Blogception: Blogging about Blogging

Throughout the term, it's been really interesting to see how my blog has been developing. Now with ten different posts completed on my blog, I look forward to doing a word count at the end of the term. As my blog has grown, it's been satisfying to see how I've been able to touch on lots of different topics that matter to me, topics that I was worried I wouldn't be able to get around to in a timely manner, but I'm making good progress. This week, for example, I talked about my opinions on the term "Impostor Syndrome" as someone who was diagnosed with a syndrome myself. Personally, I'm not in favor of the word, which you can read about in my other blog if you have the time.   In doing all this writing, it has been neat to see how making this blog has been beneficial for my wellbeing. In general, I like to learn a lot about disability, autism, and other topics, but before making this blog, I didn't really have a good outlet for sharing this interest ...

After a nice relaxing weekend, I was ready to get back into blogging. Brainstorming about a few different ideas, I decided to write a post about various "life hacks" that I use when doing chores. As an autistic person, there are a number of chore-related activities that I've learned to make easier on myself by modifying how I do what I need to do, whether that's wearing headphones and dishwashing gloves for doing dishes, or making a list of every single meal I like so that I have ideas when it comes time for meal-planning. I feel like I did a pretty good job on this one, although I hope I didn't make it sound too much like I have everything figured out, since I am still making it up as I go along.  I also recently started reading the book "The Reason I Jump," which was written by a thirteen-year-old nonspeaking autistic person, and I would highly recommend it. I'll probably make next week's post a book review on this book, analyzing its represent...

This week marks the two-year anniversary of learning that I was on the autism spectrum. Because of this, I spent this week's blog post talking about the diagnostic process, how it was a very positive turning point for me in my life, and how for me, this date was a cause for celebration. When google didn't reveal a name for an autism diagnosis anniversary, I decided to coin the word "Autistiversary" for this event. However, since I'm the one making this term, I decided that it would refer to the date that I realized I was autistic, not the day that I got a phone call telling me that I'd receive an official diagnosis, or the day that the paperwork came in the mail. This is because diagnosis is a privilege, something that can be very difficult to attain for some people, especially women, racial/ethnic minorities, and adults. Being a member of all three of these groups, I wasn't officially diagnosed until just after my 21st birthday. In making this term, I wan...

When I was in middle school, I was a huge bookworm. Reading a Warriors book under the desk was pretty common for me during math class, and any other moment of free time I had. I've always been the kind of person who got overly invested in my interests, sometimes to the detriment of my other concerns. Thankfully, these interests tended to come in waves, ebbing and flowing, giving me time to focus on the things that I actually needed to get done while also giving me something to enjoy during painfully boring algebra classes. Similarly, my interest in blogging has been in more of an ebbing state this week, as I've got a few things in progress but no new posts this week.  This pattern of ebbing and flowing reminds me of the topics we discussed this week in class, especially when thinking about the idea of flow. In our reading last week, we learned that flow was a beneficial mental state where someone is so engaged in an activity that they lose track of time.  For me, it's been ...