaging with no eyesight at all. How amazing is that?!?! It makes me feel like, yes, I can do science stuff, and there are all kinds of alternative techniques to do visually-intense things, in school and in life.

She also invited me to a group of blind and visually-impaired knitters and I’m going to do it. I’m good with my hands, and that is something that I’ve always felt that if I were taught how to do, I could really do by feel. So I am going to go get my knit on and be a stitchin’ bitch! It’ll be really nice to get connected with the visually-impaired community too. I’m psyched about that!

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Blindness and Disability, Science

Survived My First Exam

Chrys Buckley

bioI had my first exam today. I was nervous, but I had studied hard for it. It went really well! If anything I was overprepared. I really took the time to make sure I understood everything. There were a few things I was struggling with and I looked them up online or later in my textbook b/c I didn’t want to get tripped up.

The exam covered a lot of material, especially the last chapter of the book that was on the test, which was an overview of all the parts of the cell, and was by far the longest chapter we’d covered, and was really dense, chock full of parts and processes and terms and tons of information that was different than the previous material (we basically went from some basic biochemistry stuff, building blocks, lots and lots of chemistry, to cell biology and there were just so many processes to understand).

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Blindness and Disability, Science

The Big Move

Chrys Buckley

PdxtripOct2009 048-2Fax From the Future: (First off, BTW that is going to be my catchphrase for whenever my current 2015 self wants to interject some thoughts into these old posts from much longer ago. This one was from September 2009. And the catchphrase is a reference to The Office) It is so weird to look back on this now. I have such a clear memory of walking into my first class. It was a night class, and it was still light out when I walked in, not knowing a single person or if I would be any good at science, kinda waiting for someone to tell me I shouldn’t be there b/c of my eyesight, and having all this excitement and fear. I had never gone to a school with such big classes and just had no idea what to expect. I remember I walked in listening to my iPod Classic (still have it, what else could accommodate my massive music collection?) and Radiohead’s “No Surprises” was playing as I walked into Hoffman Hall. It was the beginning of a really amazing time of my life that is still going on.  Anyway, on to the real post:

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Blindness and Disability, Science, Writing

Yes, this is my Final Answer…

Chrys Buckley

166696_10151441891358872_563138313_n…for the million dollar question in the game of What the Fuck Am I Doing with My Life?

Anyone who’s been following my blog this summer knows that I’ve had some back and forth thoughts about whether to start school in the fall or to attend a training center for the visually-impaired in Denver. But what you don’t know unless you’re one of the unfortunate people to have spent a lot of time with me in recent months is how intense and unending this indecision has been. I thought for sure I would go to school no matter what. Then I was unsure. Then I was certain about the center. Then indecision. Then school. Then the center. Then back and forth again and again, ad nauseam. And each time, I was SURE that I had come to a final decision.

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Blindness and Disability

Blogging About Blindness

Chrys Buckley

300px-Blindicon.svgLast night I wrote a post about the convention I just went to for the National Federation of the Blind, and about the Colorado training center for the blind that I want to attend. That post was inspired in part by the fact that I just started reading the book Freedom for the Blind by Jim Omvig..

It is an online book which can be read here, Freedom for the Blind. I am only on the second chapter and already it is stirring many thoughts, feelings, insights and internal discussions, and I can already tell that it’s worth reading. I would highly encourage my blog readers to check it out, especially those that are my friends, or those that have other blind and visually-impaired people in their lives.

My visual impairment is a topic that figures prominently in my life but one I have not talked about much, so I think I’m going to do some blogging about it. Already there are several posts swimming around in my mind. Here are some of them:

-The word “blind”

-The “hierarchy of Sight” as the NFB puts it

-Normalcy and Blindness

And lots, lots more. Stay tuned, it’s going to be interesting and exploratory and thought-provoking and awesome.

~Chrys

Currently Listening:
“Less Than Strangers” – Tracy Chapman – sad song, and I’ve been kinda sad lately, so I guess I’m okay that it makes me sad. I freakin’ love her voice. She captures so much feeling.

You and me
Had some history
Had a semblance of honesty
All that has changed now
We shared words
Only lovers speak
How can it be
We are less than strangers

Oh it hurts to lose in love
Let anger and cruelty win
It’s unfair that you doubt your feelings
And that you’ll ever love again
I know that hearts can change
Like the seasons and the wind
But when I said forever
I thought that we’d always be friends

You and me had some history
Had a semblance of honesty
All that has changed now
We shared words
Only lovers speak
How can it be
We are less than strangers

I thought I saw you yesterday
I thought I passed you on the street
I swear I saw your face
I was not imagining
That you stole a glance my way
You walked away from me
My heart it may be broken
But my eyes are dry to see

You and me had some history
Had a semblance of honesty
All that has changed now
We shared words
Only lovers speak
How can it be
We are less than strangers

Blindness and Disability

My First National Blind Convention and a Change in Plans

Chrys Buckley

Detroit HotelIt’s after midnight and I can’t sleep so I’m up, pouring over some reading material, distracting myself and thinking things over, and I thought it might be a good time to (finally) post.

At the beginning of this month, I went to a convention for the National Federation of the Blind. It was almost an accident – I hadn’t really given much thought to attending. Years ago, I went to a state meeting with a local friend, and had a kind of hard time at the meeting and hadn’t gone back. This year, I applied to their scholarship program (and every other scholarship program I could think of or find) before I left for India. Then, about a month before the national convention, I got a call from the president of my state affiliate. He told me I hadn’t gotten a scholarship, but offered for me to go to the convention. They were doing this College Leadership Program, for a handful of students who didn’t get a scholarship, trying to get more young people involved in the organization, and so they would cover everything – airfare, hotel, registration, even a food stipend. Did I want to go?

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Blindness and Disability, Music

On the Banks of the Ganga (Ganges)

Chrys Buckley

Varanasi PanormaDays are starting to run into each other. It’s very hard to keep track of what’s what day of the week and date. So I suppose it was a few days ago that our group took an overnight train to Varanasi. As mentioned in the previous post, the idea of taking the train made me want to pretty much just shit my pants. I am still alive and that is good.

The train ride was pretty hard for me. I mean, we got locks and chains for our stuff, and the people in our section were fine, and I felt like my group was a big protective unit, but with all those horror stories, I was still pretty freakin’ freaked. It was okay though. There were people just sitting on the ground in the train. A few of our group members awoke (it was an overnight train) to opened pockets, but no one had anything stolen. We were all really careful about where to put our valuables.

So then we arrived in Varanasi and spent the first day just getting oriented. It was not the same level of chaos as Delhi, but still very crazy and there are a LOT more animals here. it seems there are always cows and with that lots of cow shit, right outside the guest house where we are staying. Down by the ghats, which is like the riverbank, there are goats (including a goat that we saw in a t-shirt!), lots and lots of dogs, cats, monkeys, and so on. In fact the other day, a monkey jumped onto the roof of the guest house, which shook the whole building. Earlier today, I saw a water buffalo just cruising down the street with a cow. Animal central.

Continue reading “On the Banks of the Ganga (Ganges)” →