Columns

What I’ve Learned from Starting a Twitch Channel

When I started my Twitch channel in February, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I became quite familiar with the video game streaming platform through journalism, and finally worked up the courage to start. In the four months since then, I’ve learned about starting a small business, branding, design,…

Let’s Aim to Achieve True Global Accessibility

On May 21, the world celebrated its ninth Global Accessibility Awareness Day, but accessibility awareness hasn’t yet risen to its deserved level of interest. The awareness day website shares a great picture of this initiative’s potential scale: there are about a billion people with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive…

Why Self-monitoring Our Functioning Levels Is Important

The muscular dystrophy world is ever-evolving. I began to have symptoms of muscle loss and weakness in 2006. Science had not yet discovered my form of the illness, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy subtype 2L (LGMD2L). My physician, a member of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, told me they would find…

The Power of Empathy Among Friends

I’ve never considered myself to be insecure about my disability. My use of a mobility aid has never dulled my social butterfly persona, except on a few occasions when I’ve communed with other people with disabilities and had to face the reality of my own disease. …

The Impossibility of Putting a Value on a Life

Author’s note: The COVID-19 crisis has already lasted several months. The reality is that we don’t know how this will go. But as a community, my opinion is that we need to be ready. We need to be knowledgeable. This column will focus on some work we have done to…

The ‘Crip Camp’ Utopia Made Us a Better Society Today

Netflix’s new documentary “Crip Camp” transports viewers to the peak era of peace-preaching hippies and civil rights activists. But amid these revolutions, another minority group struggled to find belonging: the disability community. To further their cause, Camp Jened’s hippie staff dedicated themselves to treating people with disabilities…

Living, Learning, Thriving When We Need It Most

None of us have lived through something like what we are going through today. Some have attempted to equate it with other historical events. But there is a uniqueness to this pandemic. As far as I’m concerned, these comparisons aren’t helpful. We live in a unique period of technological advancement.

Realizing My Introversion During Self-isolation

In the days when I still attended school, I was deemed an extrovert by my teachers and school officials. Never did I falter in putting myself “out there.” I was best known as the girl who won the talent show by belting out a Dixie Chicks song while…