Walk by Faith....

Walk by faith, and not by sight?

Ada, Oklahoma – – We all have difficulties that we have to overcome in our lives, some of us more than others. Alexandra Taussig is a prime example of someone who may have a little more to overcome than most, but as it turns out, she is doing splendidly.

Taussig was born in Missouri with a visual impairment that most of the Doctors hadn't encountered before. A rare atrophying of the muscles around the eye, making both focusing of the eye, and control of the eyelids somewhere between difficult and impossible.

 By the age of six, the doctors did a through examination, and she was determined to be legally blind. While she can sometimes make things out with the small monocular she wears around her neck, actions like driving a car, or even crossing the street are often as not an impossibility.

That hasn't stopped her in the slightest though, if anything, its given her a reason and a direction to push forward. With her determination and tenacity alone, she seems set on making a name for herself in this world.

Even though she was born in Missouri, her parents moved to Oklahoma City when she was in her early teens. Along with her older brother and younger sister, they lived there for the better part of the next seven years.

Taussig went to a normal high school, and found that being around people who didn't cater to her disability made her push herself to new heights. She found that she excelled best, when the playing field was against her.

It seemed only natural then, that Taussig decided she wanted to go to college. Given her experiences in high school, finding a college that was for the blind and visually impaired didn't really seem to be a viable option. So she talked to her parents and began looking for an option that would allow her to have a normal colleProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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“I heard from my school councilor that East Central University was good with people that have disabilities, She tells me, so I came with my parents to check it out, and two months later I was enrolled here.”

Her time here has been anything but smooth sailing. Adapting to living alone has been a difficult transition, and one that has not been without its bumps.

“When I first came here, getting around was extremely difficult,” She tells me, “I lived upstairs, and had problems actually seeing where there were.” “Finding classrooms was virtually impossible unless I asked for help from a nearby student or teacher.”

When you have visual problems, any new environment is like a new maze to learn. Apparently Taussig usually needs several months to become easily accustomed to moving about new environments with ease.

There were also battles with administration and teachers over being able to take tests over a longer period of time to allow her time to read the tests properly, and having the tests themselves printed in a larger font.

“Not everyone was as willing to help as I had hoped,” Taussig says regretfully, “Many of the Professors were very nice, but some just didn't seem to care.”

Looking around the room that Taussig inhabits, its fairly easy to tell where her interests lie academically. There are books of Browning's poetry, Jane Austin novels, Anthologies of American literature and a book by Desmond Tutu, and these are only a few of the novels that can be found in the stacks upon her table.

“Literature has always been something I enjoyed,” Taussig says, “becoming an english major just seemed like an easy direction for college as well.”

Not only does it seem to be an easy direction for her, but her studies are going exceptionally. She is currently in good standing with the East Central Honors Program, headed by Dr. Yarborough.

You have to maintain at least a 3.3gpa to stay in good standings with the Honors program, and Taussig has been in the program steadily for almost three years now. Not a bad achievement for someone who has difficulties seeing the print on most of the books assigned for her classes.

As for what she is planning currently? Working on her honors thesis is her current goal. “I'm planning on attempting to do a survey on both small towns and cities.” She tells me, “I'm hoping to see why the mindsets towards people with disabilities changes so much between small and large populations.”

After she graduates from East Central University, she wants to go to graduate school, and obtain her degree in library science. Seeing as they have a program for that at East Central University, she may end up being here in Ada for quite some more time. It seems she's quite okay with that idea though.

“I really like Ada as a town, and many of the people here.” Taussig says, “Cities are exciting, bustling with people, but its a lot harder to get to know people.”

Still, not everything is as ideal as Taussig would like. When I inquired if there was anything different she would like about Ada, she sighed and confessed that she had been going through serious withdrawal lately. Withdrawal over what? IHOP.