The SBL/AAR conference was an extremely positive experience for me. I found some links online to articles for students about how to get the most out of conferences, but I didn’t get much chance to read them ahead of time. So I just threw myself in with abandon and treated it the way I do ACB or NFB events. I wrote down everything that possibly interested me ahead of time, and I found that there were many conflicts. So I narrowed down to the most interesting choice. It was very hard and very much emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of my thinking and study. This was a frustration to me since I could determine in those meetings that each group was very close-knit and I will never be able to participate in that manner. But I decided to not worry about this for the moment and take away what I could.
The conference events were spread among six hotels and the convention center. I am blind; and and I rely on traffic patterns and environmental cues to enable me to determine my location when traveling in town. Without some prior knowledge of the area, it would have been difficult to impossible for me to do this in San Francisco. There were places where streets met at angles, there was little to no traffic which I could have used to judge light patterns, no audible signals, etc. There were many pedestrians–and as is often while the case in urban areas, they did not always pay attention to the way before them. My dog guide (Loretta) worked very well, but this did not keep a person from smacking into me head on. There is only so much Loretta can do.
My dad went with me as an assistant. He was a great help in getting to and from things, finding food options, etc. It was challenging to find food that I could eat since I have numerous allergies. I have an autoimmune disease similar to rheumatoid arthritis; and I had a great amount of joint pain while I was there. I learned that I can persevere when necessary. I also learned the importance of respecting my body’s need for down time.
Each conference session was two and a half hours long. This was not overly taxing for me–seminary classes are three hours long. There were also two-hour sessions in the late afternoon. In every case, I ended up eliminating the late afternoon session. I did not want to do this–I would have benefitted from those sessions. I later found some print publications that offered material similar to the content from the sessions. It is not the same as getting the interaction live; but sometimes I need to weigh the importance of the content against the importance of the interaction, the likelihood that I would be noticed, and the stress on my body at the time. There will be a time later when the need for interactions will be greater for me, and I will have to tax my body more seriously.
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