Reasons to take notes in Braille

RantWoman is going to let her readers in on a few secrets. RantWoman is RantWoman, not some sweet-faced embodiment of serenity and well-buffed comportment. Sometimes, one way to tell that RantWoman has stopped pretending to embody proper comportment at a public event is that RantWoman is taking notes in Braille.


RantWoman knows people who take notes in Braille as a matter of course and greater necessity. RantWoman in no way wants the luxury of Braille as protest practice to reflect on how her readers view others who use Braille. RantWoman in fact frequently admires others' ease with Braille very much. And then there is RantWoman


Here are a number of reasons which individually or together in any combination may apply if RantWoman is taking notes in Braille:

--RantWoman made a reasonable accommodations request to have handouts emailed in advance but instead is presented with handouts in print that she cannot digest appropriately. RantWoman will frequently take notes in Braille on the offending handouts simply as a protest.

--An event involves Powerpoint. Perhaps RantWoman made a reasonable accommodations request in advance, perhaps not but the handouts presented are the 3-up with silly little spaces for notes or the 6-up images of slides which even others besides RantWoman need an electron microscope to interact with.

--RantWoman WANTS to make a whole lot of noise, but pounding out Braille with her slate and stylus is the most she is comfortable with.



--RantWoman has a ferocious yearning to note down something other than happy talk or blither from the presenters but does not want to use her gigantic fat pen; RantWoman wants to take notes no one can read over her shoulder.




--RantWoman is tired of the pretension that what she writes in fat pen is legible.


--RantWoman wants to be liberated from any pretensions that what she writes will embody perfection. Standard Braille in the US includes lots of clever contractions and over 400 rules about how to use contractions correctly. RantWoman's command of contractions is, um, incomplete and much of the time RantWoman just uses the contractions she remembers, uses others wrong, uses forms common in print not Braille, and generally fills her pages with mechanical braille production mistakes, oversights, and innumerable features to ensure that her notes become extremely, extremely personalized.



--RantWoman has all sorts of fidgets and twitches but alas does not have any sewing or knitting projects anywhere near. RantWoman knits only a tiny bit anyway, but the point is that taking notes in Braille is something mechanical to help RantWoman handle all her twitches.

Once in awhile, RantWoman even takes notes in Braille trying to acquire enough fluency to help convince herself and possibly others that purchasing an actual electronic Braille device would be really appropriate and reasonable. On that score, perhaps the world is to hope that RantWoman continues to be annoyed in order to get to this other goal. RantWoman cautions her readers: her list of annoyances is already long enough that anyone thinking of deliberately adding new ones will be severely castigated!