Right Place, Wrong Time

By Nicole Mason

I have been legally blind with Juvenile Macular Degeneration since I was fifteen. Five years later I am still learning how to adjust to it. The center part of my vision is almost gone and I cannot read regular size print or do close up work. Being legally blind, I do not need a dog or a cane and so I do not fit in the sighted or the blind world.

I was taking a summer class, Women's Studies, at a university other than the one I normally attend, over the summer. I received a paper in the mail stating that the class was held Tuesday and Thursday in the evening, at certain room number. After double checking myself with a posting of the room numbers, I headed up to the class. When I walked in I was amazed to see the number of men willing to take a Women's Studies class, I brushed it off as to being the late nineties and that maybe times were changing.

A while later I noticed that there was one other woman in the class, and she had taken out thick textbook. I was not able to read the title but I assumed that she had another class before this one, since we have two paperback books for the class.

Five minutes later the professor came in, and it was a man. I now knew that something was not right, there was no way that a male professor was teaching a women's class to a group of men. I was sure I had the right day and time and I did not know what to do.

I should have slipped out then but while I was arguing with myself on what to do next the professor got out a laptop and introduced himself as the professor of Macroeconomics! As he began to take attendance I slipped out of the class to double check the day and time. I realized that I really could not read the posting as well as I thought and sought out the registrar. When finding the registrar she told me that the class was held on Monday and Wednesday in the same class I was just in. I was so embarrassed I did not even explain myself but walked out.

On the way to the pay phone to ask for a ride home I realized that it is more difficult than I thought to live in a sighted world and still retaining some of my sight. I learned that day that I should double check with others if I am not sure on something. It is not impossible to live in a sighted world; it is just a matter of adjusting to it as best as one can.

[Nicole, who seems very wise beyond her years, is also the author of "Ignorance is Expensive" (Oct. 98).]