The only things I had with me outside were my communication devices, my wheelchair, and a sleeping bag. People did try to steal my wheelchair at some point while I was sleeping, but backed off and ran away when they realized I had my leg wrapped around it. Plus there were two of us out there, which meant that during the daytime someone could always stand watch. So miraculously nothing of ours got stolen, although I think if we’d have been out there much longer we’d have had to either move locations or we’d have been in real trouble.

I’ve by no means had the experience of being fully homeless, as in not having a place to store my possessions. Some of my friends have, and you may be confusing me with them.

have to admit that i was placed in ‘remedial’ phys ed class (weightlifting, of all the horrible punishments!) for failing the presidential fitness test in high school.
i will probably never forgive the gym teachers for letting the great majority of the class (those who passed) play FLOOR HOCKEY during the weeks that we ‘losers’ were in the weight room, floor hockey being the only gym-class sport that was fun for me.
i suppose the multiple people i would have hit (i was somewhat random at hockey) were grateful, though.

i have since tried running (that was fun but i don’t think my knees could take it now), kung-fu (a great failure, because i can’t remember the moves fast enough) and would like to try soccer, just because i am sort of a fan and i find it an elegant sport (o jogo bonito). but where can a nearly 34 y/o female who is not any good (yet?) play soccer? there are “old farts'” leagues, but they expect you to be athletic. i can tell from the shape of the person who invited me.

PS: dig the yellow chuck taylors, Amanda!

How come you managed to hold onto yours, given all the abuse you’ve been through in institutions and on the streets? Who looks out for your stuff when you’re in meltdowns?

Going by where I remember aching after doing abysmally on that same test, the muscles used in a pull-up are different from the ones I use to lift stuff. – Given that there are only so many ways to safely lift objects, I imagine that’s generally applicable. ..Now I’m going to have to find a horizontal bar somewhere and test that again.

There would be an item of something I might or might not do, and the staff would have to rate it in one of four ways. For instance:

1 = Never or rarely
2 = Sometimes
3 = Always

Or something like that.

And there would be statements like:

1. Says hello and goodbye appropriately.

The staff would have to fill in how often I did these things without assistance.

As it turned out, everything under communication was one of those things I don’t do. Saying hello and goodbye. Using various social niceties. Telling people when something hurts. Etc. Things I just cannot do in realtime.

Which actually makes sense, since the test was supposed to measure “useful” things as “useful” is defined by various bureaucracies. The academics section of the test was likewise about whether I could apply academic knowledge in real-world settings, not about whether I understood things. (Which was how it should have been, actually, for that test, since the test was about getting into services, meaning about practically applied stuff, not knowledge stuff.)

But I still find getting the lowest score possible for communication slightly ridiculous.

In other words, just as my body is not shaped in a way where sticking my legs a foot apart and measuring how far I can move my arms past them would be a reasonable measure of my flexibility, measuring certain parts of communication that I happen to really suck at doesn’t accurately measure my overall communication skills.

In the few chances we *did* have to show off our actual skills, like on nature hikes and so forth, people always expressed amazement at how far we could walk, as the assumption seemed to be that if you can walk, it follows in some linear fashion that running a mile will also be easy for you. Then this would be used as proof that we were supposedly “holding back” from demonstrating our “real skills,” and could actually run, catch balls, be flexible in the way they had defined as flexible, etc, if we “really wanted to” or if we would “just believe we could do it.” Of course, we never could.

The last time we took a standardized test, we ended up telling the doctor who was administering it (who was an utter, arrogant ass) that it wasn’t fair to time the tests, as it made people anxious and how fast you could do something wasn’t an indication of how *well* you could do it. He replied, “Well, *most people* agree that speed of completion is related to intelligence.” ‘Most people’– who are ‘most people’? Public opinion is not a guide. ‘Most people,’ historically, have believed a lot of things with little relation to the truth.

…also, it’s interesting how many people will concede that maybe there are *some* people whom standardized tests don’t work on, but then continue to insist that such tests and that concepts of general skill or general intelligence are accurate ways to judge ‘most people.’ (Again with the ‘most people’– I’m starting to wonder who these mythical ‘most people’ actually are. It’s like the .5 child that most families evidently have.)