Essay #10: Division

Division Essay

Last year I was introduced to something that was a bit foreign to me. I was introduced to the art of making jewelry. I didn’t think that I would have interest in beading a necklace or burning fabic to make a flower to adorn some jewels on a chain, but after a few projects, I was hooked. The process of making jewelry can be tricky, it requires some creativity and patients, lots of patients.

You first have to think of an idea, whether it is based on natural elements around you, something off the runway, or something you saw at the store. Once you have a concept in mind, a design and colors, you have to determine what materials you need. This is important, as you are likely going to have to visit multiple stores to acquire the materials necessary to get started.

Once you have determined what your design, colors, and materials will be then you get to visit all the craft and beading stores to pick out your supplies. The trick is finding your supplies on sale, usually if you plan it right, you can get your materials half off and then use coupons, making your project not just fun but budget friendly as well.

Now that you have all the materials and your design in mind, you must determine the length of the wire being used or chain, based on the design. If you have a pendant, you must place that on the wire and make sure that it hangs correctly. I tend to use multiple pieces of beading wire to make sure that the necklace is sturdy. 

 Once I have my pendant on the beading wire, I choose a few different types of beads and make a pattern for each strand on the necklace.

It is important to constantly hold the wire in your hands tightly or the beads will slide right off and in my experience roll right onto the floor. It’s easy to get frustrated, but I usually use those moments as an opportunity to rethink my design. It’s important to make sure that you are using beads that won’t be too heavy, that the weight of the beads will not shift the placement of the pendant, and that your beads are not going to constantly shift as you wear the necklace.

Once you have beaded your necklace, you put crimp beads on the wire and wrap the wire around the jump ring that is attached to clasp. The opposite side will be wrapped around the jump ring attached to the clasp on the other side. Once you have done this, your necklace is complete. I always give the necklace a few tugs to make sure that it is sturdy. If you have determined that it is sturdy, you have then completed your first jewelry project.

Process Essay

Each morning I wake up and stare at my phone. My ears are on high alert for that wretched screeching noise it makes, that inevitably starts another day. As I lay in the bed trying to somehow sink my body into the mattress to keep myself from having to get up, the screeching noise begins. Thus starts the day of endless tasks that must be accomplished. I run through the list in my head over and over and over to make sure I am not forgetting anything. Then I start to think to myself, I wonder what on the list can be pushed back a little? I know that come five 'o clock there will be an over grown hungry monster walking through the door and I must muster the strength to get out of bed and get the morning started. I swing one leg over the side of the bed and let it dangle there for a few moments, waiting to see if gravity will somehow pull the rest of me down and out of bed.

It's not as though only one day a week starts like this, but it seems to be each day starts this way. Each day is packed with as many tasks as possible to optimize time and maximize opportunities. Once I've managed to pry myself out of bed, it is off to the bathroom to see what I need to do to make myself look acceptable to the general public. I fix my matted down hair, brush my teeth, grab some clothes and off I am to the office. Stacks of paper greet me each and every day when I enter that tiny little room. There's a stack of bills, receipts, checks that need to be deposited, textbooks for the homework that never seems to be done.

I try to get myself organized as quickly as possible so I am not interrupted by a phone call that will throw me off.I always sort things in the same way, by what it urgent, what needs to be reviewed and then what can wait until another day. This helps me handle the most important things first, like paying fuel taxes, fuel expenses, insurances, faxing paperwork to the various companies we work with and ultimately getting people paid. The process is time consuming, because each document you fill out has several little things that go with it, you can bet that when you need those little things, you can never find them. Receipts stick to each other, invoices hide and bills go unpaid.

Once I've organized and sorted through the massive amounts of paperwork that linger in the office and I've gone to the post office, it is time for a break. Time to head downstairs and clean the house and figure out supper plans. I scoop up all the dirty dishes and whisk them off to the kitchen, fold the blankets in the living room and wipe down every surface. In this household we don't like germs. Upon entering the bathroom each day I am promptly greeted with a mound of dirty laundry and a deceiving mound of laundry it is. Regardless of how many loads of laundry I do each day, that mound never seems to get any smaller. I fear that the laundry breeds at a rate comparable to rabbits.

Finally after the grueling tasks of office work, housework and dinner are handled the day starts to wind down and that is when the homework is tackled. I go through each class, figure out what needs to be done and how long it will take me to do it. I try to figure out what the professor is looking for and maximize the chances that they will get just that. Then my mind goes right back to the office thinking of the paperwork that must be dealt with in the morning, you see it is a vicious cycle that never ends. Six hours of sleep do little to convince me that I'm ready for the day to begin each morning.

Process Essay: Intro

Each morning I wake up and stare at my phone. My ears are on high alert for that wretched screeching noise it makes, that inevitably starts another day. As I lay in the bed trying to somehow sink my body into the mattress to keep myself from having to get up, the screeching noise begins. Thus starts the day of endless tasks that must be accomplished. I run through the list in my head over and over and over to make sure I am not forgetting anything. Then I start to think to myself, I wonder what on the list can be pushed back a little? I know that come five 'o clock there will be an over grown hungry monster walking through the door and I must muster the strength to get out of bed and get the morning started. I swing one leg over the side of the bed and let it dangle there for a few moments, waiting to see if gravity will somehow pull the rest of me down and out of bed.

Effect Essay: The Road

When I was younger I had it all mapped out just so. I knew exactly what I wanted to be, a lawyer, mom and well, awesome. It seemed so perfect, I would have the perfect number of kids, two, and they would be perfect. It was always sunny, the trees always green and the sky always blue. Maybe this road I had planned to travel down only existed in my imagination, but you could not have convinced me otherwise. Never could I have imagined that the road I actually travelled down was not sunny all the time, nor the sky blue or trees always green. In fact, I missed the part where I was going to walk down a winding road that branched off so many times and seemed more like a deliberate scheme to confuse me.

Although I had this vision of perfectness for the future, we all know that cliche saying, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." As much as I hate to admit it, that is exactly what happens. As I bounded down the road with my hair blowing in the breeze the trees started to turn color and the sky began to fill with clouds. I realized that after high school, there is not perfect place to go to school. A lot of consideration and contemplation must be put into such an important decision. I realized that law school was absolutely not for me. I quickly stumbled upon my first major pot hole shortly after graduation. I thought everyone was honest and trustworthy and found out that most people are in fact not. I had my identity stolen and quickly became tangled in a mess.

Once I worked my way around that pot hole, a little worse off than before, I veered off a little bit of a cliff. I walked right to the edge, thought I could simply walk along the edge, even though I knew that the odds were I would fall over the edge and plunge to a vast sea of black emptiness. Which seems to be the worst kind of emptiness, it never seems to end, you reach out and nothing is all around you. It's almost as though the air is saturated in despair. I moved away from everyone and everything and started drinking and partying. Shocking little miss molly mormon. But, what I did not know was that this new pattern of behavior was going to cause me to plunge into a never ending pit of despair and anguish.

Once I got exhausted from what seemed like a never ending black empty hole, I clung onto anything I could grasp. I reached out to friends, church leaders and even co-workers, looking for a way to bring anything bright back into my life. I wanted a smooth road, one that was like the one I had dreamed of and imagined all through my early adolescent years. I had a feeling that the road I had envisioned didn't exist. When all my friends were getting married and starting families, I was pulling my life together and figuring out what I was going to do with it. I didn't know what to do with pot holes and cliffs and other obstacles that now seemed to block the road around every corner.

My life's road seemed to be on a string of never ending construction, you know, the kind in the summer when you are planning a road trip and it seems as though you are never going to get to your destination, because there's a chance you will turn old and gray right there in the car waiting to get through construction. The bumps in the road never seem to go away, the pot holes will occasionally get filled in, but at some point it seems that the road starts to look more familiar and the construction is not so bad. All the bumps in the road have brought some amazing scenery into my life. I thought that there was this perfect road and that I wanted to travel only in the sunshine, but the gray skies make the sunny ones that much more enjoyable.

Example Essay #5

Wouldn't you like to consider yourself lucky in love? Find the person that completes you, beyond that cliche of "your better half?" Someone who knows what you need and how to help you get there. An individual who stands behind you to push you when you don't know if you can go on. I am lucky enough to have that person in my life already. He is my biggest cheerleader and coach. Whether he's pushing me to pursue my educational goals directing me to develop my talents, he is there every step of the way.

Pursuing your educational goals can be difficult when you are going in it alone. If you haven't figured out what you would like to do or be it can be challenging to venture into the unknown. If you have people behind you supporting you and encouraging you through the challenges, it makes the challenge more bearable. Chris did exactly that for me. He gave me the opportunity to go back to school full time so I could finish my accounting degree. Even though it doesn't seem like a big deal, having someone who is willing to take on all the bills and work from sun up to sun down to make sure everything is taken care of, is a huge blessing. The encouragement is nice, but someone who really steps forward to help pave the way is incredible.

Gaining work experience is another challenge for me as I pursue my educational goals. I need to gain experience in the field I am studying to ensure that when I go into the work field, I have the experience needed to excel. Chris has helped make this possible by giving me the opportunity to run the paper side of his business. Although it is time consuming, it allows me to put all the experience I am gaining to good use. He has also been kind enough to help get me an internship with a company that does more advanced work that will give me the experience I need to begin doing even more for our business in the future.

When I approached Chris about feeling lonely up here, where there are few people to really call a friend, he at first didn't know what to do. Although he is not an animal fan, he agreed to let me get a pet so that I had something to give attention to. He even went along to help pick out this new kitten. Whether or not he can be everything I need him to be, he finds ways to surprise me every step of the way.

I may not get compliments all day or wake up to breakfast in bed, I feel like the sweetest moments are the honest ones, when someone helps you in a moment of need. The money is nice, but the support and love that comes from the heart is most important to me. Chris excels in this area. He is a problem solver and he believes that whatever I set my mind to do, if I push hard enough, I can do it. 

Example Essay Intro

Wouldn't you like to consider yourself lucky in love? Find the person that completes you, beyond that cliche of "your better half?" Someone who knows what you need and how to help you get there. An individual who stands behind you to push you when you don't know if you can go on. I am lucky enough to have that person in my life already. He is my biggest cheerleader and coach. Whether he's pushing me to pursue my educational goals directing me to develop my talents, he is there every step of the way.

Essay 3: Contrast Essay

What makes Megan so awful? That she assumes that she must be better than everyone, because she seems to have it all. She’s average, not exactly a Harvard graduate. She’s educated, married and also happens to be my arch nemesis. How does Megan earn this title? Well, she earned this title by being overly involved in my life. She has graduated school, I still attend. She is married, I am not. She has a three year old and a new baby on the way, I haven’t even made plans for a baby yet. Megan and I are complete opposites.

Megan recently graduated from the University of Maine in Presque Isle and is now teaching at the elementary school in town. Ruling the second grade classroom is second nature to her, well that’s what she says anyways. I am still working through my business degree at Eastern Maine Community College, while working from home, a thankless job none the less. While I crunch numbers and pull my hair out, she is working on fun activities with her students.

Not only is Megan done school, but she is married. She married her best friend three years ago after discovering that there was a little one on the way. Megan and her husband are living in their new house with their new furniture and their freshly painted walls. Meanwhile, I don’t know when marriage will knock on my door. Even though I’ve been with the same guy for a few years, there is a lot going on that keeps us from making the big leap. Our house is not new, the furniture is not new, and there is not one drop of fresh paint.

Megan cements her status as my arch nemesis, because she seems to be stuck in a high school mentality. She constantly is caught up in small town gossip and spreads rumors as quickly as possible. She loves to keep up on everyone else’s life and share the latest scoop with everyone she comes in contact with. I prefer to keep gossip at bay and only repeat things that are true and necessary. I don’t enjoy other people’s misery.

At the end of the day, I put my feet up and breath, if only for a few seconds and look to the future and realize that although it’s taken me awhile to achieve what I have, I am proud of the journey that I’ve been on and where it’s brought me. Whether or not Megan feels the same way or not doesn’t matter to me. I’ve implied she is some evil woman with a  cape and a laugh worthy on only the most evil of villains, but truth be told Megan is like most everyone else; she is so caught up in everyone else’s business that she misses the most important things right at home. I think with time she will grow up and leave the immaturity behind and become an individual that supports people instead of tearing them down. While Megan is working toward becoming that person, I am going to be that person.

Graf 18: Progress Report on isearch

I need to tweak a few things, because the paper is not based on a medical diagnosis. It will change the questions and the answers to those questions a bit. I have found a few different support groups...need to figure out how to put that info in my paper....not sure if there is information worthy of mention, or just list as a resource? I have found several publications through google scholar that I had previously reviewed and those will help. I need to rewrite the background section and figure out what information to include here. I made need to start submitting these via email and not as blog posts.

Graf 14 isearch: Research Plan

My plan is to pull the experiences I have had together to formulate a series of obstacles that exists in relationships with an Asperger's partner. I will align them with stories or examples and research various articles from publications that indicate what can be done to overcome such obstacles.

It is important to me to not only answer the questions, but lay out some time of plan that is usable for someone in a situation similar to mine. I will try to get some insight from Chris, as to how he feels in certain situations.

I forsee a couple of issues, such as not find enough publications talking about Asperger's and how it affects relationships. It is not something you see a lot of information on.

I think that there will be several different websites that will answer some of these questions. It made be a couple that answer just one. I may have to tweak the questions and rearrange them to get a better flow.

isearch: What I Already Know About My Questions

Some preliminary research has proved helpful in a few different ways. I was able to determine that in Asperger relationships, the partner with Asperger's, often referred to as an aspie, has a difficult time establishing a romantic connection. This doesn't mean that they don't care about their partner, they just don't show it in a physical or emotional way. The aspie often needs coaxing, otherwise they state things in a matter of fact manner.

I know that it is important to enlist the help of your family and loved ones, as you will constantly need their love and support to help you through various challenges in the relationship. You also need someone to be a third party help. Someone who both of you can talk to, that will help you see each others' points. This can be a person locally, through church, or another third party individual. It is important to realize that an aspie thinks in an entirely different way.

isearch: Why I'm Writing

Asperger's is a huge part of my life now. I don't go one day without thinking about it. I think about it whenever there's a silly argument or Chris disregards that I might have feelings about something. I constantly am trying to realize that he is not capable of being like others in a relationship. There are things he can't figure out. Our relationship has changed, because our expectations for each other have had to change to be realistic of what each of us are capable of. It is important to me that our friends and family understand how Asperger's affects relationships. They need to know what challenges we face and how they can help support us as we face each of these challenges.

I want to answer questions in regards to how Asperger's affects relationships. What can we do to create a connection in our relationship, what can our families do to help, and what happens in raising a family. The scary thing about facing something that seems challenging is not knowing where to get information. I want people like me to know that there are answers and there are things you can do to help the relationship and make it work.

isearch: Background

We made it through a couple of months, in many relationships that doesn't seem to be a big thing, a milestone or anything report worthy. Actually in any other relationship I wouldn't think that it was a big deal, no other relationship is quite like this.

When you fought as much as we did, it almost didn't make sense to even be together. Fighting over little things that didn't seem to make sense were an every day occurrence. There were many things that just didn't make any sense.

One day there was a huge fight, a fight that had me so confused that I didn't know what was going on. I slid my feet into his slippers by the door and grabbed the trash and ran out to the garage. When I came back in I kicked the slippers off and slid them back into the corner. When Chris got home, he saw the slippers sitting there and one was a little out of place. Within seconds madness ensued. Chris began to have a bit of a breakdown. I have never seen someone come so unglued. I could see his face turning red and he started to sputter words like a lawn mower running out of gas.

I had always noticed little quirks and thought that they must be part of his personality. Although it was becoming obvious that these quirks were creating a hiccup in our relationship. Things started to get tense and I hit a wall. No one knew what was going on and I didn't know where to turn.

I was at church talking to a friend, who was studying for his master's in psychology, explaining to him the strange things going on at home. I explained that I noticed various quirks. I didn't know what was happening with our relationship, but there were always fights going on about silly things.

He thought about it all for a minute then he started to ask me questions about the quirkiness Chris had been exhibiting. As I told him more specifically what was going on, you could see his face light right up, he must've figured it out. Sure enough, all the quirkiness and family medical history proved it, Chris had Asperger's.

Intro 2: Contrast Essay

Have you ever looked at someone and just known from the second you saw them that you were two different people that would never get along? You look at her and you see someone who seems to have gotten lucky, had things work out so well, and you feel as though you could never get that lucky. Well, that is exactly how I feel about Megan. She seems to be everything that annoys me about life. The girl that can get herself in sticky situations and comes out even better than she was when she went in, that is Megan. She and I couldn't be more different. I'm committed, dedicated, motivated and working hard for every chance I get, she seems to get everything handed right to her.

Intro 1: Contrast Essay

She's smart, educated, married and also happens to be my arch nemesis. How does Megan earn this title? Well she earned this title by being overly involved in my life. She has graduated school, I still attend. She is married, I am not. She has a three year old and another baby on the way, I haven't made plans for children yet. What makes Megan so awful? That she assumes that she must be better than everyone, because she seems to have it all.

Graf 17: Reaction to Comments

Details, details and more details. That seems to be the key. Also, what attracts the reader? Trying to hook in a reader is quite a task. Do they relate to the topic? Well it seems as though whether or not your subject appeals to them, it's the meat of the paper, the point, that attracts the reader. Regardless of the subject, if the meat is good, they can relate. :)

Classification Essay 2

I feel like each day I am buried under a massive stack of papers. These papers are various sizes and colors and it’s almost as though those sizes and colors and stacks morph into this monster that chases me around everywhere I go. My typical response to the monstrous stack of papers is to organize them. Urgent, need to review and “put on the stairs,” are my go to categories when sorting through these papers. Invoices, over due bills, and IRS statements are more threatening when URGENT is stamped in red on the envelope. Then there is hospital bills, insurance papers, contracts, all needing to be looked over carefully. It’s almost as though my eyes avoid them, knowing that once glance and they are doomed eternally to read each and everyone.

My first pile of documents labeled URGENT, well that tends to describe itself. I’d like to avoid them, but doing so always means late fees, fines, or even worse. Failure to tend to the very details within each section is teetering on the verge of meltdown. Hiding in the back room is useless when the phone starts ringing and the pile never gets any smaller.

Need to review papers are no where near as stressful. I generally find them to be non threatening. I don’t stay up at night wondering if I missed anything. I simply review them take necessary action and move on. Smallest pile of them all, the papers tend to be neat, no red lettering, no stressful breakdown ensues.

Put on the stairs papers are the most bothersome. They are the papers that need to be filed, usually receipts and extra load slips. They make their way to the stairs and there they sit. Eventually the dust piles high and every time you walk down the stairs  you squeeze to one side as to not upset the dust or the pile. Upsetting the pile would be detrimental to my sanity, as there are endless little papers to keep track of. Usually on laundry day, once a week, they get tucked into the side of a laundry basket and eventually end up in the office upstairs.

Life often feels just like each stack of papers. We run from the urgent things when they seem to overwhelming, the need to review papers are less threatening, because they require no action. The put on the stairs pile of papers are like all the mundane tasks we must completely that get stacked somewhere and we don’t deal with them or take care of them until they topple over.

Outro Classification Essay

Life often feels just like each stack of papers. We run from the urgent things when they seem to overwhelming, the need to review papers are less threatening, because they require no action. The put on the stairs pile of papers are like all the mundane tasks we must completely that get stacked somewhere and we don’t deal with them or take care of them until they topple over.

Intro 2: Classification Essay

There seems to be this endless task of dealing with paperwork in my life. I can’t seem to get away from it, whether it’s my own paperwork, incoming bills, business paperwork, or whatever sneaks through the cracks onto every surface in the house, papers are everywhere. It’s as though my life’s work is to constantly organize paperwork. There’s the urgent, need to review, and “put on the stairs,” piles that always seem to accumulate and grow rapidly. Much like my life, always mass amounts of things to sort out, advice and counsel primarily and sometimes it’s just overwhelming.