Lyn has fixed the internet. Our connection went down yesterday afternoon, when Lyn decided to update it, and she didn’t get it working till this morning, I did, however, get online briefly late last night, when I saw I now have a date for my viva: april 22nd. I’m already very nervous about it, although I did reread the first chapter of my thesis yesterday and found that it’s not as bad as I thought. Okay, there are a few minor things which I’d like to put right, but I’m pretty pleased with it.

I can’t help wondering about a comment I got to a blog entry a few days ago. How would I have fared if I had gone to a school like the one I volunteer at? As liza put it: ” I wonder what sort of education you might have received in todays special school sector where the majority of the children have PMLD.” If we put aside the fact that my parents played a huge role in educating me, where would I be now had I attended such a school? It is quite possible, I’d guess, that they would have presumed I had learning difficulties, especially without the attention my parents paid in getting me walking and talking at a reasonable level. I have a theory that such diagnoses are often self-fulfilling. Tell a kid he has LD and why should he continue to push himself? Would he not simply play the role he’s been cast? And why should anyone expect anything else of that child? Thus, having been told I hadd learning difficulties, I might have given up trying to learn, trying to push myself. I wouldn’t have done A-Levels or gone to university. I would have never met people like Lyn or Charlie; hell, I might have stopped trying to communicate altogether. There would certainly be no thesis or no vivas.

I admit this is a particularly dystopic view of some alternate universe, one which never happened, yet had circumstances been different, I find it a frightening prospect that this might have been my reality.