Paige Racette

My brain goes faster than I can type, but I have a solution; I use ‘speech to text’ on my tablet and phone, and ‘speech recognition’ on my computer. This makes it so much easier for me to work with the printed word. Learning ‘speech to text’ or ‘speech recognition’ takes patience because you have to train the program to recognize your voice.

I am also a big Pokémon fan. I grew up with it and the game is another opportunity for me to increase my manual dexterity and my training skills. The more you train with Pokémon the stronger the bond between the two of you. It is a little like training a dog, which I hope to do sometime soon. I am applying to get a service dog.

Most people probably don’t know this about me but I am terrified of meeting new people. I am not sure but this fear may be a result of being bullied when I was a kid. My twin sister Pagan calls me ‘Little Ame’ after the boy in the movie Wolf Children because he is very shy, but eventually he discovers his ‘inner wolf’. I don’t let the terror stop me from doing new things; like participating in the Astonished! Summer Literacy Program or going to work four mornings a week at Sask Abilities, but it takes its toll on me. I hope a service dog would help me feel at home wherever I am and hopefully reduce my feelings of anxiety and terror. Wish me luck with my application.

Oh I probably should also tell you that I have Cerebral Palsy, I can’t eat eggs unless they are disguised in a cake, I am careful about what I eat because I have ulcerative colitis, and at one point I had a blood clot.  I have two favourite expressions, ‘burn’, and ‘hello’ (I stretch it out when I am saying it). Pagan and I live in our own apartments that are part of Chip and Dale Housing. Our apartments were designed for us so there is lots of room to get around in our power chairs, to reach the kitchen sink and the stove-top, and to get from our bedrooms to our bathrooms using the ceiling tracks. We both love having our own places. They were painted a few weeks ago and my bedroom is red like the colour in my photo above.

At A! Summer Literacy I loved that we read out loud. I have a lot of trouble comprehending when I am reading, it feels like my mind gets all jumbled up, but when it is read out loud I get it. I have this same problem when I am typing; this is another reason why ‘speech to text’ works so well for me. Another big bonus from the A! Summer Literacy Program is our new friendship with Al. Al is a University of Regina student who volunteered in the A! Summer Literacy Program. Pagan and I got to know him and now we hang out together.

I hope New Zealand will be in my future. I want to see the locations where they filmed The Hobbit  and the Lord of the Rings. I know this is a very big trip but I dream big.

You can learn more from Paige on her blog Jurassicdragon21 Dream Big No Matter What