to hell with you!

"alright.. we need some emotion in this short story. she's running from a kidnapper.. what would you do if you were running from a kidnapper? what would your body do? how would you FEEL!?!"
-- "mad."
"no.. more than mad. he just killed your son, for pete sake.. how does that make you feel?"
-- "she should call the police."

bah.

i've been working with john on adding emotion to his writing, in some hopes that he could come to at least a deeper social understanding of how people other than him feel. so today we were getting somewhere.. sort of. his eye contact has improved so much since we started working together, he smiles more, he does things anticipating that i will like it (the corner of his eyes twinkle when he adds adverbs to his sentences, if that says anything...) and his transitioning has become exceptional.

so i came in to work today and he was working on a short story he had started last week.. a really violent kidnapping murder deal with people dying and video cameras and car crashes and police chases.. and this woman's son had been kidnapped, so i was trying to get him to help her feel.

she's run into a mall after watching the kidnapper kill a security guard. her husband has run off to divert the kidnappers' attention, and she's making a bee-line for the phone on the desk. she picks it up... and i expect her to scream for help. but what does she say?

"excuse me, mr. police officer dispatcher sir ma'am, a kidnapper is chasing me."

what?

:) oh, the joys of the mind of a person with autism. i finally pushed him to put more emotion in, and he made the lady scream "TO HELL WITH YOU" at the kidnapper, for which we got scolded by another shadow. oops? at least it was emotional? i don't think his teacher cared too much... we're getting there.

today was one of those busy days that went from 7:30am to 9pm nonstop.. then mandy and i went to the grocery store and i got a new laundry basket... which i plan to use tomorrow? :) my room is disgusting, but i kind of just want to do it all tomorrow afternoon. its too cold to walk back and forth to the laundry room tonight, and i'm really tired. how lazy does that sound? in my defense, i did 6 hours of recruitment stuff today... which will wear you out quite quickly. add to that 4 hours of class and 2 hours of volunteering... you've got yourself a busy day

today was the last day of autism class... it kind of made me sad. that class was good.. it set me up for my future in a lot of ways. and right when i got home from hope academy, i got an acceptance letter to work at hope reach!! i'll be starting training to be an aba line therapist this saturday. training goes through the 13th, then i'll go home for Christmas and start working when we get back! finally... a real job. a real, fun, regular, autism-related job. i'll be working with one little 4 or 5 year old boy, 4-5 days a week for 3 hours a day. or something of the sort. a perfect job for winter term, i think. and it's with a family, which is SO exciting.

so exciting.

so that is all, really.. a solid day of the right blend of productivity and a tad of time for myself.

baby, it's cold outside...