I Am

Browsing thru 2 books I received from Amazon.com yesterday, I found this interesting poem. It is written my CJ, AS teens, which is captured in the book as one of the AS case study.

Obviously, my aim of reading these books is to understand better about this syndrome and to be able to communicate well with experts/professionals in this area and teachers. Ultimately to help my lil man to excell in his learning process.

I Am

by CJ Briggs

I am a thinker and a dreamer.

I wonder about everything.

I hear the calmness of the waves

from the ocean each night.

I see the beauty of the sunrise

every morning.

I am a thinker and a dreamer.

I pretend to be tougher than I am.

I feel what the people around me feel.

I touch what I think should be touched.

I worry about the fate of my fellow man.

I cry over the suffering before death.

I am a thinker and a dreamer.

I understand who I am.

I say what is on my mind.

I dream about a peaceful world.

I try my best to make the world a better place.

I hope someday, someway, I will make a difference.

I am a thinker and a dreamer......

The above is extrcated from a book on Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Practical Solutions for School SuccessBy: Brenda Smith Myles (Author), Diane Adreon (Author)

I cant live without you...

I can't live without you ...my Premix Coffee with Ganoderma Extract...

Will be back...

AM

Slow progress

My brain is really shut down after few days running around here and there. I mean shut down in term of focusing back to my correction and writing.

Or is it because it is still not trained to work during day time as in the past my writing and thinking was mostly at night.

I am really confuse with my brain ability for that... feel like I want to run away...far away...

What do I do now???

Will see if tonite and tomorrow it will be a smooth running.

I have to hit the road now before it gets too crowded...

Have a nice day everyone.

AM

God given strength

My dear friends, I read, I ponder and I act. All I can say is thanks so very much for being here in my world.

I was away since Wednesday to spend precious time with my lil man and at the same time traveled back to hometown to attend to my sick mother. At the same instant, my big man is being hospitalized for hypoglycemia, news I received the moment I arrived at kampung.

Following that, as Allah had planned a few hours after my lil man and I came back to KL, I was in delivery room to console my only sister giving birth to her cute baby boy since my mother could not make it to be with her. An experience to feel the battle of life for most women has undergone a normal delivery. Watching that cute baby boy arriving into this world is an indescribable feeling.

Everything came at the same time giving me no break to even organize myself. Anyway, Alhamdullilah now everything seems to be under control. My mother is back on her feet, my big man has been discharged from hospital this evening, my sister is on the road to recovery, my lil man is full of enjoyment meeting his cousins and travel back to kampung and I will be back to office after 3 days of unplanned leave.

Most importantly, I thank Allah for giving me the strength I need to keep going in the midth of so many unpredictable happenings in my life which come at the same time. Deep in my heart and mind I believe that all these teach me to have more patients, to make a rational decision and to be more confident dealing with unpredictable matters in hand.

Now that I have time for myself, I set back and reflect on what I had been through in the past few days. I guess being the eldest, naturally I will be a strength to my family when they in need of me...that is God given strength!

Till then..

AM,

Monday, March 26, 2007, 0017

Unspoken truth

Kak Lady, Simah, Maklang, Meandbaby, Dudae, Atenah..thanks for sharing yr strength, thought and information. I appreciate much.

I have an up and down feeling of like a surge of many thoughts lingering in my mind. A sudden urge of wanting to know and to learn more about what I had written earlier after many days of wondering thots thinking about why?, when?, how?, what?.

Difficult to describe the feeling exactly. A combination of shock, sad, happy to know the possible truth, regret, depress and also blur. At time, it really make me weak on my knees. Until I come to the sense of accepting and figure out how to react. Of course when I am alone I let go of my emotion in the midth of debating to stay positive and to accept.

My big man always said to me, ever since I was back home,…” If you are stressful, then both of us will be stressful too…”. So, I have no choice but to keep cool, compose and hide my feeling from unspoken truth. Not sure if this is good or bad for me. Maybe both!

But, the unspoken truth is... I broke down every time I am alone in the office, in the car while driving to/fro office whenever the emotion strikes me. One thing I realized that I could switch my brain quickly to a positive thinking. I don't let it drag and I refrain from talking detail about it much with friends at office as I prefer to keep my personal matters out of office. I believe, this must have been the past make me to be able to switch on and off. It is a bless in many way.

At this point, my lil man case may be considered as high-functioning AS as all his tests showed above average score and some superior score. A very fruitful discussion with psychiatrist helps to recall every single observation and behavior and how we deal with lil man in the past not knowing and understand the truth. Hence, pin-down a correct diagnosis. At this point,my lil man is given a low dosage medication to control his anxiety and there will be a follow-up activities in the next 2 weeks to improve himself.

Deep down in my heart, I found that this profession related to child development is very interesting. A very stimulating discussion we had with the psychiatrist to describe the behaviour, early development and many things which finally leads to diagnosis. But but I said to myself...it is too late to reverse my career path now. Maybe I would consider taking courses related to this area to emhance my personal knowledge or even practice it after retirement while helping to develop my lil man and many more children in the need..???

I also met and discussed lil man case, a day before meeting psychiatrist, with school counselor and also his class teachers. The school counselor will see him twice a week at school to help him overcome his problem. She seems nice, motherly and attentive lady from my first meeting her on Friday. At that time we are not in the know of AS diagnosis (The diagnosis was on Saturday when we met psychiatrist based on test/analysis done the previous week).

We were so much hope that the counselor could play active role at school to help my lil man and to be his mentor until he could gain back his enthusiasm and interest at school. Many things about school which he resists from telling us. Getting feedback from counselor at school will greatly help us. One positive encouragement for us is that our lil man realized his limitation and he is ever willing to see the counselor.

Yesterday, I had ordered these books thru Amazon after browsing internet regarding AS. Hope I could gain some insight and learn how to move ahead apart from discussing/sharing with those who experience in this (meandbaby, thanks).

Atenah, these I will have for now. But I am not sure how informative these books are.

1. Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Helping Preteens & Teens Get Ready for the Real World By: Teresa Bolick (Author)

2. Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Practical Solutions for School Success
By: Brenda Smith Myles (Author), Diane Adreon (Author)


Phew…feel good to write about it! Releasing some unspoken truth and feeling …

I got to go now..

Being different…is a gift

No ending story in learning until the day we die. God given brain, opportunity and challenges are the factors that keep us to continue learning about life. Of course it is more to life other than learning for the sake of making money.

The truth is I don’t even know how to begin writing in this blog to share, even to write what is running in my thought for the last couple of months. Just to found out that we are given new opportunities to learn about something else. That is one of our family members is being diagnosed as “Asperger’s Syndrome” ( a form of mild autism) after some testing/analysis done very recently. It is all make sense reflecting the past and the behavior observed and shown recently.

We look at it on the positive side as this is not at all too abnormal as there are individual in this world that was born with it or experience it such as this person. The most important is that this is recognized earlier and we could have a better approach to deal and to bring the best out of this gift of being different…that is for our beloved "lil man".

It is amazing how Allah leads me much earlier to know some blogger's friend who have to face the same challenges and also someone who specialised/studied Autism such as Atenah (seems that we have loads more to share apart from sharing our ups and down of PhD roller coaster...). It is like placing puzzle together through the blog world. Giving one of the example, that is as in Kak Teh's entry on blog, woman, blog!, the power of sharing through blogging..



A note to our beloved lil man,

As you are a precious God given gift to us, both mama & papa will do our best to bring you to your highest potential in every aspect of your life with the capability & limitation that you have. Now that we understand you better and you always make us to understand you better. We understand that you are different and learning about you will be a challenge for both of us as your parent and it will be enjoyable too..

We love you very very much.

We are all together to make the best of our life with guidance from Allah..AMIN

Oxford Quote

Collections of interesting, tricky, weird and funny quote (in the form of Fridge Magnet) I bought from University of Oxford's bookstore last year....

All are currently stick on my workstation desk at office for me to divert my attention when needed...these are:

One who graduated yesterday and stops learning today is uneducated by tomorrow

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Good judgement comes from experience,

and often experience comes from bad judgement!

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Learn from yesterday

Live for today

Hope for tomorrow

The important thing is not to stop questioning

-Albert Einstein-

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WHY STUDY?

The more I study

The more I know

The more I know

The more I forget

The more I forget

The less I know

So why study?

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Anggerik M,

March 12, 8:42 pm

Life is about changing and moving?

I woke up from early sleep. At this early hour of the morning, read some news and articles. I found interesting article from Yahoo news which I shared below.

I left home early in the morning (before 7 am) to go to office with my friend. I had to walk a short distance to wait for her in the main road outside my housing area. A good morning excercise for me indeed. I enjoy it. I will surely miss this morning exercise once I receive my car in a couple of days.

But I told my friend that I wish to continue car pooling with her because I am still not use to drive a long distance in a hectic traffic. Sitting as a passenger not a driver is enough for me to feel exhausted. A big change from my day to day 5 minutes driving to school I had experienced for many years. Now, so much time taken on the road (total of almost 1.5 hours) for travelling to/from office. By the time I reach home, my body is just like a flat tyre. But it is good to have friends to talk to as the time pass was not realised.

At home my precious time is shared with both my lil & big man. The only time I have for myself is when I woke up from sleep and both are still sleeping.

Again...life is about changing and moving...

This article attract me because of so much of this lingering in the mind of everyone that I talk to in the office and in other subsidiaries within the company. Myself, I had many offers and choices but I am not so sure what is my preference apart from the place which I had been assigned to (a.k.a my previous office). This is mainly because I keep a low profile for now until everything is done on my study. A heavy burden I am still carrying with me. But, Insyaallah it will be over and done.

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Put Your Career Change in Motion
Jane Allen, Vault.com

Changing careers can be like taking a train trip. You plan it, start at one location and go to your ultimate destination, with stops in between. (Sorry, there are no non-stop career trains.) The basics for getting started are scheduling your departure time and showing up at the station. Here's how to get moving.

Decide when you are leaving.

There are many reasons to procrastinate about changing careers. Procrastination is not laziness; it is a decision to do nothing. Fear is the main reason for procrastination -- fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of making a mistake. What is your fear? Identify it, acknowledge it and accept that you are afraid. Then decide what first step (even a small one) you will take within the next week to get around that roadblock.

Pack your bag.

A key to success is what you will take along with you. Make sure your luggage includes optimism, enthusiasm and determination. Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" was interviewed recently on CBS's "60 Minutes." When asked what his big break had been, he said, "Deciding that -- come hell or high water, no turning back -- I am going to do [comedy] and get as good as I can get."

Who's seeing you off at the station?

There may be both cheerleaders and detractors. Listen to each of them, but choose carefully which advice you are going to take with you. Jerome Lemelson invented the camcorder. His first patent application (in 1977) was rejected because the patent examiner decided that video recorders could not possibly be reduced to a portable size. Mr. Lemelson was not discouraged.

Are you going to enjoy the ride?

A career change involves many steps. Enjoy each accomplishment and the feelings of exhilaration, satisfaction and self-approval that come with it. Without that enjoyment, can there be true feelings of progress? Successful people enjoy both the journey and the arrival.

Who's on the train with you?

Don't stay in your compartment. There will be interesting and valuable people to talk to on your journey. Think of it like a scavenger hunt. They have information for you; your mission is to meet them and ask questions.

What if you find yourself on the wrong train?

It happens. Winners make the most mistakes because they take the most risks. If you have to change trains, think of it as a course correction and keep moving.

What if there's no one to meet you at your destination?

OK, you've chosen your new career path and started sending out resumes, but no one is showing up to welcome you.

What's next?

Be persistent and believe in yourself. Rod Serling (creator of "The Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery" TV shows) received 40 rejection slips in a row while he was waiting for his big break. He kept his day job and, despite the rejections, never stopped writing or submitting his stories.

Make this your success strategy for the month: Get going and keep moving.

Starting with just one tiny step each week is still a beginning. As Will Rogers said, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."