glider18's Wonderful World of Autism

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Yes, I do like your title very much. You can use the long title as the subtitle so that it reads:

Autist and Artist: Asperger's Syndrome and Surviving the Australian Music Scene

That looks good. It truly sounds like a title one could pick up at the bookstore. You have a great catch here for people to want to read---like how this autistic person is able to be a photographer in noisy music venues. And, you would probably have samples of your photography in the book. I am excited for you on this idea---try to follow through with it. And I like that you would put your writing and younger days into it.

I honestly like the idea and title Pensieve. Thank you for sharing.

Hi Pensieve---great job, you have a definite plan for your book. Please keep the desire to finish it. I think it would be very nice to have your drawings in the book---with your talent of art in school as shown by your art award, it would add tremendously to the book.

Your sample writing draft here is very informative and well done. You will be surprised at how you will be able to extend out this sample when you insert your details. I think you have a very good thing going here. And your band photos will be a benefit too.

i sincerely thank you on your positive spin on what otherwise seemed an endless well of negativity. it's rare that i look at it in such a good light. i mean, i think about and acknowledge the pros of it, but the way you expressed it for a brief moment had me being prideful. we could all use some more of your optimism

Thank you Seanmw for sharing your gift of poetry. You have a wonderful gift. And I can tell it is fun for you to write it. It displays powerful emotions. It means a lot to me that you can look at your autism in a positive light even amid the challenges we have. Being autistic myself, I know about the challenges we have. But at the same time, many of us can find fabulous gifts in our autism. And I believe you are doing that. I do not find anything wrong with feeling pride about our difference called autism. You are young, and you have an entire life ahead of you. You deserve to be happy. Keep focusing on the good. And keep writing your wonderful poetry.

I had an incident in a big city where I can share how autism can work for me in positive ways. I was walking down a busy city sidewalk when someone behind me tapped me on my right shoulder a few times. The typical person would turn around. Me? No, I just kept walking with this thought in my mind, "Why did someone just tap me on the shoulder repeatedly?" I also was wearing my WrongPlanet golf shirt---maybe someone recognized it? Or maybe they thought I was an alien ? But, I did not turn around because that was not the response my mind perceived to do. This must fall into our lack of social cues. Now that I think about this incident that happened a couple days ago, I am thinking that someone was just probably doing that to a lot of people as a joke---the way kids will do that in school hallways. Well...because of my lack of social cues, they didn't get the response out of me that they wanted .

Oooooooo... How long has it been since I posted on here. Well, I had other things to do at the moment that I suddenly caught interest in, speed reading most importantly.

Well, as for my speed reading... To tell you the truth actually, before I bought the book How to Read Better and Faster, Fourth Edition, My reading speed was about 159 words per minute (that's when I tried the first reading selection.) Ouch!--that's like reading ten to thirteen pages an hour in a novel if I concentrated hard enough. I knew I needed help, especially if I was going to read in college, so I checked out the book and started reading it right from the start. I'm on chapter seven out of fifteen, and my reading speed on average, after I added all my selections that is, came out to be 490 wpm. Right now I can go about 500 or even over 600 wpm if I try, but I'm not comfortable with reading over 600 wpm rate yet.

But reading isn't everything: you have to comprehend it too. I seem to get a good grasp of it now, but before then I couldn't pick up the words fast enough and lost comprehension. Then I learned that you shouldn't even look into the details, that you should only look for the main idea and that you shouldn't read every individual word just to grasp the concept. And it's true, slow reading hinders your comprehension in a paradoxical kind of sense.

Last time I checked, when I read a novel I can read 78-81 pages an hour, depending on the font size of the book (of course, this was when I was in the 300-360 range.) Don't know how I'll fare now, but I'm going to read a novel today. Yep, been reading a lot more as a result too as reading becomes a more enjoyable process to me.

Well I'm doing better now, and I thank God for Autism and for letting me learn and apply things quickly.

Hi Batz---Fiddlerpianist and I were definitely amazed at the 78-81 pages a minute, but since you clarified it as an hour---I am still impressed. I tend to have read over lines again and again. Good luck on your speed reading and thanks for posting here again. Yes, I feel God has blessed me with autism too.

I am visualizing you now Fiddlerpianist looking behind you for that nonexistent dropped object. I think that sounds like the way many of us here at the WP would react---I know I would. Body language and reading faces---hmmm---a real challenge.

Glider, I hope you have a nice weekend and all...


ProfessorX

Thank you ProfessorX. We're in Chicago right now (wife is on business). I am anxious to get home to our kids. Then it will really be a wonderful weekend. Thank you for your wishes---and I wish you a nice weekend too .

glider18

I thought it was time for me to post something here. I was officially diagnosed with Asperger's 2 weeks ago, so I'm still thinking about what it means in terms of my past, present, and future. I've had a lot of negativity in my life, especially the past several months, and the diagnosis has helped shed some light on what's been happening and why I respond the way I do. There's a certain amount of clarity there that was missing before. While I don't necessarily see my AS traits as a gift, I am starting to see them as something positive rather than something that made me an outsider. I'll try and list a few...

One thing I like is my ability to become completely absorbed in something that others see as trivial or boring. There have been many times where I've walked out to my car at night after work, looked up into a clear sky, and just felt awe at the stars in the sky. I'm not really interested in astronomy, and couldn't tell Orion's Belt from the Little Dipper, but it's just so beautiful to look at. I see the stars, and I see a virtually unlimited array of patterns. I see the same thing when I'm walking and pass a tree...I look at the bark pattern, the way the branches, well, branch, and the patterns on the leaves (but I couldn't tell you the difference between a maple leaf and an oak leaf...not a botanist, either).

I can also become competely absorbed in certain tasks. My co-workers have commented that I tend to zone out whenever I'm working on one of my data analysis projects or trying to resolve a database issue. I've been known to forget to eat when involved in a particularly engrossing book or puzzle.

I like patterns. I remember being in art class in middle school. I believe the instructions involved drawing anything we wanted. Well, I filled up my entire sheet with a very elaborate, very symmetrical geometric pattern. I showed the teacher and she said, "Are you interested in op art?" I was 12 years old! I didn't know anything about art beyond what was taught in school. I also like seeing patterns in things that others miss. Not just visual patterns, either. People say things or write things and it creates verbal patterns. I use them to make puns, much to the dismay of my long-suffering co-workers.

I love learning. I jump at any chance to learn something new (so long as it interests me). How many 11 year-old boys enjoyed spending several hours a day laying on the floor, reading encyclopedias? That interest continues today. If I could, I'd spend the rest of my life as a professional college student (though it'd take several lifetimes to learn everything I want to learn). In fact, if I'd followed a specific program instead of jumping around as I did, I'd probably have enough college credit to qualify for post-doctoral work in some field.

I like that I can pick up on small details. Same with my memory. I amazed my friend one time when I visited her. She couldn't believe that I drove to her house (she lives 300+ miles away) and found it using nearby landmarks, despite the fact it had been 2 years since I last visited her and that time she picked me up from a bus stop. Sometimes I have a near-photographic memory for images I see, but I can only grasp them for an instant at a time.

My main intense interest is investigations, which is also the career I'm currently in, though I am looking to expand into other types of investigations that I think will be more satisfying and fulfilling. I've been interested in this, off and on, since high school. I had a brief, but intense interest, in music that still lingers and resurfaces occassionally (at least as far as playing goes). I think investigations is a great avenue to make positive use of my traits. Attention to detail. Good memory. Ability to see patterns. Logical, rational thought. I think it suits me better than music.

I think I'll finish with something I hesitate to mention because it may come across as arrogant or conceited, but I find it very satisfying when it happens. One of my most favorite things, something that can leave me feeling good for days on end, is the rare "Sherlock moment." I love them! Basically, I resolve something for someone, they're impressed and ask how I did it, I explain my thought process and observations, and they say, "That makes perfect sense! Why didn't I think of that?" Here's an example from a few months ago:

Background: A portable phone used by me and 2 other investigators (I'll call them X and Y) at work went missing. We each work different shifts. Nobody else could find it. I found it.

Me: I found the phone.
X: How'd you find it?
Me: I knew I didn't have it because I clearly remember putting it down before I left. You didn't have it because you're the one who found it missing and reported it. Therefore it must have happened during Y's watch (Y works after me and before X). Y was working in Zone A. However, his work requires a thorough clean up of the area and it is not likely he would've left it there. Y used equipment from the equipment room to work in Zone A. It was probable that he may have left the phone in the equipment room after completing his project. I searched the room, and found the phone in an equipment bag.
X: Wow. I didn't even think of that.
Me: Elementary.
X: Smart-a**.
Me: *shrug*

OK. So it's not "A Study in Scarlet," but I enjoyed it immensely. All part of my journey to become the world's greatest detective (only half-kidding!).

Apologies for the too-long post.