Public Thnx4 Journal

I have been feeling a little worried about an aspect of my physical health and it has really been stressing me out. However, I have been realizing that I am healthy and I am really grateful for my health. It may change at some point, maybe even some point soon, but I am grateful for my good health.

For my gratitude journal, my mother gave me a suggestion that I do not want to ignore. She is grateful for modern medicine, as innovations in medicine and surgery has saved both her life and my life many times. This history is complicated, as although I acknowledge the healthcare professionals perform valuable work in saving lives (all healthcare professionals, in communities around the world), it is only recently that I have learned about the true extent of the medicalization of disability. I now apply such a history to myself, in have either been admitted to hospitals to treat illnesses, electing to have surgeries, or attending therapies throughout nearly every stage of my life so far as a person with disabilities since birth. Balance, then, is important, as although I am grateful for the healthcare professionals that have saved both my mother's life and my life, I now know that the system of healthcare institutions has the very least not always treated people with disabilities as beings with the right to live, and to live outside of institutions in society. This last sentence is certainly contentious, in essence I am grateful for a system that would have most certainly have killed or isolated me as late as the mid-20th century. To go back to my November 9 entry, it wasn't until certain disability rights reforms that created this modern system is it allowed me to be born safely and not separated from my family members by being placed in an institution at birth.

Very grateful to have most of my adult children together for Thanksgiving Dinner this year!

a nice 27 hr get away to property and Cambria; fall leaves, eating out, lovely sunset, wine by fire pit w MM

I am grateful about yesterday, as I was finally able to get a hold on some of the work that I need to complete this fall semester. I am grateful that I still had the opportunity still take a good walk yesterday. Since I need to continue working, this is meant to be a short entry.

I am grateful for the fact that I am able to go boating and fishing in Sarasota Bay, as a continuation of yesterday's entry. Although I have several memories fishing, that it is not what I only wish to record. It is the sensation of spreading my arms to my side to feel the ocean-like breeze as very close to flying as the boat engine picks up speed to begin our days out on the water in the morning sunrise. It is the closest natural approximation I have to true freedom even sitting in my manual wheelchair, the one that is light enough to go on my family’s pontoon boat. A freedom that is valuable, as to forget the troubles of everyday life.

Fui na piscina com meus amigos e fizemos uma janta depois.

Besides my neighborhood, I feel grateful to live in my community of Sarasota, Florida [a smaller city south of Tampa but north of Fort Myers] comfortably from a financial perspective. That is because Sarasota is (1) pleasantly warm even in November and (2) by the water. I'm particularly grateful because a lot of people either come down here as the vacation they have been saving for from the north or are unable to live here full-time even if they wanted to. I am lucky in that my paternal aunt and parents bought our house here decades ago, we would not be able to afford a similar property here if we had to buy today. What is really cool, in retrospect, is that you can definitely see the license plates of different US states [and I swear I've even seen an Ontario, Canada license plate] during the right season and in the right places around town. The Florida Gulf Coast in general have some great towns with nature that is never too far away: a string of pearls. Sarasota is a midpoint of sorts. I usually am more familiar with going up north to Tampa and St. Petersburg more frequently, North Port and Venice to the south are very much different, [as are the more southern parts of Florida, even further south than Venice.] There is a vibrancy and beauty to where I live this gratitude journal has helped me appreciate, to truly experience Florida is to spend hours driving through it. I have never been to Miami or Key West even though I live in the same state, and have only been to Daytona Beach or Saint Augustine [on the East Coast of Florida] only once, respectively. Northern Florida is different too, a deceptively long journey to reach the border with Georgia.

Today in my literature class, we had a really great discussion about the novel we just read. Everyone had so many interesting insights and perspectives, it was a truly enriching conversation.

I took a Mindfulness workshop over the course of 3 days.

As something connected to yesterday's entry, I am grateful for the opportunities that I had to travel to different places throughout my life. I've gone to places like Orlando, Daytona Beach, St. Louis, New Orleans, Rhode Island and New York City, West Jefferson in North Carolina, and Japan. My trip to Japan specifically in the Summer of 2017 as part of a tour group is something that I think that I will remember the rest of my life, in that I am grateful for the people that made it happen and the opportunity to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Hikone specifically. In the context of yesterday’s entry, I am grateful for my tour director and her husband, as both of them help to make my trip possible in terms of my accessibility concerns. (So, I am grateful for both the opportunity to travel and for the people who I have traveled with, both the something and someone.)

Completei o estágio de PDI nas escolas e foi um último dia muito agradável com as crianças.

Consegui uma boia para brincar na piscina da Famerp.

After writing my entry for yesterday, I decided to look further into accessibility in the airline industry. After my research, I realized that I am not just grateful for the general notion of new accessibility changes, but the individuals and organizations behind said changes. Delta Flight Products and UK organization Air4All, for example, have already made prototypes for seats that allow people in power wheelchairs to stay in their chairs while on flights. All Wheels Up, a US accessibility organization, too, have continued to pressure the US Congress and US Department of Transportation [DOT], and likewise the DOT has announced distinctly partial accessibility reforms surrounding the lavatories of certain classes of commercial planes that were not required to be accessible before. I am grateful for these efforts, especially as I learned more about them yesterday. I am grateful that I have never had my wheelchair so severely damaged before by airlines, though that does not mean it does not happen. The conversation to balance the safety of passengers and the need for accessibility is very much ongoing: both DOT and the airlines themselves have used safety regulations as a barrier to implementing accessible solutions as mandatory for decades. There are very much powerful interests at work here, both DOT and the airlines themselves, that built this inaccessible system. This fever is finally seeming to break.