Hello to all of you beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast nerd universe! taking a bit of detour with this!

NFB Virtual State Convention Tour

            This past year and last year, the Zoom platform has been a big platform for virtual conferences and the National Federation of the Blind was one of the associations that used this platform to put on events. This gave me a chance to meet people across the United States, especially students. I’ve gone to some this year and I do have some thoughts as well.

Disclaimer

            This post is based on thoughts of the writer’s experience of this blog. Please respect her thoughts on what she experienced@ You have been warned!

            The conventions I attended included Massachusetts, South Dakota, National, Greater D. C., New York, Virginia, Texas, and Michigan. It was my second year at the Virginia Convention during the weekend of Halloween and it was fun this year. I did have to miss the banquet this year due to being with friends in Orlando for our scary movie night. I did attend their Camp Fire Stories which lets people share horror stuff and paranormal experiences. I did share Rayne’s experience living in Philadelphia where he lived in a home where the basement door was put in his room due to the renovations. The door had a padlock and chain but did see a girl wearing period clothing since Pennsylvania was one of the original thirteen colonies. One day his mom, if I remembered, did see the lock and chain were removed and the door was opened. I did bring up Mile Higher podcast since they did talk about the situation in Gary, Indiana when a family ended up going through a demonic event. I would recommend that by the way. It was fun hearing some creepy pasta stories on top of it. I did attend the Virginia Association of Blind Students meeting and enjoyed being in break out rooms with them. While I was attending the convention, I did find out I got accepted to George Mason since I did have to withdraw from U. Mass earlier this year. I was relieved that I didn’t get the National Scholarship after being withdrawn. I did take a bit of a break from conventions before National and decided to attend since it was online again due to Delta being rampant. It was fun since I got to learn about Maryland’s history since it was the host state and let New Orleans be the location next year. It was fun seeing Homer Simpson getting a workout with the Louisiana Center for the Blind. All thanks to the attendance, I joined the Writers Division since I was in the middle or writing my book.

            South Dakota, New York, Texas, and Michigan were new environments when it came to meeting people. South Dakota was a one day thing and I was glad to listen in on the person who got into WayAround tags for their seeds to grow in their garden. I did start getting into these and have enjoyed them and found them better than braille labelling tape due to how much the glue wears out due to the humidity here in Florida. I’ve been enjoying the WayLink more than my phone due to how I can just go handheld without wearing out my phone. It’s now easier labelling my eyeliner pencils and other stick makeup. I do like that I can put the purchase date when I got my mascara which helps with expiration. New York was my favorite along with Virginia because it was how I got back into art. I used to draw back in the day and I was sad when I had to give it up when I noticed my right eye was not focusing right. I came to this convention to attend the showing of Off the Canvas which is a documentary showing art teachers who are blind teaching others who are sighted or blind how to do art. One of them even paints and even had it on display. After that I knew it was possible to get back into it and felt good to get to it. Even though my art is a bit abstract but using watercolor again alongside pens, markers and now using watercolor pencils gave me a new hope. I will continue doing it even  when it comes to buying supplies. Heck, I felt alive going back into the art area of Michael’s picking up a brush, paper pads for watercolor and markers. I was so happy! I did get to meet the students as well which they were also welcoming like the other states too. It felt good to be around them again even if I didn’t have the news at the time about George Mason.

            There were some things I’ve did notice that I did not like as much. During Massachusetts, they had a makeup panel and they invited someone from Mary Kay who was a rep and same with a Color Street rep. I went in with an open mind but as the panel took place I wished it would have been different. As a makeup user, I am not a fan of MLM products and even done a post about this and prefer getting items from brands I know and love already that I tried over time or gotten through Ipsy or Allure’s subscriptions. I felt that the panel should have had better speakers that either can give tips on putting on makeup or get Molly Berk as a guest since she has done makeup for years as well. I even done makeup on my channel and could have done a better job. I felt this panel was just MLM hype and to tell you the truth I feel bad for anyone who is blind that has started selling for these companies because they have no idea that there is something dark behind the scenes. When I was at Greater D. C. I had to leave the Women of the NFB panel after one woman said she sells for Paparazzi and I watched Savanah Marie’s interview with a mom and daughter who used to be in there and witnessed messed up stuff. I don’t want to get into too much of it but want to point out that Paparazzi is not ADA compliant. The A. D. A. basically grants disabled people certain rights and that includes using equipment and this mom experienced being on a cruise where a woman’s husband was on a scooter and could not go onto one of the locations with it and he has to use it, not even walk when asked about that. This caused an uproar and that caused the mom and daughter to be dropped. I would feel horrible if this woman went on a cruise and was told she could not bring her guide dog or cane on an excursion. I remembered being on a Carnival cruise with my parents and nobody got on me for having my cane with me, they helped me everywhere even in Belize at the Mayan Ruins. Plus, I could imagine how much it costs for these women to buy the products and hearing about the income claims not being as great. I listened to Roberta Blevvin’s podcast and she had one where she read people’s horror stories while in MLMs and even had people as guests to tell their stories and one girl talked about how she spent so much and sold her stuff and didn’t make much in profit which was around $2500 when she spent way more than that. I understand you have to spend money to make it, not here when it costs a lot and the product is not great. I remember my lip gloss from Mary Kay which was the size as a Butter Gloss from NYX. I can get a Mac gloss for the same price and it’s bigger because of the amount of product being more than what I paid for than the Mary Kay. I get better advice at Mac and Ulta since I get more help in color matching, skin care, and where to find products. Again, I feel that these women are in something that would take advantage of them and would feel even worse if they get dropped for nothing like Tracy, the mom I talked about, and her daughter had from Paparazzi. I would suggest watching Savannah’s interview because it has a lot.  Also, Ilumninati did a video on Color Street not long after the Massachusetts convention and I saw that and like I said I paint my nails or put on press-on since strips don’t seem to stay for me. I could say the same about the other two. I’ve heard that Dashing Diva has better ones.

            Well, that was a long one but I did enjoy a good part of the aspects of this year. I hope to get to go to  an NFB convention in person again since it felt good to go to one back in Atlanta, RangerStop & Pop by the way, since it doesn’t feel the same doing it online except we have gone through a terrible pandemic and I think it’s long enough. I was glad to be vaccinated and got my booster recently even though it put me down for three days but got extra protection. Now knowing that kids can get vaccinated, it’s time to get in line and end this thing. I heard that people in Colorado during their convention got it, including President Riccabono. Again, it’s time for it to end. Sorry for the MLM rant but I felt it’s time to have that. If you want to be empowered, know that it’s really from within and you can empower yourself without toxic positivity. I’m already empowered with all the things I’ve been doing for years including Nerdy Shique Universe since I already represent a group in the convention and anime communities alike. I will definitely get my Allure Beauty Box up next!