Adapted slightly from an email to my Disability Resource Center counselor in the middle of Add/Drop week.

Instead of changing classes and accessibility requests left and right, and say "don't worry about doing accessibility stuff for me this week; I'll mainstream myself for a little while." I did it for 26 years; I still do it for most of my waking hours. I can add in a few more hours to the mix.

I know I could ask for support, but I'm prioritizing flexibility over accessibility right now. (I wish it weren't a tradeoff, but the reality is that right now it is.) I'll just power through. Since homework/etc hasn't hit yet, I've got enough buffer time to do the self-care/rest I need to expend energy on that front, and the upcoming 3-day weekend helps too.

For future reference: In hindsight -- and if this weren't my final semester -- what I might do for add/drop period next time around is just ask for a full-time ASL interpreter or CART provider for the first week to pop in and out of classes with me so I can see the prof, syllabus, etc. for all the courses I'm considering. As a side bonus, I get to see how the instructor reacts to accessibility stuff. Basically, I'd treat the first week of classes like as if it were a conference. (All this assumes infinite resources, of course. Which I realize isn't the case.)

I'd do this -- and I'm doing this weird run-around-and-shuffle-my-schedule thing right now -- because visiting the class is the best way to gauge the quality of the learning experience I'm likely to have. Is the professor good? Is the course interesting? Are the assignments educational? Will my classmates be awesome to hang out with? There's no substitute for firsthand experience in the classroom, and abled students shop around during add/drop for precisely this reason.

I don't see any reason that advice wouldn't apply to disabled students. It's just that the workload of accessibility setup for individual courses makes the opportunity cost of add/drop significantly higher, so I'm guessing most don't do it (I'm curious whether add/drop statistics confirm my hypothesis). However, since I've presented as "nondisabled" for most of my life, it's never occurred to me not to "shop around" too. It's just that my criteria also includes things like "can I lipread this professor?"

Anyway. Good luck on the continuing flood -- I'll suss out my options and handle the adds/drops/comms with profs, so don't worry about me until late this week or early next week when I'll email again with that status update.