Qivaros

An education is an education:

The connotations of ‘college’

By Natalie Serafini

was recently conversing with a

woman about the classes that I’m

taking at Douglas College, and
‘how much I’m enjoying exploring
the various options available to me.
I said that I wanted to “find myself”
at Douglas, and she said: “As long as
it’s just for one year! That’s a mother
talking.”

My own mother downright
encourages me to take as long as I need
to figure out who I am, who I want
to be, and what I want to do. I’m not
exactly sitting on my posterior enjoying
the good life, and my parents aren’t

have an old soul). I’m mature enough
that I can figure out for myself how I
want to spend my life. The smartest
thing I could have possibly done
straight out of high school was to attend
Douglas College.

I know that college is what’s best
for me at this stage in my life, but
it’s still frustrating that it has such a
negative connotation. I don’t know
anyone at Douglas that doesn’t have
a ridiculous course load on top of
working and trying to have a social life,
so it’s not like people come to Douglas
to slack off. Even if this is some
students’ idea of taking a year off, isn’t
that their prerogative?

“It boils down to the fact that an education is an education. It doesn’t
matter where you get it, whether it’s in a college classroom with 30

other students, or a university lecture hall with over 200. What matters

is what you get out of your education and your experiences.”

wishing that I’d get the hell out of their
house and into the world. Never mind
the fact that spending a few years at
university trying to figure all this out
would have meant spending thousands
of dollars more for a less personal
experience.

I have been told many times that I
was born middle-aged and keep getting
older (I think when people suggest
this, they are referring to my affinity
for slippers, Scrabble, and tendency to
run across the street like I just had a
hip replacement. I prefer to think that I

I have to confess to being more
than a little insulted by the insinuation
that I am so mono-faceted that I
could find myself within a year. How
mundane, bland, regular, transparent,
boring, flat, monotonous, tedious, roll-
your-eyes unbearable would I have to
be to have myself figured out within a
year? Most people are multi-faceted,
and I would go ahead and include
myself in that category.

It boils down to the fact that an
education is an education. It doesn’t
matter where you get it, whether it’s

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#0 << ee ew

in a college classroom with 30 other
students, or a university lecture hall
with over 200. What matters is what
you get out of your education and
your experiences. There’s more than

 

 

     

one kind of education out there. I’m
not going to spend my entire life at
Douglas, but I don’t think two to four
years is going to hold me back for the
rest of my life.

 

14

 

Seeing the world at waist level: Life in a wheelchair

By Livia Turnbull

very morning when I wake up,
B= brain is in a sleep-induced

haze. When that haze clears, I
realize I’m stuck in bed, only able to
roll around and reach for the books
lying on my bedside table. My “legs”
lie a few feet in front of me, connected
to a charging device. My flesh and
blood legs, although they are somewhat
useable, are unable to walk me to my
true legs—a motorized wheelchair.
Seeing as I cannot spend the whole day
lying around in bed, I call for my mom
to help me transfer to my wheelchair.
Once I’m in my wheelchair, I feel
complete. I finally have my entire body
and the illusion of independence is
placed in my mind for the day.

I say illusion of independence
because even when I am at my
primarily wheelchair-accessible
house, I am still dependent on people
helping me with certain everyday
tasks, like getting dressed. While I
have been trying to learn how to do
this task myself, I still need someone
to help me. Once I’m outside of the
house, everything changes. I have to
look for ramps and avoid curbs, as
my wheelchair cannot go up curbs by

itself. When going to a new building,

I always have to make sure that the
building in question is wheelchair
accessible. Otherwise, obviously, I will
not be able to get into the building.

However, I am still not out of
the woods once I’m in the building.
Sometimes ‘wheelchair-accessible’
washroom stalls are only a couple
inches wider than a regular stall,
which means that there is no room
for my wheelchair, my attendant, and
myself. And, if there are tables in this
particular building, I am usually not
able to get as close to the table due to
the table post being in my way.

But being in a wheelchair is not
all that bad; of course, this may be
because being in a wheelchair is the
only experience I have known. I got to
meet people with conditions similar to
mine in a sport called power-soccer,
which is soccer played with motorized
wheelchairs. Plus, by meeting other
people in wheelchairs, I get some insight
into how people live with different
conditions, such as muscular dystrophy
and other forms of cerebral palsy. So
while some days I curse being in a
wheelchair, I look at myself and realize
that life could be a whole lot worse.