Hello Everyone,

Welcome to The Invisible Vision Project’s blog.

As a tradition, it’s that time of the year again: it’s time to write another end of year blog, to summarize the entire year. Before doing that, I want to say a few words. If you want to hear my very honest point of view on how my 2018 went, I would say: It’s been a rough year but, it’s also been a great year. So I guess, the answer is truly a bittersweet one.

As you know, I usually give a timeline when summarizing my entire year. So, here goes a revisit and a highlights of 2018:

In January- this one may not be as exciting but, I got the opportunity to try my very first ice-cream cake (for my birthday) for the first time in my life! Personally, I am not really a cake person but, because I celebrated my birthday with a friend (one week before my actual birthday) I decided to give DQ Oreo ice-cream cake a try. It was really good. So, it was sweet to treat myself, once in a while.

In March-One day in early March, I received an email from my school (from the Dean of Student Affairs’ office) to notify me that I received an award, and it’s the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award. It’s such a big deal, not only because I was one of the two students out of the entire school to receive this award but also, it was an inaugural award! You could read more about that here. The award ceremony happened later that month. I feel so honored to receive the award!

In April-I received another recognition certificate from the CNIB, because I am an ambassador speaker for the CNIB. It was also a very surprised recognition! Also in April, I became one of the co-chairs of a student-run committee on campus, it’s called Accessibility Queen’s, for the 2018-19 academic year.

In June-I went to my very first Pride event in Kingston. Attending a Pride event is something I’ve wanted to experience but, because I usually don’t do crowds, and it’s mainly because of my visual impairment, sometimes it’s because of anxiety. In crowds, I sometimes get disoriented and other times nervous, especially when I don’t know anyone, and I don’t see well. But, because I went to the event with a friend, it went really well and I had a lot of fun.

In September- I returned school for my final (this time is REALLY the final year) of my undergraduate degree. Also, September also marked my 14 years here in Canada. So this means, half of my life was lived in Asia and the other half, in North America. Also, I almost forgot to mention: I appeared in my school’s newspaper for the very first time! It was a fun experience to be interviewed for a newspaper article.

In November-I appeared in the city’s magazine (Profile Kingston) for the very first time. This was because of a noon-hour talk I was going to give and, it’s an advertisement for that. That being said, November was probably the BUSIEST month of the year for me. In one week, I had 4 speeches and, 3 of them were of my own. I gave a speech at a first year Gender Studies course (Also, my first time speaking in front of first year university students). I gave a noon-hour talk I just mentioned, it turned out really well but it was also the LONGEST talk I’ve ever done, so I’m glad it went well. I did another presentation in class, the topic was Disability in the Arts. Mind you, I count every presentation or talk I gave that’s disability-related as work. And, that presentation went REALLY well also.

So, aside from the timeline, I should also mention, The Invisible Vision Project had some exciting progress during this year as well. The Invisible Vision Project was self-hosted this year and you could read about that here. The Invisible Vision Project also started a new series for other bloggers to get involved, either participate as writing a guest post or, participate in Guest Blogger Interviews. It’s been fun getting connected with bloggers from around the world! And finally, I should also say, one of the hardest decisions I made this year has to be that: I’ve decided to take a year off from school, once I officially graduate from my second undergraduate degree in June 2019. I will not jump right into graduate studies. I want to take this next academic year off mainly because, my body desperately needs a break and therefore, I want to prioritize my health and my self first. Then, I want to focus more on my work, the work I’ve been doing for the past nearly 3 years, and see if I could bring it professionally to the next level. Certainly, I will probably need a lot of help from a lot of people and, it might even take a very long time for me to get there. I am more than 100% willing to give it a try.

So, this concludes today’s blog and the end of year review for 2018. And, it’s almost time to put 2018 behind and dive into 2019. Finally, I want to give a huge shout-out to all of you: my readers and supporters of The Invisible Vision Project, thank you all for following my blog and my journey. As this is the last blog for 2018, so I’ll say: See you in 2019!

Thank you for reading to the end.

By: The Invisible Vision Project