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bjbjm There are stereotypes there are prejudices those probably aren't going to go away for
a long time, hopefully there not as huge factors in peoples lives anymore. But I don't think,
you know they still exist. It is still painful when you run into it. College, lets see, I
get, you know I was pretty involved in school work and activities. Yea I had some friends,
you know I think a big thing for a lot of young people with disabilities is that I did
not get asked out on dates a lot, at all. That was hard, cuz that's such a standard
way of socializing at that age. So that was really hard, but I just kind of pushed in
other directions a lot. You know I think as happy as I was to get out of the segregated
school, being in school with communities were there was where there really very few other
disabled people. I was always the only one or one of very few and that does make it hard
socially. At the time that was what I wanted, I wanted to be just among non-disabled people
in the mainstream of society. And so in my mind that meant that I did not want to be
around other disabled people. My attitude about that changed a lot after I graduated
from college. I had the opportunity to apply for a fellowship to go abroad to some sort
of independent study project. The proposal that I wrote was to go to England and to explore
the disabilities rights part of it. I got that fellowship and I went there and all of
a sudden after ten or more years of avoiding other people with disabilities and not focusing
on disabilities at all. Now all of a sudden I was in London where I didn't know anybody
and I was spending all of my time focusing on disability issues, meeting people with
disabilities, learning about disability culture and disability pride and it totally changed
my life. It was a huge jump into that I guess. It was '83, '84. Then when I was in England, I made no pretense
of being an objective or a researcher, I was just there and I got involved in things and
I learned as much as I could and I took part and it all just, it really made sense. I saw
that disability was not something you should try to avoid or not talk about it was something
of a global community and a movement and a culture and something that was very exciting.
So when I came back to Denver I right away I started getting involved in stuff here,
like I met this other woman named Sharon Hickman and together we founded a project addressing
disabled women's issues and especially domestic violence. I got really involved in women's
women with disabilities' issues. I also got my first full time job at an independent living
center in Denver and just really jumped into it totally and haven't jumped out yet so.
urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags country-region urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
City urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags place I went to a neighborhood preschool and
kindergarten and then for first and second grade I went to a segregated school for children
with disabilities, prep school, just for those two years Owner Normal Owner Microsoft Office
Word Microsoft, Inc I went to a neighborhood preschool and kindergarten and then for first
and second grade I went to a segregated school for children with disabilities, prep school,
just for those two years Title Microsoft Office Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8