Healthy, Unwealthy, and Becoming Wise

January 28, 2012

Thank You, Dr. Torrance

As you probably are aware, I have begun studying creativity and the life of Dr. E. Paul Torrance. To commemorate and keep track of the study, I have started an additional blog called Thank You, Dr. Torrance that will be personal accounts of my experiences in the form of letters, reports on current happenings in the field of gifted and creative education, and other observations.

Note, however, that this blog isn’t going anywhere; I just need a place to collectively gather my thoughts. So, please, would you join me in saying Thank You, Dr. Torrance?

One Word: Perseverance

I’ve seen people choose one word to describe their goals for 2012 a lot lately. At first, I didn’t want to take part. Writing isn’t about setting trends or following them, but once I found a word, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I’m pretty accustomed to this word. It just comes with the territory of my challenges and current situations, but in 2012, I’m hoping that I can take it to the next level. How? With three main aspects of my life. There were many things in 2011 that just didn’t play out for me. The funny thing is, though, they were all things over which I had control. These three goals will hopefully demolish the issues that were present in 2011.

Remain healthy. For me, this is sometimes a challenge. An example: when I’m home for long breaks like I have been, I tend to rest too much. We all know that’s not good. I eat out way too much at school. Yes, it’s a challenge living in the dorms, but there are ways, and it’s just got to happen. No, I haven’t gained weight or anything like that, but it will just help me to feel better and to feel better about myself as a whole. This sounds weird, too, but taking showers at night instead of the morning will help me to have more time to myself and will help me to have more time to concentrate on getting ready and making an effort to look good, feel good, and move well in the mornings. That’s really important when you’re mobility challenged, if you will. If I look good, I feel better, if I eat well, I feel better, and if I have some restoration time, I feel better. If I remain healthy, I feel better.

Remain focused. I’ve got three more semesters left of my undergraduate study (not including three summer classes this summer), and they need to be my focus, along with my research and my GRE preparation for graduate school. Before school starts back next week, I hope to come up with a study calendar that will incorporate my GRE study time, too. I’ll crack the New GRE 2011-2012 Premier with CD-ROM (Kaplan GRE) for half an hour each day during the week and 2 hours on the weekends. I’m determined to do super well this semester, and it will happen. I’m taking a research methods course, which will play nicely into my affinity for reading everything I can get my hands on in terms of my research. Currently, it’s Bright Not Broken by Diane M. Kennedy and Rebecca S. Banks. I’ve also thumbed through How the Gifted Brain Learns by David A. Sousa and Twice-Exceptional Gifted Children: Understanding, Teaching, and Counseling Gifted Students by Beverly Trail, Ed.D., but the last two are textbooks, so the reading is different. Along the same line, a surprise came last week. I was invited to “present” with the graduate students of the program at the top of my list during a statewide convention in the Spring. At first, I didn’t really know how to react, because in my head, these are graduate students, and I’m nowhere near as qualified as they are, but then, I started thinking about it. It’s a true honor to be asked, and no one would ask anyone who was unqualified. So I’m so excited, and I can’t wait to see what is in store on that front. Just another tool to keep the focus intact. For that, I’m so grateful.

Remain happy. I think Kerri’s video at the end of her recent post says it all. Happy is a great motto. For me, happiness means scheduling time to be social, to enjoy a nice dinner with friends, and to just live life a little bit. Definitions of that will be different depending on the day’s responsibilities, but my friends are important. Both as people and to me. So, I’ll make time to know them, support them, and help them in whatever way possible. There’s something new this semester that I’ll reveal later.

And just a personal note of sappy-happy-goodness: Thanks, y’all. You’ve helped and equipped me to start carrying my “perseverance toolkit” with confidence, poise, and pride through your friendship, your reading, your tweeting, your blogging, and your feedback. Here’s to a wonderful 2012 with plenty of posts, comments, and bloggy goodness coming your way!

Tell me. Before you go, what’s in your perseverance toolkit for 2012?

Disclosure: All book related links are Amazon Affiliate links.

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Filed under Blogging, College, Disability, Educational Psychology, Erin, Future, Graduate Education, Memories, Social Media, Transitions, Twitter, Undergraduate Education

December 30, 2011

Tools for Triumph in 2012

Instead of reflecting too heavily on the topsy-turvy nature that was 2011, I’ve decided that I will look forward and into the changes and positivity that will come in 2012. As many of you know, I have launched what I hope to be a lifelong study of creativity in twice-exceptional children. With the study of creativity come wonderful mentors, and a manifesto, declared by my “great-grandmentor” in 1983, perfectly sums up my goals and visions for the coming year. E. Paul Torrance’s Manifesto for Children says…

Don’t be afraid to fall in love with something

and pursue it with intensity

Know, understand, take pride in, practice, develop, exploit

and enjoy your greatest strengths.

Learn to free yourself from the expectations of others

and to walk away from the games they impose on you.

Free yourself to play your own game.

Find a great teacher or mentor who will help you.

Learn the skills of interdependence.

Don’t waste energy trying to be well rounded.

Do what you love and can do well.

More to come on my studies and my future endeavors as well as day to day musings. (I’ve also set goals of maintaining a weekly schedule to blog, so we will see how that turns out.) Here’s wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, prosperous new year, and I’ll see you in 2012!

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Filed under Blogging, College, Educational Psychology, Erin, Future, Graduate Education, Transitions

December 12, 2011

School Stress and Semblances of Success

This semester was probably my best one to date. Though I got sick during finals week and was able to complete all but my last final due to fever (I will be able to complete that during the first week or so of next semester), my time management was extraordinary, as compared to previous semesters. One issue that did continue to rear its ugly head, though, was the infinitely impossible, or seemingly so, task known as stress management. I’ll outline the problems that I seemed to have run into, hopefully get some feedback on how to handle them in the future, and then in the next few posts, I’ll strategize for next, tell you all about my graduate school search, and solicit your help!

Most of these, as you’ll see, are common to any college student, but the descriptions will leave you with the details that apply strictly to my situation. If you’ve had experience or have suggestions, your feedback and input is sought and greatly appreciated.

Repetition seems like a waste of time. This sounds so obvious, but in my situation, I have to determine how much energy and thought is needed to devote to an activity before getting started due to the fact that most times, I have a whole day of activities ready to be conquered. The area of my studies and of my life that this seemed to be the most accurate was the fact that in certain homework assignments, after already proving understanding of a concept, I still had fifteen more problems, or chances, with which I had to prove mastery. I do agree that repetition is a great way to learn processes, but sometimes, the old paper and pencil method just gets boring. I went in search of other ways to accomplish the same goal, and I will share those, but first, I want to hear what your suggestions might be! How can we avoid the mundane feelings of repetition?

Sometimes, the scale was just a little off. As with most people, I had, and have, a hard time balancing school and a social life. My social life has never gotten in the way of my schoolwork because I am way too focused to let that happen. Instead, though, it’s happened the other way. Too much school means that my friends aren’t getting the support they need, and I’m not getting the support and relaxation that I need. How do YOU balance your scales of life?

I often felt like what I was doing wasn’t good enough. In some way or another, in some capacity or another, I think everyone feels this way at some point, but for me, it most often came when I was physically exhausted. I knew that I had five more math problems to finish, I knew that I was exhausted from a day that lasted from 7:30 to 5:30, and I also knew that I wanted to go have ice cream with my best friend. I could tell myself that the five math problems would only take ten minutes, but there were times and concepts for which that couldn’t be guaranteed. So, how much is too much, and what is good enough?

Stay tuned for the strategies that I plan to implement to avoid these issues for next semester and those to come. Additionally, the update on the graduate school search and progress is coming at the end of the week!

In the meantime, how do YOU manage stress as a student or employee? What has and hasn’t worked for you?

New Adventures Are Good

It’s been a roller coaster around here lately. Registration week for next semester was awful, but it resulted in the best change I’ve made. I switched BACK to a psychology major after finding out that I would graduate on time, and in terms of starting graduate school and finishing my education by my 30th birthday, it was just the best move. So, the graduate school search is heavily underway, as I will be submitting applications during December 2012/January 2013 and beginning a program August 2013.

That sounds like a long time from now, but when you have to figure out which programs to apply to, visit, take the GRE, and get your name out there all while finishing an undergraduate degree, it’s not much time at all!

My graduate school search has been a very productive one — one that has allowed me to meet a dear mentor and choose my heart’s true passion in the field of educational psychology.

The University of Georgia is well-known in the world of educational psychology, specifically in the field of gifted and creative education, which is the emphasis of my program. Dr. Bonnie Cramond, my mentor’s mentor, is a well-known researcher in the world of creativity and was a student and mentee of Dr. E. Paul Torrance, creator of the Torrance Test for Creative Thinking. She has truly embraced my passion, and we have developed a strong professional relationship that I will forever cherish.

My research interests at the University of Georgia include adaptations that can be made to the Torrance test for twice-exceptional students who may be non-verbal, the “plight” of the twice-exceptional student, and the implementation of strategic instruction for the twice-exceptional student.

As such, I hope to develop an undergraduate thesis that answers some of these questions related to the creativity of twice-exceptional students.

Get ready for this crazy ride of watching me bloom and grow through the process.

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Filed under Adulthood, College, Disability, Educational Psychology, Future, Graduate Education, Transitions

October 22, 2011

Discovering Joy

Two weekends ago, I was getting ready to start a journey to see my sister in Athens, home to the University of Georgia, and before I left for a night at home to do laundry, I went to retrieve a surprise from my mailbox. A good friend of mine, Rob Rummel-Hudson had told me he would send me something special…with a little something added. Little did I know, he would send me a gift that would help me to discover joy. Pure joy. As I opened the box that was lined with pink and orange tissue paper, tears began to fill my eyes. A treasure was to be found at the bottom.

The book was autographed, and Schuyler had taken the time to write me a sweet note. My day was officially made. I came home, and I literally could not put the book out of my hands.

I won’t give it all away here, but the candid nature of the book sucked me in for good. Rob’s honesty, as well as the evidence of his deep love for his wife and daughter and the things that they go through as a family with Dr. Dobyns and the path to diagnosis and treatment is just so blatantly obvious that it becomes tangible. Having never read a book from the father’s perspective of raising a child with special needs, I was intrigued. For the entirety of the book, I felt as though I was reading Rob’s diary, the thing that he wouldn’t allow anyone else to read during that time. I couldn’t help but think of my own father, who would never admit to feeling discouraged (even to this day), and I wanted to find a way to allow him to open up like Rob did.

Consistently, one theme stuck with me throughout the story and throughout Schuyler’s young life. Rob and Julie were, and are, always believers in their daughter’s abilities, her triumphs, and even her failures, when they happen. When I first heard of the book’s title, Schuyler’s Monster, several years ago, I mistook it for a pessimistic view of the diagnosis and the journey Schuyler and her parents began. Instead, it was the most honest title a book has ever been given.

Getting to know Rob via Twitter and our blogs, he is one of the best parent advocates I’ve ever run across, and I can’t wait to have the chance to meet him and his family and to join him in the circle of special needs authors. More on that to come!

Thanks to Rob, Schuyler, and Julie for helping me to discover joy and to discover that my story is something that needs to be told. Look for me on the shelves one day soon!

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Filed under Blogging, Disability, Memories, Parenting, Parents, Special Education, Transitions, Twitter

September 23, 2011

Subtle Self-Advocacy

There has been way too much chatter, if you will, this week about advocacy for people, specifically adults, with disabilities. Over at the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, my friend Robert Rummel-Hudson has engaged in a dialogue discussing the ways in which advocacy can be most effective, among other things.

I wholeheartedly agree with Robert’s points, but as an adult with a disability, I’m insulted. And here’s why.

Why would you single out an entire community and people group simply to advocate for them if your goal is to assimilate them into society just as anyone else? Awareness is a great thing, but somehow, I see this as no different from having a website dedicated to “Tall People Awareness.” If you’re 6’0″ or taller, you need higher door frames, so we’re going to create a website and draw parents of tall children to it. That just seems wrong to me.

Education is different from awareness. By reading what I have to say and interacting with me, you learn about my life as a college student with cerebral palsy. I’m not holding a poster on the side of the Capitol building for you to learn, though. I’m taking the time to teach you.

As a self-advocate, my goal is not to become a “poster child” for my disability. Sure, I’m one of the few bloggers with CP. (What? I’m not? Prove me wrong here.) I’m just here to teach you about what it’s like to be me in the hopes that it raises an awareness and that you learn, whether directly or indirectly, what it means to have association with someone with a disability, whether that is a relationship, a professional association, or otherwise. I may write that something is wrong or that I disagree with the way a certain policy is executed, but that’s simply my opinion. Through the stories and the journeys of my life, I’m practicing subtle self-advocacy.

Sometimes, though, there’s no other way to self-advocate than to be blunt. That’s where people get hung up on what we’re doing. It’s not that we want to stick out like a sore thumb. Advocating that way, in certain instances, is the only way to truly express the things that we need or the injustices that we face. Parents of children with special needs are not quite as constructive with their advocacy at times. There are blogs and interactions that I love to read, but ranting just isn’t the way to get what you need. Write a blog post that’s a letter to a legislator or letter to a school system. I don’t want to read a rant. You’ve never been in the shoes of someone with a disability. Your child may simply not be old enough to advocate or have the self-expression skills to do so, so you may end up being their voice, but I would venture to bet that parents make a bigger scene out of things than their children want. Trust me. I know. I’ve been there.

In order to learn to practice subtle self-advocacy, the next time something occurs at school for you or your child, I would challenge you to ask your child or yourself what they thought was unjust about the situation and work specifically for them. Instead of automatically assuming that a situation did not work in your favor, make sure your facts are straight according to the individual enduring the situation,. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Flamboyant websites are great at times, but subtle self-advocacy is the way to go, if you ask me.

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September 4, 2011

“Normal” Is As “Normal” Does

Just a few moments ago, I finished reading my friend Rob’s post about his daughter’s struggle in making friends. You see, Rob expresses a sentiment in which he doesn’t really get along with “neurotypical” children on their parents.

This is where I come in. It’s a really strange world for me. Having grown up with a twin sister who has no evidence of impairment, having no cognitive deficit (save a few sequencing issues) myself, I usually fit into that “neurotypical” kid bubble. Socially, though, I’ve worked so hard. And sometimes, even I, at 21 years old, get nowhere with it. Though I’m usually not given free reign of an arcade or roaming the acne-infested halls of a middle school, it’s sometimes awful. For example, I know that I can’t stay out late on most nights with my friends. Why? Because my body exerts as much (or more) energy by 9am as theirs do by 9pm. I tend to like the more mature, businesslike activities such as internships and student government.

It wasn’t until the student government president told me that he valued my perspective because he’d never heard it before that I realized something.

“Normal” is as “normal” does.

Why are people teaching kids and young adults that because I walk funny, I wouldn’t make a good friend? Can we teach people to dig deeper, to realize that there’s so much more to life than outward appearances? That my little friend, Schuyler, has so much going for her that they might want to listen to her?

The definition of “friendship” will always remain. It’s the people and the friendships that you establish that will make it unique. And you know, I’m so proud of the fact that I work hard for my friendships. I value every morsel of appreciation, of genuine love, and of genuine passion that I share with each of my friends more than you will ever comprehend.

It’s awful when all of my friends are busy on Friday nights, and I’m sitting alone and blogging or surfing YouTube channels, but I have to remember that each of my friendships and all of the time that I spend with friends is so precious that I treasure each moment.

Remembering too, however, one thing.

“Normal” is as “normal” does.

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August 21, 2011

Stressed

In my new journey as student with borderline depression issues (as in, nothing is official yet), I find that the hardest thing to manage is stress. This morning, for example, I ditched my regular Sunday morning routine of going to church and lunch to just have some quiet time. My body is exhausted, and my brain just needs a break. This semester, I’m living with a roommate for the first time in a year and a half, and I wanted some time to myself. After deciding to forego routine for rest, I hopped out of bed to grab a drink from the fridge and promptly scurried back underneath the covers with a book and my iPhone. I met a really interesting new friend and let a very good friend know what was going on with me today.

Shortly thereafter, I began to cry. Immediately, the reason was unexplained. Since cerebral palsy is a main diagnosis and parts of the central nervous system are affected, I handle stress very differently than an individual not diagnosed with cerebral palsy regardless of a secondary diagnosis. I cried, and then I talked to a friend, which helped to take my mind off of stressors that relate to school like the homework I have to do today and the appointments and assignments that are due this week. The most beneficial thing that I ever do for myself when stressed, depressed, or both, is to take a shower. The soothing sounds, the alone time, and the figurative and literal cleansing that take place help me more than words can describe. If I’m unable to take a shower and feel a tinge of sadness coming on, I repeat three words to myself.

Stop. It’s important when stressed, depressed, angry, or any other extreme emotion to realize that the extreme nature of the emotion is stemming from the fact that your brain is in overdrive. Stop what you’re doing, whether that’s walking, talking, reading, or something else, and clear your head.

Slow down. As a continuation of “stop” explained above, your brain is moving too fast. Chances are that when you’re overwhelmed, you haven’t taken the time to break things up into realistic chunks of tasks. Realize that the reading can take two hours to complete; it’s okay that you’re 15 minutes later than planned to dinner with friends.

Relax. Sometimes, relaxation doesn’t mean that you throw on pajamas and do nothing for the rest of the day. Most times, for me, relaxation means taking ten minutes to eat a quick snack, call a friend, or begin a quick blog post. It’s important to let your body know that it will have the chance to unwind, especially during times of extreme emotion, such as stress.

As a student, those three things have helped more than imaginable. Inspired by Dr. Steve Seay’s post on major depressive disorder as a hidden ailment, I thought it important to shed light on a real issue caused by borderline depression.

Which tips do you have for students or others facing stressful times? What works for you and what doesn’t? Share your tips in the comments!

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Filed under Adulthood, College, Disability, Erin, Transitions, Undergraduate Education

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