Review of 2009 > Hopes for 2009

It's 2009  so I wanted to wish all readers a happy new year and wish you all a happy, healthy year filled with great stuff!

I also thought I should write some kind of reflection on 2008 and my hopes for 2009, so here it goes.

2008 started with a new relationship, which at the time was fantastic, however 6 months later it became very apparent that it was wrong for both of us to continue how we where, we where in hindsight simply too different; that was the end of that. At the time devastating but now it was the right thing to happen.

The first half of the year was pretty mundane, I was ticking over at college, with a unconditional offer I didn't NEED to be there, naturally motivation to continue diminished, leaving me running at tick over, putting in lots of effort was pointless.

Of course lets not forget that for the first half of the year I was in the deep, darkness of major depression trying to find an anti-depressant that worked for me and wondering if I would ever be the same person again. I went on some horrible meds in this time that made me ill or seemed to improve my condition for a few weeks and then caused me to drop back down with a big bump, I remained on the end of a very long waiting list for further treatment on the NHS, and felt rubbish!  

Eventually my fantastic (now former) GP got me on the right medication for me, everyone is different and it takes time to find these things, but things started to look up.

Then in May I got a phone call that has completely changed my life,  a call form Guide Dogs to say they thought they had a match for me, the match of course being Gus who you will all know the story of.

At the end of June, begging of July Gus and I trained and my life changed hugely for the better, he really is guide dog of the year material!

Not only did this mark the start of me and my boy it marked the end of college and time to start preparing for the move to university, big but positive changes where afoot.

September saw the start of university which is fantastic, breaking news day which was utterly terrifying but probably good, and meeting all the new people. Gus and I continue to have a fantastic time at univeristy, I think Gus sometimes wishes there where more dogs at university to play with but over all he loves it.

( HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY NEW UNI BUDDIES!! see you Monday.)

Sadly 2008 also saw the end of my guest blogging for Ouch! I hope to be able to do more stuff with the team in the future but for now I am incredibly thankful for the opportunities they gave me as a teenager with no idea what to do with there life they helped me to find my path and follow it!

So what about 2009? 

I have many hopes for the year, my first of which is to try and be less of a complete wuss, I need to have more confidence in my writing ability, not something that can be done over night by anymeans but a year should be a start.

I hope to be off my anti-depressants by the end of 2009, I am now in recovery but the medication I am on is rather a high dose and highly addictive, so this is more of a challenge than it may seem to some, I am determined to get there and hope that 2009 will see me in a true state of recovery!

I hope Gus has a healthier new year, that is accident free and good for him.

I all ready have a lot of things planned for the new year, lots of which you will probably hear about here first so I would also like to take a moment to thank you all for reading this crap!

Guitar hero for the DS (lite) review

Initial impressions look good; the grip that controls the game play looks solid and securely fits against then hand. However I found to securely fit the grip to my hand using the Velcro strap it was best to hold the grip without the DS attached.



One you are comfortably attached to the grip it is then simply (with the DS lite) the case of inserting the connecter into the game boy advanced slot.


Then your ready to start, wait where’s the pic? This was my other issue, I keep putting on the grip without taking the pic out of its holder, it is then slightly tricky to remove the pic in situ but it’s a minor issue.

Game play at first seems impossible, although the in game tutorials are a great help.


In easy mode it was possible to complete all 25 of the stages within about 4 hours. The easy mode does not however utilise all the keys, the blue key (for a right handed user this is the blue key) is left to one side. Easy mode is not challenging but gives you that warm fuzzy feeling that you have within 4 hours completed the game in the first mode!

All other levels (medium, hard and expert) use all 4 keys including the dreaded blue key.

This is where the pain sets in!

In honesty the game puts you in a completely unnatural position, forcing you to perform repetitive movements, that are equally unnatural.

Pain is inevitable, there are a few in game tips on avoiding the dreaded repetitive strain injury (RSI or should that be DSI!) but in reality there is little you can do.

From the options menu it is possible to select lefty mode, this flips the screens so that the console can be held the other way up with the left hand strumming and the right hand in the grip. When the pain set in I attempted to play in lefty mode, which for me as a right-handed person was impossible. Moral of the story, don’t try and be left-handed if you are not.

Over all the game is highly addictive, the increasing difficulty levels drag you in and keep you hooked, as soon as you start you don’t want to stop. That is of course until the pain becomes too much and you are forced to stop as you can no longer press the buttons. On a serious note the safety of this game does concern me, I followed all of the health and safety suggestions and all I can say is my hand hurts and my little finger does not want to work.

Merry christmas one and all!

I just really wanted to wish all the readers of DOAM a vary merry festive season, no matter what it is your celebrating or if your not!

 

So anyway its Christmas eve tomorrow and I shall be spending vast amounts of time rapping everyone's presents, as I generally haven’t yet. 

 

I'm like a very immature big kid at Christmas I love it, and as usual I am very excited I love the whole thing with presents and can honestly say I like watching other people opening their presents probably more than my own and seeing how pleased they are with what I brought time. (Hopefully) 

 

Of course the sheer excitement of not knowing what is wrapped in the shiny paper is all to much for me, I love shiny things because they are really easy to see and catch the eye so all the wrapping paper gets me very excited as soon as I see a present I want to open it! 

 

I have to also confess that I have brought myself a little Christmas present in the form of a very shiny and very lime green trimmed cricket bat. Its a very nice but not to expensive Kookaburra bat with lime green livery and grip, so hopefully when it is on the sidelines I will be able to find it easily, also it was available with a long handle and choice of weights so that is also good, it will probably be waiting for me back at halls. The only slight downside is that I will be missing the next training session because I will be in Paris so I don’t get to give it a spin for 2 months!

Cricket video

my dad has just revealed that he took a video of me practising batting at blind cricket so here it is. He did not know how the zoom worked so i shall inform you that I am the pink thing.

I heart blind cricket!

I’m happy, I just came back from blind cricket and it was really good.

As you may already know I am a very sporty person despite being very unfit and all my bone issues.

Anyway cricket today was really good, I did really well, I really struggle with bowling, and I’m not really strong enough to throw the ball the entire length of the crease. So this time rather than trying and solely focusing on trying to get the ball to the target, the coach told me to come about 4 feet further forward, so I did.

The result was amazing! I got 2 bowlers out and was 100% more accurate. Now I am forgetting about my pride and shall just move forward!

My batting was also really consistent which was good, we did not score many runs in my partnership but we both where hitting well.

So I think I have found my sports calling, there is still a very special place in my heard for woman’s football but its not something I can compete in.

I love cricket, I do however currently have a slight problem I have not got my own bat, so this means I use my clubs bats, there bats are perfectly adequate and fine but it does mean I get a different bat each time I play, I might use say 4 in a session.

This is a bit of a problem as it means I am using bats that are different weights, are different sizes and have different grips and handle lengths.

That means it makes batting really difficult as all cricket players will know all of the things I have mentioned will affect my batting posture and swing.

So I am now saving up to buy a bat, I need one that is standard size with a long handle I have decided so I will be shopping around for either a really cheap one or a second hand one or one in a sale. Probably can’t afford to buy a new one although that would be nice.

Disability Discrimination-it's still happening

Today I went out for a lovely meal with one of my very best friends, we had a great time and it was very nice over in Gunwarf Quays this evening. There was a brass band playing Christmas hymns lights up everywhere and a generally nice Christmas atmosphere. However all of my Christmas spirit disappeared thanks to a security guard. 

I was in Boots in Gunwarf, when the security guard asked me to leave, repeatedly.   I had done absolutely nothing wrong, I was stood with my friend looking at toothbrushes, and Gus was sitting at my side good as gold.

The security Guard came over and pointed at Gus and said ‘not allowed in here’, his English was by all accounts terrible.   I explained that Gus is a Guide dog and that he is allowed in shops, the security guard, either did not understand or simply ignored me pointed again and said ‘not allowed in here’.

At this point I informed the guard that he was breaking the law and asked to speak to the manager. He said that the manager was not there and walked off.

This is the first time I have ever been asked to leave a shop, and it was because of one member of staff’s complete lack of disability awareness.

It really upset me, big time; I was shaking with a mixture of anger and sorrow at the time. I will be phoning the manager tomorrow morning to inform her of what has happened.

It really hit home also that I know some Guide Dog owners face this kind of discrimination every day, everyday they are stopped from going about there business by peoples complete lack of understanding.

Given all the press coverage that The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) has got all over Brittan and the steps that companies have to take to make sure there services are accessible I am disgusted.

This example proves that disability discrimination is still a problem in the UK.

Asking me to leave with my guide dog is just the same as asking a wheelchair user to leave their wheelchair outside.

As a major chain Boots should know better, they should be training all their staff in all aspects of The DDA. Furthermore their staff should be able to communicate in and understand English, as I am sure this contributed to the issue I faced today.

Well there we have it a day ruined by the misunderstanding of one person.

I am a very passionate campaigner for disability rights and do all I possibly can to educate people on my own disability so that hopefully they can gain a better understanding of the barriers faced by people who are VI.

I thought we had moved on passed the stage where people are regularly removed from shops due to the presence of an assistance dog, apparently I am mistaken.

Panic over

Well panic over as of  last night our internet connection and phone line are back up and running, I hear however we are the lucky ones as many people still have no phone line.

Really put into perspective how much I use the internet for everything, I was without connection for 2 days and struggled to cope.