A Mighty Fine Opportunity

Bragging time!

Several months ago, I looked into submitting articles and previously written blog posts to websites for publication. I found one or two that offered payment, but first I wanted to try submitting somewhere that didn't, mainly for practice.

I found The Mighty, a health and disability website I've followed off and on for a while and one I've seen publish stories from friends in the past.

After signing up, I edited and submitted my recent Boy With The Beard post. I received a notification from them saying that they get so many submissions that mine may take a while to be published, or may not be published at all so, while positive, I didn't really get my hopes up.

I sort of forgot all about it, until today, when The Mighty finally published my story!!

For the first time in about four years, I've gotten something out and published! Again, this one was for free, but The Mighty is affiliated with other sites like Yahoo and The Huffington post, and there's a small chance that my story could appear on either of those!

So yeah, feeling pretty awesome over here! Now to do some more research into places that could actually pay me to write.

Cheers

A "Fantastic" Anniversary

Get it? Because Fantastic Four, and I'm a comic geek? Anyone?

Moving on.

This week marks The Rare Writer's fourth anniversary, and it's been my most productive year yet. As always, thanks to all the readers and followers out there.

Cheers!

Innovation & Accessibility

This past Wednesday, I attended a really interesting event at Carleton University about innovation and accessibility. It was mainly a press conference to launch several initiatives by both the university and the Canadian government.

The event itself was recommended to me by the employment centre I'm getting help from as a potentially good networking event. Not many personal connections, but I did get a lot of information that could be useful in the near future. Maybe...

I'll be honest, when the representative for the Minister of Sport and Disability spoke and started using the same old terms and phrases like "inclusion", "government pushing towards...", and "aging population", the cynical part of me rolled my eyes and debated whether or not to walk out. I also contemplated standing up and shouting "I WANT A JOB!" at one point. Common sense prevailed however, and I stayed seated.

Eventually the stage was handed over to a group of professors who specialized in robotics, engineering, design, and computer programming.

They spoke about disability issues facing Canadians, accessibility programs at the university that enable students within those above fields to assist people with disabilities, and some of the projects that students and graduates have worked on.

Some of the more interesting projects included specialized machines to assist people with balance and prevent falling that could connect to the individual's shoes, accessible planters for the new healing garden at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, the creation of accessible tricycles, walkers, and other gadgets for residents of a rural Ugandan village, and a study into the bio-mechanics of sledge hockey players.

By no means am I a science and tech person, but this was just fascinating!

There's a similar event in a couple months where some of the projects mentioned will actually be shown off, so I might go to that too.

Cheers

Lots of Good Things Happening

January was a pretty busy month for me. Lots of things getting set in motion for the upcoming months.

I've already written about the new volunteer opportunity. That's going pretty well. After a couple days of learning how to do stuff, I'm already working on the organization's next newsletter!

Early in the month, I had a follow-up with Genetics about my Joubert syndrome. I hadn't seen my doctor in quite a few years, so it was a bit fun to catch her up on everything, especially the conferences and appointment to the board. Since it had been a while, it was recommended that I go through some new testing to find my specific gene, which was okay because it only required one vial of blood this time.

Next came some new social opportunities. In the Fall, I decided to look for something else to do, socially, and found a science fiction/fantasy book club here in Ottawa which looked interesting. A few weeks ago I finally made it out to one of their meetings, and it was really fun! Fairly good book selection, nice people, and they meet at a good restaurant. After two meetings, I think I'll keep going!

I registered for The Canadian Organization for Rare Disorder's (CORD) annual conference which is being held here in Ottawa this March. I attended a conference four years ago along with one of the parents from the Joubert Foundation. It was a pretty interesting experience and a nice early step in all the disability stuff and advocacy I've been doing. This time, I'm going all on my own and as an official representative of the Joubert syndrome Foundation and Board! (Just writing that sentence is pretty cool!) Should be an experience.

And finally, more work-related stuff. The other day I met with one of the places I'm getting help from. First, they were very impressed with the volunteer position, so that was good. Then, they suggested that I look into research positions. Their reasons being that I'm already kind of dancing around it, with my background, interests, and experience, so why not just go for it? Sounded good to me, and I've already sent something off!

And that's it. Just some updates.

Cheers!