Category Archives: Me, Myself, and I

Denied

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I haven’t posted anything in over a month.  Even Google has written me off.  My apologies for the absence.  It has been a tumultuous couple of months.  I don’t enjoy admitting what I’m about to admit, but in order for you to understand what I’m talking about, I feel that I must tell you folks what has been going on in my life.

After repeated job declinations, I went down to the local Disability office and applied for Disability.  I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d have to do such a thing, but the sun doesn’t shine on the same dogs arse everyday.  In the middle of July, I went down to the office and handed the lady that was interviewing me a two page list of conditions and ailments that I have and another list of doctors that could corroborate my story.  It has been almost six months and everything that I stated has been verified.

I was not brought up to take from the government.  My father recited JFK’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country”.  I grew up in a house where we didn’t want the government intruding upon our lives.  My family shells out six figures a year in taxes to the state alone.  I thought that I had paid in a considerable amount as well.  In my naive stupidity, I reckoned that my country cared about my well being and would help me out during these trying times. 

All I really wanted was assistance until I can finish up my degree, but the fact is that they really don’t give a damn.  I’m not Black, I’m not Hispanic, I’m not Asian, and I’m not enough Native American to claim it.  So, what it comes down to is the fact that I’m a disabled white man that is supposed to pay for every one else to sit on their fat arses.  And, I’m supposed to work my fingers to the bone so a minority or an immigrant can go to college (no offense to my friends and folks I call family overseas, but you all would get free college over here.) and barely pass.

My GPA for this semester is 3.75.  It’s not perfect, but I try really hard and study for hours on end.  I’m a hard worker.  All I’ve ever expected is the chance to succeed and move up the social ladder.  However, this is not what one receives when one works his or her arse off.  Several months ago I went in for a job interview to do Audits for a large commercial company.  Trying to be honest, when the application asked if I was disabled, I checked the yes box.  Big freakin’ mistake.  The lad half my age asked me why I marked that box, so I tried to downplay it and said that I’ve always excelled past anything anyone has ever asked for me.  After a few minutes of asking me questions, he looked over at me, and asked, “Why don’t you take a job as a cashier or janitor like other disabled people?”

I wanted to knock him the feck out, but kept my composure and left after he said he’d keep me on file.  This past week has been a hectic one.  I asked everyone to do their best to leave me alone, so I could properly prepare for finals.  Of course, they did not.  I should have just said I’m free all week  On Tuesday, the day of one of my hardest written exams, I had to go with my cousin to work on a house for me Mum.  Now, I love me Mum and would do anything for her, but it was a bad time to be asking me to paint and install tile flooring.  Dr. Don and myself finished up about two in the afternoon and I came home. 

When I arrived home, I noticed that the mail lady had been here.  With hesitation, I checked the mailbox to see if I had received a letter from the disability office.  By chance, there was a letter in there from them.  I hesitated in opening it, but I did anyway.  I was hoping and praying to get the assistance, so I could finish school unimpeded, but alas, it was a denial letter. 

I called them up and said, “Let me get this straight, I applied for a gub’mint job and couldn’t get it because I’m too blind, but when I ask for assistance as a last resort, I’m not blind enough.”

My vision was just one wee thing on the application, yet they used it as an excuse to deny me.  Yes, I’m a Southern American and I’m Caucasian.  So the feck what?  Look, I’m not a xenophobe.  However, when I’ve seen blatant evidence that minorities are treated better than the rest of us, I tend to get cross!  I used to work with a chap that was Hispanic.  The government paid for his University fees as well as giving him rent and food money equalling about $1100 a month. 

Everyone should be on a level playing field when it comes to jobs and education.  When I finished secondary school, there was no free access to third level education.  Parents of all races and cultures had to save for a long time to send their kids to college.  As it is in the states now, if you’re an immigrant or are anything other than Caucasian, you can go to school for free and have free lodging and food.

I’m not a racist.  I’m just stating the facts as I see them.  We are in hard times.  I realise that.  All I was asking for was assistance for the next few years so I can finish University and make a difference in this world.  But, they couldn’t do that.

I have a new outlook thanks to this denial.  The US government can fuck off!  I will always support the troops, policeman, and fire-fighters, but the politicians and greedy officials can screw somebody else over.  I, and my family, have been screwed over enough!  Don’t ask me for another mother fecking thing, government.  Fuck off with ya.

My sister said it best the other day as we were shopping.  She said, “Everyone from doctors to family and friends have called you retarded and written you off.  You’ve out lived some of them and have done more in the last six years than any of them have in a lifetime.”

I will succeed.  I will hike through rain, sleet, and snow. I will climb the highest peaks and never give up. 

Do you know what happens when you kick a Mutt?  He comes back stronger than ever and chews your effing leg off!

Have a grand week all…

17/10/11

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Today, I went to class and took tests in Criminal Justice and Criminology (sociological perspective of criminal behavior.). I came home and took another d*mn test. I’ve been playing with the new version of Linux Mint ever since I finished my homework. It’s been a fairly boring day. A fairly boring month, if I must admit it. Luckily, Linux Mint and blogilo have been keeping me entertained. And, I’ve managed to sign up for Spring 2012 classes.

In the morning I have Forensics and Criminal Law tomorrow night. I thoroughly enjoy both of those classes and am looking forward to publishing my final papers. The major I’m seeking is grand, but it does have its drawbacks.

I have said in the past that I lead a boring life. Now you know the truth! I hope to have something worth your reading by the end of the week. Have a grand week all…

Muttering

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What have I been up to?  I know the lot of you are just sitting at your RSS readers every morning in anticipation of my scribbling’s.  Okay, maybe not.  I have been up to utterly nothing except studying and writing papers for my criminal law courses.  Sounds like fun, aye?  Actually, I quite enjoy doing research, but there are always deadlines. 

So, I’ve been rushing from one deadline to the next in an endless vacuum of studious discipline.  Everyone thinks I’m a genius, but I’m far from it.  I just work harder than a lot of them and I have experience they don’t.  Education is life long and vital to survival in todays world.  Even Farmers are learning graphic design and business techniques in order to sell their products in a world market.  I’m the oldest fecker in all of my classes, yet I’m the fastest at spitting out math calculations.  My 16 year-old sister takes two to three times as long to calculate a solution than I do.  What does that say about the youth?  And, I’m supposed to be a complete blabbering idiot. 

There are quite a few things, however, that I have a hard time with.  The upside is that I have some gorgeous co-eds that help me and I help them.  They help me study and I review their papers.  I’d like to review more, but we have an understanding.  And, I’m getting to the age that I want to settle down with one woman, not two or three (as entertaining as that sounds).  Smile

On Thursday of this past week, the courses I’m taking hit home.  I have Forensic Science on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  It’s an absolutely blast.  The lab is filled with all sorts of fun toys for the enquiring mind.  There’s a gas chronometer, a comparison microscope (for comparing brass striations), a fingerprint scanner, a super glue vapour chamber, an electromagnetic footprint analyser, guns, and all sorts of other cool toys.  It’s a fun class, but Thursday’s class was disturbing.

The Professor had some detectives from the homicide division come over to give us a wee seminar on forensics in the crime scene.  What we ended up seeing was videos and photos of rotting corpses, gun shot wounds, and people that had blown their heads off.  It was very disturbing and horrific.  About half the class either left gagging or crying.  I stayed because I’ve got to be Mr Macho, but I kind of wish I hadn’t have.  I’ve seen a lot in my day, but nothing like seeing a guys head blown clean off and bits of him all over the room he was in. 

When I got out of school Thursday afternoon, I found out that my sisters house had been broken into.  So, I had to go help clean up and board up the window the thieves used to get in.  I crime scene tech was at her house, when I arrived.  We talked about crime scenes and I watched him dust for prints.  I made sure he did it right!  Pricks wore gloves though. 

It has been a fairly boring weekend filled with Tests and one car show.  Everyone loves the Beetle!  The old hippies and the kids alike love my ‘66 Beetle.  In fact, I was driving down the road the other day and a guy hung his head out of his truck at a red-light and said, “Long live the 60’s, man…Rock on”.  It was hilarious!

I’ve got to go study for a test in the morning.  Have a grand week all…

pickens5

X

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University life is a grand one, but it does have its irritations.  I have a Professor that goes on a tirade at least once a week.  It usually has something to do with how the younger generation does not respect authority nor do they respect themselves.  I agree with most of that, but do I have to hear it every freaking week for half an hour?  Instead of going over the material that he’s paid to go over, he rants on and on about how people wear hats inside buildings and they are not supposed to or how young men wear the waist of their britches down at their knees.  I agree with this as well, but do I have to hear it?!

This past week he hit one of my buttons.  However, he did insult the Y “Millennium” Generation first.  He said that the “X” Generation is the do nothing generation.  He said the X’s didn’t achieve much of anything and didn’t surpass their parents.  It’s kind of hard to surpass my father, when he came from hardly nothing and ended up a mogul!  I rather not say what I’d have to make in order to surpass my father (the gub’mint is watching, you know?), but it’s a damn lot!  It weighs on my shoulders everyday.  I’m the first born.  It’s my responsibility to outdo him.

I reminded some of the students who were snickering in the background that the social media that they cannot live without was invented by generation X.  I reminded the professor that the fancy computer software that he uses was developed gen-x.  We’ve accomplished a lot, but we did it in the background.  Those baby boomers have to have all of the attention. 

When I defended Gen-X, he asked when I was born.  Curled up in a bashful ball, I whispered, “72”.  He finally got back to the material.  Classrooms in todays Universities are so obtuse and rigid.  Some of the Professors allow more discourse between them and the students, but it is getting rare these days.  They tend to want everything written in the style they choose.  By now, I understand that there has to be order, but too much rigidness is a bad thing, at least for me.  I have a rebellious nature that is unending.  This does not set well with Professors that are former Law Officials.  Smile

My father asked me recently when I was going to stop going to school.  He’s surmised that I’ve been going to school since I was five.  I reminded him of the saying that if you’re not learning, you’re dying.  Life is a learning process from the day we are born, ‘til the day we die.  The collegiate life is not an easy one with all of the freaking deadlines and social hiccups, but it is worth it.

All in all, it’s not a bad life.  I go in every weekday morning to discover lass’ glimmering smiles.  I give advice and hold secrets.  This comes in handy when you need a favour.  Everyone thinks I’m a genius because I make good grades, but as I’ve explained to them a dozen times, I just study harder than they do.  Good grades take dedication.

I’ll be back later this week, maybe, to ramble about something.  I leave you with “Young Glass”, by Hey Rosetta!

Poetic Justice

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A friend asked me the other day why I, a person that understands humanity far better than most, would study criminal law.  This person said that the system is as corrupt as the criminals.  I agreed to a certain extent but then asked a simple question.  “Ever heard the saying, keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer?”

The only way to fix the system is from the inside.  I’d be the happiest man alive, if I could spend my time writing prophetically and poetically.  If you could add photography to the context, I’d be as happy as a Banker horse running free amongst the sand dunes of the North Carolina Outer Banks.  Just like those horses that used to roam uninhibited, we too are not entirely free.  Everyone has baggage and everyone has responsibilities that inhibit our desires to roam free.

I have known for quite a while that I must move in this direction.  Too many good people are getting reamed by the system, while the most insidious characters in society manage to slither away unscathed.  The system is broken and must be repaired the right way.  Greed is a large part of why the system is broke.  I want to make sure that the punishment fits the crime.  Part of the reason why so many bad people walk free is because they know the system better than those that enforce it.  My criminalistics professor said today that police cadets only spend 3 hours out of the 12 weeks in school going over forensic science.  The cops know less than the criminals.  That needs to change!

Once I get my bachelors, there’s a minute chance that I’ll go to law school.  I live for the little people.  Who are the first two groups of people to get screwed over when the economy tanks or anytime for that matter?  The disabled and the elderly!  There has always been one constant in my life.  I live to stand up for those that cannot stand up for themselves.  The times that I have stood up for those that either didn’t know how or were too scared to stand up for themselves glisten like lanterns on lifes path.

With more knowledge comes more responsibility,  but more importantly, more ability.  I have been “Disabled” my entire life and at times have felt disenfranchised by the system.  I want to make sure that disabled people have the chance to a full education and a job they deserve with that education.  I had a potential employer tell me recently that the company he was hiring for could not afford to be liable for me.  He said I was too much of a risk, being blind in one eye and having little depth perception.  I had another guy tell me that I should just get a cashiering job like most disabled people.  I told him to go fuck himself and left.  I don’t “Look” disabled but I’m certainly not going to deny that I have disabilities. 

Whether I stay in the criminal realm or move over to civil law is unknown at this stage.  One thing is for certain, I’m too rebellious and different to ever be corrupted.  And, I’m much too honest to ever be a politician.  I live by one motto, Facta Non Verba.  if we all lived by God’s laws, we’d have no need for our own. 

I’m going to attempt to do two or three post a week to help clear my mind of all of the law jargon that I have soak up during the week.  Have a grand weekend all…