Assignment for Friday April 8, 2010. for Zosha

            In 1968 all Americans were supposed to have equal rights, what happened?  In 1991 all disabled individuals were supposed to have equal rights.  What happened?  I happen to be one of many students that is across this country that is a student with a disability on a college campus.  No, I don’t live on campus, but I do commute to campus from home.  I have been a student here at Syracuse University for about three and a half years.  I have had my share of problems with having doors, buildings, and other things that are supposed to be accessible for me and other students not in working order or not being able to use.  For an example, there is a ramp that is in the front of the HBC building on the campus.  The problem is that the ramp is not wide enough for a wheelchair.  Also, some of the other students park their bikes there on the ramp.  So if the bikes are on the ramp how is a disabled student supposed to use the ramp?  I’m going to give you another example there is a mental health building that was supposed to be updated for disabled students.  One day this one student who happens to be disabled went to use the facilities and end up getting stuck in the bathroom because she was not able to open the bathroom door because it was to heavy for her.  The other students had to go looking for her because they didn’t know what had happened to her.

April 6, 2010

Yes I do believe that this essay is a arguement.  what is being argued are a couple of statements that the towns people are questioning.  What does it take to be a man?  Who can say what it takes to be a man?  why is there so much hatred against gay people?  In my opinion the thesis statement should be “Torture is more easily imagined when masked in iconography but no better understood.”

Mrs. Wypijewski is trying to tell you a story about all three boys.  She talks about thier lives.  How they grew up, with or without parents.  was there a parent on drugs?  Were they raised in a good home, were they abused as a child.  She is trying to give us some insight on what might have lead up to this incident.   I think the author choiced to write this story to show that homosexual hatred is not just a big city problem. 

Mrs. Wypijewski is a very good writer.  She tells a story in a very interesting way that you feel that you are apart of that community.  She keeps you interested by getting interviews from people and different groups in the town.

Questions for my research.

1. Do you agree or disagree that campus parking is a problem?

2. Have you had any problems with getting a handicapped parking spot close to the building were your classes are held?

3. I know that there  is a Quad bus service.  Have you had any problems about getting to the stops?

4. What about this past winter, was the pathways shovelled enough for walking or using your wheelchair?

5. Do you have any problems with the bathroom facilities? 

6. What about the older buildings doorways?  Do you have problems with them?

7. What about the handicapped emergency buttons?  Have they always worked for you?

8. Have you had any problems with the water fountains?  Are they low enough for you?  Are the handles hard to turn?

9. Does your wheelchair have a hard time pulling the hills on campus?

March 25, 2010

Writing 205

Eunice Jones

March 24, 2010

1. I would like to discover what problems do other disabled individuals that are students on the university face.
2. The research method that I plan on using is the interviewing method.
3. I know a couple of other people that have different disabilities and I will take to the group Beyond Compliance.  They are a national group that deals with the concerns with students that have disabilities.  I will see about going to some of their meetings so that I get to meet some of the people in the group.
4. I have e-mailed some of the people to see if it would be o.k. to do interviews with them.  I also will try to go to some of the meetings with Beyond Compliance. My biases about this research method are trying not to influence people on what to say.
5. Make sure that the person that I am interviewing feels comfortable with the topic that we are discussing.
6. My biases about this research method are trying not to influence people on what to say.
7. What I plan on discovering is different ideas on how to make the situations for these disabled people better.

Freewrite #2

Writing 205

Eunice Jones

March 8, 2010

What has interested me the most is the rules and regulations that are apart of public and private spaces in the U.S.  Public parks and spaces are supposed to be open to the public but they have limitations on when and who can be in the public spaces.  They have opening and closing times.  The county officials want everyone to come to certain area parks or squares, let us say Hanover Square, to enjoy ourselves but not the homeless.  The homeless are also a part of the city.  They would like to enjoy themselves too.  Even though some of them will be pan handling. 

I really enjoyed the ads and bulletin boards.  You know how sometimes you are riding along in the car and all of a sudden a billboard just has a message that really makes you think or puts you in a different place or time.  I also did not realize how many racially or sexually motivated symbols there are in the world.  It seems that advertisers are using billboards to get their messages across to everyone instead of television because it is a lot cheaper and motorists are always on the highways and streets heading to somewhere.

I feel that freedom of speech and freedom to act in a public space is one of the issues that I feel that we are losing out on.  We sometimes feel that we are being watched all the time, even if you turn from a corner that says no turns.  You wonder who is watching you.  Are you going to get pulled over by the police?  In September of last year, the Indian students did a protest dance against Columbus Day.  It was the first time that I’ve seen in person Indians doing their native dance.  It was both interesting and very informative.  I guess since they were student, the University let have their protest in the Quad.  But I feel that if they had asked the county officials to have the protest downtown, I don’t think that they would have agreed because of the Italian immigrants that we have in office and in the city.

There is one specific site that I am interested in and that is how disabled students are discriminated against on Syracuse University.  There is a group of disabled students that meet three times a week and discuss their problems that they are having.  But anyway there are complaints about the older building not being accessible for the disabled student.  The clock tower building is not really handicapped accessible.  The back door can be opened automatically but the wood door is hard to open.  The elevator in that building is very slow or sometimes does not work.  The old building of Eggers, Lyman and Maxwell halls have tried to improve the conditions that were lacking, but there is still a struggle with some of the bathroom stalls the desks in the classrooms and getting through the winters here is the worst.   Going to this school is very hard because of the parking that is assigned to some of the students is crazy.  Even if you have a handicapped sticker they still want you to park far away.  One year I was going to catch a ride with another student because they let us out early because of the weather.  We had to walk from the Quad to over by the Carrier Dome to get her car.  We had to walk down stairs that was not shoveled at all.  I told her if I fall take a picture and go get help.

The two ideas that I am trying to choose from are discrimination of disabled individuals and invasion of search engine space or privacy.  The first idea is good because I am disabled and have seen some things and have seen how some disabled students are treated.  Sometimes I feel that S.U. does not care because we are the minority on the hill.  The other idea came from a friend of mine.  She felt that jobs are searching through facebook, yahoo!, and other searching engines to see what people have on their websites.

Perceptual spaces

February 18. 2010

Writing 205

Eunice Jones

                  Once you walk outside whether it is sunny or cloudy, you use your visual senses to look and see who and what is going on outside.  You look up and down the streets to admire the snowfall blanketing the streets, homes, and cars.  Then you listen or use your auditory senses for cars, ambulances, and or kids playing in the area.  If you’re scared of big dogs you would look and listen for the direction of the dog and which direction he is coming from.  I like to smell or use my olfactory senses to smell the fresh air or smell burgers cooking or getting burnt from the nearby Burger King restaurant.  I also can smell the garbage on Wednesday morning that lines the street in front of homes.  When it is cold outside or hot we use the air temperature or thermal air to let us know how to dress for the day.  When it’s really cold outside you dress in coats, hats scarves, and boots.  Most of the time you don’t want to talk to anyone when you’re outside, because it’s too cold.  But when it is warm or not you don’t mind standing outside and talking to people you meet walking.  When I haven’t seen someone in a long time I do stop and give a hug and say, “Hello”.  I talk to them for a few minutes but if I’m in a hurry I take their number and call them later.

Billboard ad

Writing 205

February 9, 2010

Eunice Jones

                  The reason that I picked this billboard is because it had spoken to me.  The sign is telling me that it is my choice to take care of my heart.  I can eat right, exercise, don’t smoke and to see my doctor on a regular basis.  If I don’t decide to take care of my heart there are all kinds of diseases out there to catch.  You see in my family we all have some kind of heart condition.  I have arrhythmia and high blood pressure.  My father and two of my sisters had to get shunts put into their arteries for blood flow.  So you see I have to take care of my heart for a healthy long life.

                  The sign is telling people that Austin Hospital is the right hospital for people with a heart condition.  They will give them excellent care.  Also, in the sign it has a heart that is intertwined with a star that could represent Austin as being the number one in heart surgeries or other heart conditions in their field.

                  This sign is modality because the sign to me is talking to you about becoming more heart healthy.  By the company capitalizing the “C” in choice it is like telling you that now is the time to make the choice and be responsible for the care of your heart.  The EKG reading represents a flat line which is on half of the green diagram and a healthy heart beat that is on the other half of the diagram.

                  I did not really have any problems.  I was just trying to find something that would just reach out to me and let me think.

 

Freewrite #1

Hello, my name is Eunice Jones.  I was not born in Syracuse, but my family and I have lived here majority of our lives.  My parents have always worked at different jobs in the city.  My father only has a 3^rd grade education because when was young he had to leave school to get a job to help out his parents.  My parents were born in South Carolina.  At the time there were not many job opportunities but picking cotton, tobacco or working on the “white man’s” farm.  So when they had a chance to leave and change their circumstances they took it.  My father worked at Crouse- Hinds that is a factory all of his life.  Later on he did take on a second job as a janitor because my parents wanted to buy a house and make more money for the family.  My mother has also worked all the time also.  She has worked at different factories in the city.  With my parents both working really left us alone to fend for ourselves.  We had to help one another with our homework.  My mother always made sure to check it before she went to bed.

We used to live in what is called “Brick City” in Syracuse.  Growing up in the city of course I knew about this school but never felt that I could afford or smart enough to attend this school.  I always felt that I could get by but to go to this school was like a taboo to me.  Growing up I was told that I was not smart enough that only the rich families could afford to attend this school.  I always felt that between the city and the university was the “have” and “have not’s”.  There are a lot of people that work for the school but feel that there not intelligent enough to attend the university or can afford it.

There is also the issue of the 81 interstate that passes right between The Pioneer Homes, which is another set of projects that separates the city and three area hospitals and the Syracuse University which are on one side of the thruway and then you have the projects that are on the other side.  I know that there have been studies of bringing the thruway down to street level but I think that that would create more traffic then what we need.