This course journey has been really eye opening to how much disability and non-disability impact my life and the lives of others. After watching Crip Camp, I wrote in my journal about how I wish I had been taught about this historical event when I was younger, when my history classes went over civil rights movements. I think this digs into why a part of this course has been bittersweet to me. Because if I hadn’t taken this course I likely would have never learned about the history of disability and the impact it makes on the rest of society – despite most of my family and even myself having out own disabilities. However, I’m also really happy to have been able to see so much pride and community regarding disability. The film Sins Invalid was really special to me. I wrote about how seeing artistic expression of disability, and the behind the scenes of such creative works, was really powerful and beautiful. 

A reading that really stood out to me was the one on Disability and Mythology. I wrote about how Daredevil is supposed to be disabled, but he “makes up for his disability” by being able to sense people more accurately than a person with sight. I think this notion of making up for something could be seen in so many other aspects of the world. How people value others is a really odd thing, and I think it ties into the concept of normalcy and the normal experience. Overall, looking closely at disability, and going so in depth on one topic, has been really captivating and I feel really well versed in this topic. My main goal at the start of this class was to learn how to better represent disabled people in writing, seeing as I want to go on to jobs using creative writing, and I think this class has helped me extraordinarily in preparing for that, but it has also opened my eyes to a whole new academic world, and social and cultural world as well.

For some reason I can’t forget what Lily said during an early class discussion on accommodation; that people lack accommodations not because people don’t care, but because there are so many different types of people that have to be accommodated, and that it takes time to hear from everyone. I feel like this is a positive notion that I want to keep moving forward. That people really do want to help disabled people. I think this type of thinking brings hope for the future.