Thursday, April 7, 2011

Academic disability

So I chose to do a research project on social integration and disability for my English 1010 class.  It's been interesting.  Learning more about disability dynamics from an academic perspective has put words to feelings that I've known for a long time.  It helps me think about how I think.  It helps me see the broader social dynamics so much better than before.  And I've found myself somewhat compulsively wanting to know more about it.  A really good idea has so many intellectual tangents that you can follow that it seems a shame to only spend a little time on it when I could spend hours devouring it.  I'm glad I picked the subject since I can see farther than I could before doing it.

Studying disability and experiencing the school has been interesting for me.  I think being at USU has been the most open I have been with people about my AS than I have ever been before.  The atmosphere is friendly, the institutional supports seem ready to function, and I'm finding friendly voices and people to interact with.  I know its not as connected in practice as my emotions put things together, but walking down the halls of professor offices and seeing Ally placards (you either know what I mean or you don't, I won't explain it) posted all about leaves me feeling comfortable that I'm in a place where a significant number of people have committed to interacting with and trying to understand people very different from themselves, so I've got a shooting chance to let some of these people know about my AS and building the strength of my network instead of risking destroying my network of supports.

I'm glad I'm taking the chance with this paper to reinvest in myself.  I just hope when its finished that my supposed target audience (my classmates) can understand it.  When I explained my core idea the responses I got were "good luck keeping that within 5 pages," and "I have no idea what you just said."