Independent Travel in NYC as a VI Foreigner with the CityMapper app!

I used this a lot when I was in New York City this summer. The CityMapper app, It REALLY helped me on the bus. 

It worked perfectly on the bus at first but after a while it took it a second to realise I was at my stop so it only ended up telling me I passed my stop. (it would buzz pretty much the second the bus left my stop) so I had to be looking and paying much attention, which I didn't mind. After all, I was trying to get where I was going so it was my business to have a heads up and it was usually only ever one stop off. 

I could tell the moment I passed it so I could orient myself to go back one stop as in the time that I missed my stop it was only a short distance behind me. 

Since I can't see the street signs, I loved using this because it told me every stop between my stop and where I started and I could look when I passed it. I wasn't really able to read them but it helped me feel more secure knowing I could explain where I was if I needed to so do. 

I didn't get a chance to try it on the train except once but I couldn't use it because I got no service underground. 

I had a lot of trouble with it walking though..I had to play around with it but ended up just relying on a friend using google maps and trying to use google maps myself. That part was a bit frustrating, the walking bit. Mainly because I was so not used to using it.

Definitely my favourite travel app so far though really I haven't tried many of them. Citymapper also allows you to make a profile within the app and  even change cities in the app if you travel from one major city to another which is really encouraging and just feeds my sense of adventure even with a visual impairment. It made me feel a lot more secure and continues to be available in many of the major U.S. cities. Even major countries too I believe.

I look forward to getting to know the train system better with it when I travel again.

Musing :: Style : Graduation OOTD

Hello from the other side.

We were charged to where all white for my graduation ceremony as the alumni before us have done. Except for shoes, shoes are black.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler Mini Book Review

Morning lovelies, so I finally read Yes Please and I wanted to write about it some. 

Took me two days, I did it as a bit of stress relief when preparing to tackle my sociolinguistics final. Usually I do literary reviews because, well, I like them. For this one though, I feel like doing a mini review.

Mini Review: When I first started 'Yes Please' I had no idea who Amy was nor have I seen her in anything on tv. I admit her style of comedy isn't really my slice but as the book went on I really got a sense of her. Honestly, I felt like she was trying way too hard to be funny in the earlier chapters but I get why, I mean it is her profession after all. She really turned out to have a lot of wisdom though.

Amy Pauler uses flashbacks and episodic instalments of life experience to shape the purpose of her book. When she first begins we simply get a look at her as a person chasing a big dream but as she go on the audience stops being a listener or audience and for or a partner present in the moments she is sharing about. The author resets each scene fore you so that you almost feel like you were standing next to her in these moments she talks about like looking at the stars or when her doctor dies.

The language of her book changes coming to the second half from introspective to dreamy and then back again. Personally, I really liked the dreamer sections where she is just a person pouring her heart out about how she feels about things and less about how you should feel.

I guess i'm bias, i don't usually like books that suggest i should feel this way or that about a thing, at least not out right, let me decide but this does a lot of that and with what is very much like a moral of adult life coming to the end of each chapter.

It's an interesting perspective on an ordinary life made extraordinary with will, perseverance and a refusal to settle for  a notions of exception due to things that can be changed such as location and occupation.

In this book the author dares to ask boldly and with reckless abandon why not in the face of can not every time. When life presents her with the tiniest possibility of a shimmer of greatness she raises her hand and steadily adheres Yes, please.

It's wonderful to read what happens on her bath as a result of this.