Run/Walk for Autism

Well, I'm back...again...at last.

So there's a few entries to catch up on over time. First, an event.

One year ago this past October, I volunteered at the Triangle RunWalk for Autism, sponsored by the Autism Society of North Carolina, who I have worked with since early 2013. It's rather interesting to see families come together for any cause, but the way they take over Moore Square for the race is rather cool. Now I was at it again.

Difference this time is that I was a runner, so I got to combine my running ambitions with the chance to help the cause. I was captain of a small team for the event that branched off the House of Hops Running Club. At least I didn't have to show up at sunrise this year, but even as a runner I kept looking out for members at the event who I knew or worked with previously. I somehow didn't find too many folks that I was close with at first glance, but I was also trying to stay around my team for the event.

Then we got to the actual race. Once again, recognized something new as a participant. The instructions were much more clear and not "implied" as they often are at races. This includes having to step between the cones for your chip time to start and instructions on where to expect the turns, including the bend at Person Street. Maybe there were a few high functioning competitors like myself, so they wanted to pay mind to us...like I've said before, we're pretty smart people but do need things explained on occasion. Though I didn't quite notice if there were noise markings closer to the speakers, which blasted music as most races would.

As for the run itself, I didn't expect to PR (personal record) after a buffet dinner at Tyler's tap room last night, and two beers to boot. Somehow my body was ready and the ladyfriend's electrolyte tablet kicked. My chip time was 22:32, enough for a 7:15/mile pace. Some run fixations I typically have didn't take hold until the second mile, such as looking at my watch to check my pace considering how well I started. Funny thing is that it didn't even slow me down. They also had the usual encouraging spectators at the event.

Basically, what I like about the event is that it brings folks together for the awareness of autism, but they make the event friendly to those on the spectrum. Many of them are participants (and children to boot), who are in the event for fun or cheering on their own family who run as a tribute. It was great to be on the running side this year, and now I need to figure out which side to be part of again...well, once I'm cleared to run again, but that's another story.

Now I have a lot more to catch up on with the blog...

The Education Interest

I'm back.

So I was away for a month as I changed jobs and started migration of this blog to a new website. On top of that, a robust social life continues. Generally a lot of things that I could try to use as an excuse for not blogging.

The job I decided upon was a position with an educational testing company for their data integration and reporting needs. A database developer, officially. It really came down to comfort in the job and upside. So maybe this was a good moment to talk about another fringe interest.

I really like dissecting some data for class structures related to K-12 education. Once I learned in middle school that I was going to have classes for each individual subject, I was intrigued by the classroom combinations possible. I wondered what would happen if a student took an additional elective or jumped ahead in math another year.

My fascination was taken to another level with high school. Now that you could choose your courses, what varieties could a student have now? Imagine a student advancing two levels in math, and the types of Advanced Placement courses that could be taken. What if you can choose someone on an art track who eventually does AP Art History to close out, or the science enthusiast who jumped a year ahead but went for just another Honors Chemistry section and could then jump to AP Physics? So many combinations and prerequisites, including the system for grade point average. Honors weighted one way, Advanced Placement another? I began comparing school districts and wondered. I even get to check out demographic data like this for state test scoring reports that states and districts request.

College...that's a beast I never had time to fully tap into with all else happening. I looked at the catalogs of some of the schools I wanted to apply to, and wondered about cliques of students taking different majors. What kind of classes could they take together? How tough is grading? My imagination ran wild at times. I won't get to touch on this again since my job involves K-12, but that may be for the best!

That is a glimpse into my fascination with school courses and even my job. I think I may be able to apply some of it for something good...when the situation calls for it, of course. A lot of what I have been doing relates to test scores, but can expand on this based on the districts. Really, that's how I know I have a shot at really loving this job more than the ability to use my honed skill set. Another victory in this case.

The Social Network

So I'm back after four months of, well, not blogging. Got caught up with everything else in life. I completed a sprint triathlon, continued to get the ball rolling on a Raleigh-Durham GRASP partnership chapter, attended a database summit in Charlotte, prepped for my MCSA exams and the upcoming MBA coursework, and began playing in way too many fantasy football leagues for my own good. Last but not least, I had many fun weekends with friends in the Triangle.

Lately I have told myself how thankful I am to have the amount of friends that I do, and that most of them are legit. It's a great feeling, because somehow I'm merely an occasional eccentric who puts his foot in his mouth, or a live representation of a television caricature at worst. When I consider how difficult it has been historically for me to make friends, this sort of thing makes me that much more thankful.

Moving to a different state was hard enough, as I chronicled before. I did not know anyone in the Triangle; in fact, I only had Lindsay as my NC connection and she was nearly two hours away in Roanoke Rapids. I knew that this could potentially lead to me actually recognizing that I was alone, something that Aspies often worry about but I had become unfazed by through my own introversion. How was I going to meet people and potentially make friends, and even more so, find places to explore around Raleigh, Durham, and surrounding areas? I decided to take the route that was perfect for an Aspie like me who likes predictability and more homogeneous settings: the social website Meetup.

Living in Philadelphia, I still had my network in Levittown and the college friends I kept in touch with had remained around Pennsylvania and Maryland; I also had coworkers and other professional associates who were part of my generation. I didn't think I had reason to join Meetup back then. This time I decided it was worth joining for people with interests. The part of North Carolina I live in consists of many young professionals and graduate students who relocated from other states, just like me. Maybe there were groups specific to those types, and I made note of that as my top priority. I next added my interests on the site, like most people, which included autism. Found an Aspie group as well.

My concern about the autistic community is that we can easily lose ourselves in the online world without actually going to meet people. C.S. Wyatt, whose The Autistic Me is among the best blogs I have read, produced a great post on a person, a "lonely Aspie," who was spending nearly $200 weekly on camera chats with females and game forums. An expensive habit. What Wyatt says is advice that is tough for us to give our fellow spectrumites:

His friendships and his "relationships" aren't real. They just aren't, at least not in my view. He argued that his friends were as real as mine. "[you] don't have that many followers or friends," he pointed out to me. "I have 700 friends on Facebook and over 1000 Twitter followers. You don't." 

I was at a complete loss for words. Yet, because I can't keep quiet when I should, I reiterated my belief that to make real connections, you have to leave the virtual world. 

Lonely Aspie didn't like my advice. He didn't want to meet strangers at concerts, parks, or elsewhere. He didn't want to use Meetup.com or Facebook to find groups with interests similar to his. He actively resisted my suggestions, and seemed set on spending his money on games and cam girls.

It's possible this person would not join Meetup due to the requirement of meeting in person. I guess I can understand that, but with my own story (and my own issues with empathy), I am not certain why someone feeling lonely would not want to use that as a network to make friends. If I'm the only one at an event just stalking there, hoping to see someone for conversation, it doesn't feel right. Okay, sure, I'm like most guys who will occasionally attempt to pick up a female at the bar. However, it's not an easy game when you're going off looks alone (it's cocky, but I believe myself to be a fine looking yuppie); this is what makes online dating much more productive. Same goes for groups meant to make friends or professional connections. Wouldn't something as organized as a social group be easier?

I guess my relief is that I found an easy way to make friends, and got out of the inevitable shell the best way I knew how. It's why Meetup, Facebook, and OkCupid are great for autistics looking for professional, social, and dating connections, but sometimes we get so scared of embarrassing ourselves in person that we turn away. It's rather dangerous if we trap ourselves.

Besides, social media can help promote worthy causes.

About a Desire (aka "Task Complete, Now What?")

In the middle of February, I did something major and submitted my MBA application to North Carolina State University and the Jenkins Professional MBA program. Okay, I actually have to re-submit a part of it, as it turns out, but otherwise I'm going to interview with them this April. When I get a task done and check it off my task list, I get a brief feeling of accomplishment, but then I wonder to myself what the next step will be. I stall for a while and then finally move on to my next goal. That goes back to the Aspie attention span, and how I realized I needed to try a new gimmick to step around it.

In Nick Hornby's About a Boy, main protagonist Will Freeman decides to divide his leisure time into 30-minute segments, whether it is watching television, shopping, buying records, or even casually dating. Granted, all his time is free time, allowing him to make these activities segmented. In my case, I have been absolutely swamped at work like most of the population, so my brain needs a rest for a little bit after. For my own free time after I finish work, I began experimenting with segments on certain nights. I've been traveling on business As I've mentioned in the past, I am no different than most other spectrum peeps when it comes to time management, which means it's severely lacking. So maybe using the segments will help me figure out the best ways to spend my time.

• Professional Development: I am studying for MCSA certification in SQL Server 2012, which means three exams. I've been reading up for the first exam, which has been a breeze since it concerns querying. I've been covering 1-2 chapters weekly, using the allotted times that the books require as my segments on those nights. I sometimes go through moments where I ask myself what I have done with my life, despite my recent role expansion and advancement at my current gig. I do have a few nice things to my name, but I can't settle. I did well in school because they gave me knowledge and formulas to repeat, and I could learn once I was provided with a direction. However, practicing myself has been hard enough. The slack room is waiting for the first exam scheduling, because I base it on how I learn.
• Music: Last week I used a 30-minute block to tune my guitar for the first time since November. I rarely get to play it because I'm not all that good at chord transitions. I may think about revisiting it one day, though, just for fun. I also want to get back into music reviews at RYM, where all I've done over the last year is catalog and occasionally comment on a message board. However, my most frequent blocks, that could last an hour or so, are those for the C3VO project, which has also been long delayed. I give that an hour because I go on creative streaks and don't want to force myself. That might have been my problem last year, as I had ideas for track lengths more so than what was behind them. My beats are complimented for their style.
  

• Travel: I spend some 30-minute blocks prepping for my Europe excursion at the start of May. I have two weeks to travel the British Isles (England, Scotland, Ireland, etc), and I hardly know anything about traveling across the ocean. There's a big learning curve for six weeks. So even though I have booked most of my travel, I still have to plan where I want to see.
• Fitness: This is usually 75 minutes for the whole gym trip, from changing to workout and back. Unless, of course, I use the kettlebell or do the home boot camp, where it's much less time.

Of course, among the segments are periods where he looks for temporary female companionship, so that leads me to the final one. This should be a separate entry, but I've decided to tie it to this list.

• Dating: I hate feelings. It's a confession of emotional attachment that can't be controlled easily. I like to think every aspie has claimed this at least once in their lives. I re-entered dating coming from a dark place, and it's been a secondary priority to me versus my career goals. Essentially, it's an area where I had no goals and I'm still not sure of them four months after I got back into it. If you date someone you meet, whether online, through friends, at a bar, or in line at Schoolkids Records, there's a chance that one or both of you will feel greater affection the longer you keep it up; not to the point of "I love you so much so hard let's get married now" but just that you do the little things better because you see a potential spark. So that's really now in there to throw off my schedule. However, it was worth a 15-30 minute block to browse OkCupid or respond to messages. Maybe I'll be able to embrace these feelings one day, without being so scared to have them and the concept of another relationship becoming akin to Kanye's verse in "Lost in the World."
  

I can see how using a list goes, but how I break that out is my own business, of course! I will see how well this works when I try it certain days, and don't overthink the spontaneity part of life.

Autism in Pop Culture, and the Cross-Section with Nerds

I have previously talked about Sheldon Cooper, Abed Nadir, and Tommy Westphall on this blog. They are all fictional television characters who may be on the spectrum and have a share of traits of those on the spectrum.  Well, there was an amazing piece in The AV Club this past week concerning the spectrum in pop culture, even if only so many characters are "out," to use that term.  Noel Murray is really talking about both "nerds" and autistics/Aspies, and how they aren't always interchangeable.

After some clarification, Murray explains what bothers him about the way autistic people are often lampooned like nerds:

[W]hat bothers me is the hoariness of jokes about bespectacled weirdoes who know the details of every Doctor Who episode but will never know the touch of a woman. First of all, they’re about as cutting-edge as jokes about airline food. Second of all: Did you know that many autists find it uncomfortable to look other people in the eye, or to be hugged? So what’s the joke here exactly? That two recognized traits of people with autistic spectrum disorders—obsessive interests and difficulties with social interactions—are a thing that exists?.

I tend to feel the same way, as not all nerds are autistic.  There are some common grounds, not like an exact Venn diagram but certainly similar.  It's a complex discussion, as I often related to the nerds with the stereotypical opposite-sex issues and factoids wading around the cranium.  However, we're not the same as most nerds or geeks either.  Geeks, for instance, are not that socially awkward, just immensely engrossed in a certain subject or four.  Nerds are geeks with the level of awkwardness added in, which makes a dork.  Yes, I "studied" those definitions.

He brings up five fictional characters, some from shows I had not seen until now.

• Sheldon, of course, who Murray has the most to comment about. He is correct that The Big Bang Theory has "very carefully avoided labeling Sheldon as having an ASD, because they've said they don’t want to be limited by what an autistic person would or wouldn't do."  I am a fan, but the show is divisive because it follows a pretty simple sitcom formula, dropping in references for the sake of references as well.  I could have a whole discussion on what that show accomplishes for nerdism, but that's not the blog subject. As I have said before, I can identify with Sheldon in some aspects, but many times he is over-the-top, albeit intentionally.  While I worry about a character like him enforcing bad stereotypes of AS (lately he has played an antagonistic role in some episodes), Jim Parsons plays the role masterfully, which explains why the character is so popular.  There's an innocence behind Sheldon's more irritating characteristics, and I often find myself sympathetic to his cause/plight...some days I want to be a supervillain anyway ;-)
• Abed, the authentic pop-culture geek.  I also am a fan of Community, making Thursday night viewing a conflict for years.  He is positioned as the emotional center of the show, even though it's an ensemble cast.  Abed has really helped the impression of the AS character through his own innocence, and his bromance with jock and not-so-secret geek Troy Barnes.  Abed is lovable due to his own innocence, and the fact that his interests run parallel to mine make me identify with him often.
• Brick Heck from The Middle, the young kid.  I haven't really watched this sitcom, but when I checked out some clips, I also see that Brick has many of the autistic tendencies.  This is especially true of his inability to be touched.  He did remind me a lot of me when I was eleven, but I didn't intentionally isolate myself from everyone during this time. I would do that when I was in high school.  I'm also unable to whisper.
• Max Braveman from Parenthood, also a kid in a family, but part of a drama.  He is an open autistic, with the story revolving more around the parents working with him, with amazement and frustration and other emotions in between.  We get some development from Max, apparently, but the focus is more on how the parents react and get used to the situation.  It's about adaptation.
• Gary Bell from Alphas, the science fiction show starring David Strathairn (reason enough for me to check it out).  No, Strathairn doesn't play Gary; an English actor named Ryan Cartwright does.  He is diagnosed high-functioning ASD, like I was, and his idiosyncracies were similar to most (certain food aversions, OCD nature).  His power is that he's a transducer, practically a human antenna, picking up wavelengths using his mind.  It's a power that I could see myself having if I was blessed with a random superpower, even if it wasn't my power of choice.  Murray calls him "accurate in the autist's at-times-frustrating inability to control his own quirks while also allowing Gary to be amused and amusing on his own terms."

What Noel Murray brings to the forefront with his piece is that the stereotypes may certainly be enforced with some shows, but that good shows have brought humanity to each of these characters...the idea that pop culture has changed the perception of the autistic somewhat, even if most NT people still don't understand it.  The piece is worth reading in full.  As he concludes, his son on the spectrum gets "awed respect and genuine affection," and maybe the representations of them on television has helped.

The Kind of Videos I Find Funny

I have a thing for studio production logos from my youth and before my youth.  This is something I love, and I get all of the references.

The Intensity of Hobbies

Many of the experts of folks around those high-functioning along the spectrum know that there are so many true hobbies for people like me.  We have this intense interest in some 1-3 subject areas where we know minute details and could bore any average person for hours on the subject.  Well, that is true.  However, it's not like we don't follow anything else.  I have a passionate interest in my music collection...a very passionate interest.  It's alphabetized and fully cataloged via spreadsheet and on the rateyourmusic site. One of my worst habits is going past listening and into intense digital collecting.  I get the temptation to pay attention to what patterns of albums I have by an artist ("I can't own the second album since I need to have one artist where I just own the first and third albums") or sometimes want to be different ("I will make this the only album I like by this band just to say that I think their best one is overrated" which is something other hipster types do...yes, I admit to being somewhat of a hipster).  However, music  is something I love more so for sonic reasons, and it became a fixation as I grew up, even to the point that I have dabbled in composition.  Granted, it was worse when younger.  During my elementary school years I had a fascination with reading TV Guide.  I also used to keep track of the movie theater listings, including what two theaters could not show the same movies, and would come up with my own scenarios for fake movies.  Screw plots; I just wanted to picture the biggest blockbuster ever playing on the most screens.

There are smaller term interests of mine that most people would either find boring or just totally ridiculous.  I sometimes like to pay attention to school curricula, whether it be high school or college.  It's almost as if I want to build my own prestigious high school and choose what courses they would offer.  If I ever asked a friend about what AP classes he or she had as the topic came up in conversation, this was why.  I actually find that sort of information fascinating because of the patterns.  I also could go on about the history of distribution company logos, but I realize that no one is going to give a crap with the exception of people in a Yahoo group.  I'm cool with it, too.

One the other hand, I have interests that are common.  I am a guy, and I love sports.  I'm devoted to all the Philadelphia teams, and I especially pay attention to football, baseball, and basketball; difference is I sometimes analyze them differently than others do.  I have some interest in philosophy, politics, finance, and live plays.  It's not that I don't have the same hobbies as others...I have friends who share in my love of 'tortured intellectual' topics, sporting events, independent arts, and nerd culture.  It's just that many of us take these to extremes...I can rattle off enough NBA records to make your head spin.

Reality is that I cannot pinpoint why I get interested in the minute, beyond my remarks about patterns earlier.  I am very oriented towards hard numbers and sequences, which is why I get drawn to the interests that I mention above.  They all involve this sort of hard data.  Even music to me is about the sonic experience, as I will sometimes pay extra attention to chords.  However, a lot of that love is the same love of music as NT folks would have, so that's only so good an example.  It's essentially that I get caught up in some data that really amazes me, and then it translates to my own pretend world.

While I get consumed with my hobbies, sometimes more than I should, it's really because of the Aspie personality...getting fixed on the details of a couple interests in particular.  Now that I have shared some of my interests, I bet I have either inspired people to read on confused people...I'd put my money on both.

Since it's so gorgeous out, I have to focus on another occasional interest that is shared with everyone...the outdoors.