was thinking about this also: don’t hide your child’s disability from the child themself, or pretend it doesn’t exist
one of my best friends went to an autistic school for 7 years, but no one ever actually explained to him what autism actually was! parents never talked about it! so he thought that when he went to high school he’d ‘grown out of it,’ whatever it was.
we kept running into situations where, for example, we’re sitting together and someone asks me why I’m flapping and I say “I’m stimming, I’m autistic,” or this friend hears me explain accommodation stuff to a new teacher. and he kept responding with surprise: “that’s an autism thing? is autism the reason we do that?” “yeah!” “oh wow, I thought I was just weird!”
so i’ve been trying to convince my friend for most of this year now that all this ‘unusual’ stuff that we do and difficulties we have are just our natural way of being, because of our neurotype and disability… and the reaction has consistently been relief. like “oh, that’s why I’m like this! it’s not the wrong way, it’s just the autistic way!”
if you act like your child’s disability doesn’t exist, it won’t actually stop existing. they will still be a disabled child, only now they will have no understanding of what that means. they’re going to feel confused and out-of-place at best; have their needs ignored and most probably going to push themselves to able-bodied neurotypical standards of functioning when they just cannot handle that, which is extremely unhealthy!
disability is not a bad word! it is not shameful! you gain nothing from pretending a disabled person in your life is not disabled at all.
There are characters you like but then there are characters you end up thinking about in the middle of the night with a cosmic ache in your chest because they resonate with you so much
mdlksdfsd my fave thing is when ppl outside of florida ask “how do alligators even get in ur pools??? how do they get into ur yards???”
alligators can climb fences. they do this a lot
@ the replies - absolutely alligators can climb fences!! chain link fences are easier for them bc they can get a grip on them, but yep alligators climb fences to get into peoples pools + canals + backyards
i would like to add that alligators wont chase you/attack you unless you provoke them, but yes they absolutely climb fences and ladders and basically everything all the time
I watched the whole buzzfeed unsolved on this and that dude was a fucking menace and a pedo, he stayed getting arrested but he had a lawyer that would get mobsters off charges so he kept going free, the whole town hated the shit out his ass, had a town hall meeting about how to deal with him one day, someone said him and his wife turned up at the bar down the road during the meeting, everyone in the meeting was like “let’s ride” walked down there silently, he was getting in the truck with his wife to leave they SNATCHED his wife out the truck and everyone watched him get murdered and the police investigated, the town said they didn’t know who did it, ain’t snitch on who came up with the plan or nothing the town was really like this
can someone please explain how it’s possible that every single month this year ended as quickly as it started and yet this whole year has felt like an eternity
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24 Invaluable Skills To Learn For Free Online This Year
Here’s an easy resolution: This stuff is all free as long as you have access to a computer, and the skills you learn will be invaluable in your career, and/or life in general.
1. Become awesome at Excel.
Chandoo is one of many gracious Excel experts who wants to share their knowledge with the world. Excel excellence is one of those skills that will improve your chances of getting a good job instantly, and it will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. What are you waiting for?
Perhaps no other skill you can learn for free online has as much potential to lead to a lucrative career. Want to build a site for your startup? Want to build the next big app? Want to get hired at a place like BuzzFeed? You should learn to code. There are a lot of places that offer free or cheap online coding tutorials, but I recommend Code Academy for their breadth and innovative program. If you want to try a more traditional route, Harvard offers its excellent Introduction to Computer Science course online for free.
3. Make a dynamic website.
You could use a pre-existing template or blogging service, or you could learn Ruby on Rails and probably change your life forever. Here’s an extremely helpful long list of free Ruby learning tools that includes everything from Rails for Zombies to Learn Ruby The Hard Way. Go! Ruby! Some basic programming experience, like one of the courses above, might be helpful (but not necessarily required if you’re patient with yourself).
4. Learn to make a mobile game.
If you’re not interested in coding anything other than fun game apps, you could trythis course from the University of Reading. It promises to teach you how to build a game in Java, even if you don’t have programming experience! If you want to make a truly great game, you might want to read/listen up on Game Theory first.
5. Start reading faster.
Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skill and comprehension no matter how old you are. With enough practice, you could learn to double, triple, or even quadruple the speed at which you read passages currently, which is basically like adding years to your life.
6. Learn a language!
With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or English (from any of the above or more). There’s a mobile app and a website, and the extensive courses are completely free.
Full disclosure: BuzzFeed and other websites are in a partnership with DuoLingo, but they did not pay or ask for this placement.
7. Pickle your own vegetables.
Tired of your farmer’s market haul going bad before you use it all? Or do you just love tangy pickled veggies? You too can pickle like a pro thanks to SkillShare and Travis Grillo.
8. Improve your public speaking skills.
You can take the University of Washington’s Intro to Public Speaking for free online. Once you learn a few tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to go into situations like being asked to present at a company meeting or giving a presentation in class without nearly as much fear and loathing.
9. Get a basic handle of statistics.
UC Berkeley put a stats intro class on iTunes. Once you know how to understand the numbers yourself, you’ll never read a biased “news” article the same way again — 100% of authors of this post agree!
10. Understand basic psychology.
Knowing the basics of psych will bring context to your understanding of yourself, the dynamics of your family and friendships, what’s really going on with your coworkers, and the woes and wonders of society in general. Yale University has its Intro to Psychology lectures online for free.
11. Make your own music.
Step one: Learn how to play guitar: Justin Guitar is a fine and free place to start learning chords and the basic skills you’ll need to be able to play guitar — from there, it’s up to you, but once you know the basics, just looking up tabs for your favorite songs and learning them on your own is how many young guitar players get their start (plus it’s an excellent party trick).
Step two: A delightful free voice lesson from Berklee College Of Music.
Step three: Have you always thought you had an inner TSwift? Berklee College of Music offers an Introduction to Songwriting course completely for free online. The course is six weeks long, and by the end of the lesson you’ll have at least one completed song.
Step four: Lifehacker’s basics of music production will help you put it all together once you have the skills down! You’ll be recording your own music, ready to share with your valentine or the entire world, in no time!
12. Learn to negotiate.
Let Stanford’s Stan Christensen explain how to negotiate in business and your personal life, managing relationships for your personal gain and not letting yourself be steamrolled. There are a lot of football metaphors and it’s great.
13. Stop hating math.
If you struggled with math throughout school and now have trouble applying it in real-world situations when it crops up, try Saylor.org’s Real World Math course. It will reteach you basic math skills as they apply IRL. Very helpful!
14. Start drawing!
All kids draw — so why do we become so afraid of it as adults? Everyone should feel comfortable with a sketchbook and pencil, and sketching is a wonderful way to express your creativity. DrawSpace is a great place to start. (I also highly recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain if you can drop a few dollars for a used copy.)
Have you never really “gotten” jazz? If you want to be able to participate in conversations at fancy parties and/or just add some context to your appreciation of all music, try this free online course from UT Austin.
Another invaluable skill that will get you places in your career, learning Photoshop can be as fun as watching the hilarious videos on You Suck At Photoshop or as serious as this extensive Udemy training course (focused on photo retouching).
Instructables has a great course by a woman who is herself an online-taught knitter. You’ll be making baby hats and cute scarves before this winter’s over!
21. Get started with investing in stocks.
If you are lucky enough to have a regular income, you should start learning about savings and investment now. Investopedia has a ton of online resources, including this free stocks basics course. Invest away!
Most cities have free community classes (try just searching Google or inquiring at your local yoga studio), or if you’re more comfortable trying yoga at home, YogaGlohas a great 15-day trial and Yome is a compendium of 100% free yoga videos. If you’re already familiar with basic yoga positions but you need an easy way to practice at home, I recommend YogaTailor’s free trial as well.
24. Tie your shoelaces more efficiently.
It’s simple and just imagine the minutes of your life you’ll save!
LEARN SOME STATS!!! STATS ARE SO GREAT EVERYONE!!
In addition to the link above, statisticshell.com is a FANTASTIC intro stats site, which is course material and links to lectures from Andy Field, who wrote the most understandable stats textbook ever! The book itself is fantastic, but unfortunately, the opposite of free. :)
