UofT BARRIER FREE
wow theres nothing like a protest to make a horrible day seem more than managable. Today I was feeling totally depressed, and do to my insomia I was easily irritated. I was looking at the fact that I have an appoinment to remove my wisdom teeth next friday, which will cost $830, plus the medication and I was looking at my account realizing not only do those numbers not add up, rent is due this weekend. With pay day coming on friday, I should have enough to cover rent. And with the food in my coubard I should be ok for food for a little while, and I do have a little left on my credit card if I need it. But fuck I wish I coudl find a job. Ok so the huge wisdom teeth bill is staring me in the face. Right now even my parents can't help me out, my dad is broke from his trip and my mom has been on strike without pay for a few weeks. Basically I felt fucked, its not like this is something that I can just let slide, I can feel the pain slightly and it will only get worse. I phone my mom anyways to get advice/support ie, some one I can cry on eht phone to! We started talking about me moving home for the summer to save money to move to Ireland. FUCK that just added to the depression, living in Etobicoke, having to get a metro pass or becoem a stronger biker super quick, being far away from work, and friends, not to mention not being able to live with sean and gemma. I have been looking forward to that for ever. Things start to get complicated when I contemplate moving home. Because that means that I have a month to find someone to move in. I was already looking for september, and i mentioned to sk the possibility of movign in then. But july is another story. The problem is Gemma doens't want to live with a stranger, I can understnad her hesitation, look at what I'm dealing with now. So that means I have one month to sublet the whole apartment till octomber, since our stupid ass lease goes untill october. (Sal tried to convice them to let us sign until september but they couldn't understand why this would be easier for us. Sean and gemma are coming over to talk about it, but as things stand now, it looks like it will be my responsibitiy to find three people move in her for july first. Including someone taking the small room without any windows. FUCK this will not be easy, then if I dont' find people what do I do, pay the whole $1400 myself! And I wonder what happens to my bro who signed a subletting contract with matthew, it snot like I can talk to matthew about this, he has been ignoring sal and I for weeks (also adding to my anxiety today), I don't want my bro to be fucked. But my mom has a point, its hard to save money when you are paying rent, bills and buying food. She is paying for my flight to Ireland as my grad presant but the rest is up to me. Maybe I should get a waterproof tent and camp while I live in Ireland!

So I'm all blah blah blah life sucks today . . . but I got off my ass phoned the UofT dentist school to see if I can get a student to do the surgery for me at a cheaper price, I went to SAC to file my claim form from my dentist trip and I went the police station so I can get a refernce check to work with CHAP. While I was at SAC this girl started to talk to me, she said that she sees me everywhere, and that she likes my hair (I swear to you, get a cute haircut and everyone talks to you on the streets!!) While I was there they told me about a protest for accessiblity that was happening later that day. Aparently there was a motion being put forth to get gaurenteed accessible housing to students with disablities, along with over all assessiblity to the campus at a general meeting today. But it was taken off the agenda with no intention of putting it back on. The university is blanetly ignoring the barriers that students with physicla disabilites face at the university. The sahmeful irony is this year UofT recieved an award for accessibilty, for what I can't be sure, so many of the buildings and classrooms are not accessible, and the univeristy is not taking an equitable stance to provide these students with the resources required to participate in there education.

The protest was filled with ballons and buttons, chats like "whos campus our campus" "UofT barrier free" etc. There was a good energy with the crowd. We blocked the entrace to the door to create a "barrier" to accessing the meeting . . . as all the white able bodies men walked into the meeting talk about UofT's general issues we continued to chant outside the window. I was chatting with a few people, and I met a women who is finishing her Phd in English literature. She is Chinese, I say this upfront because she is unable to get a job teaching english lit, manily due to her race. She has hed a hard time securing TA postions in the past few years. In her experience "no one wants a chinese girl teaching them english lit" the racism is so thick its disgusting, this wonderful women, has to use the food bank adn has not idea what she is goign to say to her landlord this weekend when he demand rent. She has started a business baking cookies and delivering them on her bike, she got a $50 grant and has ntetted $25. I wished her luck, we exchanged numbers in case we heard anything for each other. ADn I biked away happy that I have tvp and rice noddles at home and I woudl not be using the food bank yet.