G’s Place

Since this is the first day of a shiny new year, I think I will publicly post my goals. Here we go:

1. Complete 6 grad school classes (and maintain my 4.0 GPA!)
2. Be available to help Brianna transition to Grad school (as much as she wants me to be there anyways)
3. Try and find tools that Kenny will actually use to get organized so he does better in school.
4. Get the Metro-West AANE support group for parents of teens with Asperger’s  off the ground
5. Get the FSU Native Alumni association off the ground
6. Get up-to-speed on SMARTS
7. Make it to the gym 3 days a week
8. Get to my next goal weight by April 1 (this date may change if I have to keep traveling…the overall goal is to maintain my weight while I travel)
9. Go to one of the seminars that train how to work with people on the spectrum
10. Write a paper and deliver it at a conference. OK I have no clue how to do that, but I want to, and I figure if I don’t write it down and really try to do it, it will never happen.

I’m going to try and remember to review these goals every three months. That way, I can see where I am with these goals, and set new goals if that is needed. Look for a follow-up post on March 1st.

I have thought about this alot recently. I have a couple of friends at work who are just learning about autism, because their kids are just being diagnosed as someplace on the spectrum. Their kids are young, so I tell them how lucky they are to be able to learn how to help their kids so early.

But they are scared. I have told them BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU READ ON THE INTERNET. I tell them about Brianna, how she is doing so well, even though sometimes she works very hard to do well. I tell them how I don’t think there is something wrong with Bri, she’s just got a different way of thinking that is weird to the rest of us. But that is a good thing, that means she has a leg up on everyone because she’s different.

I had never thought that one of the reasons autism is now seen as this evil monster waiting to steal your children is that autism research is now big business. This guy (who is autistic)  thinks that if the autism research community admits that there is a huge group of functioning autistic folks out there, it will unravel their empire.

I guess that could be true, but I think the problem is probably more systemic than that. The class I took last semester was a basic educational  psycology class, you know all about memory and how our brains store and retrieve information. It was neat, because I learned the technical terms that were always on Brianna’s testing paperwork. The class taught how our brains work, and what’s the best way to design instruction  based on that. I think I understood the class better because I was working backwards alot of the time - I know how Bri thinks, and it won’t work with the models for instruction we have. If I brought it up in class, it would take a few go ’rounds before my fellow students would see my point.

If this is our teachers and researchers are being taught to deliver and design instruction without understanding that we have a population that thinks differently, we’ll always have the problem of not acknowledging the autistics in the crowd. We need to educate the educators and researchers, then the problem of ignoring high-functioning autistic folks will solve itself.

I wish there was a small, lightweight, to-do list widget. Anyone know of one?

So here’s my updated list, for this weekend and the rest of the year:

1. DO the stuff for the GWLT
2. Write my work blog
3. Cookie party at work (and NO ONE is allowed to sing the cookie party theme song!! People singing the cookie party song will be kicked out and receive NO COOKIES! Brian this means YOU!!!!)
4. Go get the kids from school
5. Meet with the person that I will be co-chairing a new AANE support group with
6. Have a conference call with the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs @ FSU about AISU
7. Help Brianna and Kenny’s get their schedules for the break set
8. Buy books for next semester
9. Cookie party at work
10. Read the CCNA book (maybe go take the test???)

I keep having to search for this stupid link

academic calendar spring 08

notes to myself: my grades are online on Wed, and I can register for summer on Mar 17.

I don’t want to finish my paper. I have so much other stuff to do. I also don’t want to teach next week. ACK!

I keep thinking, once it’s December things will be good. I hope I’m right….

1. Brian has crossed to the dark side (he’s a manager now)
2. I got a position raise, moved groups, received an R&R (yay), and am being allowed to participate in some very cool social media stuff @ work
3. I am doing very well in grad school
4. I’m rounding up AISU alums to address the fact that the FSU Student government wants to eliminate AISU
5. I am going to co-chair a metro-west chapter of AANE
6. Brianna is signed up for her last semester @ SUNY Albany
7. Kenny is getting good grades

That pretty much sums it all up.

ok, so here’s what’s going on:

•  moving into a new position at work
• going to start an aane support group out in metro west
• grad school
• helping kids
• cleaning house
• getting ready to go to the FSU-BC game

I am wondering why I am in grad school at times like these…although I have totally done this to myself. I am working on a paper that is due midnight sunday about Information Processing and Knowledge Representation, stuck now on the section about the instructional value of mental imagery. So stuck I decided to take a break and blog.

Today is totally booked out. I am going to the dentist, going to get my hair and nails done because we are going to a wedding. I have to figure out what to wear since it’s going to be in th 70s, and I had planned to wear a dress with long sleeves. The sleeves are see-thru (so thin), but still. I’ll have a hot flash and be miserable if I wear it. You know, it’s the end of Oct and I am in MA. I would think planning to wear this dress was a safe bet. Of course Brian has no sympathy for me because he has to wear a suit. haha. Oh yeah, the brakes on my car are GONE. So gone that I think I am going to have to get it towed (I’m hoping a little brake fluid will do the job).

I need to get back to work…we want to go to go the last day of King Richard’s Faire.

Don’t even get me started about work, hopefully my plan is going to work out and I will be extracted from the drama. I think I am going to an AANE thing next week, and will hopefully get the guidance counselors at the high school interested enough to go listen as well.

OK, seriously, back to writing about mental imagery. bleeehhhhhh

I have been so busy! Both kids off to school, and I started grad school. My major is Instructional Systems. This semester I am only taking one class (easing myself back into it), but the class is Theories of Learning and Cognition in Instruction.

We are covering many topics which were in my daughter’s diagnosis, or in her plans at school. Back then, I would look up the technical terms they were applying to my daughter and try to figure out what they were. Now, I am studying them all in this class! It’s very cool.

It makes it a little hard for me, because I will do the reading once to understand the terms, then I will go back and research the terms as they relate to autism. Then I will think about things my daughter has told me, to see if the things I find correlate to what she has experienced.

This week we are covering knowledge representation - how a person thinks. So I have already re-read Dr. Temple Grandin’s article Thinking in Pictures.

I’m so glad I picked this program!

So this weekend I cooked and put up

1. 2 pints of fried corn (12 ears of corn makes about 2 pints)
2. Still in the process of making ketchup. I am doing it in the crock pot and it’s taking forever. I am gonna put it on low and leave it over night.
3. 18 pints of tomatoes in the freezer
4. We picked blackberries today, I am making jam tomorrow.

We got some wine and mead at Nashoba Valley Winery today. I think we are going to have mead at our Heroes/Geek party next month.
I got most of Brianna’s shopping done, Kenny will be next week. 3 weeks left for Brianna, 4 for Kenny. I am starting to feel very anxious about being alone.
My car goes in the shop tomorrow, they have to fix the bumper (Kenny got rear-ended at a light a few weeks ago)

One of the feral kitties showed up…and he is in really bad shape. One of his back legs is all lame now. I think maybe someone takes care of him, because he was super social. I don’t know what’s going to happen to him…it’s really sad.

I was wrong about registering for class…I can’t register till the 20th. That is a little scary too.