The next day I went to my
History class where I found actually three international students who needed me
to share notes with them and I agreed I would make copies of all of my notes
and get them to them on Friday. After I
did some Plato I went down to the Rec Center and ran on the treadmill for an
hour as I usually do. But before I left
I found out more about the movie Killing Us Softly and that it took place in
the Union Room 237 at 7:00 on February 28.
The next day I went to ask
Cassie down at the Einstein Brother's in the Rec Center if she wanted to go see
that movie on the 28th. Unfortunately
she said she couldn't because on that day she would be going to celebrate her
friend's birthday. It was alright. The next day I worked on some more Plato and
finished my homework for Learning Strategies.
The next Wednesday I realized
something about my roommate Jack. He is
a little naive even though he is a really nice person who I have known since I
was nineteen and his is smart in many ways. He is a great artist and great at physical science. One time I got a presidential dollar of
Ulysses S. Grant and I told Jack he was on my family tree and Jack said,
"I guess you never knew him." Now when I asked him about his mom having cancer a few days ago, he
said, "She'll be fine." That
may or may not be true, but I knew Jack wasn't bluffing. Jack never bluffs. But I realized that Jack's naiveness is
really probably a good thing in many ways. Before today Jack's mom also had cancer twice and maybe due to his
naiveness Jack never felt worried be it so it didn't stress him in the way many
autistic people can be scared by being left on a bus.
On Thursday Mrs. Carter said we
wouldn't be having Learning Strategies class tomorrow so I decided I would
sleep in that morning. After that I saw
Cassie in the Einstein Brother's at the Rec Center and said, "Oh and
here's a tip for you." and I gave her a million dollar bill that I drew
which had the Buddhist teaching on the back, "Wherever you are, you are
your true person." She thought it
was great. After that I went down to the
library and made copies of my notes for the international students in my
History class.
At Workplace and Community
Skills class our teacher Jessica asked us to divide into two groups and each of
us had to find out ten things we had
in common. I was in a group with
Hillary, Christine, Jack and Tyler. I
realized This is probably also a good way to build a sense of community on
other floors where people probably don't seem to have as much in common as they
do on the THRIVE floor. My Valuing
Differences teacher, Mr. Ciafello, always said, "Talk to people and you'll
find out you probably have more in common with them then you thought."
That night I read that when you
have cancer that you can survive it by healthy diet, exercise and frequent
interactions with people. I thought If
that's true, why don't doctors tell people that?! Is it more profitable to make them go through
chemo?! Needless to say I felt angry but
I remembered the principle of the Dhyani Buddha practices of Tibetan Buddhism,
which I have a book on at home: turning anger into wisdom.
I slept in the next morning and
when I went to my History class I gave copies of my notes to the three international
students who needed them. After that I
walked down to the library to return the book CivilWarLands in Bad Decline not because it was due that day but
because I didn't think I would read it that much. On the way I thought about how a woman named
Allison Tepper Singer made a video called Autism
Everyday and when she went on The
Oprah Winfrey Show she said when she found out her daughter had autism, she
wanted to drive the car with her daughter into the Hudson River and the only
reason she didn't do it was because her neurotypical daughter was waiting for
her at home, in front of the daughter she claimed to have a desire to
murder. She claimed that many parents of
autistic children know exactly how she feels. Then I thought Don't we all think we feel this way about our family
members when really we don't feel that way at all.
I returned CivilWarLands in Bad Decline and worked on Plato for two and a half
hours and finally finished Plato Reading. I ran on the treadmill more that night and I thought more about how we
sometimes think we want to murder someone in our family sometimes when we
really don't and realized that from a Buddhist perspective we don't have to
because according to Buddha, we die and are reborn within our own life and so
we don't ever have to murder someone in our family because that version of them
we hate (if we really do) will already die. I also thought that even if some people may never accept autistic people
for the way they are that, according to the Buddha, hatred will always bring
defeat to those bearing it. The majority
of people will have to accept us because if they don't, they may one day
implode from failing to deal with their own inner demons.
I got back and talked to my
Granddad. I told him a little bit about Jack's
mom's struggle with cancer and he said that cancer survival usually has to do
with frame of mind, which is good because Jack's mom usually has a great frame
of mind. He also suggested that I go
watch TV in the TV lounge sometimes.
When I got back I asked Kriti if
I could go down to the Ward Building and get my laptop registered with the UCM
wi-fi on weekends, since I haven't already, and she said yes. I heard Jack was going to St. Louis tomorrow
with his parents to see his aunt, which ought to be good for his mom. Then I asked Jack if he wanted to watch
Family Guy with me. I thought I probably
will have seen whatever episode is on already, nut it would probably be fascinating
to explore Family Guy (as well as many other things) from Jack's perspective.
We ended up not watching it as
the cable wasn't working. When I got
down I told Jack to tell his mom Get well soon for me. Jack told me his mom has gotten better which
is good so I told him, "Still it always helps when someone says to get
well soon," and he said he would tell that to his mom. I realized Jack's mom, as well as his dad,
has also had the blessings of getting to explore the world from Jack's point of
view. Jack's naiveness truly is one of
the blessings of autism for many people. I thought about how I used to find it strange how people would judge
their friends and partners for things like their friends or certain things they
do and how that always seemed odd to me because I hardly eve rod that. Having read that autistic people rarely tend
to judge, I realized that tendency of mine is also one of the blessings of
autism for many people. It's already
been said that autism can be an asset to a job, rather than a hindrance (less
likely to interrupt, good attention to detail), but now it seems it can also be
a blessing in relationships and courtships and the like.
That night I also thought about
how it would be helpful to find out things people on other floors have in
common to build a sense of community. I
was reminded of the boarding house in the show Hey Arnold which used to be on
Nickelodeon and how it seemed to be a community even though the people were of
different races, nationalities, religions and so on. And then I thought, Maybe our differences as
well as our similarities, can bring a sense of community."
The next day I went into town
and got some "coin-tainers," paper rolls to keep coins in which
measures how much money is in there to make it easier to trade in change at the
UCM bank. I also looked in town that day
and found a store next to Hasting's Books was selling Lord of the Rings trading
cards by Decipher, Inc. which I have been collecting for quite some time. I went in there and bought four packs and got
several new cards.
The THRIVE formal, a dance for
the THRIVE program would be held on March 9th in Room 237 in the Elliot
Union. We would be allowed to invite
students outside of THRIVE if we wished. The following Tuesday I found out about a writer's workshop at UCM that
is for fiction, non-fiction, college papers and peer-review articles and
realized that might be a good thing for me to go to.
After Workplace and Community
Skills class I went over to the Ward Edwards building and found out how to
register my laptop with the UCM wi-fi. All I had to do was type in my UCM username and password when I turn on
my computer, click "trust networks," and type in my general username
and password. All I needed to do was to
remember my password for my computer.
Later I did some Plato. That night I went to the Hong Kong Express
and got some General Tso's chicken and an order of crab rangoon. When I got
back I finished the chicken and the crab rangoon but I didn't feel that I could
finish the rice all at once. So I put it
in my Buddha bowl and ate the rice from it the next day.
The next night several of us in
the THRIVE program went to see the motivational speaker/comedian Stan
Pearson. He talked about diversity
through comedy and we found him really funny. That night unfortunately, a wooden yoyo I was carrying in my coat pocket,
that I had since I was fifteen fell out either in my room or going to the
Hendrix Hall or from going to the Hendrix Hall to the Rec Center that
night. Over the next few days as I got
homework for Workplace and Community Skills class done and talked to Mrs.
Carter about more effective study strategies for my History class and made
copies of my notes for the students in my class, I wrote some haiku and it lead
me to be more aware of the Buddhist teaching on the nature of impermanence,
which made me feel better.
That day I worked on Plato math
and found out about books on screenwriting at the UCM library. The next day I went with Hillary from THRIVE
and her boyfriend Philip to get free t-shirts that were being given out at the
UCM basketball game. I didn't stay, not
being a huge sports fan myself. That day
I also worked on Plato and checked out two books on screenwriting: Understanding Screenwriting: Learning from
Good, Not-Quite-So Good, and Bad Screenplays by Tom Stempel and The Soul of Screenwriting: On Writing, the
Dramatic Truth, and Knowing Yourself.
The next day my grandparents
came to visit me. We went to the Asian
restaurant that went to with them, my mom and Jamie last time and we shared
some dumplings and I got spicy Mongolian beef, a large Budweiser and some
sushi. We talked about how I could do
better on my next History exam, which was this-coming Friday. My grandmom suggested I get the scantron
which allows me to do an essay question since she thought I could do that part
well and I agreed to talk to the mentors about where to find the right
scantron. After that we went to
McDonald's where they got ice cream cones and I got a frappe mocha. Then we looked in Hasting's Books and they
even got me a book called Answers from the Heart:
Practical Responses to Life's Questions. Before we left we sat in the car and they quizzed me a little bit from
the questions in my History textbook.
That night I got back and found
that I got the audio version of my History book that I requested from Dr. Mayfield. I listened to it the next day and after my
History class got out a girl in the class came up to me and asked if I could
make copies of last week's notes for her since she was absent at that time and
I said I would. I went to my Creative
Writing class where my facade story was workshopped and the class told me what
was right with the story and suggestions for improvement. Aside from that I looked up some Buddhist
themed films and found about a hundred. I looked them all up on the library and out of all of them I found Groundhog Day, Into the Wild, Dark City,
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
Spirited Away, It's a Wonderful Life, The
Truman Show, Field of Dreams, The Gods Must Be Crazy I and II, The
Last Mimzy, Seven Pounds, Stranger than Fiction, Darjeeling Unlimited, and Blade Runner. I realized it might be good to get some
friends together and watch these movies. The one film I didn't bother to look up was The Last Samurai as I didn't think I could stand to see Tom Cruise
in it.
The next day I went to the UCM
bookstore where I bought poster board for an assignment for my Learning
Strategies class which was to use pictures to represent our professional,
academic and personal goals that were cut out from magazines, printed off a
computer or drawn ourselves. I also
found the 886-E scantron to take my History exam on and bought that to.
For my upcoming History exam,
Hillary's boyfriend Philip, who's an expert in history, quizzed me on the
review questions in the chapters my class went over in class. The next day I just went into my class and
did the best I could.
Over the weekend my mom and my
stepdad visited me and brought me a coat jacket, tie and loafers for the
formal. We went to Oriental Cuisine
again and ate dinner. After we got back
I tried on my formal clothes.
The next Monday I got back my
History exam and found I'd gotten a sixty-six. I passed Philip on the way to my Creative Writing class and he told me
that it just takes time for your exam scores to improve.
On Tuesday, Jack, Emily and I
hung out at the Einstein Brother's in the Rec Center. I went on a "scavenger hunt" with
Jack, Emily and Emily's boyfriend that night. We didn't win anything but it was nice to hang around and see each
other. On the scavenger hunt, Jack,
Emily, her boyfriend and I passed through the Lovinger Building and saw the
Fencing Club meeting and I found out they meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The next day I talked to Teresa,
my Person Centered Planner about my screenwriting and I ended up deciding to
take a half hour each day to work on my screenplays. When I got back, I typed a lot more of the
outline for one of my screenplays. I
decided to use my study hall time to read and look over my History book and
that I am going to try and read it from 7-8 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays
and Fridays because that's before I go down to the Rec Center and run on the
treadmill, which promotes clarity of mind which should help me process the
information better. And on Tuesdays I am
going to study it from 6-7 before I go down to the Fencing Club meetings. That night I did a skills sheet online for my
Workplace and Community Skills class and then found my top thirty jobs. The ones I liked most were Writer, Director
or Producer, Music Composer, Director or Arranger, Animator and Other
Multi-media Artists, Editor and Web Designer. I wrote a paragraph for that class on how well I think the top thirty
jobs describes me and e-mailed it to Jessica, our teacher.
On Friday I went down and got my
haircut, then came back and changed for the formal. I got my picture taken before I went down to
the formal. Later that night I enjoyed
going to the formal and danced with several girls from the sorority. I did breakdancing, ate some pizza and had a
lot of fun.
Left to right: Dave, Daniel, Philip, and me
The next day I talked to Mom and
she agreed that I needed a new phone because mine is old and out of
pictures. That night while I was at
dinner, I read The Soul of Screenwriting
I learned about a psychological concept called the Procedure which the author
of the book illustrated with a story about a man named Alphonse who falls in
love with a woman named Esmeralda, even though he is already married to his
wife Mary. Part of him wants to be with
Esmeralda, who brings out something different in him, while the other part of
him wants to stay with Mary, who he's been with for a long time. But Alphonse comes to learn that these two
women both represent parts of himself that he is unaware of, and he doesn't
need either of these women necessarily but to discover those parts of
himself. That's when I thought that if
two people have been together for so long, it must create a strong bond between
them, rather than cause the relationship to lose its vitality.
That night I ran on the
treadmill and saw the King of the Hill
episode Talking Shop where Bobby
takes peer counseling as an elective. He
ends up dating one of his clients named Jenny but later makes Stacey, another
one of his clients, feel special which causes her to leave her boyfriend and
want to date Bobby. Jenna breaks up with
Bobby and Stacey starts stalking him after she finds out he's not interested in
her. In the end Hank helps resolve their
differences by getting them to fix a car he found in the junkyard during which
time the client asks him why he likes Jenna over her. Bobby answers her question and they resolve
their tensions. I then realized how
doing activities together is a good way to create friendly and open dialogue
between two people whether they are friends, courtiers or love interests. From the Buddhist perspective I thought,
Bobby and Stacey have already dated because according to Buddhist master Lama
Chuck, every human, animal and insect has been our mother, father, brother,
sister, (therefore boyfriend or girlfriend) in our past lives.
The next day I worked on Plato
Math and wrote a dramatic monologue about a famous person for my Creative
Writing class. I made it about a Nepali
architect Arniko who built the Asian tower known as the pagoda and spread it to
every nearly country in Asia. The next
day I realized something important about writing. One of the challenges of screenwriting is
being comfortable with uncertainty about what will happen to our character. Yet since our characters are in some ways
ourselves, it is hard because we all like to have certainty in our lives.
On Tuesday, I went to the first
Fencing Club meeting, where I was taught to do footwork by a student named
Keira. On Wednesday, during Learning
Strategies class, Mrs. Carter told us to make a "map" of the information
in the textbook which is supposed to help you visualize. That same day I went to my Creative Writing
class and got back my paper on why we write. It turned out I had gotten an A!
My poem was workshopped.
The next day I started making
maps for the information in my History textbook. The next day, I went to my History class and
found out that out of fourteen quizzes, our four lowest would be dropped. Then we took a quiz and I got five out of
six.
On Monday I prepared for my next
History exam. I reminded myself to be in the present by saying things like,
“Looking over my notes, I am not trying to pass the exam.” Finally I went down
to the Testing Center and took and took the exam. After Tuesdays Workplace and
Community Skills class, I went down to the library to type a paper for that
class which was on who we would like or roommate or next year to be, although
Jessica, the teacher, said that nothing was certain. I wrote my paper and said
I would prefer my roommate to be Jack. On Thursday, I bought several UCM
folders and bookmarks with my THIVE points during Personal Math class. There
was no Workplace and Community Skills class so I spent that time in the
cafeteria typing a story for my Creative Writing class.
