Tag Archives: Autism

Day 1866: Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

“I am different, not less.” ― Temple Grandin

It’s 3 : 35 PM on day 1866 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, pray, read Acts 11, publish my Disability of the Day feature, learn one new thing –The longest place name in Ireland is Muckanaghederdauhaulia, in County Galway. – have breakfast go shopping with mom to buy things for my local project and go visit family.

Last night I watched “Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds” the message of Temple’s Ted Talk was that different is cool which is one of the messages of my life as well. Watch “Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds” below:

Day 1695: Chase ‘N Yur Face

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“If you think you can do it, you can.” – John Burroughs

It’s 12 : 06 PM on day 1695 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, pray, read Daniel 6, publish my Disability of the Day feature, learn one new thing – Hammurabi’s Code is a collection of Babylonian laws written in the 18th century B.C. and recorded on a stela. It was discovered in 1901 – feed myself an egg sandwich for breakfast and promote my Educate Generations campaign– my friend Bruce Sallan, who has donated to this campaign once before made a donation of $100 yesterday (thank you SO MUCH Bruce your ongoing support really means a lot to me 🙂 ) which brings my total raised to $2 847 (P.S. thanks God I knew you would answer my prayers eventually).

A few weeks ago I came across a talented young chef named Chase who just happens to have Autism and having a brother about his age naturally I found him to be adorable and endearing. Watch some of my favourite episodes of Chase ‘N Yur Face below:

Day 1468: My thoughts on the Kelli Stapleton attempted murder-suicide

Day 1248: Different = tragic?

Day 1074: All life has value

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All life has value – that’s what I wish the world would understand.

It’s 12 : 10 PM on day 1074 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to pray, brush my teeth, feed myself boiled egg and Bran Flakes for breakfast, read 1 Samuel 8, publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet and Facebook about my campaign -no one donated so far today if worst comes to worst and I still have $160 to raise with a few days to spare I’ll just donate the money myself I’m not exactly a millionaire but i still have some money saved up from work I did a while ago I refuse to fail – and take off my dirty hoodie and t-shirt and put on a clean t-shirt and turtleneck – while changing I realized I’m the last person anyone should pity I work so hard to do big things and small things honest to God if you guys could have seen how hard I had to work to take my hoodie off you would never give up on anything in your entire life.

On Tuesday I read Unbelievably hateful letter sent to mother of a boy with autism – an article about a letter sent to a mother of a boy with autism telling her to euthanize her son – I was SHOCKED just because someone is different doesn’t mean their life doesn’t have value. Do you value all life?

Day 808

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You can understand why someone feels the way the way they do and still not agree with them – that’s what I keep learning 🙂

It’s 3 : 00 PM on day 808 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to stretch my hamstrings, brush my teeth, publish my Disability of the Day feature, practice typing with both hands, feed myself toast, scrambled eggs and sausages for breakfast, watch TV and practice sitting up straight to strengthen my core muscles.

Last night I read I love my disabled child – but I’d give my life to make her normal: The mother of a severely autistic girl makes a painfully honest confession by Meg Henderson – another article written in reply to Dominic Lawson who said he would never want to ‘cure’ his daughter of Down’s syndrome – I really felt for Meg I’m sure it was extremely difficult raising a child with severe Autism with little to no support but I couldn’t believe a mother could write And, forgive me for saying it, her problems are a huge burden to herself and her family. especially since she and her husband adopted Louise and her sister, Marion, I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if I thought my mother thought I was a burden and basically said all the effort and energy she put into me was wasted. Do you often understand someone else’s point of view even though you don’t agree with it?

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Day 661

Day 211

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Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. – Frederick Buechner

It’s 9: 10 PM on day 211 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself bun and jam for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – no luck – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch TV, feed myself noodles and vegetable curry for dinner and tweet about my campaign some more – ‘Big Sigh’ made a donation – ‘Big Sigh’ I don’t know who you are or how you came across my page but if you’re out there somewhere reading this right now I would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you 🙂

Yesterday I read on some website that April was Autism Awareness Month in the US and today I made it my mission to learn as much as I possibly could about this developmental disability by watching Youtube videos about it (see below) and what I discovered was that communicating with a person who had Autism was like speaking English to someone who could only understand Chinese which gave me a tremendous amount of sympathy for all those affected by Autism because I knew how difficult it was to be different without having the added burden of a language barrier. Do you have the capacity to feel compassion for those marginalized by society?