I have to admit I do like these programs very much and always have.  I think any member of any type of program needs to also admit it as well, but also needs to accept the fact it should only be around their life temporarily till they can get their feet in to life a lot better.  Yes, it is important to do this and be the independent person as much as they can with minimal support feeling helped.  Then, coming back to these programs as a role model to help the instructors help  newcomers feel they can make it too.

I just wanted to repeat something I said in another posting.  This should be the future of all of these programs including the revolutionary Adaptations in which I feel should be a recognized International program for everybody.  There should be different levels of social skills because of the different levels of disabilities and neurotypicals who need social skills.  Everybody needs some kind of social skills in their life at some point.

Have a wonderful day!!!

OUT, J

I have a friend at Adaptations who I feel is the main role model of Adaptations.  He will be featured soon on National Public Radio (NPR).  This person has incredible patience like no other person in the group.  It is probably why I always try and tag along with this person to ask this person how he does it even though at times he does not how he is so patient.  I have always tried to observe his behavior because I want to become a better person.  I know I am a role model as well and will be featured in the news soon too.  There also is something else in which I’d like to keep a secret about right now.  I figure even when my mom is not trying her hardest to smooth my skills, I can observe this person to help ease my mother’s teachings.

I know I probably teach him things in which he does not know either.   A friendship works only on a two way street.  You must give and get back.

I promise not to give away names, but anybody who knows me probably knows who I am talking about anyway.

Positive things can happen in this world and with the patience somebody develops in time anything is possible.  It is like what somebody said to me last year “You can’t chase the spotlight, you have to let the spotlight come to you.”  When the spotlight comes to you, you must be able to remain true to yourself and as humble a person as you always were.  I hope the next President of the United States (hopefully Barack Obama) remains humble.  It is so important like I said before.

Anyway, things are the way they are for a reason and we must all be patient with ourselves.  May be I should be patient with the Adaptations program as well since things are changing along the way. BTW, this person is also on the Autism Spectrum.

OUT, J

Anybody who needs a Social Skills training course should be able to get it and be provided to have a suitable course for their needs on their level of Social Skills.  Adaptations should become a recognized International program where if people need Social Skills, they can get it.  There should be professionals being trained specifically to teach Social Skills as well since many professionals do not know how to teach Social Skills.

There should be a way in which anybody who needs it can get it!

OUT, J

Social Skills training is required when certain types of people lack the abilities to interact with many people in the world.  There are three different types of ways in which people lack Social Skills.  One way is the neurological deficit like the Autism Spectrum and other neurological disabilities which are congenital or even people who had a severe stroke requiring Social Skills training.  Another way is the mental deficit like mental illnesses which handicap many people from having the same social life they had when they were children.  The final way in which a person can need Social Skills is when the person has a physical disability in which the physical disability handicaps the person from interacting with people and those types of people start lacking social skills.  Somebody can either be born with a physical disability or somebody might have an accident which causes a physical disability.  In whatever case the person may need Social Skills, and the world needs to understand everybody needs to interact with somebody.

Social Skills training is very hard if everybody in the Social Skills class is of different disabilities since different disabilities require different attention.  I feel there needs to be a separation of Social Skills training classes for every type of disability since every disability is on a different level.  For instance, mental disabilities are probably have the highest social skills and can adjust a lot better in the world by just minimal social skills training with a professional.  Although probably in certain severe cases of mental disabilities where people have lost complete touch of life, probably need even more attention to rebuild their social life.

I am not a professional to teach Social Skills, I am just somebody trying to have people understand the levels of Social Skills training.  I have much difficult time since I am on the Autism Spectrum myself which is a neurological deficit.  My blessing is my mother who has always helped me out and is trying to continue to smooth me over now with the social skills I developed with her through the years.  It is probably why for the past 5 years of my life, I have turned from a silent shy person in to a motor mouth.  Now I need to moderate myself to become a better person.  There should be other people out there who should try and follow the footsteps of my own mother.  She knows how to educate somebody on Social Skills training very well.  May be she should do one day seminars in helping other people understand how to approach Social Skills they way she sees it.   This way a professional who is having much trouble teaching anybody Social Skills will give better instruction to their class.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this post in now while its in the moment.  I feel this a really important issue to follow through.

OUT, J

It is highly imperative for anybody providing social skills programs to help any adult with an Autism Spectrum Disorder like myself become the fully independent, contributing member of society.  There are so many people in the world who do not fully understand the Autism Spectrum to this day.  I know it is a very hard concept for a lot of people to understand.  The Autism Spectrum is so variable and so different in so many ways.  When I see my friends at the Adaptations program, GRASP or my ASAN meetup who are on the Autism Spectrum I find we are all similiar and also have our differences.  I find the program at Adaptations needs to be changed and I think it is time for a change.  This program has many people with many different disabilities not just the Autism Spectrum.  Different disabilities require different attention.  

I find the program at Adaptations needs to address this issue.  I really liked the program last year when the two directors who left were running it, but still needed this issue addressed.  The current director needs to rethink some of the things she does for the program.  I wonder when the program says this is for people in their 20’s and 30’s, is there really just people in their 20’s and 30’s.  I think there should be an inclusion of older ages as well.  Where are all the people who are on the Autism Spectrum who are older than 40 supposed to go to for social skills?  There are many people who are on the Autism Spectrum who learn social skills at different paces and when you mix them with other people with disabilities, I feel it just does not work out.    There needs to be a way to help people on the Autism Spectrum like me and people with other types of disabliities so that all our needs are considered.  For instance, a person on the Autism Spectrum is different than a person with a mental illness.  There is even a remarkable difference when you also include a person with Down Syndrome or any other developmental disability or even just ADD/ADHD.

The world needs to think about how to handle all these different types of needs.  We need to even continue to help those who are children and even help certain senior citizens with developmental disabilities.

Think about it!

OUT, J

I find there are people in this world who are very humble along the way in their life. George, the person I interviewed on this website is one of those people.  Another person who is just as humble as George is the person I met today with my younger brother at the Bronx Zoo.  It seems to me being humble is very rare in this world.  Sometimes I feel whenever I meet somebody who is humble, I want to cherish the moment so much since being humble is rare in this world.  I remember the original directors of Adaptations were very humble people.  I know I must try and give the new director a chance.  It is so very important.  Yes, I did not like something which happened regarding myself, but no body is perfect.

I don’t want to be known as the person in this world who is not humble.  How do I tell people in a way that things are not going the way they should go?

I loved Adaptations to begin with, but now I feel the program is not going so well.  Though, I really love Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY) so much because it helps me.  It is the best drama therapy program in the New York City area to help anybody on the Autism Spectrum or even other people with disabilities.   The people who run the CANY program are very humble.

Anyway, I wish more people could be very humble in this world like George, this person I met today, and even other people I have met through the years including my immediate family.  I also feel my grandmother can be very humble too.  I don’t like seeing a person who is egotistical making feel like I am nothing.  I am person who has so much tenacity in which I will not give up on anything and I will be successful with every attempt at what I do.  I will continue to always strive for more and be more successful.

I want Adaptations to be a program where they help everybody in the program achieve the social skills, job training, and eventually independence so that someday they will only need minimal support from programs like these.  I know I sound very angry, but I have every right to be.  I find the interns at Adaptations this year are the only ones who run the program who are humble.  I really admire a humble person.

I will post later on and I hope everybody understands how being humble in this world is so very important.

Have a wonderful evening,

OUT, J

PS thank g-d the Seaver Center is involved this year!  Kindness and Humbleness in everyone please!

I wonder how most people live with certain people in their lives even with all their antics and shtick.  It is interesting to know before the 1960’s, it was rarity people all over the world couples would get a divorce.  Most people just dealt with whoever they were living with and tried to make the most out of it.  I find whoever dealt with the people they were living with who seemed negative and miserable or who were very anxious people, are those people who were the strongest individuals the world has probably ever seen.

Nowadays when a couple gets married most of the time they do not stay married for much longer.  Most of the time it is because one of the spouses can’t take anymore of the other spouses antics or shtick.  It is really sad to see how these spouses do not have the same strength as the other spouses who dealt with the same stuff or worse before 1960.  I hear about how my Grandpa who dealt with my living Grandma , and I hear about how my Grandma dealt with my living Grandpa.

I wonder how we all deal with these people who we say we want to marry and marry them for the rest of our lives.  I am not married yet, but I don’t want to ever get married because there are too many stresses going on during the time frame in which people have to spend the rest of their lives with the person they choose.  By choosing to end the marriage early and getting a divorce, you show the whole world how weak you are because I see how strong all these other spouses were when they were married before 1960.  It amazes me to see a couple who has been married for over 60 years because it goes to show the inner strength deep down inside of them to be able to handle all the antics and shtick.

Marriage is something that most of us take for granted these days.  I hear in the news how people get married in their 20’s and 30’s and wonder to myself about how they could do it.  The divorce rate is nearly skyrocketing these days and mostly because of the individuals getting married in their 20’s.   Inner strength is a good trait to have, if you can get married and keep the marriage going till your 61st Anniversary and many more,  you have definitely accomplished a great feat.

Sometimes I see people who are even in their 30’s who wind up getting divorced because they just can’t take it anymore and want to go and have fun finding another woman or man.  Most of these people wind up never finding anything more and regret ever getting divorced in the first place.  Though there are sometimes I find even with many friends of mine who get married, divorced, and then they do find the individual to love them for the rest of their life.  I have a special friend who has found someone she has fallen in love with and I am happy she is not one of those people still searching.

Love can be very hard.  You may find someone you love and you may feel like this is the one, but you must try very hard to work it out as much as you can with the strength inside of you.  By using the strength inside of you, it will help guide you through the marriage.

I have not found anybody I can fall in love with quite yet, and for some reason I am very close to not wanting to be married at all.  Since there are so many things involved in a marriage in which you have to deal with the inner workings of your spouse and your own self.  I give all the support to those people who had to deal with a spouse they just could not deal with at all, but lived with them till they had to die.  I also give all the support to those spouses who are living with those spouses who are tough.  These spouses living with rough marriages are trying their hardest to live with a spouse and make a marriage work.  Those people are really strong.

For those who could not handle the other spouse and had no choice, but to get a divorce, I respect and honor your decision.  It must be really hard for many people to build up the strength inside of them to handle the spouse they eventually want to divorce.  Remember it is not the fact that you could not have the strength to handle the spouse you were married to, but it is the learning experience to develop the strength inside of you to eventually handle life a lot better.  Life is a learning experience to which we must all live trying to build the strength up we need to succeed in life.

The same goes for when parents who live with their children who grow up to be adults and children growing up dealing with their parents.  We all need to build up the strength inside of us to live the rest of our lives.  We seem to live our lives trying to build up strength to handle any obstacle which passes our way.   A life is journey which travels through the fields whether it is a city street, a road on a highway, or just simple wooded trail in the forest.  We must have the confidence and strength inside to be able to walk around with this person and help the person out no matter what.

Sometimes I know there are times where we don’t even want to look at this person because the person makes us want to vomit.  We must also realize the person who we don’t want to look at may have had a rough life because they could not build up the strength inside like most other people.  It does take a lot of work for some people to have the same strength other people may have strength so easily.  We must all please be very courteous and helpful to those who are having trouble developing the same strength you may find so easily.

Marriage is a commitment which only the strongest people in the world can be able to handle.  People who are not as strong as they should be, should look at how other people who are stronger and can make a marriage last.   My parents have been happily married for a very long time already and I hope when they reach their 40th Anniversary, they look back and see how their strength developed through the years.   Every marriage does not have the strength to begin with and needs to develop the strength over time.   It is a part of the inner workings of marriage.

To answer my question about how most people can handle a difficult spouse, I say the spouse who can handle their very difficult spouse is probably one of the most strongest individuals in the world.

Dealing with a spouse, sibling, or even a friend you are trying to help can be at times the most difficult tasks for anybody handle.

An Aspie like myself can be at times very difficult to handle, but as each day passes I become a better person which to those trying to help may seem so minute at times.   Those minute moments I am becoming a better person is still an accomplishment even though it may not seem like one at the time.  By the time I reach my 40th birthday which is 11 years from now, I will be just about complete as a great person in this world.  Asperger Syndrome does not need to be cured, it just needs the support and consideration to help get where we ought to be at.  I am lucky enough to have so many people in my life including my family, my boss, coworkers, and so many other friends in my life who are in Ultrasound or just a good friend from who I met at Adaptations or even other friends to help me through the process.  I am realizing my life is what it is and I can be a better person as each day passes by.

I am someday am going to make all these people proud of me for the man I will become someday.  Even those people who were my teachers in nursery school through College Life and even other people who crossed my paths.    Whoever crosses my path in life is meant to be the person who will help me be the better man I will eventually become.

Have a good day and I will post later on.  Damn it, I have to finish the vacuuming now.

OUT, J

I find being flexible and adaptive could be very hard at times.   I am in a program at the JCC Manhattan called Adaptations which teaches members of the program many different social concepts.  I am finding I am not the only one in the program struggling with being flexible and adaptive with people I interact with such as my family, friends, and new people I meet.   Believe or not there are many other members of the program who are struggling with this social concept just like me.  Sometimes I find the members are struggling the same as me while other times I find there are members who are struggling worse than me.  There are a select few members I observe in the program who seem to not have much trouble being adaptive and flexible even though at times they will also have their struggles as well.  One of the members who I have become very good friends with happens to adapt with ease.  Even though there are some times when he is not, I think everybody at times can be that way too.  He also seems to be the most patient in Adaptations.  When I go to the different groups with him like Social Skills or even the Creative Alternatives of New York program, I watch how he operates.  He allows everybody else to speak first.  When he eventually speaks I wait until he finishes completing whatever he needs to say.  When we are in groups I find there are other members who tend to interrupt him trying to finish his statements he is trying to make.  I don’t say anything.  I know whoever is leading the groups for that day will tell the other members to let him speak also.   Anybody who is in a group whether formally or informally needs to realize everybody has to be listened to as well.

Patience is a virtue.  We need to be patient with ourselves and with other people.  Everybody is different and speaks at different paces even learns at different paces.  Not everyone is the same.  I know when I am working at my job doing my ultrasounds I have had about 4 students who I had to teach.  The school who sent me on externships wanted me to teach these 4 students.  Each of these students were at different periods of my life working at my job.  I am realizing they are all very different.  The first student I had was the smartest student I had by far with similar tenacity to me.  I knew it and I tried to work with her as much as I could.  Though she had trouble conversing and learning English.  English is the hardest language to learn.  I find if somebody is born in a English spoken family, they are already set for life.  People who are born in families who speak other languages in the world will have a harder time conversing with others since English is the main language of the world.  I think it is important for everybody to speak more than one language.   Anyway, I also have to remember I was once a student myself who would do whatever it took to succeed.  Just look at me now!  I know I still need to accomplish a couple of more things and I know I will since nothing will stop me.

I just need to be flexible and adaptive just like the program is called, “Adaptations.”  It is a unique name, but also a name which relates to what life is all about.  We all have to try and adapt to our surroundings.  I know I needed to adapt in the past and I need to continue to try to adapt even though at times in my life I just want things to be the same.   Unfortunately life is not the same.  We have to adapt to different changes in our lives everyday.  When I first was told my boss wanted to hire me I was in shock.  I could not believe somebody actually wanted to hire me.   I was hired to do a skilled job where I would be helping a doctor make diagnoses for heart and vascular conditions.  I knew I had to adapt to this big change in my life.  I realized though I went to school just to learn how to scan and be a contributing member of society.  Now I am a contributing member of society in the medical community.   People like George always told me when I was a student to think about others who want to succeed in the future.  Right now I see a lot of technologists in the field who are working and who will retire someday.   Once they retire, they need to know there will be somebody in the future who can do the same functions as them.   The realization is we all need to teach everybody.  We can not be afraid of teaching a student because the benefits outweigh the risks.  Besides a student should never forget who taught them.  For every great person, there is another great person inside of them.  Actually I have at least thousands of great people inside of me.  It took many people to help me get where I am at today.  I guess Adaptations was created in the first place to teach people with disabilities the social concepts they lack.  This program is making me realize more about what George told me about teaching students who want to join the Ultrasound community.  If a program to teach social concepts was never created, then the people who already know the social concepts would seem selfish about what they already know.  The same idea is genuine for the Ultrasound community and any other career or job.

In fact, I probably am a bit more adaptive then I thought I was even though I realize I have to be more adaptive in life.  I am always going to learn from my very patient and flexible friend who helps me out a lot.  I am glad I am in a program called Adaptations and I hope someday I can be a lot more adaptive then I am today.  I also hope other members who are struggling with being adaptive and flexible can do it as well.

posting again soon,

OUT, J