I'm New. Be Gentle and Kind.
What up! What up! Whazzz upppp!! ![/martin lawrence scream]
sbt.
My mom was kind enough to take care of me as a kid. She wasn't kind to be labled a "refrigerator mom" and was often depressed by it. My mom and dad are Samoan so when they tried to make me learn the samoan language as a kid, it wasn't working cos I couldn't utter a word until i was five. Sadly disappointed as the weeks moved on, my mom and dad went to see Dr. B.J. Freeman who i guess was my child psychologist at UCLA back in the days when the A-team and The Jeffersons were the best shows around. It was then I was diagnosed with Autism and my mom and dad were disappointed I was forced to develop my language at an early age without the Samoan Language (and oddly, it's the language to me that's the most difficult to master, though i am one).
I guess i was a byproduct of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis). When I was a kid, i was fortunate to meet my kindergarten teacher Ms. Entin at Leapwood Elementary School at Carson, CA (I think she married and became Mrs. Blumenthal) and i'm not sure if she's still teaching at Leapwood this year though she was extremely helpful to me. It was one of my favorite classes. She helped me learn through things as a kid that would make me a kid to build blocks and a makeshift airport there. She kinda looked like Bonnie Tyler from that song "Total eclipse of the heart" because that 80s hair style was all i could match to as a kid. I also remembered my kindergarten class was pretty small and when mixed with normal kids it was horrible. The normal kids didn't want to play with us. However, most of them didn't know amongst the aspies our autistic kids at Leapwood besides me was Sylvester Stallone's son Seargeoh. Kinda wierd looking back Rocky drives to Carson once in a while. I'd like to say thank you to her in a million ways possible for helping me develop and cope with autism. She (like my mom and mrs izumi later) will always be key for me.
It wasn't all. As a kid, my mom would put me through the Jay Nolan Center to go through summer camp with the other autistics or aspies. The Jay Nolan Center also helped me with I can call "Saturday School" from kindergarten to third or fourth grade at El Segundo, CA. So I've been though a lot of sessions like this.
I'd also like to bust a shout out to my other teacher who was instrumental to where i am now as a fully developed kid and she was as helpful as mrs. blumenthal was as my kindergarten teacher. It was mrs. Izumi, my third and fourth grade teacher at Annalee ave elem. school. She helped accelerate my life with these words that her grandfather told her... "Master the English". Being Autistic in my mind, it wasn't a "whatever" or a shrug off the shoulders, but it was blank for me until i found out what it meant based on the advanced grammar and history books i read as a kid. But she was super helpful in helping me develop my math and english skills at the third and fourth grade. Mrs. Izumi was a "special ed" teacher who also knew how to work with autistics and aspies.
The odd thing about my early autistic years was i had no idea what it was until my mom and dad took me to see "rain man". I had little clue to what it was until my junior high school years. By then, my councelor at the Harbor Regional Center told me my autism became mild and i now have aspergers syndrome. I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with it til the day i die.
The last five years, I've developed a new lease in life. My best friends are uber hipsters so I've hung out with mostly hipsters, hippies and nerds. I'm a six sigma black belt working on my PMI certification before I head to get an MBA before i turn 30. It seems nice but then I have to look back and not forget that I (looking to you all for help) can turn autism into a gift. A gift to help parents who are now in near sheer panic about their kids being autistic.
I have the usual characteristics of an aspie. Hypersensitvity to pain, overanalytical to complex situations (such as computer programming a network structure), yet vulnerable to simple things that would take a long time for me to fix (like using a nail and a hammer in front of my mom).
I apologize if my introduction sounds like a live journal, but I'm happy to introduce myself to you... An Autistic now Aspie, to WP. Because, I feel we don't have much of a voice around here and (yeah i did join autism speaks. sbt. i was clueless but the company i work for is looking at it as a "marketing opportunity", which i despise) I can't think why anybody would think autism would be 'cured', but I think we'll need to teach every other parent who has autism to chill.
Is there a way where I can upload my personal photos of me here?
If you look at my myspace link below, search through my photos and see me as a kid at an autistic telethon back in 1983 with my kindergarten teacher Judy Blumenthal and Dennis Weaver (i think this was sponsored by Autistic Society of America).
http://www.myspace.com/noblex
I should blog more often. I want to help my blogs for the aspies. As much as my parody threads of before have infected the lame hipsteresque jokes of williamsboard [www.williamsboard.com]. anyway...
How do you do...
My name is Al.
I'm new.
I'm surprised i haven't seen this site before and regretfully not known it years ago til this year.
Last edited by NobleExperiment on 05 Mar 2007, 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
05 Mar 2007, 3:23 am
