Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Procaptionating

It's the third week of the quarter and I still don't have any captions, in a class that is video-lecture heavy. Welp.

I had to push for audio/video accommodations again this quarter (long-time readers might remember that I've been denied them in past classes), and I think I'm going to get them? It's acknowledged that I need them, and apparently if I could go to campus, or read sign language, I'd have more options, but getting someone to type up a transcript and email it is near-impossible. My teacher is trying to work with me while we wait for the captioning wizards to take their sweet time (I'm sure they're horribly understaffed and overworked and under-budgeted, and wonderful people, I'm just frustrated), so he's written up special notes for one video, is sending me regular email updates on what content is imperative and how I can get it, or what can wait, and besides one brief email melt-down where he pretty went, "I'm not even supposed to be here today!", he's been awesome and supportive and is restoring my faith in the human race. So, that's been nice. But, this coming week is particularly video-related and if I can't get the captions soon, this class is going to get really difficult. If only it was required for schools to provide all of their content in ways that are useful everyone in the first place, I wouldn't be stressing out over taking quizzes on content I can't access.

The good news is, I'm getting good scores on the discussions and I received good feedback on my first essay, though not the actual score, so we'll see how that goes. There's going to be a final project that looks nice and intimidating, so I'm definitely going to start obsessing on that soon.

I've had a cold for almost a week now, which led to a near disaster with my last assignment. I was feeling really blocked on it for some reason, and had trouble even getting started. I still had plenty of time when I got sick, but the mild fever and body aches took away all my brain power, and I couldn't even form a thesis until three days before the paper was due. I hate working under pressure. I finished it on time, and that's the assignment I got some good feedback on, so all is probably well, but it's just a reminder that I can not procrastinate, ever. Being sick is inconvenient for most people, but it hits me extra hard because everything leads back to migraines and if I'm incapacitated for a week, my teacher may not give a shit and dock my grade anyway. He's been great so far, but he's got strict policies on late work and I'm not interested in pushing my luck.

Anyway, I need to stay on top of my work, because even if I don't get sick again, a hard-core migraine could take me down at any time. I've been feeling pretty good lately, only hitting a 7 a few times a week, and then only briefly. Except for today, ugh, I've hit the coughing stage of this cold and my head. does. not. like.

To sum up: I'm ready for this cold to be over, and I'm ready for my captions.


1 comments:

Migrainista said...

Wow! I just had no idea the laws were so weak for students. I hate that you have to deal with this on top of everything else. Good luck. Hope they come through for you soon.