"I find penguins at present the only comfort in life. One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous; one can't be angry when one looks at a penguin." – John Ruskin
I couldn’t find an embeddable version of this clip from V for Vendetta, but it’s an excellent clip from an excellent film, and I suggest you watch it.
Today is the 5th of November, which means for those of us in the UK, it’s Guy Fawkes Night. This is celebrated by bonfires (for burning the “Guy”) and fireworks (gunpowder was used in the plot to blow up parliament). Johan and I went to a local organised display, and I enjoyed it very much. The fireworks were very pretty, we both listened to music to help cope with the noise of them, and though my wheelchair got a bit stuck in the mud we managed it well. I’m very glad I went 🙂
Also today, I received my next batch of DVDs from LoveFilm. I’m looking forward to watching them, as it includes Adam and My Name Is Khan, which are meant to be good films about autism. The other two are The Hangover and The Proposal, which are comedies. I will remember The Hangover as it was the film Johan, my brother Martin and I watched just after deciding to get married. Considering what the film is about, we both are amused by it.
Tomorrow is the first Saturday of the month, so I’m going to make a big effort to go to the Tyneside LUG meeting. I’m not feeling too bad at the moment for me, so I’m hoping I’ll be okay to go.
Good news: I have a plan for Wednesdays at Interface. I’ve also dropped a couple of lessons to try and make things a bit easier. I also didn’t fail today’s test (though the proper one is on Monday).
Today has been a day of total exhaustion- falling asleep for a few minutes several times an hour, even nodding off once in my Computing class for a couple of minutes. At the same time, I’m really agitated and using up energy I don’t have moving. Tomorrow is Bonfire Night, so I need to find my earplugs so I can go to the organised display nearby. It’ll be the first time I’ve been to something like that in my wheelchair, so should be interesting. Other than that, I have revision for the test on Monday and lots of emails and letters to write. Pretty boring, really.
Title relates to today’s Computing lesson- at the start, Simin (our lecturer) showed us a dancing robot (ASIMO). I also discovered that she watched Lost in Space as a child, and she loves Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Geek win.
Otherwise in that lesson, I was there but didn’t really take much in. This is a problem, as I have a test on the processor, machine code and fetch-execute cycles tomorrow. I’m hoping to read the book and gain some understanding tomorrow, as today I couldn’t concentrate, and still feel rotten.
Interface afterwards did not go well. Too much muchness. I asked Johan to pick me up early as I couldn’t concentrate and was just totally fed up. At least I’d finished panicking when he’d arrived. I’ve done nothing since I got home, and I think I’m going to have an early night. I need it.
It’s not patch day, but I know them all too well 😛
Today I was in Interface all day, and I spent most of it not able to really concentrate, but that was okay as nothing was that difficult. In Tutorial we decided what we are going to do as a tutor group for Christmas, then researching places and prices and things. During study time, I started my work experience as ICT Support for Interface (turns out I’d agreed to this before half term, and had just forgotten). I managed to fix a problem, and worked out what another needed, and then half-heartedly did some research into printers and laptops until it was lunchtime. I was really tired and couldn’t concentrate at all, so I probably should have rested, but I didn’t. Instead I walked around a lot more than I should have, and kept my mind on hard tasks. Humm. For lunch my friend Scott took me to the Martec (okay, it’s the 1861 club now, but it’ll always be the Martec to me) and I got cheese on toast, a muffin and a can of Monster (I needed the caffeine). I didn’t rest during lunch either, instead spent the time chatting and reading.
After lunch, our lesson was meant to be Communication, but it ended up being a cookery lesson. Interface doesn’t exactly have much in the way of cooking facilities, but we managed to make shepherds pie using just a microwave and a kettle. I’ve had some of the mince part of it (vegetarian mince) and it was quite nice. Johan has a family-sized shepherds pie to eat in the kitchen, but he didn’t want any of it tonight.
The last lesson was Independence, where we were doing budgeting (again). Apart from my amusement that the benefit amounts in one of the scenarios were way off (the scenario had a family of four on Income Support being able to spend nearly £800 a month on food and household items alone… never mind everything else) it was a pretty easy lesson, because basic budgeting I’m pretty good at already. We got to finish early as we’d all finished our work and as Doreen the lecturer put it, it was getting dark 😛
On the way home I got soaked, along with getting shepherds pie on my jeans. I need to figure out a better way of carrying things. Overall today I’ve done far too much (both physically and mentally) and I’m slightly worried about the repercussions of this. I’m already rather ill and doing too much isn’t going to help.
Since I got home I haven’t done much, just pottered on the internet, and had a bath. Now it’s time to bed, and I guess I’ll blog tomorrow. I just hope I can get up in time for my 9am Computing lesson.
I have mentioned before that I am autistic. This is a part of who I am, the same way that being very pale, having blue eyes and liking shinies is a part of who I am. Today there is a “Communication Shutdown” day, where people taking part don’t use Facebook or Twitter for a day to try and understand the isolation and social difficulties that being autistic brings. The whole thing confuses me, as the social difficulties I have due to autism are much less apparent when I’m on the internet, and especially on social networking sites. I am not upset by the event, just think it’s missing the point a bit.
Before I discovered the internet (back in January 1997, so just around the massive boom in usage) I was very socially awkward, and found it very difficult to make friends. I spent most of my time reading, and playing in imaginary worlds in my head (mostly based off the books I’d been reading). By this point I was 10 years old, and had been aware that I was “different” for a couple of years… and so were everyone else in my class, which lead to bullying.
When we got the internet, I went into my first chatrooms, and suddenly I’d found an easy way to communicate. Text has always been easier for me to understand than speech (I was able to read before I was 2, and was never without a book), and here was a way for me to be on a level playing field with everyone else. I made friends with people from all over the world, of all different ages, and I could share with them my experiences, and talk about whatever I wanted to, without the worry that I’d be misunderstood or that I’d misunderstand what they were saying. I also found other people with my interests (books, science and maths at that point) and being able to discuss them without making people bored was amazing.
A few years later, I’d created my first websites (personal ones, and ones on Star Trek) and even started my own blog. I had lots of friends online that I spoke to through emails, chatrooms and instant messaging programs. I even had romantic relationships, based on common interests such as Star Trek (a massive obsession for about a decade, and still a big interest). It didn’t matter that I was awkward in real life, here I was able to talk, and relate to other people without the barriers that real life communication poses.
When it was first suggested that I could be on the autistic spectrum, I didn’t really believe it. I knew I was dyspraxic, but I was not like my sister Becca or my childhood friend D at all (the only people I knew in real life on the spectrum). I turned to the internet, and read the blogs and websites by autistic people, and discovered those who thought in a similar way to me, who had similar difficulties in reading people and not knowing the hidden social rules, who did things I did like repeating words over and over just because it felt and sounded good. I came to accept it, and finally was diagnosed when I was 21.
There are many good things that have come out of my diagnosis, a lot of them related to the internet. I discovered Second Life via the Autistics.org website, and met my husband on there (so much for “autistic people can’t marry”). I’ve made a lot of friends, both autistic and non-autistic. When I’m so overloaded I can’t speak, I use instant messenger programs and email to communicate. I have friends who are non-verbal, who use social networking sites in the same way that others do, to talk to other people.
There is the mistaken belief by some that autistic people (especially non-verbal autistics) cannot communicate. Everyone can communicate. The internet allows a large set of autistics to show that they can communicate, and have something to say. There are some autistics who cannot communicate by internet or speech, or other conventional methods, but even they can communicate in some way, though it may be hard for those around them to understand. When we speak, we want to be listened to.
As for the YouTube video? Apart from it being an excellent example of how autistic people can communicate (Red Shirt Guy has Asperger’s Syndrome- response video with that mentioned here), when I watched this during Blizzcon I thought this was the best question during the Quests and Lore Q&A (the audience liked it too). He’s now going to be in World of Warcraft itself, as the Wildhammer Fact Checker. Win.