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2004
Student diaries - week 1 | |
|  | | Darren's a techno addict! |
| | Follow the ups and downs of life for a disabled university student in Staffordshire.
Darren is a self professed geek, his passport says 'Country of Origin: internet; on it. He's blind and is studying a mixture of Computing and History at Keele University... |
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Ouch is a website from the BBC. Its aim is to reflect the lives of disabled people right here and now in the third millennium
Ouch student diaries
Four disabled students post diary entries all about their experiences, about living away from home, social life and the high and low points of accessibility: on campus, in their accommodation and for study resources. |
| | Week one diary excerpts
 ...The day of reckoning finally arrives, after over two months of anticipation. I'm only a little apprehensive because I am very much looking forward to moving out of home again. Having spent the last two years at a boarding school for the blind, leaving home doesn't faze me and homesickness is something long gone...
Our kitchen is equipped with an unusual unit which is a convection and microwave all-in-one thing. I had no idea how to use it so my food options for the rest of the day were limited to a sandwich, an apple, half a bottle of sparkling peach-flavoured water, and a flake ice-cream dessert bought from the supermarket yesterday... Made a point of asking my mobility officer this morning to show me how to use the microwave before we did anything else...
...As students began to arrive, I found my nerves mounting for the rest of Saturday afternoon. I'm usually a pretty confident person when approaching new people, but I felt extremely reluctant to follow everyone's advice of politely knocking on doors and introducing myself. So instead, I just went next door into the kitchen, found some more stuff from my freezer shelf and set about making tea...
We then went back to halls where I signed onto the internet successfully. I then got a call from the guys who bumped into me last night, and we arranged to go out to one of the other bars on campus later. Cool. I'm one for going out for a quieter more civilised social drink, but I'm not really into the clubbing thing to be honest. I'm sure I would be if I didn't need my hearing quite so much, but there you go...
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