Bgoustin's Blog

Yeah so I dunno what we were supposed to blog about this week but this seems like a good topic. What can I say? Some faux hawks are cool, some are well…..ok, and then there is that person with the faux hawk where you walk by but you have to do a double take and then walk off and say “What the hell were they thinking?”

Paper #2 The process banning of books is a complex and interesting task but restricts the reader.
Paper #3 Autism plays a major role in my life dealing with it twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year.

My favorite season has to be fall. Its cool outside and all the leaves are changing colors on the trees. Its very pretty.

For Halloween I dressed as a hippie and went around the block with some kids from church so they could get some candy then I went to a couple of parties and went to my friends place which he had made into a Haunted House. Overall a pretty awesome weekend.

My biggest fear has to be heights. I can’t stand looking over the edge when there is no rail or well nothing to stop me from falling over the edge but besides that I guess I’m usually ok with heights.

So if I could have one super power I think I would like to have speed. I can’t seem to get anywhere on time so it would help me out a little, plus I just think its cool.

Brittanie Goustin
Dr. Shattuck
English 101
October 15, 2009

Autism plays a very important role in my life. I deal with it twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year. My youngest brother Jay was diagnosed with autism when he was three and a half years old, he is now seven and doing great. He was diagnosed as high functioning and has never been one that didn’t talk or had to learn how to talk. There are many different form of autism and he is one of the lucky ones to not have lost his ability to do everything.
My parents thought that maybe he was delayed in everything like normal infants and toddlers are. My other younger brother Jake who is fourteen did everything later than normal and today he is fine so my parents thought that maybe Jay was taking after Jake. My mom started reading books and checking out websites in delays in infants and toddlers and came across a website that talked about aspergers and autism syndrome and started reading the symptoms. A lot of what my brother was doing or not doing at the time was on that list.
My parents talked with our pediatrician and he suggested that we take Jay to a speech therapist and a neurologist. They started seeing a speech therapist and had to wait a month to see the neurologist. The speech therapist suspected he had autism and when my parents finally got him into see the neurologist his diagnosis was mild, high functioning autism.
Autism is a disorder that impairs a childs development in the areas of communication and social skills. There are many symptoms of autism but not all children have the same symptoms. My brother did not have the social skills or language abilities that children would normally have at three and a half years old. He could talk but not in full sentences. He also could not carry on a full conversation that was suitable at that age with other children of the same age. He avoided eye contact with you and preferred to be by himself. He had difficulty expressing what he wanted and repeated words and phrases that other people said to him. He does have routines that he goes by at school and if they are messed up then it messes him up or in this case makes him not want to go back to school. When he has a temper tantrum he sometimes will hit himself on the leg or hits whatever is close to him.
Dealing with my brother on a day to day basis is easy at times and difficult at others. For instance he does not like it when you tell him no, or just the word no period. My friend Jenna came over one time and she was sitting at the kitchen table and she told my brother not to do something and when he heard the word no he just blew up. He got right in her face nose to nose and screamed as loud as he could. His face turned bright red and my mom had to come and talk to him and clam him down. If you don’t want him to do something you have to find a way to tell him no without actually saying the word no. On the other hand my brother is one of the most lovable kids. He loves to give you hugs and tells you that he loves you all the time. He has temper tantrums and outbursts like any normal kid would except for the fact that you never really know what he might be upset about. It could be that he lost a toy, or that someone touched him, or something that you can’t ever begin to figure out. It took my parents a long time to figure out what upsets him when he has a really bad outburst but now they have it down and know what’s coming. Whenever my brother starts to act out of the ordinary or starts getting grouchy, or if he doesn’t want to do anything at all it usually means he is getting sick. Nine times out of ten this is the case.

So I went to Savannah with my friend Jenna over fall break since her parents live down that way. We ended up going shopping on River Street in downtown Savannah and while we were down there we saw some pirates and got some pictures with them. There was a pirate convention on a beach about 20 miles from downtown Savannah. I got to show off my parallel parking skills which are actually kind of pathetic but we both got a good laugh, especially since the car behind me was getting mad because i was taking so long to park. We also won some free beer for answering some trivia questions before we left on Saturday. It was pretty funny because first we aren’t old enough to drink yet and second i had to go and drive for eight hours so drinking was really not an option.

One of the worst breakup that i know about has to be when one of my friends broke up with her boyfriend when he came to visit her at work. She took him outside at TNT Fireworks, broke up with him, then came back inside and kept working. It was a little cold.

I think that parking over at UAH is ok sometimes. I do believe that we need more parking because even though we should all probably walk since it would be better for us most people don’t want to. Either its because they have to many books or because they just don’t want to. I personally have no problem parking over at Morton Hall but I hate parking over at the Shelby Center. Also most people think that the cost of parking is outrageous but I don’t agree. I have a friend that goes to Winona in Minnesota and he said that really crappy parking up there starts at $230. So I would have to say that ours is significantly less and we can park wherever we want which I don’t believe they can do up there but I could be wrong so don’t hold me to that. Over all I have no problem with parking and I have no problem hearing people complain, it gives me a good reason to laugh sometimes.