Homemade Mechanical Keyboard with Wooden Case

Disney Princess Cinderella Musical Snowglobe Music Box So This Is Love

Mint in Box

Disney
Princess Cinderella

Musical Snowglobe
Music Box

So This Is Love

Inside the heavy glass pumpkin shape globe is beautiful Princess Cinderella,

Turn it upside down and she will be surrounded by glitter

Blue colored base with the Prince helping the Princess to put on the glass slipper

Jaq, Gus and Octavius watch

Clock in the background is about to strike twelve

Wind the music box and it will play So This Is Love melody

Snowglobe is 7” tall

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There is a Light at the End of the Tunnel after Autism Diagnosis.

There is a Light at the End of the Tunnel after Autism Diagnosis.

            I know exactly how you feel. I felt just like you eighteen years ago. I took my son Dan to a speech therapist at OHSU because at the age of eighteen months he still didn’t speak. After spending one hour watching him being evaluated and filling out questionnaires, the speech therapist concluded that we should not rule out autism. What did she mean? That’s not possible! How can he be autistic? I have an older son Adam who is perfectly healthy. All our family members are healthy. How could Dan possibly be autistic? His only symptom was that he didn’t speak! And he was just eighteen months old! Yes, many children talk by that age, but there are also children who start talking later. That might be the case of my son. We were not prepared for a diagnosis like this. That was the day my world fell apart. I didn’t even know how I made it out of the hospital – I was in denial, I was numb, and I was devastated. In my mind this was an educational death sentence for Dan. The only time I’d heard about autism before was from the movie “Rain Man”.   I couldn’t imagine raising  Rain Man, that wasn’t part my life plan.

Let me tell you that Dan just celebrated his twentieth birthday. He is a sophomore at Portland State University studying computer science. The last eighteen years have been a journey filled with many hills, valleys and detours, but also with lots of joy and celebrations, and it is a constant work in progress. There are things that I wish I had known eighteen years ago, and I want to share them with you. If parents are more prepared for some of the individual challenges of children with autism, they will be able to support them in the best way possible.

            First of all, as a parent of a child with autism, we are our child's best and most passionate advocates, therefore advocate, advocate, advocate for your child! From a healthy child we expect making mistakes, learning from them and moving on. This is not so straight forward with an autistic child. An autistic child is delayed socially and sees the world through the eyes of a younger child. If your child comes home from school and is frustrated, find out exactly what happened. Was your child left out when children were asked to be paired up? Was he sitting alone at the lunch table? How did he feel? Ask the teacher to pair up your child with another student ahead of time.  Ask her to make sure that your child sits at the lunch table with a group of peers.  One of Dan’s favorite shows when he was ten years old was the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants”. One day he came home from school crying because he was sent to the principal’s office for saying a bad word. Students heard Dan saying, “Holy Sh***” and told on him. SpongeBob frequently says the phrase “Holy Shrimp”. It was Dan’s favorite phrase. Because Dan has a lisp, students were sure that they had heard a bad word. Dan tried to defend himself, but once he realized that it was an uphill battle, he just gave up. The majority of the students heard a bad word, and the teacher with thirty-five fourth graders didn’t take extra time investigating. I told the teacher that although I wasn’t in the classroom when this happened, I’ve never heard Dan use that word before. Dan was really sad about the unfair treatment, and there was nothing to do since he had already been punished.  His teacher was glad that she could understand Dan better. Close communication between parents and teachers is essential for social development, and everyone needs to be on the same page in order to create a strong support team for your child.

            Second, parents of autistic children should do a lot of role playing. Children with autism crave structure and predictability. They respond very well to scripts that tell them exactly what to do and what to say in certain situations.  Observe your child in social situations. When you volunteer at her school, watch closely how she interacts with other children and how other children act toward her. If your child comes home frustrated and describes to you a situation that happened in school, listen carefully. Then recreate the same scenario at home. Come up with a script, and practice a dialogue with your child. If a similar situation happens again, your child will be better prepared to respond. Be consistent in practicing various social situations. The most recent role playing I did with Dan was when he went for his job interview. We went through the whole interview several times, starting with a proper handshake and keeping eye contact to a plethora of possible questions that his potential employer might be asking. Dan got a part time job at the garden store, and he turned out to be a very hard working and loyal employee. 

            Finally, talk to your child about personal safety from an early age. This is a very underestimated topic among parents with autistic children. People with special needs are at higher risk to be taken advantage of.  Autistic children are not good at reading body language and figuring out the person’s intent. Unintentionally they might put themselves into situations that make them an easier targets to be victimized.  Their social knowledge is black and white and very limited in between. They are also socially very isolated, and if finally someone talks to them, they embrace it. The stranger who talks to them might be a nice and compassionate person, but she also might be a scammer or predator. Maddie, a high functioning autistic seventeen-year-old girl, was approached by a woman who told her a very sad story about how she needed to get to Seattle but all her money was stolen. All the lady had was a check that she couldn’t cash because the bank was closed. Maddie felt very sorry for her and gave her all the cash she had with her in exchange for the fraudulent check. Make sure you spend lot of time talking to your child about personal safety issues and present them with multiple possible scenarios without scaring them.  

            Raising a special needs child is a journey that none of us signs up for when we decide to become parents. It is journey filled with frustration, joy, anticipation and fear. If we could, we would breathe for our children. We are happy when they are happy; we cry when they cry; and we hurt when they are in pain. It is a very special bond. There is a lot more information about autism today than there was when we first started our journey. We need to educate ourselves about autism all the time. Knowledge is power, and it helps us to be better prepared to handle individual challenges.  Don’t worry what other people think or say. Follow your own gut feeling, and if something doesn’t feel like a good idea, don’t do it. You are the parent, you know your child the best, and you want the best for them. 

Writing 121 essay

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“Can You Hear Me Now?”

“Can You Hear Me Now?”

            Do you like hiking? Do you enjoy skiing? Are you worried that if you take your cell phone in your pocket or backpack when you go outdoors it will ruin your experience? Will your phone distract you from your experience, because it will keep buzzing with every notification you get? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, reading my very first college essay is a must.  My name is Katarina; I live in Oregon, a heaven for outdoor lovers and nature enthusiasts. I am here to tell you that people who would never take a cellphone into nature are being too extreme, and to show you that, in fact, having cell phone with you will enhance your experience in the natural world.

What is the first electronic device that you remember seeing or playing with as a child? I remember mine. It was a black and white TV. That TV wasn’t even in the apartment where I lived with my parents and siblings. It was in the neighbor’s apartment who lived one floor above us, and it was a big deal. It was at the time a true luxury positioned in the middle of the living room for everyone to admire.  “Good grief! How old is this author of this first college essay?” you ask. “Dude, she’s got to be over 80 years old. She had to go to her neighbor’s apartment to watch black and white TV? What is this, the Stone Age? Let me explain. I was born 56 years ago and lived the first half of my life behind the iron curtain in communist Czechoslovakia. In the whole Eastern European block, every technological discovery was 30 years behind the rest of the developed world. That explains the thrill of little me meeting black and white TV. After raising three kids, I returned to school with a goal of obtaining a degree in business administration. I lived for a long time in the absence of technology, and that gives me different perspective of using it. I adore the outdoors. I love skiing; I love hiking. Having these kinds of hobbies and living in Oregon is a match made in heaven, and I find my cell phone to be great companion for these adventures.

            The first reason I take my cell phone with me when I go hiking or skiing is the sense of security in case of emergency. Somehow I feel much more secure that, if I am in need of help, if there is an accident, someone falls off a cliff, someone gets a heart attack or is attacked by wildlife, I can call for help. That feeling of security gives me peace of mind, although there are many places in the wilderness when we don’t get a cell phone signal and we would have to have a satellite phone to make a call. I also believe that if I get lost for some reason, unable to move or call for help, rescuers would find me easier based on my cell phone pings. I remember when a family got lost in Southern Oregon. They took a forest road to reach Gold Beach, and they got snowed in. They even  put the tires on fire to keep warm. Help didn’t arrive, although rescuers were trying very hard to locate them. Eventually the dad walked away in hopes of finding help and the mom stayed put with her two children. I remember Verizon bringing a portable cell phone tower, in order to get the ping signals from their phones. They found the mom and the kids 5 minutes before twelve, so to speak, exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and cold. They couldn’t find the dad, and by the time they found him, he wasn’t alive anymore. That was really sad, and what a hero that dad was, literally giving his life to try to save his family.

            The second thing that I find very useful on my iPhone is it’s GPS feature. I use a free version of an app called “AllTrails”. Containing information about pretty much every trail, this app helps me to search for new trails, view topographic maps and record my hikes, and I can even contribute my observations and help out other hikers with posting comments. Check it out, you would be surprised how much nature surrounds you right where you are and how easy is it to schedule an outing. You don’t need the whole day, you can find a hike or strength walk just for few hours wherever you are. I was able to help out two hikers this year using this app. At the beginning of summer my daughter and I hiked to the “Devil’s Rest” in Columbia Gorge. If you’ve never been there, it is pretty confusing trail. It is not marked very well, sometimes the trail divides and you have no clue which way to go. Once you reach Devil’s Rest there is no even a sign anywhere letting you know you’ve reached it. People pass us all the time, but there was one person who passed us several times. He had small map and compass in his hand and he had no clue where he was. On the top of that, he didn’t speak English. Pretty courageous if you ask me. I showed him on my phone where we are and how much farther we need to hike. We ended up having lunch together on the “Devil’s Rest” although our communication was very rudimentary.

            Third thing that I use my phone for outdoors is to capture the breathtaking scenery. Latest cell phones have the most amazing picture and video capabilities. There is nothing like hiking for hours, coming to a place and seeing a view that you never knew existed. You look around and know instantly that all that uphill huffing and puffing was so worth it. Then you just immerse yourself in the place. Pictures that you take you can share with your friends or just keep them to yourself and look at them when you return to these magic places in your memories. When we visit Slovakia is the summer, we hike a lot with my nephew, who is amazing mountain guide. My daughter Sarah and I, we always drag our hiking boots back and forth when we visit. Robert never visited Oregon, so when we hike here in Oregon, I just snap pictures and send them to him instantly with maps and location. Even though he cannot be with us in person, he is with us virtually, because he sees the views at the same time we see them. And he is 5,000 miles away.

            I hope you liked my presentation and the idea that cell phones can actually enhance our outdoor experience if used properly.

I take one 4-credit class this quarter, an English composition Writing 121 class at Portland Community College. I didn’t have any expectations when I signed up for it. It was more to fulfill my requirements to take business classes. Something unexpected happened though; I realized that writing is cool. When I write I feel like I step into a river and just go with the flow. No moving, no swimming, just opening my heart and painting a picture using words instead of colors. It is a very special experience. A week or so ago we’ve read in our class an article from The New Yorker magazine called “Just in Time For Spring” by Ellis Weiner, where the author satirically talks to his readers who live in the digital world, about disconnecting themselves from all their electronic devices and spending time outside. In my essay I wanted to point out that we can actually take our devices with us, and if we use them correctly they will enhance our outdoor experience, rather than ruin it.

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