Bloggers – Page 6 – Well Eye Never

Room 101 – My Visually Impaired Frustrations

For this post, I thought I’d do something a bit like the TV show Room 101 (where celebrities nominate their pet hates to be locked away forever). It’s named after the torture chamber in George Orwell’s novel 1984, which is said to contain “the worst thing in the world”. We also had a Room 101 at my college which was rather memorable, because it was the examinations office! So that felt both appropriate and ominous!

So I wanted to do a post along those lines, using it as an excuse to list some things that frustrate or irritate me because I have a visual impairment. I’ve also made a Youtube video to accompany it. It’s not at all intended to be offensive or to upset anyone, and I’m not a negative or moaning person. I’m actually very positive, as I’ve hopefully conveyed throughout this blog. But it’s nice to get some things off your chest now and again, and to try and spread a bit of awareness in the process.

So here are 10 things that frustrate me as a visually impaired person, which either affect me directly or have an impact on my friends and family. I could think of more, but this is plenty. If you’ve done any of these things, please don’t feel bad about them. We all make mistakes without meaning to, that’s life and that’s fine. All I ask is that you take it on board for future reference.

Barking Up The Right Track

While looking online for things to do in London, and other places I might want to travel to, I came across the excellent videos by Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe that have been published by Londonist and on Geoff’s own channel. These include videos about secrets of the Underground, the least used stations in the country, facts about London, vlogs and more.

So railways are a big passion of theirs, but they’re not trainspotters either, and you don’t need to be into trains and railways in a big way to enjoy them. Their videos are accessible, fun and informative, without being nerdy or patronising, as they look more closely at the history and features of the rail network that millions of people use and take for granted on a daily basis.

And right now they’re embarking on their most ambitious project yet, called All The Stations, which is the reason behind my latest outing this weekend.

Sight Village 2016

Last week I had to go up to London for a couple of days, so I took the opportunity to spend a long afternoon exploring Sight Village, an exhibition showcasing products, services and organisations for visually impaired people. Their main show each year is in Birmingham, but they also have roadshows in Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, in this case, London. So I thought I’d do a write-up bout my visit. Which, fair warning, is quite long! But I’ve added headings throughout to split it up, in case you want to jump to any part in particular. So I hope you find it interesting. 🙂

Journal – October-November 2016 (London Visit)

Welcome back to my latest journal posts. There wasn’t anything worth writing about in September, but recent weeks have been pretty eventful.

Down in Devon I’ve been to a stand-up comedy show with some work colleagues, and there are updates on our house sale too. I’ve also paid another visit to our new place in London, where my Aunt gave me a little tour of the local area, I went to the Sight Village exhibition and an aniridia meetup, I oversaw the installation of a broadband line for homeworking, and I made contact with a fellow blogger I’ve been following for a while. So I hope you enjoy it all!

Guide Dogs

In this post and video I want to talk about guide dogs and assistance dogs, in support of Guide Dogs Week (1st-9th October). They are amazing and beautiful animals who make such a huge difference to their owners, and they should be treated with the utmost respect, without any discrimination. I’ve also published an extended cut of the guide dog footage I’ve used in the video if you want to check that out too.

Getting A Job

As a follow-up to my School Days video last month, I thought I’d also write about how I got a job after graduating from university.

My degree was in accounting and finance (in which I got a 2:1), so naturally I was looking for work in that field. It was the area that interested me most, and my degree would allow me to skip some of the exams of the official accounting bodies, which would be a great help.

My graduation photo. I'm wearing a dark navy suit and tie, with light blue strap around the neck, and a mortar board on my head. I'm smiling while holding a rolled up certificate tied with a red ribbon.

But I was also open to other ideas and possibilities as well, if any came up. I knew that just having a degree in itself would be useful, even if it wasn’t directly related to the job I eventually went for. So I didn’t feel I wanted to restrict myself too much, just in case.

Audio Description On Youtube

In this post and video I want to describe what audio description is, how it is useful for the blind and visually impaired, and why it’s high time we should be able to add it to Youtube videos. This is in support of the #AudioDescribeYT campaign, launched by James Rath.

The Liebster Award

I hadn’t heard of the Liebster Award before I started blogging, but it seems to be a fun way of promoting other bloggers. The basic idea is that you answer the questions you’ve been asked, then nominate a few other bloggers and give them some questions to answer. And I’ve been very kindly nominated by The Invisible Vision Project – thank you so much! 🙂 They’ve also nominated Nataemily and Blind Moving On, whose blogs I also recommend checking out.

So here are my answers to the questions I’ve been asked, followed by my questions for the bloggers I nominate at the end.

TMI Tag

I saw the “Too Much Information” tag yesterday, so for this post I thought it would be fun to give it a go as well. I hope you like my answers, and feel free to answer the questions yourself as well! 🙂

Audiobooks

I’ve written previously about the importance of music and audio description, so I also want to post about the use of audio for books too. After all, books don’t just have to be printed on paper or displayed on a screen – a huge number of them have audio versions as well. They are particularly useful for visually impaired people of course, but sighted people can (and do) listen to them as well. I don’t personally use them very much – music, TV, films and the internet take up enough of my time where entertainment is concerned – but my mother listens to them a lot, and I do listen to one or two occasionally.

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