I applied! "This is going to be wonderful!"

Yay! I submitted my application for a Special Ed Assistant to a nearby high school, just now. They had three openings--I applied for the one working with students with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). 

I'd be open to working with other students, but neuro-divergence interests me. All these interesting questions around "how do our brains navigate the world?" come up when we start to look at neurotypical & neurodivergent experience. 

I have friends on the spectrum who have shown me the world in new ways--illuminating the intricacies of social circumstances, for instance, that shift like lake ice... Sometimes beautiful, sometimes treacherous.

I see how easy it is for me as a neurotypical person to enter into social situations that are designed for brains like mine, as most of them are. And people with social training like mine. My mother was something of a Southern belle, and she taught me intricate manners--like, what to say when you enter a room where two people are already talking.

I learned soooo much from my Black coworkers who grew up in poverty about their social worlds. Mr Linens used to literally instruct me:
Don't say that, don't do that ("don't lend that guy money"), etc.

Overall, I just feel it's great if everyone has access to the information about how to navigate whatever area they want to enter. Like learning other languages to travel or talk to people.

(I should write out some of that...
But not this morning--I'm going back to work after three days off.

I took an extra day because the wind-chill has been dangerously cold. It still is this morning, but the wind's supposed to ebb and the temp is going to "warm up" to 6 above 0 ( -14 C).

Here's bink & Astro yesterday. Some work was being done in their house so they came over here (in a car).
Astro is earing an ear muff made from a sock.

 

I am excited about getting a new job! If not this one, another. The public schools have lots of openings for special ed assistants--I think I mentioned they hired Ass't Man who has less social service jobs than I've had. He's had none, while I've worked with seniors--and wrote for a K-12 educational publisher too.

I looked back at my posts from 2015, when I led Activities on a memory care unit, with people living with Alzheimer's and other dementias.
I was happy to be reminded of a woman with Alzheimer's who used to cheer me on. If I was grumbling and saying something wouldn't work, she'd say,
"Don't say that! Say, This is going to be wonderful!"

I wrote: "I usually resent people telling me to cheer up, but when someone with Alzheimer's says it, well, it gave me pause. Maybe I'll try that, I thought, and filed it away."

I am dusting off that file and pulling out that woman's saying. Come to think of it, she'd been a high school teacher...

Off I go! THIS IS GOING TO BE WONDERFUL!