Yeah. I plan on asking today if I can get through the DST program and still go back to school in August (while a degree would be great, there are many other things I could get from there that are harder to get elsewhere. Not just minions, but it's easier to obtain minions at college, too.) If I've got time, might as well use it.
Based on yesterday's conversation, the horror stories were pretty accurate for their time. While I'm still in this sticky spot where I'm not getting much out of WSB, I am glad to see they've improved their worst qualities.

(Speaking of using time, I've spent the past 3 hours on the internet. Should probably try to work out the details on applying for an NFB scholarship. Then... I dunno, work on my current game, or something. I use the WSB laundry room as programming space: Wi-Fi doesn't reach there.)

Lol I never really thought of calling it joke/rehab, but I like that! So true too! @Dark: Point well taken. I'm not in the least bit upset by this, but I'd just like to offer up a bit of an explanation of my living situation. Back in late 2002 my parents and I heard about a nonprofit organization that was getting started called Center for Independent Futures. The co-founders of CIF were quite frustrated with the sheer lack of services for people with disabilities offered by our state. All of the co-founders have family members with disabilities. Each participant and resident of CIF has life-skills tutors, who work with us on various daily-living skills. This is based on an Independent Living Readiness Inventory, and mine was conducted at my parents' house. I was basically given various emergency situations during one part of the inventory, and asked how I would respond to these situations. They also assessed some of my other skills, such as traveling inside the house and finding things. I can't remember all the exact details, but I think you get the basic idea. The schedules for these tutors are set by the individuals and their families or other caregivers, and there is generally no government intervention whatsoever. A bit of background on the state of Illinois itself: The state institutionalizes people with disabilities at a very high rate, and the co-founders of CIF wanted to separate themselves and offer up a plan which would give individuals more choices in terms of how their lives would be run. I hope I've explained this well enough. My parents and I sat down with my rehab counselor at the time and asked him for some formal O&M instruction, because we weren't sure yet what my tutor and I would be working on or how much time we'd be spending together. We hadn't even met the tutor yet. That was to be done later. At the time my joke/rehab counselor agreed to put in a request for some formal O&M instruction. However, as we soon found out that formal instruction was not to be. These tutors have since tried working on some of those skills with me, but their schedules just don't allow them to focus on the in-depth training that I need. In my opinion the state of Illinois--and other states with this kind of lousy track record for that matter--should really be ashamed of themselves for not doing anything to better equip people with disabilities with the tools and training needed for a full life. Anyone who wants to learn more, check out http://www.independentfutures.com . The website is not bad in terms of accessibility, but here again state funding does not allow for many improvements.

I've been using the term Joke Rehab for quite a few years now since it pretty much describes most such agencies I've observed. Even those individual counselors who actually care what their clients want to do and would actually be willing to help them try to get there are usually not free to do so, particularly if the client's ambitions fall outside the figurative small boxes the organizations at large consider acceptable careers for blind folks.

Hi everyone. This topic about training centers, O&M instruction and such has gotten me curious about something. I guess I actually have 2 questions here. First of all, for those of you who have been denied formal O&M instruction by your respective state VR agencies, what if anything did/could you do about it? If any of you have, like me, gone to your state Client Assistance Program, what if anything did they tell you? My other question has to do more with the training centers. How is orientation and mobility approached and what is "structured discovery" all about. Somebody on another forum emailed me privately to try and explain it, but the document was inaccessible. I know that there are O&M instructors out there who are visually impaired to one degree or another. I'm not going to give my opinion on this one way or the other, but what I want to know is what method or methods of instruction they use with their students?

I've heard about the high rate of institutionalizing in Illinois. It's a shame, really, but it makes sense. I think it's because it's one of the few states that actually has an apartment complex specifically for the blind, and, if you live there, you don't even have kitchen appliances in your apartment. You have to eat cafeteria food that they provide, from what I understand. Then again, supposedly they work with you on vocational or educational goals, so I don't know what to think. I feel that if a person is elderly, or has multiple disabilities, such a place may be appropriate for them, but the person I know who lives there is intelligent and well-spoken.

Glad I don't live in Illinois then. But those closed-minded individuals are precisely why I don't have many blind friends in my day-to-day offline life.Idaho in particular seems to be a hotbed of blind folks who expect the sighted world to cater to their every need, regardless of whether or not they can actually do things for themselves. Then again that's what often happens when folks join the NFB and become indoctrinated into its extremist idiology.

Yep, that's it. I don't necessarily think that it's a bad thing that it exists, for those who need it, but I can also kind of se how people in your state might direct you there if you ask for any kind of blindness-related services, and that can't be a good thing. As I said, the person I know who lives there seems to enjoy being there, and I'm not going to piss on anyone's parade when it comes to their living situation. What matters most is that you feel safe in your environment, and, if you need that extra level of support for whatever reason, my attitude is, so what? NFB people have torn my friend down when she revealed that she lived there, but I hope she didn't take that too seriously.

Well, that's just it. I think that, far too often, people join the NFB seeking to fill a void in their lives. Don't misunderstand me here; the NFB isn't to blame for this, human psychology is. People join churches for the same reason. Then they devote their entire lives to the "cause", losing themselves in the process, and trying to "convert" others to their newfound "freedom". Take note of all the times I put quotes around words in that paragraph, because, frankly, I think that's unhealthy, whether we're discussing an organization of the blind or a sect of Christianity.
I feel that the NFB should be discouraging this kind of behavior in its members. Christian churches, at least, have the excuse that the Bible teaches one to be dependent on God, and that any straying from that is sinful and so on. But the NFB is trying to encourage independence. I feel that any kind of conversion tactics, not to mention the emotional, rather than logical, reasoning that some members I have encountered have used to try to get me to join, are directly counterproductive to a strong, independent, self-reliant image. I don't consider it a mark of a stable individual if they are literally preaching to me about convention speeches, bursting into tears and telling me over and over about how much the NFB has changed their life, and how I should "stop being skeptical and join." Yes, this happened to me once, and this was the first conversation that I had with the individual in question. Lest you think I'm passing judgment on unstable or mentally ill individuals, I assure you that I'm not--I'm not exactly a posterchild for well-being myself--but that kind of thing will make me back up real fast. Less extreme, but equally irritating, things have happened to me as well in regards to conversion by several different belief systems and organizations. I guess I just don't respond to that kind of thing. I prefer to think for myself, weigh my options, and draw my own conclusions.
I forget if I said any or all of this before, so I apologize if I've repeated myself.

Well said. I vaguely recall my brother being offered NFB scholarships several years ago, which he rejected. Some of the NFB's tactics are certainly not to be taken lightly. I too, have met and heard about a few level-headed Federationists but it seems the majority of them are still hard-core. I recall a phone conversation I had several years ago with a member of the NFB of Illinois who seemed to be pretty level-headed. She was talking about the guy who was their chapter president at the time, and she said he was pretty much a jerk. It just seems that a lot of NFB members still to this day have a "one-size-fits-all" mentality, and I'm sorry folks but that's not how the world works. But on the other hand, I think the Federation has done some good things. An example is Newsline. I've been subscribed to the service for several years. Although I've never been much of a news junky--particularly in lieu of all this violence and hatred--I love Newsline. I was listening to the episode of Eyes on Success yesterday with Scott White, the director of Newsline. He mentioned that 4 states are not registered due to funding. I really hope this situation can be remedied very soon. Well, I'd better get my dishes and grocery list done before my life-skills tutor gets here, or else I'm in deep sh*t. I'm outa here!

So, having completed the program at the Louisiana Center for the Blind, I suppose I have things to add, here.

First of all, I heard a surprising number of anecdotes about how people at other centers think LCB is too hard. TO this I can only say that, if all the others are less demanding, then I'm glad that I wound up at LCB. I also heard anecdotes of people's experiences at other centers, and based on all of this and my own experience, I'm pretty sure it's true. If you're an adult training program, give the student independent routes! Please! If you expect them to be in so much danger that you can't ever leave their side, then that's not helping!

Second, all the NFB trash-talking is simultaneously justified and totally wrong. Under what circumstances would you discover that someone is a member of the NFB? Probably when they tell you. Are the most reasonable members likely to bring it up without an appropriate context? Are they more likely than the ones who are the basis of the stereotypes? Na, probably not. Also I expect there is some (surprisingly small) exaggeration to the stereotypes, seeing as none of these hard core weird blind people rules evangelists ever show up where I can observe them for myself. On the other hand, there was a seminar at LCB that got uncomfortably close to implying that residual vision is a bad thing (nay, it was outright implied, even though they repeatedly disclaimed it explicitly), there are some pretty strong opinions (especially among the staff) about when it is and isn't OK to accept help, etc. Personally I'm staying out of it primarily because it seems contradictory to insist that it's not blindness which defines us, then go to monthly or biweekly meetings all about the fact that we're blind. And also the politics. That never ends well. (And I do mean politics, not advocacy.)

Also, since I started all this research, it seems a ton of so-called Structured Discovery Centers have been popping up all over the US, and it seems like many of them are modeled off the NFB centers, particularly LCB. I consider this a good thing, even if I disapprove of some of their methods and attitudes.

LCB's adult program has, as an end goal, actual independence. Even if they're the best at this in the country, I can't say that they're anywhere near perfect. People sometimes scrape through without actually gaining the skills (Kinda like me in high school and college), people sometimes graduate without being convinced in their ability to live independently, but probably the biggest failure mode is the "OK, so I have all these skills... now what?", which generally ends in someone being trapped in the same crappy home situation from before training. The program's purpose is to teach skills and confidence etc, not to clean up your life for you.
They do have some mechanisms in place to help, and staff students and former students are often more than happy to provide information or write letters or make phonecalls when they have the contacts. Only the "career counseling" is included as part of the package, and not very forcefully. They try to get students into "work study" if the situation permits, demands, or subtly gestures in that direction, write resumes, etc. (Notably the career counselors do not teach anything. I don't know if they'd talk you through writing a resume if you asked, or if that's the sort of thing the technology teachers are suppose to handle.)
I should probably note the pressure to get into high-status jobs, but that's pretty much all of western civilization. But that is a rant for another time.

So, I totally had an answer to "why would you need to demonstrate that you can prepare a meal for 40 people?" a week or two ago, and it has escaped me. So clearly it was not that impressive.
I think, though, that people in general have a hard time thinking in terms of meta skills. No, this is not a term or thing they talked about at LCB; it's more the "I don't want to do that and won't need to do that, therefore the fact that it teaches cross domain skills is invalid" attitude that often comes up. Though, yeah, there aren't a ton of options for how to do these things, which is a common complaint to which I have no objections. (The available options don't really bother me, but even hardcore NFB people coming through training have complained of it.)

So, I can get into specific complaints, like how seminar is usually "meh" at best and it replaces 4 hours of class time each week with 4 hours of sitting in one place, or how apartment instruction is... -_- maybe I will get into that later, but for now that would get away from the main point.

What did I like (besides the food)?
- the trip to the Horseshoe Ranch (in Jasper, Arkansas, if, you know, anyone has some free time and money to blow on wrestling an Ozark mountain). Zip-lining was way less awesome than I expected, horseback riding was worse than I expected and felt pretty pointless TBH, and everything else exceeded expectations. Although, admittedly, I think most people hated the rugged terrain. Given the lack of harassment from wildlife and the very distinct, very broad trails, I felt rather the opposite. The biggest downside is that after adapting to running up and down mountains multiple times a day, my body expressed its disappointment in returning to walking the streets of Ruston by taking it out on my mental state. Apparently, I function best when escalating. This probably explains my positivity toward LCB as a whole.
- The Whitewater Rafting trip in Ocoee, Tennessee was mostly underwhelming, especially the Whitewater Rafting. But that's probably just me. I didn't mind the side trip to Rock City, the ropes course was the best thing about the trip, paintball might have been more interesting if the staff of the facility didn't insist that we stand behind the farthest barricades and never leave, shooting soapballs, and I'd've enjoyed the pool more if the lifeguards hadn't concluded early on that I can't swim and insisted that I stay in an effing intertube (I kept my head in it long enough to swim to the exit, because forget that noise. Also they seemed eager to hand out tubes to everyone. If I want a wave pool, I'm going somewhere... ah, anywhere else, since the only thing that's come close was related to a school for the blind and made marginally more sense in context). Also, the mountain where we stayed in Ocoee was far less challenging than the Ozarks.
- I graduated before Mardi Gras. It does not sound like something I would enjoy.
- The extremely hands-off nature of everything. Sometimes this is taken a bit far (but I'll get to "Apartment Instruction" later), but it's overall a setting where you not only can fend for yourself, but are expected to, unless you demonstrate utter helplessness on arrival. Though, IMHO, people rely on cabs way more than they should. Sidewalks and even shoulders are scarce outside of the downtown area, but in spite of this Ruston is still small enough to walk almost everywhere. Almost. I would not want to walk to the hospital. Or wherever in the 9 Hells they sent me for my first drop route.
- BOOKS EVERYWHERE! BRAILLE WRITING MATERIALS EVERYWHERE! ... Oh crap I forgot to get my free roll of dynotape!
- Other than Braille and Tech and Seminar, the classes involve a lot of not-sitting. Sitting is the new smoking, you know.
- Some of the people are actually likable? I mean, the atmosphere feels less... I mean, WSB had lounges and rec trips, but I did not feel like I was in an environment that was worth the trouble, socially speaking. The 3 exceptions I can think of off the top of my head all got out of WSB at the same time I did. Like, the same day. Except for one, who was an LCB graduate who was there for the certifications. Meanwhile, LCB was not the least bit alienating, even though I still mostly kept to myself. It's hard to put a finger on the difference, but there was definitely a difference.
- I made it out without being evangelized to more than a tiny handful of times. And those were for Christianity, not the NFB. Although my second roommate did make a perfectly secure comment within 48 hours of arriving that he could not understand how anyone could make it through LCB without joining the NFB. ... Maaaaaybe I shouldn't show him this post.

Things I did not like:
- I do not mind Apartment "Instruction" in principal, but in practice, it's largely drillsergeant-style inspections with very little instruction (most of which amounts to "clean more" and "yeah, the cleaning supplies that the center provides aren't going to work and you should go buy stuff yourself"). So, let's see... the penalty for failing inspection is a $50 deduction from your maintenance check, but to pass inspection, you have to go buy cleaning supplies because the stuff they provide isn't up to the task? And it took over a month to get someone to actually show me the things I didn't know how to do! ... but when I got there they offered to teach how to operate the laundry machines. I'm not sure why they expect people to need laundry orientation but not housekeeping tutorials. Maybe they want to be certain they're not going to get people coming to training in week-old clothes, but figure the housekeeping is less urgent?
- You cannot get out of braille or tech. Now, in fairness, I expect the cutoff point for getting out of braille would involve reading at a minimum of 200wpm and doing something similarly fantastic with the slate and stylus, but still!
- Technology class. Undisputed least favorite. I'm sure you're thinking "But you won't stop going on tangents about fanciful technology, and you make games! Is it too easy, or something?" No. After I demonstrated I can type well over 80WPM on a good day and know Jaws well enough to pass the certification test, it was all Microsoft Office assignments of the most frustrating sort. Because I do not do well with essays, I am not an accountant and therefore do not care for Excel, and the rest of it was all about finding jobs and job interviews and such. The most interesting assignment I got was to contribute something to NVDA, because apparently making a couple audio games means I can do that. ... And it's wonderfully nonspecific about what to contribute.
- I felt like I was there for 9 months when I could easily have completed the requirements in 6, and it came down to scheduling and filler assignments. Now, I'm not saying they wanted to keep me there as long as possible for alterior reasons... but it was pretty frustrating from October to December.
- National Convention. I kinda wanted to go, because the idea of a big exhibit hall full of stuff I rarely get to see and a place where I can buy stuff I'd normally have to go through intermediaries to get sounded interesting, and I was not opposed to bumping in to random people I know from hereabouts. But those things were not worth it. YMMV.

So, most of the complaints I've heard levied at NFB centers are more of the "I hate my teacher / don't want to take this class" variety. So, basically, the complaints people make all throughout high school. Meanwhile, the complaints I heard about WSB involved rats, suicide, sexual harassment, and the police having to step in to prevent the director from forcing someone to leave the state and not just the program. Also, WSB apparently pulled the "drop everyone who will ruin your statistics" game.
Of course, LCB doesn't keep statistics, and they totally, totally should. No one has ever lost bodyparts in the woodshop, sure. What's the frequency of injuries requiring hospitalization or a hearse? What are the employment and earnings stats of LCB graduates compared to graduates from other programs and those who have not gone through such programs? I feel like there isn't really a good way to measure the outcomes I'm most interested in, and all of these suffer a huge form of selection bias in that the people who graduate LCB are usually people who wanted to go to LCB.
(Let me answer that injury question. While I was there, 3 major issues happened under sleepshades, two of which required hospitalization and surgery, while the other was so incredibly lucky I don't even. There was another which no one really can explain, in which an older student broke his hip, but I don't see this being dependent on the LCB experience. Then there was someone hospitalized for a bad seizure that involved a head-made hole in a wall, which also does not seem LCB-related. There was someone who may or may not have been injured before I got there and was using assistive equipment to get around (IDK how much... crutches? Scooter?) One of those serious injuries was freakishly specific. Assume everything else involved people getting hit by moving vehicles. There was also a (failed) suicide attempt, from which the person in question seems to have rebounded spectacularly.)
(The worst I got were some burns and scrapes, most of which are the sorts of things sighted people would get about as often, other than all those slanted sign posts and overhanging branches. I kinda feel like that's outweighed by the healthier eating and miles upon miles of walking alone... all of which have been notably absent since I got home. Must fix ASAP. >.<)

If there's anything more specific you're interested in that I did not mention, feel free to ask, and I will do my best to answer.

Thumbs up for this thoughtful, balanced post.

I've always said that a huge problem with training center graduates is that they sing the praises of the NFB, while excluding the fact that they might not have liked every single thing about the center they went to. It's both unrealistic and scary, because nothing and no one is perfect, but I've been getting increasingly tired of the glowing testimonials that litter the Braille Monitor, which basically say something like: "My life was a hopeless mess because I believed I couldn't do anything. Now I can do everything, and you should too!" It's pretty ridiculous.

A couple of things specifically jumped out at me from your post. First, the rigidity of structured discovery. I hammered this point to death earlier on in this thread, so I won't go there again. However, it's good that you seem to have been able to take something from your training even if that kind of thing would still drive me up a wall personally. Second, I have to ask, and a vague yes or no type answer will do, since this is a sensitive subject that is really not a public forum's business, let alone mine. But did the person who attempted suicide do so because of the stress of the program, preexisting issues, or a combination of the two? I would like to ask how that was handled by the staff, but you can't really answer that with a yes or no, so I suppose I can't. Finally, you confirmed something that I have often wondered about, but could never ask without looking like a complete asshole. Ok, so no one died under blindfolds. They are not, and will never be, that stupid politically correct name that I refuse to say, at least not to me. But a person who is used to using residual vision doesn't just snap their fingers and adjust, at least not according to the references I picked up from your post. This begs the question, is it really acceptable for someone to get hit by a car, all in the name of independence? That's...a pretty tall order if you ask me. I think I need to ponder this some more, because clearly, these programs wouldn't exist at all if these were regular occurrences, or if the parties involved hadn't accepted it somehow.

I could continue to pick your post apart, going through each positive and negative experience you've listed, but I don't think that's necessary. Those were just the ones that grabbed my attention on my first read through. The one thing I will say, though, is that it seems to me that you were able to take the things you disliked in stride, and were able to alter the course of your life in a positive direction as a result of your time at LCB. I can't fault you for that, nor would I want to. I do, however, fault those who refuse, for whatever reason, to write thorough, no bullshit reviews of their own experiences with training, whether it's based on structured discovery or not. Come on, social media, blogs, and forums are the norm nowadays. There is no reason in the world why people can't do this. Because there are no official statistics, as you rightly pointed out, all we have are rampant rumors and unrealistically good testimonials. That really needs to change. I for one am ecstatic that you took this step.

Yes. Remember, though, that the US is huge and very spread out. The same can be said of many, many things that would make life easier.

You can. ... I think. It sounds like you can. I mean, if you're in a public school, then ... uh... wait, I don't even know how much of that is still possible / required...
... I think you can? But, honestly, the "transferable" part of "transferable skills" is a major thing that drew me to the NFB centers in the first place.

I don't know what qualifies as meeting standards. There is a somewhat standardized address system, but it's more like guidelines. Colleges can reset the count in their territory; in Washington D.C., people can by Pennsylvania Ave addresses without living anywhere near Pennsylvania Ave; block sizes are inconsistent, some places have straighter streets than others, and so on and so forth.
For example, the LCB apartments are located at 507 East Mississippi Ave. Technically, they also include 501, but they had to pick one, and since they have multiple driveways or something...
And there's a dollar store two blocks to the north. Once you get to the corner of the block with the apartments on it, it's a straight shot, and the blocks aren't even separated because one of the roads doesn't go that far east. I expected to find 512 (or 514, I forget which) East Georgia Ave from the apartments without having to cross any streets. But surprise! The Dollar Store has a 600-something address, and the 500s on Georgia are on the block to the west, because ... they just are.
Ruston has an unusual amount of offset intersections, streets at weird angles, etc. Some cities have roundabouts, or freeways; some have walkable overpasses, some have underpasses, some have neither. Some have sidewalks everywhere, some have sidewalks some of the time, some have sidewalks only around government buildings. Intersections might have stoplights, stopsigns, or no control at all, and there's no way to guess which, other than to expect places with particularly high traffic to be more likely to have lights. So, yeah. The basic routes they taught when I was in school are effectively worthless if you're in an unfamiliar place, which was a major reason LCB sounded good. And they made me go to a new city on my own and find some places unaided, so, yeah, that part's good and my only complaint is that only one of my drop routes was the least bit challenging. (That being the one where they dropped me in a tiny parking lot in the woods at least 3 miles from the Center. A word of advice: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, except when it is, so learn to figure out the when, before you turn around and walk an extra six miles when you could have been done by lunch.)

Depends. There are state-run programs, which the states generally pay for. There are privately-run operations that are deep in the pockets of the government and still charge a high pricetag, and then there are wholly private programs like LCB. However, almost everyone who attends one of the latter two types usually gets the government to pay for it through Vocational Rehab, or an equivalent division of the Department of Human Services.

There aren't any. There are some, scattered about, but I'm not sure I've heard any two blind people from my state hale from the same city, except the state NFB chapter's president's family. And no I don't know them NFB people always expect this when I tell them where I'm from.
... And back in 2013, I did try looking up some people. It turns out that there were things in my area at one point, but they're gone now. I don't know if the people left, if there were financial issues, or if it was just assumed that my town would have to service the entire quarter of the state so it had everything here and then all the funding got collapsed to the state level, but... yeah. That idea was no go. Also IIRC my state has a population of around 10000000-20000000, and a blind population of around 90000, or something like that, last I checked. The population density is very low, and my town only recently (as in, the past two years) got a bus system worthy of the name. Also most of the blind people seem to be concentrated toward the central and northwest parts of the state, and I'm in the northeast. There was one student a year older than me when I was in elementary school, from a town close enough for people to easily commute between the two, but I only met him like twice. Although I think I might have his email address somehow, I dunno.

Oh, of course it is necessary to ask people for help. Even sighted people do that when they're lost. But if my ability to get where I need to go is dependent on when it's convenient for someone else, then it's not especially able.
Actually, the most common criticism I received from my travel instructor was that I need to get better at asking for information. ... Umm, because I don't like talking to strangers :-/.

Public transportation in the US is rare, and where it exists, it is inferior to most European countries' by a wide margin. Ruston has no public transportation, but it does have a few taxis and a greyhound bus station. My town has a tiny airport that has flights to one or two places, but one of those is a much bigger airport from which I could actually go somewhere.

That was my plan. It didn't work very well. Also one of the things I wanted to get out of LCB is the ability to clean and maintain my home, which they kinda helped with, but you might have noticed that was one of the aspects I was most frustrated with.

Public transportation isn't that difficult. It's just rare and takes work to find. For my out-of-town assignment, my hotel was a mile from the nearest bus stop, and this was in one of the bigger state capitals. Also on that out of town assignment I had two people try very hard to get me into their car for a very short trip between my hotel and a restaurant because they refused to believe I could walk near traffic without dying (never mind how I got there, right?). I talked one of them into just watching; I had to run away from the other (who also gave me bad directions). Neither the route to the bus station or the restaurant has sidewalks.

The US is about 3000mi from New York to Las Angelas, if I remember correctly, which I very well might not. I'm sure the accessibility of traffic lights is wonderful somewhere. I think I found one that talks and one that ticks, for whatever that's worth. Though it seems to me that if you can't trust your evaluation of the traffic, for reasons other than directional hearing loss, the audible signals wouldn't be much better. But, eh, cars are getting quieter these days, so maybe it would be nice to have them all over.
I don't have any idea what public transportation accessibility involves, so I can't comment on that. Though once I got stuck on a bus for a while because the driver didn't announce my stop and couldn't hear me ask about it, so we drove past it twice.

LCB graduations consist largely of exactly this, said several times by several people, mixed with the occasional anecdote about the graduate's training. Somehow this was better than all of those.

(My graduation was very disappointing. The only people who I expected to say anything that wasn't generic were either sick or stuck on the interstate behind a wreck. Every. Single. One. Except Jewel. Who did the one thing I hoped she would and addressed me as Ninja. For I Am Ninja.)

[edit] Oh, something I forgot to mention. I really would like a few big travel assignments locally. Not because I don't think I can figure it out given enough time, effort, research, and awkward questions, but because this is the one place where I'm most worried about being seen. Especially since shorelining freaks people out so much, and I'd have to shoreline a lot. [/edit]