2007-03-09 - 12:21 p.m.
Yay! I got an email from UIC yesterday afternoon with the text of a postal letter being sent to me. �Dear Mr. Gladstone: We are pleased to inform you�� Wow. Double wow. I�m so happy about this. I know I once said no more school for a while, but maybe it�s already been a while.
There are so many practicalities I have to figure out. Like just getting there, first off. There�s a bus that runs by the campus from near my house. But what if it rains? I�m getting a new powerchair, but it�s not entirely waterproof. Apparently, few motorized wheelchairs are.
I asked a sales rep how other people who use chairs do it in the rain. Surely all people with a serious disability don�t become tethered inside because of bad weather? She acknowledged that weather-proof wheelchair design was sadly lacking, but explained how kids in high school cope by covering certain sensitive areas with garbage bags or a poncho or something.
Also, I need to figure out how to pay for it. UIC is a state school, so it�s less expensive. But it still costs money. Ideally, I�d like to actually make money while in school. Since waiting tables or moving furniture is no longer an option, really ideally I�d like to be paid as a research assistant to a certain professor.
She studies feelings of �belonging� in people with disabilities � how connected they feel to their community and to the world in general. Part of this is how included or excluded you feel by your interactions with the built environment, an issue that fascinates me. How welcome can you feel if your environment doesn�t have curb cuts and you can�t even cross the street?
She�s developing a set of �indicators� (a currently trendy word for �facts�) about this. I told her I actually had some experience with indicators, both academically (at Tufts) and professionally (at the Fenway CDC and the Providence Plan). She was very excited and wrote me into a grant application, asking me to send her my resume.
So maybe it�ll work out if she gets the grant. Right now it�s just a weird feeling knowing where you�ll be for the next while. But a good feeling.
� 2007 Geoff Gladstone
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