Tag Archives: lists

Day 229

You’ve gotta cut people some slack sometimes – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 9: 05 PM on day 229 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself bread and scrambled eggs for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck –prepare my Kid of the Week feature – this week’s edition tugged at my heartstrings and proved to me that it’s never too late or too early to start making a difference 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, tweet about my campaign some more – still no luck 🙁 –play some board games and card games with my siblings and guests – it was SO much fun 🙂 – feed myself a bread and jam sandwich for dinner and watch TV.

Today some people came to visit and it wasn’t until they left that it occurred to me that the adults barely spoke a complete sentence to me and in that moment I realized that people don’t know how to interact with disabled people without being awkward about it so I decided to give you some pointers on how to behave around the forgotten members of society:

Do’s and Don’ts of Dealing with Disabled People

  • Make eye contact
  • Smile
  • If you don’t know what interests him/her then just ask
  • Don’t talk about him/her talk to them. For instance, if you’re wondering if he/she wants juice ask him/her and not whoever is with him/her
  • Don’t make assumptions about his/her capabilities if you’re unsure about whether he/she can do something just ask

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/nisha-varghese/nishavarghese

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 167

Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) what I did was wrong. 2) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. – Randy Pausch (1960-2008)

It’s 8: 00 PM on day 167 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself strawberry yoghurt for breakfast, go to church – the reverend asked the question what is sin and went to say – I’m paraphrasing – sin is not only doing evil but failing to do good and at that I almost laughed because I had thought it before he had said it LOL 🙂 – go visit my uncles and aunties’ – it was quite boring because all their kids had already left home we wanted to say in the car but my father raked us over the coals for being so rude so went inside just to appease him – next time I think we’ll just stay at home that way we won’t be accused of being rude LOL 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch,          tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – somebody – I won’t mention her name because she chose to remain anonymous – made a donation of $20 – I had asked her for to make one a couple of months and she said she would do it ASAP – thanks for being true to your word 🙂 –      feed myself  Chapati – an unleavened flatbread –  chicken curry and salad   for dinner and watch TV.

Today I was watching My Name Is Earl – an American television comedy about Earl J. Hickey (played by Jason Lee) – a petty criminal whose winning $100,000 lottery ticket is lost when he is hit by a car. Lying in a hospital bed, under the influence of morphine, he develops a belief in the concept of karmic retribution when he hears about karma during an episode of Last Call with Carson Daly. To turn his life around, he makes a list of every bad thing he’s ever done in an attempt to correct them, as he believes that this is the only way he can gain positive karma. After doing his first good deed, he finds the $100,000 lottery ticket he had previously lost. He sees this as a sign of karma rewarding him and, with his newfound wealth, he begins doing good deeds according to his list – and thought I wonder what would happen if everybody created their own lists and went about making all the things that they did wrong right and with that I decided to make my own list (see below). Do you apologize with words or actions? 🙂

My list

  • Make up for swearing at my brother by letting him watch TV whenever he wants – I told him about my list and asked him what I could do to make up for my filthy language and he said let me watch TV whenever I want – I have a feeling that the other items on my list won’t be so easy to cross off LOL 🙂

 

  • Give my mother some time to herself for all my bratty behavior in the past

 

  • Try my best not to absorb all of my mother energy so my sister can be the centre of attention for once in her life – my mother loves all her children equally but with me being in a wheelchair she accidentally ignores the others and although my sister would never say it I know she resents me and I can’t say I blame her…. everything in this family revolves around my disability… where we go out to eat, where we  go on vacation, where we sit in the movie theatre, etc.