This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.
Hello from somewhere near Chicago, probably still over a thousand feet up. At the time this posts, I'll likely be on an airplane and just about done with the first leg of my flight to Washington DC. I'll be taking a flight less than an hour afterwards, which will take me the rest of the way to not-quite-DC-proper for the Autism Research Program conference.
In preparation for all this, I spent the last week or so stressing over research applications and getting intensely annoyed by the scientific writing style. I've been accused of swallowing a dictionary, or at least reading them for fun (untrue on both counts), but I have nothing on the people that write these research papers and applications.
I complained about this last year, with a lot more heat and frustration than I feel this year... but that might only be because there were fewer applications to review this year, and one of the applications was actually readable. Like, someone actually took the time to make sure the application wasn't full of jargon and didn't use run-on sentences. I was impressed, so I made sure to say so.
I don't get to talk about the contents of the applications I read, but I will say that this year I was assigned to a category that's much less theoretical than last year's. This category deals more with things like transition programs and concrete research studies on human subjects. So, far fewer mouse models. Which was definitely better for my sanity. I'll probably be much less sharp-tongued this year as a result, which is definitely a plus.
The other preparation I did for the trip is a lot more normal: packing. When my family would go on trips, my mother would always make and check off important items that needed to be handled before we locked up the house and left. I'm not quite as organized as my mother, but I did cobble together a packing list years ago. So yesterday I dug it out and updated it some, as well as putting it on Google Drive for easy accessibility.
There's the usual stuff, like clothes, on there, but there's also things like "power strip," "bottle of NAC," and "feminine products." I take a power strip with me when I travel, especially if it's by airplane, because you never know when you're going to find yourself at a place with no free spots in a power outlet. The bottle of NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) is in addition to the NAC in my regular pills. I react rather poorly to mold, mildew, etc, so it's wise to bring extra with me in case of less-than-perfectly-sanitary environments.
Packing my things has reminded me of how many specialized products I use these days. My deodorant is aluminum-free. My shampoo is color-safe, which means it uses much weaker cleaning chemicals than most shampoos. My toothpaste has baking soda in it. Even my feminine products are odd: a menstrual cup (rather than tampons) and cloth pads. I use pretty specific lip balms and lotions as well. That's not even touching my food, which tends to be vegetarian anytime I leave home, and my supplements and vitamins, which have to be very specific brands due to the lack of regulation on that market.
All this specialization makes me kind of sad, because it severely limits my options when shopping. I made all these choices for reasons, though. Some of them for health reasons (supplements, deodorant), some for moral reasons (feminine products, vegetarian diet), and some simply for pragmatic reasons (shampoo, toothpaste).
Speaking of specialization, I started on a new book series recently, which I'll probably finish during the travel tomorrow. It's called Chaos Seeds, and it seems to be self-published. It's a very specific type of fantasy I hadn't heard of until recently, called litRPG. It's what you get if you blend MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) rules, fantastical worlds, and heroes' journeys together. I found the style extremely difficult to accustom myself to (and the writing improves over time), but I think I've mostly got a handle on it now. The author of the series is African-American, which is pretty cool.
Wish me luck with the trip! After I'm done in DC, it's off to the inlaws' for Thanksgiving, where I'll hopefully be able to relax some and eat good food before going home again.
Hello from somewhere near Chicago, probably still over a thousand feet up. At the time this posts, I'll likely be on an airplane and just about done with the first leg of my flight to Washington DC. I'll be taking a flight less than an hour afterwards, which will take me the rest of the way to not-quite-DC-proper for the Autism Research Program conference.
In preparation for all this, I spent the last week or so stressing over research applications and getting intensely annoyed by the scientific writing style. I've been accused of swallowing a dictionary, or at least reading them for fun (untrue on both counts), but I have nothing on the people that write these research papers and applications.
I complained about this last year, with a lot more heat and frustration than I feel this year... but that might only be because there were fewer applications to review this year, and one of the applications was actually readable. Like, someone actually took the time to make sure the application wasn't full of jargon and didn't use run-on sentences. I was impressed, so I made sure to say so.
I don't get to talk about the contents of the applications I read, but I will say that this year I was assigned to a category that's much less theoretical than last year's. This category deals more with things like transition programs and concrete research studies on human subjects. So, far fewer mouse models. Which was definitely better for my sanity. I'll probably be much less sharp-tongued this year as a result, which is definitely a plus.
The other preparation I did for the trip is a lot more normal: packing. When my family would go on trips, my mother would always make and check off important items that needed to be handled before we locked up the house and left. I'm not quite as organized as my mother, but I did cobble together a packing list years ago. So yesterday I dug it out and updated it some, as well as putting it on Google Drive for easy accessibility.
There's the usual stuff, like clothes, on there, but there's also things like "power strip," "bottle of NAC," and "feminine products." I take a power strip with me when I travel, especially if it's by airplane, because you never know when you're going to find yourself at a place with no free spots in a power outlet. The bottle of NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) is in addition to the NAC in my regular pills. I react rather poorly to mold, mildew, etc, so it's wise to bring extra with me in case of less-than-perfectly-sanitary environments.
Packing my things has reminded me of how many specialized products I use these days. My deodorant is aluminum-free. My shampoo is color-safe, which means it uses much weaker cleaning chemicals than most shampoos. My toothpaste has baking soda in it. Even my feminine products are odd: a menstrual cup (rather than tampons) and cloth pads. I use pretty specific lip balms and lotions as well. That's not even touching my food, which tends to be vegetarian anytime I leave home, and my supplements and vitamins, which have to be very specific brands due to the lack of regulation on that market.
All this specialization makes me kind of sad, because it severely limits my options when shopping. I made all these choices for reasons, though. Some of them for health reasons (supplements, deodorant), some for moral reasons (feminine products, vegetarian diet), and some simply for pragmatic reasons (shampoo, toothpaste).
Speaking of specialization, I started on a new book series recently, which I'll probably finish during the travel tomorrow. It's called Chaos Seeds, and it seems to be self-published. It's a very specific type of fantasy I hadn't heard of until recently, called litRPG. It's what you get if you blend MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) rules, fantastical worlds, and heroes' journeys together. I found the style extremely difficult to accustom myself to (and the writing improves over time), but I think I've mostly got a handle on it now. The author of the series is African-American, which is pretty cool.
Wish me luck with the trip! After I'm done in DC, it's off to the inlaws' for Thanksgiving, where I'll hopefully be able to relax some and eat good food before going home again.
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