As a supervisor, Karen is patient, humorous and is clear about her expectations of the team. She brings out the best in people by looking at issues from different angles and valuing others’ opinions.
– quote from K’s nomination letter
Wednesday was the ceremony for the UCSF Great Person Award that Karen won in December. It is an award given to honor 4 people each quarter who are nominated by their colleagues for the exceptional quality and value of their contributions to the workplace.
To win, people must contribute to programs resulting in tangible added value, serve as a role model, make the department a better place to work, and inspire others to excel.
I am so very proud of K and so happy that she is being recognized for all of the hard work that she does every day.
The ceremony was really nice and there was a reception afterwards. I could not think of a better name for this award unless it was the ‘Greatest Person in the Whole World Award’.
Congratulations K
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Amanda at Ballastexistenz has written an excellent post for Blogging Against Disablism Day describing what it is like to be autistic and taking a look at the trend of accusing people of using autism as an excuse for having poor social skills, among other things.
The post goes on to talk about techniques used by autistic people to appear “normal” and includes a video that explains how it can take all day to boil a pot of water. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that video is worth a million.
One interesting thought, which I had never heard before, is that some people might choose to be non-conformist as an attempt to mask involuntary weirdness.
There can also be attempts to mask involuntary weirdness by appearing to be voluntarily weird. Since chosen non-conformity can in some circles have higher social status than involuntary non-conformity, and since it can lead to an internal sense of being in control of one’s own weirdness, even though of course the person isn’t really.
I have always been non-conformist. For the most part it has been because I have never fit in with the “normal” people and could never figure out their completely illogical rules and bizarre system of prioritizing things.
In the place where I grew up, fitting in was essential to being treated like a human being. If you looked or acted differently, you could be assured that people would treat you badly, if not to your face, then behind your back. If you were a child who was different, you were doomed to a miserable life of physical and mental abuse where people’s idea of how to help you was to make you look and act like everyone else.
In high school, I became a “burnout”. We were a bunch of misfits who hung out in parking lots and did a lot of drugs. It was the first time I ever felt like part of a group, like I fit in. I wonder if this is the kind of chosen non-conformity that Amanda is talking about.
From that point on, my friends were always part of some nonconformist group or other. The focus changed from drugs to music to peace and love to politics to computers, but the feeling of not being alone and not “having” to fit in have played a large role in my periodic decisions to stay alive and keep trying rather than giving up and killing myself.
The autism community has taken ‘fitting in’ to a whole new level for me. It is not like other groups where I share the focus of interest, but am still kind of clueless about how people’s minds work outside of that focus. It is the opposite. It is an incredibly diverse group of people with all kinds of interests that I may or may not share, a group of people that make sense to me because I can understand how they think and how their minds might take them from fact A to conclusion B.
I think that autism is a whole different way of seeing the world. Whether it is good or bad should not be a question. It affects many people’s lives to a degree where they need help and assistance with basic daily tasks, and other people’s lives in a way where they contribute things to the world that would never exist without them. Some people fall into both of those groups or any point in between. unrulyasides has an interesting post about the idea of automatically classifying autism as a disability.
I don’t really have a point to all of this right now. Reading things written by people whose brains work similarly to mine gets me thinking in a way that other things don’t. It is not that other things do not make me think. Tons of things make me think! The difference is that these things do not need to be translated into a framework that I can understand before they are processed. An entire level of energy expenditure is removed. It is nice. Still, it gets me rambling.
My brain has not been cooperating lately, but thankfully it seems to be taking a turn for the better these past couple of days.
Yesterday was the first day I was feeling good enough to get out of the house since Saturday, not including short trips to the BART station. Went to the library in the morning and helped my friend D move stuff in the afternoon. Amazing how a little fresh air can make everything better. The good company didn’t hurt either
When my brain is not working, it is very hard to get out of the house because I can not organize and implement the steps needed in order to leave the house. Things that should be happening automatically do not. Instead, it becomes a complex, often insurmountable task.
Steps needed to leave the house:
Remember that you are going to leave the house
Stop what you are doing
Get ready to leave
Put on jacket, gloves, etc.
Bring anything that is needed, i.e. backpack, library card
Don’t get sidetracked
Don’t start working again because you forgot you were going out
Think about destination or at least what direction to head out in
Don’t answer the phone because your client has a “quick question”.
If you do answer the phone, read the email, etc., do not think “This is easy. I will do it real fast before I leave.” because that will place you back at step 1.
Don’t get sidetracked
Say goodbye to cats and walk out the door
Speaking of being sidetracked, I almost forgot the 4 good things.
Good thing #1: K, aka Nikkyo, dings 70!
Congratulations K! We can finally quest together for real. Woo hoo
Good thing #3: FaceBook In Reality
Got a link to this in an email this morning. Cracked me up.
Good thing #4
Did I mention that I got out of the house yesterday? Old news by now. Good thing #4 is that I am going again out as soon as I complete the 10 steps listed above
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Locked in my room. Loud in my head. Friends outside. I hear them laughing but I can not join them. I tried. Very bad. So hard to separate their voices. K, Lorena, Tess. It is Tess’ birthday. Happy bday Tess.
Makes me tired. I can feel every speck of dust in the air. Hear it. Sometimes see it. Like a million tiny lightening bolts, each giving me a tiny little sting. Freak.
Why can’t I just have fun like normal people?
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I am not a Jedi, so I suppose those words were not meant for me, but from what I can tell, trying = effort and everything takes effort. Therefore, there is a try.
Went to another aspie meeting on Sunday. Not sure if I liked it or not. It was nice to see the people I knew from the other meetings and meet the new people. Other than that, it was just like hanging out with any other group of people. That was very disappointing. It started out okay. A go around introduction. Not the kind of thing I generally like, but in a group like this, it seemed appropriate.
I usually like hanging out with other autistic types because different rules apply to social interaction than with most other people. At the group on Sunday, this was not the case for most of the meeting. After the go around, things got very disorganized. People were having back and forth mini-conversations, changing the topic, and generally having a “normal” group interaction. I can not do that most of the time, especially with people I do not know very well. One of the main reasons I even went to the meeting was to get a break from that kind of thing.
I am not sure how I would make it better next time. About half the people in the group did not seem to have a problem with how things were going, and the other half did not speak very much, if at all. The group leader is a great guy and he did make an attempt at giving the quiet folks a chance to speak. I appreciated it, but could not think fast enough when the opportunity was given.
It makes me worry that I will never be able to have comfortable social interactions. I like people and can usually talk with someone about a topic that I know a lot about like computers. I can process information about computers quickly. It is a language I understand.
I can not keep up with a conversation that changes focus and has no order. I do not know the rules of speaking in a group. When do I say something? Usually I try to wait until someone is done speaking, but almost always, someone else says something before I can. I hear things delayed, so there is no way for me speak right when someone else stops speaking.
It is also hard for me to say what is in my head when it is my turn to speak. The words get stuck and my mind goes blank. It takes so much effort to even spit out a basic outline of what I was thinking. I can’t just do it, Yoda. I can try. Once in a while it works. Always, it is exhausting.
The words jumble and crash in my head. I have software that lets me create flowchart-like images of what is in my mind. At the click of a button, the software will immediately turn it into a formal outline. I wish I could install that software in my brain. Do other people have a natural ability to do this? Is it something they learn? Do they already think in straight lines and not even need this software?
I will probably try another meeting. I wish I could think of a way to make it easier. I think part of the purpose of the group is to practice social interaction in an environment where others will understand the pauses and silences.
I appreciate the fact that I do not have to speak if I don’t want to. I usually don’t want to. But it is not because I don’t have anything to say. It is because I lack the ability to make my voice speak for my brain. It frustrates me terribly and even causes me to question Yoda. If Yoda does not have the answer, who does?
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I am not a Jedi, so I suppose those words were not meant for me, but from what I can tell, 
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