A Short Trip in Salt Lake City: Temple Square

On February 18th I went with my sister to Salt Lake City and we stayed with my Aunt Linda. The next morning Sarah went to work and she dropped me off at Temple Square. It was kinda of strange because I have never had a day trip by myself where I chose the itinerary. I guess its just that I still have yet to learn how to drive on the highway and I don't know if I would like to travel to the airport by myself, I don't particularly like crowds, but if it were something I had to do, I would do it without question. I was early at Temple Square so the visiting centers weren't open yet so I strolled around the square. The day was decidedly overcast so I used the monochrome filter on my camera.

I love the stark contrast of the gray quartz monzonite stones on Salt Lake Temple
most people think the temple is made out of Granite.

Here's another favorite of the Salt Lake Temple

My favorite part of visiting Temple Square is going to the North Visitor Center where they have the giant Christus statue. I particularly love this statue because Christ's arms are down to the side with the palms turned out. This is a more inviting "come unto me" pose.

I love standing at the foot of the Christus statue
because you can look directly into his eyes and
its a good time to reflect upon the truth of the atonement
and I know that the atonement is true and tailored
to each of our needs.

After a spiritual time in temple square and talking to all eight pairs of sister missionaries there I headed over to the Church History Museum, which I will continue in another post.

A Day of Temples and meeting Temple Grandin

A Day of Temples

Saturday morning my sister and I packed up our bags and headed out to go see some temples before we met up with her friend. We headed to Mount Timpanogos temple first where I was sad to learn that my Olympus Stylus 1 camera, which I have had for only two years, ceased to work. The on and off button was jammed, so I opted to use my IPhone instead (I should start packing an extra camera). After Mount Timpanogos we headed over to the Draper Temple. The Draper temple is a little strange to me because there are only a few windows and it resembles more of a granite fortress, but it’s beautiful none the less. After walking around the grounds and dodging several brides we made it to the car and drove over to Oaker Mountain Temple. We walked around on the temple grounds. I love being at the temples because they bring such a feeling of peace. After Oaker Mountain we met up with Sarah’s friend for lunch and relaxed at her house. At 6 we headed over to the Salt Lake Airport to catch our flight at 8:50.

We arrived early, turned in the rental car, checked our bags, went through security, and proceeded to gate C033. It took us a few minutes to find an empty seat. I faced the seat to set down my backpack down when I heard Sarah say, “Look who it is.” I turned around and spotted Temple Grandin in her western wear and white kerchief held in place by a silver pin with the initials T.G. There was no mistake it was Temple Grandin!

I grabbed my phone and approached her slowly. I leaned in close and whispered, “Temple Grandin?”

Her light green hazel eyes met mine. She folded up her newspaper, and she rose immediately.

“Yes? How can I help you?” she asked shoulders back.

I was already in tears and I stuttered, “I’m a huge fan of your work, I was wondering if I could get a picture with you?”

“Of course,” she said and she stood very close and my sister Sarah, also in tears, took the picture.

 I thought this was all that was going to happen, but Temple Grandin faced me and leaned in very close so that we were eye to eye.

“Do you have a career?”

“Yes, I’m working as a receptionist…”

“What company?”

“It’s an environmental company where my sister works.”

“That’s no good.”

“I didn’t get her the job, my boss did,” Sarah clarified.

“So you’re not her mother?” Temple asked.

Sarah laughs and says, “No, I’m her older sister.”

“Still it’s no good. Where are you living?”

“With my parents.”

“That’s no good either. You need to get work experience. Find something you like to do. Where are you going to college and what are you going to college for?”

“I’m going to Front Range Community College and I’m working on an Associates of Arts degree for writing.”

“Good. Good. What are you writing?”

“I’m working on a memoir for autism.”

“That’s no good. There are too many young kids focusing on their autism. Stop focusing on your autism. If you publish a memoir on Autism it will hurt your sales. I published my book on the Language of Autism and it hurt the sales. So what you want to do is make sure that autism is nowhere in the title or the description. What do you want to do with writing?”

“I want to be a writer of High Fantasy novels.”

“High Fantasy? Now what is that?”

“High Fantasy is a vast genre about worlds and other races much like J.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling.”

“Good. So you’re studying about other writers in that genre?”

“Yes.”

“Now what you want to do is study everyone you like in that genre so that you don’t copy anyone. If you copy someone you’re liable to go to court and that’s no good either. So what you want to do is find someone who inspires you and build from there. What you want to do is go online and look up Fantasy Book Forums. Now that’s a key set of words. Fantasy Book Forums and you’ll find a lot of stuff where you can support yourself. You’ll also want to have a pen name.”

(She gives me a pen name, which I won’t share here)

“It’s a nice pen name because people will assume you’re a man because of your genre. I published Thinking in Pictures and they thought I was a man. I was reading in the newspapers this disgusting article. It’s disgusting because women get paid 20% less than men do on eBay. 20% now that’s a disgusting amount. So with a pen name you’re liable to get a little more because well they think you’re a man. When they think you’re a man they’re liable to publish you more and take you on. Remember your pen name. Now with that pen name you’ll want to build up a persona. You build a persona by setting up separate blogs for your short stories. Short stories are the best way to build up a persona. It’s all about persona. Once you have your short story blog, put it on twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook page, personal websites, and especially amazon platform because they’re all free. You’ll also want to consider publishing EBooks. I see so many people with nooks, tablets, and kindles in their hands instead of newspapers and books. That’s what you want first. That’s the best way to get yourself out there and build your persona. Once you have that persona then you move onto publishing your high fantasy novel. Before you publish your fantasy novel focus on structure it’s all about structure. Do you have structure?”

“Yes. I want my fantasy book to be an eight book series. I have the beginning and end of each book plotted out and I am making sure the plot runs through each book.”

“Good. Good. What about short stories?”

“I have many from a writers group.”

“And do they like your stories?”

“Yes, they do.”

“What do you do in your writers group?”

“We share our stories, do a writer’s prompt, and critique each other.”

“Good that’s important because you don’t want to critique your own stuff, it’s not effective, and that’s why there are such things as copy editors. Now copy editors are important. Very important. They are there to edit your stories. Now when I was writing Thinking in Pictures there were a lot of negative comments about how many people don’t think in pictures and I took that very literally.”

“How do they think?”

“Some are mathematical and some think in words. Now that’s important to remember, your audience thinks differently. Be sure to remember that. Your audience thinks differently. Now you’re going to receive a lot of constructive criticism online and what you want to do is root out all the trolls. They’re usually teenage boys spilling nasty stuff. Just block them and find the ones that matter and take their constructive criticism seriously and you’ll get better. Now when you start your short story blog don’t worry about your stuff getting stolen because if it does you are the writer so you can write more and the person who steals it can’t. Also don’t rant, rave, ramble, or post your political agenda online. An audience doesn’t like that and you’ll receive a lot of bad comments that lack constructive criticism and you’ll never be taken seriously. Now it was very nice meeting you, I have a flight to catch,” she says and she sits down and picks up her leather bag embossed with western designs and her name.

“Thank you so much Temple Grandin, it was very nice meeting you,” I said.

“Structure! Remember structure! Plot your books and you’ll be fine!” she said tugging on her bag and she lifted her hand in a wave and disappeared down the terminal.

I returned to my seat deeply uplifted and I started to cry. I always cry when I don’t expect something like this to happen because I can’t plan for it.

“Stop, you’re going to make me cry,” Sarah stammered, but it was already too late and we sat and cried in the terminal to the befuddlement of the other passengers.

It was truly a day of temples and I never knew that an answer to my prayer would come in the miraculous form of Temple Grandin.

Mud Miles and the Atonement

February 1st the Denver Metro area had its first heavy snow storm, which dumped about two feet of snow. Let's just say it wasn't a great time to walk or drive in whiteout conditions. I still had to drive to school and I managed to nab this picture of the open space right behind the College.

When Colorado gets two feet of snow and persists with freezing temperature it takes a really long time for the snow to melt. We finally hit 60 degrees yesterday and I thought it would be a great idea to walk the open space, but I was wrong. When two feet of snow melts it doesn't seep into the ground and creates some of the muddiest trails.

I'm not afraid of a little mud so I tried to venture out onto the trails, sloshing and slopping my way along. I continued down the mud mile almost slipping and falling, but I went forward never the less. The mud was so soft in some places it almost seeped up to my ankles and I had to tug on my knee to pull my foot out. I made it half way and the trail only got worse.

I made it as far as the fence and turned back, it wasn't worth getting stuck in the mud when nobody is around to pull me out. Thankfully I struggled back to car and wiped off my shoes and pant legs in the white snow. As I sat in the passenger seat of my car with my legs dangling over the seat I reflected on how life is filled with many mud miles. When we walk the mud miles, the mud sticks to us and it makes it harder to move forward. Sometimes the mud seeps up to our knees and we have to dirty our hands to get out. Then there are times we are in over our head in mud and unable to get out without help. Sometimes we are so focused on walking the mud miles we fail to recognize the blessings in life. If I hadn't paused on the trail I would've missed seeing the beautiful mountains.

Sometimes we need something to look forward so that walking the mud miles is easier. Thankfully we have a loving Savior and his Atonement makes it possible for us to repent and return to him. Without his help we would continue to be stuck, but we have to be the one extend our hand and admit we need help. When we admit we need help the Savior will take us by the hand and pull us out and wipe the mud from our eyes and restore our sight. Things we didn't see clearly before the trial are made clear and we continue down the road of life with new insights of the trial we just overcame.  

  

Discovering Discomforts

Classes started up again and I missed the boat on the Accuplacer, but I will do it next year so I can get it out of the way and graduate. This semester I am taking a Screenwriting class. Screenwriting is a huge leap for me, I am used to writing the lengthy novels filled with action and dialogue. I felt that Screenwriting was all about dialogue, but I was pleasantly surprised when I learned it was more about action.

Roughly speaking 1 page of a script equals 1 minute on screen and a script is usually 100 pages on the short side and 120 on the long side. We haven't gotten to write any screenplays yet, but we did have to jot down an idea and I gravitated towards a tap dance number and water ballet. Not surprisingly I had the most fanciful idea. The teacher spoke about how its difficult to come up with new ideas and I though quietly, "Really I don't have that problem." Is it hard for you to have no ideas? For me new ideas come with the dawn.

This is one thing people don't know about me, but a gift that came with Autism is lucid dreaming. I had it ever since I was a child and never understood what it was until I was diagnosed. Sometimes there are dreams I couldn't care to remember, but then there are those dreams that are so wickedly strange that I have had to keep a dream journal in bed to jot them down. These dreams are rarely about me, in fact I am introduced to new characters, settings, and very rarely a new plot in whole. More often then not the dreams are out of sequence and I have to piece them together in the order I think they would go.

I wish that my memoir would come as easily to me as my dreams do.Writing my memoir is difficult because I remember the emotions like they were yesterday. Its kind of like the tag in your shirt discomfort, I've been bothered by it and itching to write it, but I'm not sure how to go about pulling it off. Writing in the first perspective about my life is one of the hardest things I've had to do. I am used to being the one in the background rarely seen, but I realized that in order for this memoir to be a success I have to put myself out there.

The hard thing for an Aspie is conversing and trying to come off as normal. I quickly learned though (through three summers of social skills classes) that we are all trying to come off as normal. I also realized that when we're comfortable and not being challenged then we aren't moving forward. I am ready to forge ahead writing my memoir because I believe its something everyone should know. There are too many books about the medical side of autism, never the personal side. I want people out there to know what Autism is like while defying the stereotypes. Here's your fact for today, a stereotype as Webster describes it is a relief printing plate cast in a mold made from composed type or an original plate. Our definition of stereotype came from the printer meaning that we all have fixed perceptions about people and who we assume they are. I hope to break the mold. Here's to a new year of discovering discomforts, defying stereotypes, and forging ahead into the uncomfortable unknown because tomorrow is just another blank page and I intend to fill it (what? did you think I was going to start singing Taylor Swift?).

This Underwood Typewriter belonged to my Grandfather
I absolutely love the way it looks in Monochrome. 

A Writer's Week Off

Writing, Videogames, Books, and a Japanese film. 

Today starts my second week off from school, I will get to go back to school next week and I'll be taking a a Film Writing Class while I prepare to take the Math Accuplacer to place into Math and Science. I've always wanted to take a screenwriting class because its so much different then to my actual writing. Screenwriting is writing without all the clutter of detail and it gets down to the very basic ingredient of story telling, which is dialogue. So what does a writer do on her week off?

Most of all I wanted to sleep, but my body had other plans. I wasn't stressed or worried about anything, but I would get to bed at ten after reading and writing and not be able to sleep until two or three and then wake up by five and try to go back to sleep. This is the hard thing about Autism we need more sleep then the average person and sometimes its difficult when you don't get it. Luckily though I finally did get some sleep on Thursday Night, so I'm hoping to sleep more this coming week. Besides the lack of sleep I got up at nine at my usual time and went about the house doing some chores, but my favorite thing to do is write.

In the morning I don't tend to write unless I have had a good dream, but I like to save writing for the evening when I have thought through all the settings my characters will be in and the conversation they are going to have with one another. Then there's action, where is very hard  to plot out, but if done right and its consistent it can be a valuable piece to the story. I am currently working on revamping the action in the 12th draft of my fantasy series and taking out pieces of action that didn't work and replacing it with pieces that do. Its a fun task, like playing a jigsaw puzzle over and over again with different results. My fantasy story came from a short story I wrote in the 6th Grade called the Man in The Hollow, while it wasn't very good I kept the idea in the back of my head and returned to it years later.

When I'm not writing my fantasy book or I'm stuck on a plot point I'll turn to my memoir. My memoir is a lot harder for me to write because its nonfiction and nonfiction has never been my strong suit, however as I get better at it the more I become accustomed to it. I love the pen out in long hand and though it can be hard on my hands, I love it more then anything because I can get my thoughts down easily to page without all the distractions on the computer. When I'm not writing I like to play video games, mostly fantasy RPGS, Legend of Zelda series, Xenoblade, and most recently I found the Monster Hunter series. When I'm not playing video games I watch old movies recently I've become infatuated with Hayao Miyazaki and Akira Kurosawa. I haven't seen a lot of Japanese anime or films so it was a welcome change and I don't mind the subtitles. I feel I learn more about how to write dialogue by reading subtitles and sometimes I will put them on even if the film is in English.

When I don't feel like watching a movie I love to read. For Christmas I got several big coffee table books, the Smithsonian's Animals, The Smithsonian's History Book, a Map: Exploring the World, and the latest book in the Fifth Wave series. The three big books express my love for map making, history, and animals. I like books with a lot of pictures because I am a visual learner, but it could never replace the limitless reaches of the imagination when it comes to fantasy and science fiction.

When I'm not inside I'll go out and walk. If its too cold to walk outside I'll move inside and wander around Target, Barnes and Noble, or the Home Goods store. I like to wander and I never realized it until a while ago that most autistic people are prone to wander off, but in the wise words of Mr. Tolkien "Not all those who wander are lost." So if you see me wandering around a store, I'm not lost or I may be and just refuse to ask anyone's help until I find an exit. If I'm feeling really adventurous and want the risk of breaking down I'll just travel 15 minutes and head to the crowd infused mall, where there are people wanting you to buy something at every turn. Going to the mall is the greatest challenge with the added benefit of trying not to get lost. There they are my exciting plans for the week. In an upcoming post I'll tell you how I've been enjoying Downton Abbey and the Christmas Special Sherlock Holmes and the Abominable Bride.      

Finished with Finals

I'm done with my finals. I only took Art Class this semester and I passed with a 97% . I am very happy with my final grade. I am almost done with school. I just have math and science left. I can't wait for the adventures that lay beyond college. For my art final We had to do another self portrait. I went for Ancient Egyptian queen. I've loved Ancient Egypt ever since I was little and in the fifth grade when we had to write a paper on what we wanted to be when we grew up I was about to write down Anubis Priestess, but my teacher told me to choose another job.

I chose to be a writer and it has been the greatest choice I have ever made. I like writing because you can mummify people without all the hard work and waiting. I kid of course. Writing gives me the freedom to travel to the furthest places of the imagination and meet the people I would never be able to meet. Writing has been the greatest adventure for me and I look forward to the day when I hold my first published work in my hands. Becoming an author is the next great adventure for me.

A Timeline of Teachers

The true test of a teacher is whether they can get their students to believe in themselves. I've had many teachers over some good, some bad, and some that were somewhere in between. These are the teachers that taught me about writing today.

In the 6th grade I was put into Special Ed because they had no idea where to put me. I was confused by the schedule because it said Special Ed was in a trailer. I later learned that this trailer was outside of school on the sweltering asphalt right beside the track and basketball court. It seemed strange to me that the people needing extra help were place outside of the school. I met Mrs. Green and thought she would be the teacher for me, but things changed. During our lessons I began to notice a man in a blue dress shirt listening in. Sometimes he would catch me staring at him and his light blue eyes would cross with mine. I would duck my head not wanting him to know I that I was staring. Then not even in the first quarter of our semester Mrs. Green told us she was being transferred to a different school and that the man, Mr. Rasch would be replacing her. I don't like change and I was sure this was going to be the change I would dread the most, but it ended up being one of the best changes. I used to love writing in Elementary school, but after teachers complained again and again about my hand writing I began to develop apathy for it. One day I refused to write and after a long debate Mr. Rasch asked me, “How do know that you don’t like writing if you haven’t tried it? Just pick up the pencil and try. I don't care what you write, just write.” He handed my first wide ruled cherry red notebook and forced a pencil in my hand. I began to write like I had loved to so long ago and Mr. Rasch rekindled that flame in me that had almost gone out. He began to teach me the mechanics of writing, where to put quotes on dialogue, the difference between their and there, and the tricky words that are similar, but are different in meaning like reveal and revel. He even let me read one of my early (awful) stories in class known as the Legacy Riders and taught me that the best way to correct your writing is to read it out and not to be afraid of the harsh criticism to come.

In the 7th grade I began to write longer stories and started on my first novel. I was worried because I wouldn't be seeing Mr. Rasch as much, but he assured me that change was good and it was. I met Ms. Villa or as I liked to call her Ms. Viva Diva, she did have this exceptional flare for the dramatic. Ms. Villa was Hawaiian born and raised before she moved to Colorado. Aside from her room being decorated in all purple I noticed the Orlando Bloom posters above her desk and wondered what kind of teacher she was going to be. She turned out to be a very fun and energetic teacher and she noticed my skill for writing very early on. She taught me how to spell important words and build my prose. She was the first one I shared my very first novel with. Although the novel wasn't very good, she encouraged me to continue to write. "You'll only get better from here," she'd always say. After the 7th grade I was worried I wouldn't have her like, but Ms. Villa wasn't done with me yet and requested me to be her Teacher Assistant. Aside from making copies for her and helping her with the occasional prank on another teacher she would let me have time to write. Sometimes she would glance over my shoulder and tell me what I needed to fix. Come Christmas time she gave me the books that would influence my fantasy writing for years to come, The Chronicles of Narnia. She told me if I read and learned from great Authors I could become one. 

8th grade also gave me my most interesting teacher to date Mrs. Lewis. Mrs. Lewis recognized I was gifted in writing early on when I was able to give all the names of the Grecian gods in a test correctly. She began to give me names of books I should study and read. She spurned my interest in Edgar Allan Poe and the strange and macabre things he would write. It was in Mrs. Lewis class that I began to read books like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At the end of Middle School Mrs. Lewis later awarded me with the Edgar Allan Poe Award for most likely to become a writer.

In the 9th grade after being diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome right before High School, it was an exceptionally hard transition, a transition made all the more difficult by the sudden abrupt change in scenery, people, and teachers. One of the first classes I went to was with Mrs. Ramsey. She was already a legend in her own right. She had done more than a 100 mainstay productions at Westminster High School. Her drama classes taught me more about how to communicate and get up in front of a class. Later on into high school I would have her as a Language Arts teacher and these classes proved to be instrumental in my writing. I learned how to just write and keep on writing even if you know what you are writing sucks. The best part about writing is that it’s not a performance because you can go back and change it.

In the 9th grade as well after a long day I made it to my Language Arts Class where I met Ms. Minter. I had met her previously in a parent teacher conference to talk about my disability. Ms. Minter became instrumental in my success at High School. She was one of the greatest helps to me. After 9th grade she asked me if I wanted to use my talents for writing and join Yearbook class. I joined yearbook and stayed in yearbook for the last three years of High School. I started slowly in Yearbook, not really knowing what I was doing, but all the while Ms. Minter pushed me just enough to get me going. I began to write the beginnings of the yearbooks upon her urging and in my Senior Year I became the Editor In Chief. Ms. Minter perhaps is one of the only people who saw my progress from being a semi-functional adult to a high-functioning adult. Over the years the conversations about me slowly changed into asking Minter about her life and interests. Minter was really the only one I could practice on without the fear of being judged. Her belief in me helped me learn what I would need if and when I became an author.

Senior Year I was going to take Ms. Minter's senior seminar class, but she decided last minute that she wasn't going to teach so I received Mrs. Sobol instead. Mrs. Sobol would be the teacher that decided it all for me. I knew I wanted to be an author and our Senior Seminar class focused on the fundamentals of the jobs we would want outside of High School. Mrs. Sobol spurned my interests in writing and funneled them down into something useful. At the end of Senior Seminar we presented our projects that we had been working on throughout the year and she was indeed blown away by my progress.   

By College I began to focus and work on becoming an author. Perhaps the best class I took on writing was not about the mechanics of writing at all, but the stories of American Literature where I met Mr. Morris. Mr. Morris' class was engaging because we read the text and then discussed what made the story good or bad and how they implemented a theme and foreshadowing throughout the text. I later went on to take Mr. Morris' fiction writing class and he told us it would be the class to decide whether we were writers or authors. We were tasked with the challenge of doing Nanowrimo as our end project. If we could write 50,000 words in a month we were well on our way to writing other great books. Mr. Morris helped pinpoint the weaknesses of my stories and I was surprised to find out that the strength of my stories was in the dialogue and he told me to focus more on the dialogue rather than the action itself.

The college class that surprised me was of course the one I was dreading to take. We had a choice between Speech and Debate or Interpersonal Communications. I don't like arguing with people so I chose Interpersonal Communications and met Hermy McCabe. She preferred to be called Hermy because she felt being called Mrs. McCabe was too formal. She would be the teacher that finally pushed me to write my memoir, though I had been working on it since High School. I thought I wasn't ready to write it because a lot of the memories were still too raw, but she assured me that the best time to write is now and never later. I learned that Hermy was a self-published author herself and she began to teach me a few tricks of the trade. There is no doubt in my mind that I was supposed to meet Hermy at this point in my life so that I could go onto my dream of becoming a published Author.