For what it's worth, #24 in another list.
Poison Plant Unmasked
I am the power plant. I am the poison plant
… I build, I destroy
Fundamental Duality of Life
… Knowledge interlaced with ignorance
My siren call lures good men adrift
A sip or two...whole bottle it is
Beautiful dreams lie in my arms
Long tresses caress the souls
…. worry begone, courage untold, be free
For...
I am the power plant.
I am the poison plant.
I am legend
A slow drown in the murk
I sing my siren song
You blindly trust me
I eat at your soul
For...
I am the power plant.
I am the poison plant.
I am legend
Alone. The siren is gone
Rotten carcass
Mighty price to pay
Poison Plant Unmasked
Glanced at words, easily forgot.
"The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. "- FDR Memorial
Lovely sentiments
Powerful messages
Set in stone, eons ago.
But what do we do?
We read, we admire... the words, the history.
We think we contemplate the meaning and grandeur of it all
We think we understand.
We really think we understand.
We really really think we understand.
We think we come away better folks.
Oh yes, we are now better folks.
But PRACTICE..... Oh No, that we do not.
That we do not.
Oh No, that we do not.
Glanced at words, easily forgot.
Contorted, distorted.
Boast on social media, then forgot
It's back to 'real' life, says the powers that be
RIP Fruit Files
RIP, Fruit Flies
RIP, ye wee beasties
Know your short life was lived not in vain
Young minds watched you metamorphosize
Wild types, sexing, and X-linked white eye
Mendelian 3 generations after fly napping you.
Science owes much to you.
Drosophila melanogaster , thy name
Fly Morgue in a Biology Lab...
... your final resting place
Or even better...
...in death rejoin the carbon chain.
The only regret, O most worthy Fruit Fly
You missed flying around real fruit!!
What would you say Abe?
Marble Lincoln 19 feet tall
Glory days etched on towering column and wall
Bothered not by milling crowds
Determination, Compassion
Bent in contemplative reflection
Witness of democracy
mirrored in the reflecting pool
Things of past, sights of present
and protests in between
I wonder....
What would you say Abe?
If you were now given a voice?
If you were given a voice?
What would you now say, Abe?
A Thank you to Healthcare Workers around the world
From 6 Countries and 14 languages comes this tribute to healthcare workers around the world from the Sacramento based WeEmbrace and founder Meena Kalayanasundaram
Happy to have played tiny role in this compilation
My tiny bit
https://youtu.be/6gbMqJhSYi4
Shelter-At-Home Finals
And with that ends my last "shelter-at-home" exam for this semester.
Wearing my "Earn It" yellow Cal football shirt cuz yellow is the color of education.
Cal Professors wishing students luck on their finals
A Brief History of the ICD
Lexicon [Measures] - ICD
While the USA follows the DSM, most of the world uses ICD. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a globally used diagnostic tool maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO) to classify and code diseases and health conditions.
The latest edition (ICD-11) combined the previously separate diagnoses into a single category: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This change reflects the understanding that autism is a spectrum with varying degrees of severity and manifestations.
- ICD-11 (2018): The latest edition combined the previously separate diagnoses into a single category: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This change reflects the understanding that autism is a spectrum with varying degrees of severity and manifestations.
- Two Domains: The criteria for ASD are based on two core domains:
- Deficits in Social Communication and Social Interaction: Persistent difficulties in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts.
- Restricted, Repetitive Patterns of Behavior, Interests, or Activities: This includes stereotyped movements, insistence on sameness, restricted interests, and sensory anomalies.
- Severity Specifiers: The ICD-11 includes specifiers to indicate the severity of the condition and the level of support needed in daily life.
- Associated Features: The classification allows for the inclusion of additional features such as intellectual development disorders and language impairments, providing a comprehensive understanding of each individual’s unique presentation.
- ICD-10 (1992): This edition marked a significant shift by introducing more detailed classifications for autism. Autism was listed under "Pervasive Developmental Disorders" (F84), which included:
- Childhood Autism: Defined by impairments in social interaction, communication, and restricted, repetitive behaviors.
- Atypical Autism: Similar to childhood autism but with an atypical age of onset or atypical symptomatology.
- Asperger's Syndrome: Characterized by impairments in social interaction and restricted, repetitive behaviors, without significant delays in language or cognitive development.
- Other PDDs: Including Rett's Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.
- ICD-9 (1979): The ninth edition began to recognize autism under the broader category of "Pervasive Developmental Disorders" (PDD), reflecting growing awareness of the condition.
- Defining Autism: ICD-10
- ICD-7 (1955) and ICD-8 (1965): These editions continued to expand the classification of mental disorders but did not provide specific criteria for diagnosing autism. Autism was still often misclassified under other psychiatric conditions.
- ICD-6 (1948): The sixth edition of the ICD was the first to include a section on mental disorders, but it did not specifically mention autism. At this time, autism was not widely recognized as a distinct condition.
President of Spectrum Autism At Cal
So I'm President of the Spectrum: Autism At Cal,
Student Org at UC Berkeley, for 2020-21
I had not even tried for the President role to begin with. Though I was offered the role, I was not planning to take it on. In fact, I was helping the outgoing President with our new org structure and interview candidates for all the board positions including the position of President. The experience of interviewing for positions was quite interesting actually as I got to know a lot about the candidates - both in terms of their skills and personality for the tasks required and their general attitude toward autism and what was their driving motivation. I got to witness this additional side of them which you don't see in your day to day interactions and was so impressed by their passion. This was very different from the interviews I do to get student reactions and experiences for Daily Cal articles.
Spectrum: Autism at Cal (SpectrumAtCal.org), had its first autistic President last year - Cole Hasserjian (Cole is also featured in my Daily Cal article on autistic students at UC Berkeley - It Really Is A Spectrum). The org has had neurotypical presidents in the past. So that will make me the second autistic President of Spectrum and the first Non-Speaking President.
The org has grown quite a bit since the time I've been at Cal. So much so, that the board org structure was expanded and updated for the coming year. The org has both autistic and neurotypical students and around half of this year's board are on the spectrum. There were also way more more applicants than the number of positions on the board. There will of course be need for even more people for the various committees that we will be forming for the different tasks; recruitment efforts begin in fall. The intern positions will be advertised in the first two weeks in fall as well. What was encouraging about the high number of applicants is that it seems to indicate a higher level of interest and awareness about autism and wanting to do something around it. A bigger org also means a lot more work for the President. In the final analysis and after much discussion with the outgoing President, I found myself in the role of President along with Eli Oh. It will be good to have a "speaking" person as there will be tasks which will be challenging for me to do physically either due to spoken-communication-challenges, sensory-challenges, fine-motor challenges or the oft unexpected vagaries of my particular brand of autism.
I will of course be leading the Autism DeCal class in 2020-21 as well. I absolutely love running this class. The DeCals are student-run, "democratic education", which are faculty sponsored and for academic credit. The Autism DeCal falls under the Psychology Department and is offered for 1 academic unit and runs for 1.5 hours a week for the semester (Psych 98/198 1:54 Autism Spectrum Disorders). Where possible, the Autism DeCal instructors work with the Spectrum Org; students in the class also get a chance for more exposure to Autism by volunteering with Spectrum. As both an autistic and as the Autism DeCal instructor, I have been quite involved with all that Spectrum has been doing since my second semester .
Hoping to build on the momentum in the next year. Especially want to see us expand our volunteering given our university actively encourages and is known for volunteerism and activism. Berkeley is an incubator for social justice change-makers. The Covid-19 threw quite a spanner in the works for Spectrum's biggest fundraiser of the year- our Annual 5K Run / 3K Walk in April (Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month). We keep our fingers crossed for fall and will have to course correct to online alternatives where possible if access to campus is still restricted.
Inaccessible Space Allocations
My first meeting as the President of Spectrum: Autism at Cal at the Space Allocations Orientation Meeting.
Student Orgs on campus - and there are many many of them, can get allocated lockers, storage space or office space on campus. Spectrum has been allotted a storage space as well.
This was an orientation meeting with agreement forms to be signed and the rules explained. President + another org member were required to attend and sign the forms - all virtual in our current circumstance of course. There is also the after hours key card access to set up for the org members
As to the actual locker, I guess we will get to it once we can actually get to campus!! As of now its inaccessible space allocation.
The spaces like people have gotten corona'd
Disabilty makes it to Page1 of the Undergrad Experience Survey
This is first time I've seen a disability question on the first page of the Undergrad Experience Survey sent out at the end of sem. This was question 2, and then three more questions appeared later on as well.
😍👏
Usually disability is an afterthought and sometimes not even mentioned in some of the previous surveys I've filled out
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