Today is April 18th, 2013. The first post on this blog is from April 18th, 2012. That means today is the one year anniversary of my blogging. (Ok, technically I had a Tumblr that I never used for anything except following I think it was High Tide. They don't even go by that name anymore, and they didn't when I started this blog.)
So, what's happened in a year?
I went from having a blog where I basically talked into thin air and hoped to have a reader or two in a day to having 20 people following this blog, 321 following my Tumblr, 185 on Twitter, 605 people on Facebook and a decent pile of pages too. One of the pages is a Japanese Asperger's Society. Which is kind of random, considering that Chinese is my second language, not Japanese, and I'm not actually Aspergers...
I learned a ton about autism and Autistic people in that year. I went to my first conference, the Autism Summer Institute at University of New Hampshire. I crashed on a friend's floor when I was there- she was presenting, and I went to her presentation. I got my laptop set up for text to speech, and I got an AAC program on my iPad after I got one for graduation. (Oh yeah, I "graduated" from math. I don't walk for a little over a month still, but I've got my degree.)
And then I presented at a conference. I talked about the erasure of Queer Autistics, and I... kind of criticized a word choice as having been initially exclusive to a whole bunch of people in front of the author who chose it. I'd met him before. I just didn't recognize him because faceblindness. It's a thing. And I'm supposed to be on another panel today.
I wrote a piece for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's blog. I contributed a poem to the Loud Hands project. I wrote a piece for Autism NOW!, which then got reprinted on the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. I made Autism Acceptance designs that got linked to from Paula's original Autism Acceptance Day blog, which then got shared on the TPGA Facebook. They've been talked about on three other blogs too, just in the last week (One of those is using one of my prints for a giveaway of their own, you'll have to check them all to see which!) Because Patterns made its first sale to someone who is not a family member, and the Autism Acceptance designs are why. They're also what I managed to sell. I came in second at a Chinese speech contest talking about neurodiversity. There's a neurodiversity committee at my university now, because of me. I organized a few flash blogs (Autistic People Should, Autistic People Are, Autism Speaks, I Want To Say.) I'm helping plan the AutismPositivity flash blog for the end of this month (That one is a team effort, I'm not alone or working with just one other person there or anything, and E of the Third Glance is definitely the one running that show. She's pretty awesome, by the way. I got accepted into the year abroad for my Chinese program. I'm still doing research in nanotechnology.
Last year, I was pretty new at this. This year, I'm still pretty new at this. I've been learning fast, though, and I plan to continue doing so.
Oh, and I joined Spoonflower.
So, what's happened in a year?
I went from having a blog where I basically talked into thin air and hoped to have a reader or two in a day to having 20 people following this blog, 321 following my Tumblr, 185 on Twitter, 605 people on Facebook and a decent pile of pages too. One of the pages is a Japanese Asperger's Society. Which is kind of random, considering that Chinese is my second language, not Japanese, and I'm not actually Aspergers...
I learned a ton about autism and Autistic people in that year. I went to my first conference, the Autism Summer Institute at University of New Hampshire. I crashed on a friend's floor when I was there- she was presenting, and I went to her presentation. I got my laptop set up for text to speech, and I got an AAC program on my iPad after I got one for graduation. (Oh yeah, I "graduated" from math. I don't walk for a little over a month still, but I've got my degree.)
And then I presented at a conference. I talked about the erasure of Queer Autistics, and I... kind of criticized a word choice as having been initially exclusive to a whole bunch of people in front of the author who chose it. I'd met him before. I just didn't recognize him because faceblindness. It's a thing. And I'm supposed to be on another panel today.
I wrote a piece for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's blog. I contributed a poem to the Loud Hands project. I wrote a piece for Autism NOW!, which then got reprinted on the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. I made Autism Acceptance designs that got linked to from Paula's original Autism Acceptance Day blog, which then got shared on the TPGA Facebook. They've been talked about on three other blogs too, just in the last week (One of those is using one of my prints for a giveaway of their own, you'll have to check them all to see which!) Because Patterns made its first sale to someone who is not a family member, and the Autism Acceptance designs are why. They're also what I managed to sell. I came in second at a Chinese speech contest talking about neurodiversity. There's a neurodiversity committee at my university now, because of me. I organized a few flash blogs (Autistic People Should, Autistic People Are, Autism Speaks, I Want To Say.) I'm helping plan the AutismPositivity flash blog for the end of this month (That one is a team effort, I'm not alone or working with just one other person there or anything, and E of the Third Glance is definitely the one running that show. She's pretty awesome, by the way. I got accepted into the year abroad for my Chinese program. I'm still doing research in nanotechnology.
Last year, I was pretty new at this. This year, I'm still pretty new at this. I've been learning fast, though, and I plan to continue doing so.
Oh, and I joined Spoonflower.
Congratulations on completing your first year as a blogger. I find your daily posts fascinating and informative. My daughter is a 15 y/o autistic HS freshman. Your blog gives me valuable insights into some of the differences between how autistics and neurotypicals experience the world around them. Thanks. @dannyhanssel
ReplyDeleteYay!!
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't this lovely timing!
My 'Because Patterns' prints arrived safely in the mail today!! They are numbered 1 and 2!! I cannot wait to put them in my office at work and also at home!
Happy One Year, Alyssa!
Wow. :) I haven't even been blogging for a year yet. It'll be a year on June 27.
ReplyDeleteWhat word choice did you criticize? Also, I'm curious about the Japanese Asperger's Society that's following you.
The choice of "crip" for ALL disability. Because yes, it's stretchy, but they chose one that NEEDED stretchyness to apply to developmental disability, a group that's been historically excluded from disability stuff.
DeleteI'm curious about the Japanese Asperger's society too, but I don't speak Japanese.