Reflection Questions
1. What were the biggest accomplishments or successes you achieved in 2022?2. What were the biggest challenges or difficulties you faced in 2022?
3. How did your relationships with others change or evolve in 2022?
4. How did you contribute to your community or make a positive impact in 2022?
5. What changes or shifts did you notice in your priorities or values in 2022?
6. How did you take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health in 2022?
7. How did you expand your knowledge base in 2022 through coursework, conferences, or other academic experiences?
8. How did you develop your critical thinking and analytical skills in 2022?
9. How do you envision your trajectory in the future, and what steps will you take in 2023 to work towards your goals?
10. What did you learn about yourself in 2022?
An Awesome Year
An Awesome Year
A sobering reality: I continue to have a ton of autism challenges and have not made much headway on those year after frustrating year much to my sorrow. They do consume a good part of my day; almost 95% of my life. I do wish that we as a society find solutions to those - both on the non-medical and medical front. However I also want to focus on the positives in this post because those give meaning for me to keep going even as I hope and search for solutions on other fronts. So here's the 5% awesome part even as they are tempered by the other 95%.Awesome 2022
2022 was an awesome year.
An awesome year it was.
Like the tortoise (in Hare & Tortoise), I took slow strides.
Each autistic step - a belief in the Possibility of Me.
#redefine_the_table, #Hari_as_possibility
From Possibility comes Opportunity
Meeting the President and the Vice-President
First time to meet with VP Kamala Harris at the Naval Observatory.
A second time I went to the White House where I got to shake President Biden's hand.
What an incredible incredible honor.
Who could have imagined stuff like this for me.Getting an invite to the White House.Meeting the President of the USJust how awesome is that!!
I graduate from UC Berkeley
I'm a college graduate in year 2022. It feels so good. This was a kid that was not even expected to get a high school diploma. My lot was to be in special education and not aspire for much more. Education was the candy in the candy store with me firmly told to be outside.
This was a degree ++ with dollops of unexpected extra bonuses. I absolutely am relishing it.
How awesome is this?I am just so darn proud of that yearned for degreeYoung man, you must be doing some stuff right.Cuz. along with degree there was even moreAdditional appreciation in the most unexpected forms.
University Medal Finalist, I sit on Commencement stage with Chancellor & a Nobel LaureateDepartmental Citation, I give the Department Commencement SpeechHighest Distinction (other universities call this Summa Cum Laude)Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Chi and 4.0 GPAAwesome icing on a Berkeley degree
Undergraduate Research
A special shout out to Leah Carroll who runs and is the glue that holds the Haas Scholars program together. She kept us to timelines and managed resources to help us get our resource done. And there was a lot of resource management logistics involved, like getting those participant gift cards out through Bear Buy.
I presented my research at 2 Academic Colloquia (Jan & April), and a SPSS (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) Poster Presentation in Feb. And I continue to work with Prof Keltner to get 2 papers (on awe and empathy) to publication.
I had a wonderful an encouraging mentor for my research in Prof Dacher Keltner.
How awesome is it......to research awe in autistics....be mentored by an expert in the science of awe.
Just how awesome is that?
Senior Honors Thesis
I submitted my thesis on awe to the department in April - all 66 pages of it.
This was a faculty comment about my thesis
- This is truly an excellent honors thesis! The research topic is incredibly important and interesting, and it is unique to probe the autistic experience of awe in comparison with that of neurotypical individuals. The results are very cool, interesting, and complex. Although this is brand new research and more empirical data are needed, the preliminary results, which argue against the emotion deficit view of autistic individuals, are potentially groundbreaking. I hope you will pursue this work further and I hope we will see the work published in a psychology journal in the near future.
I think back to when early educators did not want me in their classrooms and every evaluation report and IEPs were a litany of my "lack of accomplishments," or "lack of progress." In fact during my first special ed kindergarten placement, the teacher sent home a note which essentially said that she was concerned at my lack of progress in the first 6 weeks in her classroom. This was to be a repeated story in the all the multiple special ed classrooms I was shuffled around in.
Autism Decal
The Daily Californian
PD Soros Fellowship.
The news was only to be released in April when 30 scholars graced a full page of the New York Times.
The fellows met at a 4 day conference extravaganza in New York in October.
Daisy Soros sure is a powerhouse at 94 - I am in awe!!
We fellows chatted, met with famous alum, toured New York and more - the Met, a Broadway musical, a Jazz club and a formal cocktail hosted by Daisy Soros. The conference sure was a lifetime experience and what an amazing cohort to be in.
Getting into Grad School
I'd applied to grad school last fall.Results in early spring.Decision deadline Apr 15.Headed to Vanderbilt for a PhD in Neuroscience in Fall.
Can you believe this guy from grade 8 special ed now actually headed to grad school?
Media Coverage
I got multiple mentions in various UC Berkeley sites. Daily Cal covered me (a turnaround as I usually write the articles). I even made it to an article in Forbes. There was coverage in many Indian American newspapers and at Vanderbilt too.
All the coverage felt a little overwhelming yet I am totally grateful for all this acknowledgment of my accomplishments. (It helps counter the years and years of trauma build up with the reports of, will never amount to anything, claims)
From California to Tennessee.
It is a new place to adjust too! Transition and autism are not the best of bedfellows.
It's pretty hot here in summer, a little too hot. But it's also green and lush with lots of rain. The grass is green even in winter due to the rain. Rain-starved California sure could use some of this rain (just not this week as I hear there are Bay Area mudslides due to heavy rains!!).
Grad School @Vanderbilt from Fall
- Grad School orientation
- A Lab Coat Ceremony with my own Personalized Lab Coat
- A Neuroscience Retreat
- Lab Rotation at SENSE (Social Emotional Neuroscience Endocrinology) Lab
- Participate in the SENSE Theatre workshop.
- An own office space at the research lab with my name on the door.
- NISE Fellow at the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation at Vanderbilt.
- Did well on the academic front (Synesthesia, Multisensory Integration)
Survived first semester.....
Still adjusting, lots of figuring out left to do... a work in progress the next few years.
Fingers crossed that my unpredictable autism challenges let me travel this journey well.
And make useful contributions along the way.
But really, just how awesome has this year been?
Vacations
Hope for an (equally) awesome 2023
In the Possibility of Me?
Dare I hope from others
....Surrounded by folks who are patient, encouraging & empathic of my disability
... Make kind friends outside the classroom
Slow purposeful strides, an elephant I want to be.
... Relish learning and knowledge coupled with endless curiosity
... Use Advocacy & Research to add more pebbles that widen ripples in the pond of change.
... Giant leaps on the journey to emotional equanimity (mood continues to be tough nut)
... Learn to better manage & cope with the vagaries of my unpredictable disability which can feel like a leaky boat.
UC Berkeley Top Stories 2022
Snow gone but deer here
Snow covered foliage for few days with snowfall on Dec 23 and then again on Dec 26. Though the snow had started to melt, housebound as roads were still slick with black ice from melting snow. Finally able to venture out.
I can't even begin to imagine places like Buffalo, NY which are still heavily snow-bound.
Snow gone but the deer are still here.
Author of the Social Model of Disability
What I learned today from Cal Montgomery. Thx Cal.
Vic Finkelstein, not Mike Oliver, was the author of the social model. Oliver's book just hit big in the U.S.Feisty and Disabled.
First Nashville Snow
Snowfall
Snowfall in the darkness of night
Green grass out of sight in morning light
A blanket of winter white on the ground.
Leafless snow laden trees, a background
Undeterred deer saunter around
Munching twigs quite nonchalantly
Baby deer hunker on the ground... to keep warm
Brown fur contrasts on the white ground.
A winter's delight for the eyes.
But when it hardens and turns to black ice
Beware, for it can be a dangerous drive.
Housebound for 3 days...Winter break, so ok.
2022 UC Berkeley News Recap
https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/12/13/top-stories-from-2022/