Changes in Big-5 during Pandemic

I always think of the exponential effects on autistics. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/pandemic-altered-personalities-more-neurotic-less-agreeable-rcna49595

"NBC News reported on a study published in PLOS ONE that indicated that personality changes from January 2021 to February 2022 were roughly equal to what’s normally a decade’s worth of incremental personality changes. Although people often become less neurotic, extroverted, and open as they age, adults under 30 saw a significant increase in neuroticism over the study period. Neuroticism “is a very consistent predictor of mental health outcomes like depression and anxiety,” said the study’s lead author, Angelina Sutin, PhD, a personality psychologist at the Florida State University College of Medicine."
(https://view.info.apa.org/?qs=ab2c9530baf7a6ce1051f3f9254b1595fbcf171f4a81ad3eed135b5a5f2cec4508d1f4b727d406c0bea89be99e8df4a9ad7fee31eba4572980be2e27faddf3b287ffdd23c1cb6fc2f324d4ab0e197f72)

Friendships in Autism Adulthood.

"In 1990, only 3 percent of Americans said they had no close friends; in 2021, nearly 12 percent said the same. The United States is in the grips of a loneliness crisis that predates the Covid pandemic."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/well/live/how-to-make-friends-adult.html

 If this is state for NTs, imagine the situation for autistics who generally have little - no friends  through childhood.

However, some of the suggested ways to making friends is hardly the easiest for autistics either -  "You really have to try and put yourself out there."

So it's a continued conundrum.

245 years to get to Indigenous Peoples' Day

It just took 245 years to recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day as a National Holiday in 2021. 

Till I came to Berkeley, I had not been aware that a simple start (though by no means enough) was land acknowledgment, which I saw at many events; recognition that UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people.

Reflecting below on an assignment done on Zitkala-Sa for American Literature back in Grade 10 and an essay on Black Elk Speaks for my American Indian Ethnic Studies course a few years back.

And if I may add a disability angle here, I can so relate to this line from my assignment "every time she goes to a new place it would be like starting over with the new set of audience. She would have to prove herself over and over again." With disability, especialy if you are seen as "more disabled" you have to prove yourself over and over and over with every new audience and even to the same audience to prove that somehow you have not regressed. 

You have to think about the terrific power play at work here (sarcasm intended) - the dominant party strips away the very identity and resources of non-dominant party (identity and resources which gives them confidence and which makes them strong), so the latter will stay second class and subservient in the former's socio-economic structure. 

I'm always felt very sad when studying history as it seems to be a series of such power plays, one group suppressing another. This has been the history of colonialism and occupation the world over. The first thing the invader does is to destroy the structure of the old culture, then replace it with the own religious structures and values, till the old culture becomes one of shame for its practitioners. After a few generations all knowledge of the old culture is lost to human memory. 

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School Days of An Indian Girl by Zitkala-Sa - Example of Realism
(Grade 10 assignment)

Zitkala-Sa’s recollection is a poignant account of the conflict and clash between two cultures and the frustration of ending up in a no-man’s land. She is a young Indian girl who is taken away to be assimilated into the white society; by teaching her the mannerisms and customs of the white race. The problem with assimilation seems to be an all-or-nothing attitude by the teachers. She is forced to forsake her own native customs and language (including cutting her hair) and then told to go live on the reservation. So she can never be fully Indian. Even her own mother is not able to relate to her and vice versa. Yet the color of her skin will always make her a second class citizen in the white community. She will never get full acceptance there either. She may have won the speaking contest, yet every time she goes to a new place it would be like starting over with the new set of audience. She would have to prove herself over and over again. The reader is profoundly affected by the stark realism and detail of her experiences in her narrative. The reader journeys with her on her loss of innocence - “ we had been very impatient to start our journey...” (207) to a dissatisfied state of bewilderment - “The little taste of victory in my heart, did not satisfy a hunger in my heart.”(221).

The story has all the elements of realism. It is devoid of emotionalism or melodrama. The events are presented in a very matter of fact way. “Their mothers, instead of reproving them such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children’s attention further to my blanket.”(208). At each stage there is another grim reality to be faced. There are outside forces (the assimilation process) and events that affect that affect her at every turn.

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South Hall

I heard it was like the only campus building (or one of the few buildings) to survive the 1906 SF quake. 

I'm passed this building countless times and even gone inside, but never had a class inside.