Presentations

well so far the presentations have been interesting lots of repetitiveness though but thats fine its not like we are learning alot of new material and it is kind of refreshing to hear the same thing over and over again in case this stuff is on the final so i'm just counting down the days till the final and we are done for the summer its gonna be such a good feeling.

presentatioin

I gave my presentation on my roommate and how I thought he had split personality disorder. I really do believe that it was a simple presentation and that it was very easy to get up infront of the class and to give it. I’m still hoping that I get some more free sox tickets out of the deal. I can’t remember how many free games I’ve gone to because of him. It is also nice to enjoy the other classes presentations and to have a relaxed atmosphere toward the end of the semester and to not have to worry about a lot of stuff.

post

so far class has started to get better, getting more into the things that i am interested in learning about we just had a test which i thought was pretty easy but i def studied because i didn't do so hot on the last one. so hopefully i can turn my grade around. Also wondering if there is any extra credit at all or any chances for extra credit. I have begun to start thinking about the presentations we have to do soon so i need to decide what i am gonna do it on.

class

so far i have been really dissapointed with the class as of recently, i've been completley bored sitting there

test

well class this week was pretty short

don't really have much to say about the test that we took, except i would like to start seeing a grade for what we wrote about the dog book. But some of the topics we covered last monday were starting to get pretty interesting, however while discussing smoking cigarrettes i felt really compelled to leave class and to have a cig. Which i found pretty interesting that the discussion of quitting only reinforced the action of me wanting to have one at that very moment.

Autism Movie

i thought that yesterdays class where we watched your movie was pretty sweet. It was really inspiring to watch these kids especially that one kid ben who taught himself not to be autistic and was doing really well for himself. I was talking about it all day with other classmates in other classes. So i am interested to see your follow up and i think it will be pretty interesting.

The Curious Incident

After not knowing much about Autism or Asperger’s Disorder I was very intrigued to read this book. After reading the first few pages of it I was entranced by the unusual writing style. At moments during my read I had to close the book and flip it to the back cover to read the back to try to make sense of what this novel was about, or why it was written the way it was. I even had to ask a few of my peers about the book. Some of them work at Crotchet Mountain and were able to give a little more incite into an autistic child’s point of view.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about Autism or anyone just looking for a very unique book to read. Haddon tells a story about a young child named Christopher Boone who is Autistic and goes to a special school. His primary teacher is Siobhan. The book starts off with Christopher, finding Mrs. Shears’ dog Wellington, speared dead with a pitch fork. The police are called and he accidentally assaults an officer because he touches him. A few years earlier Christopher is told by his father that his mother was sick and had to go to the hospital. He is not permitted to see her and then is told by his father that she died of a heart attack. So Christopher has been lied to for a few years now believing his mother is dead. In reality Christopher’s mother is struggling with dealing with all of his special needs and feels alone and finds companionship with Mr. Shears, the neighbor and they both leave their spouses. Christopher then happens across a bunch of letters that his mother has been writing to him that have been kept secret by his father. Christopher then runs away to London where his mother is living and eventually Chris and his mother leave Mr. Shears and return home but they must live in another house. Obviously there is a lot of mistrust between Chris and his father but by the end of the book he tries to reconcile by giving him a puppy and apologizing profusely to Christopher to try to regain his trust.

I really like how Haddon included pictures of all the thoughts that Christopher had in his head.
I would have to argue that a lot of the things that Haddon describes for symptoms of Christopher seem to fit into the whole Autism diagnosis. One of the key lines that stuck out was when he mentioned that when the teacher had the smarties candy and she asked Christopher what was in it and he said candy and it was really a pen and then she asked him if she showed it to his parents what would be in there and he said they would say pen. That is definitely a sign of autism because children that have this often believe that whatever they know everyone else knows. I thought that feelings of not wanting to be touched were a sure sign of this diagnosis as well. I remember in the novel that they had a special kind of hand touch that meant I love you. Another thing that stood out was that fact that Christopher had to make maps of new places or if something was changed in a room he would notice the littlest details. I like how Haddon said his mind was like a DVD player where he could rewind, fast forward or stop at any point in his memory and remember every little detail about a certain event.

I believe that Haddon did justice to the characters because he gave a lot of prime examples of the way that children behave with this type of disease. I mean obviously its hard raising a child with a developmental disorder and I think that is why he included the mother running off with another an or how she said she felt like the father and Christopher had a bond and she did not belong. He described his teacher Siobhan as very patient and understanding and explaining things in depth. One thing that I did not like about the book was that I thought that the whole overall story of Christopher’s journey to figure out that his mother was still alive and to be able to comprehend and to travel to London was a little far fetched. But, he did give a really good description of how he had to work out a system for the trains in London after watching others. I feel that most of the characters were sympathetic to a degree but obviously raising a child like this can be very difficult and can be a huge strain on a family unit. But Haddon even mentions how Mr. Shears got drunk and started yelling at Christopher. I would have to agree that Haddon gave me another point of view on how to deal with children or even adults with disorders like this, it seems like the key is explaining things more thoroughly and more in depth because they can’t seem to comprehend the simple things but may be able to do complex things such as advanced Math
In sum, I really enjoyed this book and read it in almost one sitting which is very unusual for me so I really liked reading this book and would be interested in reading his other novels if they are in the similar style with a child with autism.

Entry Dos

Here it is. Entry number two. So far class is pretty stimulating, can't say that the history of psychology was my favorite class last semester so it kinda blows hearing about it again. I just wanna get into the real disorders and learn about how fucked up people can actually be. Can i swear on this thing ? Def can't wait to get into the serial killers aspect. But yeah to put it bluntly i wanna learn about abnormalities that exist in the mind, i find that truly fascinating. I mean no offense but its pretty awesome learning about things like that. Another aspect i like about the class is the pier on pier interaction talking about different things. Anyways thats it for now.


PS this is what the alphabet would look like if QR were removed, sorry if there are any mispelled words because my pop up blocker won't come off.

1st Entry

well here it is, my very own live journal yay.

Not so sure what this is supposed to do, but it seems like a pretty cool aspect for this class. I've never kept a live journal so i have no idea what is supposed to be included. Like what happened during my day, how my classes where, how band practice was? Or just any thoughts i might have. Well i hope this is what Larry is interested in so feel free to read, i'm not promising anything intellectually stimulating but i guess i'll be honest on here.