> Question 1: How did you become visually impaired and how much sight do you actually have? Were you born that way? Was it an accident? An illness? etc.

I was born with glaucoma, and have been visually impaired my entire life, with an uncorrectable stable visual acuity of 10% and no other issues until I began losing contrast perception in late-2011, culminating in total blindness in early-2014.

> Question 2: For the V.I people who attended public universities or high schools, what are some things which stood out to you that you’d want more people to be conscious/ aware of? How accessible were these places to you? Any things they had or were lacking? How did their presence or lack thereof impact your studies and general life? What do you feel or assume made your learning and socialising be experienced differently from sighted people?

The only problem I faced in school was my inability to read from the board even if I sat in the front row. Everything else was normal for me. I've used to have the ability to see things abnormally close without losing focus, probably due to an undiagnosed myopia, so I could read everything fully sighted people could up close, including fine embossings in coins, without any kind of magnification.

My workaround for not being able to read from the board were the school's recommended textbooks. Since here in Portugal the school curriculum is decided by the government and all the books recommended by schools are required to follow it it is theoretically possible to learn everything just from reading them without even going to school.

I never actually went to university as I dropped out of high school during my senior year after my first job kinda found me.

Regarding the social aspect, the only problem I had was in establishing romantic relationships, as I've never really been matched in mutual attraction and am not the kind of person to try and force myself on the opposite gender, which seems to be the recipe for many relationships these days. Other than that I've always found it pretty easy to get along and make friends of both genders and all social classes, and have never been a victim of bullying.

> Question 3: What are some preferred or politically correct terms you’d like for people to use or words you’d like them to avoid when it comes to the visually impaired? For example when it comes to the term “disabled” some people prefer the term “differently abled”.

Don't really care about that.

> Question 4: What are some stereotypes about Visually Impaired people you want to be done away with and which I should avoid accidentally including? E.g the stereotype that they all wear huge dark sunglasses all the time.

I'd like people to do away with the stereotypes that my other senses are miraculously amplified by my lack of vision, or that we all see pitch black.

> Question 5: What’s a visually impaired fictional character in the media who you dislike because of how they portrayed the V.I through them?

I'm not much of a media consumer. I'm a geek with a narrow yet deep interest in technology, particularly in learning how it works.

*whom* I can ask

*whom* you dislike

1. I was born visually impaired. I have no vision. I have something called petere’s anomaly.

2. Kids are kids and sometimes can be mean in general but yeah.... I found that a teacher who made his students walk around the courtyard with a broomstick and a partner to be fascinating. It definitely stuck out. And the teacher who let me deliver all his papers and get his mail and deliver it was very interesting and kind. Nothing bad happened to me besides being friendless. The funny thing is after high school everyone from high school recognized me. You went to my high school. We never talked but you’re from my high school. For universities some disability offices are much better and some are plain out horrible!!!!!!! Generally pretty accessible but some can be big and confusing mine doesn’t have speaking elevators but they are super old anyway and one killed a person by snapping them in half. It is bad.

3. I am like the least pc person ever!!!!! Say whatever it doesn’t offend me unless I don’t understand then I will ask what you mean if it’s not pc but even funny I may laugh like someone called my cane a pole. I thought that was the darndest thing

4. I feel like stereotypes exist here for a reason because most of them have come up with a good handful of the population I know people like this and with the dark sunglasses. Knowing why is important.

5. Don’t read or watch enough blind people on tv or books.

6.maybe for this. Just maybe I live a pretty normal life. Besides the messed up sleep schedule haha! I wasn’t sure what the question was also on this.

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