Me Me Me Me Me...

Thanks, Womag, for passing on this meme. (And wow, look at that, I even uploaded the image!)

Just one word answers tho'...I can't go for that, no can do. (Okay, if you don't remember the song, that would sound really iffy. Maybe it would anyway.)

1. Where is your cell phone? In my bag - switched off, as usual.

2. Where is your significant other? Car.

3. Your hair colour? Red, at the moment.

4. Your mother? Sadly dear departed.

5. Your father? Also sadly dear departed - way too long ago.

6. Your favourite thing? Daydreaming.

7. Your dream last night? Forgotten.

8. Your dream/goal? Happiness.

9. The room you're in? In turmoil - being decorated.

10. Your hobby? Writing! (I'll just stick with Womag here, I think.)

11. Your fear? Being required to do something brave in order to save someone dear to me, and the likely failure on my part to succeed.

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here.

13. Where were you last night? Here, mostly.

14. What you're not? Clever, interesting, oh, don't get me started...

15. One of your wish-list items? Can't think of anything very material but a lovely holiday would be...lovely.

16. Where you grew up? Spen Valley.

17. The last thing you did? Planned a literacy lesson.

18. What are you wearing? Dressing gown and pyjamas.

19. Your TV? Portable.

20. Your pets? Rabbit and two guinea pigs.

21. Your computer? Working, thanks.

22. Your mood? Guilty.

23. Missing someone? Yes.

24. Your car? About to be sold.

25. Something you're not wearing? Top hat.

26.Favourite store? Junk shop.

27. Your summer? Stressful.

28. Love someone? Yes.

29. Your favourite colour? Yellow.

30. When is the last time you laughed? Possibly yesterday.

31. Last time you cried? Friday - I made the mistake of playing Slipping Through My Fingers on Youtube.

I can't believe there's anyone left who hasn't done this already. Will have to have a think...

Quiz time

This is a quiz to assess your Asperger's leanings - it's been on loads of blogs in the past but if you haven't already tried it, have a go. My family and friends all turned out to be gloriously normal whereas Barney had a range of Aspie and neurotypical traits, and I was 'very likely an Aspie'. So, he's weird, but I'm weirder. Yah boo.

I started filling in online self-tests on Buster's behalf, altho' it wasn't very helpful once-removed - I don't know how Buster thinks all the time - but meantime I kept coming across questions that made me go: 'What? That's me! How did they know that?' or, in Johnny Cash's words: 'You been reading my mail.'

If you've ever felt like you've just dropped in from Mars or Lithuania, and you don't know the local customs and appropriate responses, have a look.

Just look anyway. It's interesting. It's fun. Just do it.

Foot - mouth: mouth - foot...

...as Tommy Cooper could've said, but probably didn't.

At the Centre, we have a wide variety of students with an equally wide variety of problems. Some just haven't fared well in mainstream; some have had too many family issues to deal with too young; some have specific learning difficulties; some have mental health problems. Bearing the latter in mind, it was probably unwise of me to murmur "nutter!" affectionately at one young lad -a lad I like a lot - when he said something funny and unexpected.

I realised about half a second too late that he'd been referred that very morning to the local mental health facility, and stuttered a retraction gormlessly while he grinned at me.

Whoops.

Ho hum and avoiding demands

September 26th, that last post was dated. Over a week since, and what's been happening in the meantime? Well, little bits of nothing here and there really. Barney has taken to being home like anyone who's hated his work for the past ten years or so would. He makes meals; he ferries us here and there; he sweeps up. The other day I realised he'd cleaned the kettle. I didn't even know kettles were meant to be cleaned.

At work, we assessed a young man with PDA for a place on the course. What do you mean you've never heard of it? It stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. One careers advisor described it as being 'an awkward so and so'. It's related to autism and Asperger's, but unfortunately doesn't respond to the techniques that usually work with young people with those conditions. (I questioned him closely about how we could help but didn't get much information. If there's anyone out there knows anything about teaching students with PDA...help!)

I don't really know what to make of this...how far can we go giving names to collections of symptoms that are only collectively experienced by a very small number of people? And PDA is really pretty rare. On the other hand, if this young man and his family experience real difficulties because of these symptoms, and if there are ways of enabling him to learn despite them, then we should make whatever allowances are possible and reasonable to accommodate him.

I think the problem that might arise with this situation is that the allowances we'll have to make will mean him maybe not having to do stuff which other students are already doing very reluctantly anyway. We could end up with a whole class of them claiming PDA and telling us how difficult they find the demands of life's routines and rules. I think I might have a touch of it myself.