Balance, Or Lack Thereof

The very act of moving for me is a careful calculation of balance. In school, I swerve and stumble through the halls like an toy top spinning crazily this way and that. I have a ginormous backpack situated precisely on my shoulders, and if you're not careful, you will more than likely get smacked with it. My crutch stabs unmercifully the floor or unsuspecting people who are stupid enough to get in the way. My purse and AlphaSmart case swing crazily from my left arm and more often than not I have a Vitamin Water clutched spazzily in my left hand. The slightest gust of wind or nudge from behind can overbalance me and send me flying towards the floor. People who obliviously kick my crutch from behind by accident soon learn that yes, I am leaning on that, and yes, if you kick it I will fall. In the sea of people I cling to the nearest wall or locker, praying I won't get blown away like a leaf in the wind.

Balance issues, for me at least, are incredibly complex. Keeping my balance walking or standing is about the same as a non-disabled person trying to balance on a tightrope. And standing in one place takes a lot more muscle control and balance than walking does. At least with walking you have that momentum, that one foot in front of the other (or in my case, crashing into the other) pattern. With standing you are not moving, and there is no momentum. And yet people wonder why it is fairly impossible for me to stand on long lines, or on a moving train, etc...The coordination of muscles required is amazing.

I also need to learn how figuratively balance. The activities I do - all my advocacy work, dance, swimming - on top of my schoolwork (still wondering why no one talked me out of taking 4 AP classes my senior year...?) and planning for college - it's exhausting for anyone, to say nothing of people like me who have fatigue issues already. No wonder this blog usually goes by the wayside. On a regular basis, I get comments from people about how I'm always tired, or how I always need to sit, and it pisses me off. If they spent one day - ONE DAY - in my body, they would understand. I'm not lying or being lazy. I really am always tired. Wouldn't you be?

I'm hoping college will be easier for me in terms of balance - both kinds. I've recently started using two crutches instead of one in certain situations and it seems to improve my balance enormously. Also, in college my schedule will be more spread out, I will have more time in between classes to balance other things. I won't be sitting in school for six hours straight when I could be doing something more productive. It just will be a lot more flexible.

And....oh look! It's another one of those balancing times! I need to balance blogging and schoolwork! Outline for senior research paper due tomorrow! *leaps up with renewed vigor, overbalances, and falls over*

...it just figures.

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If You Want Something Done Right, Do It Yourself

I have recently concluded that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

I have come to this conclusion after nearly four years of struggling in the public high school system and having to rely on other people to do things for me. A recent example comes to mind: I hold a pen very awkwardly (which might be just the way my spastic fingers move) and experience a lot of pain in my hand when I write, especially when I write a lot. This may be related to the awkward pen grip or the CP. Or both. I suspect they're all interconnected. Anyway, this is why I use an Alpha-Smart (technically a Neo, made by Alpha-Smart) to type notes at school, and it has been my savior ever since I started using one around third grade. However, the Alpha-Smart's one pitfall is it can't write anything remotely mathy, such as complicated algebra problems, square roots, and all that other fun stuff that you learn in advanced high school math classes. Nor can it do subscripts or superscripts, which I have found to be a huge problem in chemistry this year. So I am supposed to have a note-taker for both classes. Fine. Except my note-taker in math has kind of messy handwriting and she often forgets to date her notes, which leads to me failing the notebook checks. And my note-taker in chem seems to have forgotten she's my note-taker at all. I keep trying to remind her, but it's difficult when I don't need all chem notes, just the parts that I can't type on my Alpha-Smart. I tried relying on memory for awhile and that didn't work out so well. So I've recently taking to handwriting all my chem notes, because it's just too difficult to handwrite the parts I can't type and type the rest and try to piece them all together later. This has led to tremendous pain in my hand, but hey, at least I have notes now! Of course, it doesn't seem to have improved my grades any, but that's a different story...

So. If I want something done right, I have to do it myself. Rather difficult when you have a physical disability. But, hey, I'm not complaining! It's just one of the many pitfalls of the special education system which really does nothing at all. Actually, I shouldn't say that, because I have friends who've had it worse off with the Special Ed Dept. than I have. But they do very little to correct the problems I actually have, which are few. But hey, that's the school system for you! (Note: I will probably be ranting on this frequently. Be prepared.)

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