[bksvol-discuss] submitted One of the Lucky Ones
- From: "Tiffany H. Jessen" <tjessen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 02:34:00 -0500
After a long ugly battle with my scanner, I have finally finished scanning One
of the Lucky Ones. I don't know what the problem was, but no matter how many
times I optimized the settings they were chosen different and none of them
worked. I ended up just taking what I could get and cleaning the rest by hand.
Now Kurzweil ranks it as just under 99% spelled correctly, but a large majority
of the supposed "misspelled" words are actually just unknown words from another
region of the world. It could probably use another person's looking over, but
overall it's in relatively good shape.
I know this book was requested by a few people, so here is the book jacket
information for everyone else who may want to see what it's about.
Many people might think me unlucky because I am blind, writes Lucy Ching in
this poignant autobiography, but I prefer to think of myself as one of the
lucky ones.
Indeed, Lucy Ching's achievements despite total blindness would be outstanding
in any time and place- especially so in China of the 1930s, where the blind
were treated as outcasts and blind children were sometimes sold into slavery by
their own families.
Lucy Ching was fortunate enough to be kept at home with her parents, but as she
reveals in this remarkable memoir, her triumph over her disability was due to
her own fierce determination... and to a very special friendship.
Under the devoted care of her amah, an illiterate servant woman who was guided
only by common sense, intuition and affection for the child, Lucy Ching learned
to live in a sighted world, vowing to have the independence and fulfillment of
a profession.
As a child, Lucy taught herself to read and write in braille and was allowed to
attend school with sighted children. And, quite against the beliefs of her
family, she converted to Christianity and made a solemn promise to God that her
lifework would be to help the blind.
Lucy's unflagging dedication was rewarded with a scholarship to the Perkins
School for the Blind in Boston, where she received the special training which
has enabled her to carry out her promise.
My life could have been spent in enforced idleness and isolation, observes Lucy
Ching, cut off from other people and their lives and problems. But I was
luckier than that. God had other plans for me. Like Helen Keller, she found
herself, her work and her God through affliction. Today Lucy Ching is a social
worker in Hong Kong, where she works with the blind as well as other
handicapped people.
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