 "Photo: Kat Hilsabeck")
Texas Tech student Christina Weymouth sees campus differently than most students.
In fact, she doesn't see it at all.
Blind since her premature birth, the junior English major uses common sense and her guide dog Lizzie to traverse Tech's 921-acre campus.
"She's amazing," Weymouth said, kneeling from a coffee shop table to kiss the black lab. "She's totally changed my life."
Surrounding customers watched as if they had never seen a dog in a coffee shop.
The 21-year-old Bandera native said she has had Lizzie for almost three-and-a-half years, and campus facilitaties have helped her day-to-day struggles as a blind student with a guide dog.
"The campus is big, so it's not always easy to get around," she said, "but the sidewalks are big too, which are good for guide dogs."
Rarely does she go anywhere without Lizzie, Weymouth said, and her dog has become important to her college experience.
Anita Paige, a certified orientation and mobility specialist and instructor, frequently works with Weymouth to help orient her to new places on campus. She enables blind students to navigate campus on their own by showing them specific routes to and from various places.
Weymouth and Lizzie are a team, Paige said, and sometimes guide dogs often sniff out shorter or easier routes for their owners than she can.
While she is happy at Tech, Weymouth said, she believes blind people are underrepresented across campus, leading her peers and teachers to have misconceptions about her.
"People try to help," she said, "and I may look young and I know I'm blind, but I don't always need help."
Tech is a good place for blind students to pursue higher education, Paige said, and Weymouth has done an excellent job adapting to college life.
"It's been great working with Christina," she said, "and she's learned so much, I hardly have to see her anymore."
Weymouth has spent a lot of time not only adapting to a society accustomed to people who can see, but also trying to break stereotypes of people with disabilities, she said, and her challenges did not stop when she went to college.
A simple task can take Weymouth much longer than it takes students without disabilities, she said. For instance, when mail comes to the mailbox she shares with her roommate, she must decipher which mail is for her and then decipher what is worth opening.
"I know what certain types of envelopes feel like, so I know what's important," she said. "I've gotten to where I can feel a credit card offer through the envelope, so I know I can just trash it."
Weymouth lives at The Reserve, where she said she shares an apartment with another visually impaired student. Although she wouldn't mind living with a sighted person, she believes they are more of a hindrance than a blind roommate.
"They don't even pay attention to order or arrangement," she said of sighted people, "My roommate and I know how to arrange our groceries and to always push chairs in so we don't trip."
Though she cannot single out anyone on-campus issue that hinders her, Weymouth believes her life would be a lot easier if people realized the level of adaptation she goes through to fit in.
In any given day, she uses specific techniques to keep her life organized and running smoothly, she said. Feeling the texture of her socks tells her if they match, and keeping the rough edges of different keys facing specific directions tells her which one is which.
"I have a strong desire to be like everyone else," she said, "and I do normal things."
Weymouth, a self-described geek, said she enjoys the television show "Modern Marvels," going to the movies and going out to eat - as long as the restaurant has a Braille menu, that is.
The activities she said she usually does not enjoy involve sighted people.
"Sighted people can be so inane with directions," she said, "I don't even ask sighted people for directions anymore, because when I do, they point and say, 'That way.'"
Besides asking for directions, Weymouth said sighted people's attitude toward the blind people often embarrasses her, so she chooses to keep only a few sighted friends.
She said there are things she has always wanted to see, but believes she has done well adapting to her blindness.
She said she makes a "delicious" T-Bone steak and is proud of her independent lifestyle and her success in the classroom.
"Of course I want to see things. I want to see my mother, fireworks, rainbows and stars," she said. "I desire to be able to pick up a book and read it, or write my name in print, but if I had a choice I would definitely stay blind."
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