Asdquefty’s Journal

It’s that (not-so-)wonderful time of year again where we all prepare for going back to school. I’m running around buying textbooks, getting equipment, having sessions with the special needs department at school, and all that wonderful stuff.

The other thing is that this weekend at work is likely to be havoc as people rush to do all their last minute back to school shopping, even though they had all summer to go shopping. Everyone complains about the rush of last minute shopping, but nobody does anything about it. Let’s just hope I don’t get too stressed out at work on the weekend, but I’ll have to deal with that when it gets here and remember I’ve had worse jobs.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven’t forgotten my blog, I’m just getting busier preparing for classes.

(Update for those who have come to my little blog recently: I’m going to be starting year 2 of a 4 year BA in Computer Science.)

I was nominated for the Arte y Pico award recently by Autism Insights, and I’m honoured to receive this award. I was beginning to get the feel that my blog was becoming stale, but I can feel relieved now that I’ve received an award. Autism Insights is a blog that follows the world of autism without getting too serious or hung up on the various controversies often discussed by the autistic community, and it’s quite refreshing. Thank you.

Upon winning this award you are tasked with the following rules…

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Here are my five pics to nominate for the Arte y Pico award:

1. Untreatable’s Blog - Untreatable provides an amazing amount of insight into the world of mental illness, and I recommend his blog for everyone as understanding mental illness will go a long way towards helping people with it.
2. Be Your Own Detective - A window into the world of private investigation, Barry provides an inside look into the techniques and tools used by investigators. Not all may find his blog interesting, but I do as I have a real interest in this stuff.
3. Reports from a Resident Alien - The blog of a female Aspie from somewhere in the United States, her entries provide a day-to-day look into the world of Asperger’s with a significantly different perspective from my own.
4. The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive - Seaneen is an inspiration to everyone as she struggles to live with and treat her illness. She has an opinion on almost everything and her writing is really good, I hope that she achieves her dream of being a successful author someday. She accomplishes a lot more then she gives herself credit for.
5. Life with Asperger’s - The blog of a male Aspie who takes a look at some aspects of the Aspie life that most people wouldn’t think to ask about.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the tragic and gruesome bus attack in Manitoba, Canada by now, and that in the future a psychiatric evalutation will likely find that the perpetrator is severely disturbed or was at the time of the attack.

The thing that has really pissed me of is the way that some groups deny the family of the victim any dignity and use the event for any purpose they see fit.

The first groups that did this is PETA, with a new ad campaign. They are comparing the attack to the slaughter of animals, in what can be best described as shocking extremeism being pushed with extremely bad taste. They’re even trying to make the ads the most visible in Manitoba, which just further adds to the bad taste. I find it astounding that PETA hasn’t been disbanded by now, but people have the right to say whatever they want. Finally, kudos to the publishers of the Portage Daily Graphic for refusing to run the advertisements, as the ads are totally inappropriate.

The full story on the PETA campaign is available at cbc.ca.

The second group that is acting in bad taste are the protestors from an extremist Baptist church who plan to protest at the victim’s funeral and push a twisted and utterly illogical message that “[the victim's] slaying on July 30 was God’s response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.” Some members of the church are already in Canada and if they do protest the funeral they should be promptly detained as they are clearly harassing the family of the victim. The right to free speech ends when your message is disrespectful, insulting, harassing, or otherwise hurts someone in any way including emotional and psychological trauma. The worst kind of harm that can be done to someone is emotional and psychological trauma as it is much harder to heal, often lasts for a lifetime, and can’t simply be numbed in the way that pain medications push away physical pain. The members of the church have no right to be in this country and should be deported immediately, or preferrably tried for harassment here but that’s unlikely because of how the legal system works.

The full story is also at cbc.ca.

I’ve added a new page with a list of books that I’ve read and would reccomend that everyone take a look at to expand their horizons. If you have any suggestions on books that I should read feel free to leave me a comment or email me with the title(s) of the books, I’m interested in books on almost any topic out there.

I’ve been feeling better over the last few days, as I’m starting a part-time job next week and that does a lot to help because I don’t have so many feelings about being useless and I can be optimistic about the people I’m going to meet when I start working. I’m going to be working in a major retail store, which is a new place for me as I’ve only worked in smaller stores and pizzerias before, and I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a good fit as the pace will be more relaxed and I won’t be so stressed out.