Luck Change

So June 16th was my second "I Choose Dign!ty" rally. I went to my first one two years ago, since the one that was supposed to occur last year was cancelled due to bad weather. If you weren't following me two years ago, the I Choose Dign!ty rally is an event where people who feel that they have not been allotted their fair share of dignity gather. The beginning of the rally begins at Extend-a-Family and continues onto City Hall.

While the rally is organized by an agency that focuses on people diagnosed as having developmental disabilities, it is meant to include anyone who agrees with the message that we are all full human beings and deserving of dignity. In the past, LGBTQ has made the most effort to stand shoulder-by-shoulder with us. This year, we had a woman choosing to wear Hijab make a speech on why she chooses dignity.

For years, I've been told by people that I'm featured on the I Choose Dign!ty brochure, but the image isn't online, so far as I've been able to make of it, and whenever I ask people about it, they seem sure they've got a brochure on hand, check themselves, and realize they don't. When I showed up at the rally, I shared this sentiment with someone I knew, she gestured to a huge billboard-sized image. I was on it.

It's the group image taken from the top of city hall, but since I carry some unusual traits that make me more visible, I guess I caught the attention of a number of people. I was in the middle of saying "Dignity" too, since that's what they were saying instead of "Cheese" and my mouth is positioned accordingly. Coupled with me waving my flag that says "Nobleness" and I just presented as being really into the event.

I chose a flag that says "Worthiness" this year. I'm in the banner again and a number of photos. Not all of them were that flattering.

 The person who did my second-year student placement with me at WALES came for the rally. A professor we shared in common was also being thrown a retirement party down the street, so we went their after the rally.

Everything seems to be moving in my direction this summer. In May, everything seemed to be moving against me. Any time things were left to luck, I'd be put in an inconvenienced position, you know? I couldn't even win at Big Game Hunter (wildlife shooter video game).

But this month... I'm doing the program with someone that was doing her 2nd year student placement when I was doing my first. Different girl from last year, if I ever mentioned that. I'm working with someone who did the Summer Program two years back, and another person who did it one year back. So I know all these people, and they each don't know each other.

First day is a workshop on citizenship. We are asked to present what the greatest obstacle for us is in the development of community. Each section of the organization is sitting at different tables. I present the concept of the "Monkey Sphere", which is a concept that people are only capable of perceiving a finite number of others as individuals, and afterwards become a statistic, with large cities making people fall outside the proximity of most people's sphere even though they are in their immediate presence. My group is floored, wants me to present it. I do so, and receive the only applause of all the other groups. The spokeswoman shouts us out throughout nthe workshop after this.

When the group came together next week, we were all assigned the task of developing ice breaker activities. When my boss says the first one will be based on names, I tell him he stole my activity, and so he asks me to lead it. After my explanation, I ask if that's what he was planning and he says it was "So much better"

As an team building activity, my team had to beat another team at building a structure made of spaghetti, string, tape, and a balloon.The other team developed a really strong strategy and my team just messed around, but we took the win.

 We were asked what we thought of the deep green shirt colour that the Summer Program has used in previous years. Everyone agreed it was great. I shared a concern that it was similar to other program colours, and so now we're using a deep orange.

We had to build a castle out of material such as construction paper, balloons, popsicle stick etc. Me and one other person were requested to be stationary while other members rotated. My castle won.

I got asked to help in leading an Extend-a-Family history workshop. I got asked to lead parachute games.

Last season odds were against me and it was proper to play safe. This year things are in my favour and I should probably make strong movements.

Bridges

This is going to be difficult to explain.

So I'm not with Facile anymore. Or at least, I was with Facile for its full run, but they've changed their name to Bridges to Belonging, and I didn't cross that Bridge from Facile to Belonging.

It's a good choice in name change. "Facile" is the French word for easy. I think they used it because "Facile" sounds like "facilitation" and facilitation should "make things easy". Unfortunately, facilitation is not really intended to make things easy, and actually, it should present challenges.

In England, the term "Facile" might mean, "to make so simple it is ridiculous". Considering the population that I serve, and the stigmatization they often, it might be seen that a change in vocabulary was overdue.

I first came on when there was a need for new workers because of a sudden influx in funding from something called the Independent Facilitation Demonstration Project (IFDP). This was a project funded by the government to assess how valuable independent facilitation was for the populations we serve. Before this project was put into place, Facile operated on a "fee for service" basis, people paying out of pocket for a service they knew they agreed with.

With the introduction of the new fiscal year, there were some severe funding cuts to people in the IFDP, and five of my six people were effected.

So guess what I'm doing this summer?

That's right! The Extend-a-Family Summer Program! Before me and my Facile supervisor spoke on ending my partnership with the organization, I had already within a week been offered and declined the Summer Program position. I was like "Love you guys, but I'm way too old and busy and successful to do this job"

A week later and I'm like "Hey... any chance there's any room in that old Summer Program?"

I picked up some independent support contracts to tide me over until the summer program begins, and I still have my Extend-a-Family people. Even if I don't have much planned until after, this Summer I will be even busier than last year.

Driver's Training

My brother has been accepted into the University of Guelph! You know what this means, right? This means that my brother is a Guelph Gryphon!

(I've spoken on how the U of G's mascot is the Guelph Gryphon, how people think I'm named after a sports team, and only in Guelph do people spell my name correctly, right?)

He's taking a general program with focuses in computer programming, English, and biodiversity studies.

Also, I'm taking driver's training! It's been... four years since I was behind the wheel of a vehicle. Pretty sure I was blogging about it back then. I learned to drive from my grandfather in a pickup truck out in Canadian Shield country. I went for my G2, but according to my instructor, while I hadn't made any disqualifying errors, I'd made an "accumulation of minor ones" disqualifying me. I was a little salty over the vagueness of that reasoning.

I was worried about driving in a normal car. I was worried it would be way more sensitive than what I was used to, and that it would be difficult to adjust. I was also worried about learning to drive in a large-ish city, compared to the small towns I was used to. For comparison, where I'm learning now is referred to as the "tri-city" while the nearest city I drove in when I was learning before is called the "tri-town". When my instructor first showed up, he was like "Hey, have you ever driven, would you like to drive?" in one breath. I was impressed that he was willing to sit in a car with someone when he didn't even know if it might be their first time.

He said my steering and my confidence were good, which I appreciated because my confidence was NOT GOOD. At one point, I was driving and he asked me if I worked in the area. I was so focused on the roads, I wasn't really taking in landmarks. I looked at a few street names and said "No, why?" He said "You seem familiar with the area". I then realized we were in the area where I used to live, in our interim place between student housing and where I'm at now. I thought it was cool that he could tell I was familiar with an area based on my driving, even though my brain was too focused on the technicals of the area to register my general environment.

I hate driving around children. They're such a combination of fragility, unpredictability, and value. Some kids were playing in the road and my instructor said "Don't worry about the children" I gave him kind of an exhasperated laugh in return and he responded "These are Canadian children, they are accustomed to being around traffic".

At one point, I was driving around some children, an older couple walking a dog, and a mother with a baby carriage. My instructor was just like "Don't worry about anything", probably picking up on the fact that I was worrying about everything.

I thought he was talking up my competence to boost my confidence, but then he suggested I downgrade to a bundle with half the lessons at almost half price, saying that he'd be robbing me otherwise.

These driving schools are funny. I was looking up Google reviews on local driving schools, and it seems like each driving school only has one or two instructors. Mine is a chain, but there are schools like "Mary's Driving School" and "Sarah's Driving Academy" in which Mary and Sarah are literally the only instructors for their respective schools. Even my school has reviews referencing only two different instructors. Each school picks you up, too, so it doesn't matter the location so long as you're in the right city.

My instructor has his students finish their lesson by dropping off the next student at their house. So I get to deliver someone home, and then someone delivers me at the end of the day. I've only seen female students other than myself. Why is this? Men don't take driver's training? I'm in a female-dominant population again, it seems...

Edit: WHOAAAAA, this is my 666th post! This is the blog entry of THE BEAST!