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I am extremely annoyed that I cannot easily get around my own neighborhood. Every year at this time, my town holds a festival several blocks from where I live. There are crowds and there is noise. The worst is that a street I use to get to and from my apartment gets blocked off.
Last year, the security personnel at the gate let me walk through the festival to get out of the neighborhood.
This year, tonight, as I walked through the open gate on my way home from my evening walk, a security guard came up and told me that I could not go through at all. The festival was closed down for the day and there were no other people there except for staff. The street goes right down the middle of the festival, away from the rides and booths and things, so there would have been no risk in letting me walk the half of a block from one gate to the other. My entire path would have been clearly visible and there was only one way out for me because the whole area is blocked off with portable gates.
But he said I had to walk around. So I walked an extra couple of blocks, took a less direct route to get home. With a headache.
I'm sick of this goddamned festival making it difficult for us residents to get in and out of our own neighborhood. On my morning walk today, I saw a neighbor trying to talk security into letting him drive past the barricades so that he could get to his own house. He said that he has his own driveway, apparently to assuage security's concerns about the lack of parking. Festival-goers' cars filled the streets for blocks around. My walk was a pain in the ass because festival-goers thronged the sidewalks, some of them hogging the walking space with strollers and other kiddie transport mechanisms. Even walking around the festival is a pain in the ass because festival-goers are constantly coming and going. And the festival lasts two days, so there'll be more tomorrow.
Tiring as it'll undoubtedly be, I want to formally complain to the city about this. Whoever is running this festival is making money at the expense of the local residents. Our neighborhood seems rather small for this festival. And I should be able to walk straight home at nine-thirty in the evening when there is no festival running.
It looks like I've written a shit-ton about this one simple issue. I didn't want this whole damned post to be about this.
While I was out walking tonight, I got to thinking about autism and vaccines for some reason. I'm not sure but I think that the current understanding of autism renders vaccines causing autism impossible regardless of any effects the vaccines actually have: if autism is understood to be present at birth or very early in infancy, then vaccines are administered too late in a child's life to cause autism no matter what their physiological affects. But I'm not sure there's any established medical opinion concerning the age of onset of autism. It seems a tricky subject because autism is understood as a neurological condition rather than something like a disease that someone develops at a particular point in time.
The fact that stress and medical problems caused me to start exhibiting autistic traits I can't remember having ever exhibited beforehand makes me suspect that, rather than vaccines causing autism, the medical stress engendered by the vaccines caused perhaps mildly autistic children to start exhibiting more obvious autistic traits. Given how early these kids were in their development, it wouldn't be odd that a vaccine could have a significant developmental effect. Also, there has been some talk in the autistic community (and I have experienced this myself) that various substances, including medication, affect us more strongly than they affect non-autistic people. So I wouldn't be surprised that a vaccine that does not noticeably affect non-autistic people could produce significant side-effects for autistic people.
My goddamned head still hurts.
It's like a little miracle that I can understand some Czech youtube videos now. Progress seems to come in fits and starts rather than being something gradual that I can observe unfolding. And then I try to read something in Czech and find that I can scarcely recognize a single word. It's weird, these two states co-existing. I guess it's due to my vocabulary acquisition being a bit lop-sided or perhaps biased towards my study method (which is heavily based on reading online dictionaries) and the textbooks I have.
I can't ever seem to muster the will to study Russian. Maybe I should just quit. Or put it off 'til I don't need to focus on Czech so much.
Studying languages takes so much time, I would love to be able to find a job involving at least one of my languages so that I wouldn't have to take time away from them to work, so that I could earn while enjoying one of my interests. I haven't figured out what, if anything, I could do, however. Not being fluent seems to lock me out of everything, but, I'd be at a loss even if I werefluent because most language-related jobs involve listening or speaking, which are too tiring for me to do even in my native language.
Last year, the security personnel at the gate let me walk through the festival to get out of the neighborhood.
This year, tonight, as I walked through the open gate on my way home from my evening walk, a security guard came up and told me that I could not go through at all. The festival was closed down for the day and there were no other people there except for staff. The street goes right down the middle of the festival, away from the rides and booths and things, so there would have been no risk in letting me walk the half of a block from one gate to the other. My entire path would have been clearly visible and there was only one way out for me because the whole area is blocked off with portable gates.
But he said I had to walk around. So I walked an extra couple of blocks, took a less direct route to get home. With a headache.
I'm sick of this goddamned festival making it difficult for us residents to get in and out of our own neighborhood. On my morning walk today, I saw a neighbor trying to talk security into letting him drive past the barricades so that he could get to his own house. He said that he has his own driveway, apparently to assuage security's concerns about the lack of parking. Festival-goers' cars filled the streets for blocks around. My walk was a pain in the ass because festival-goers thronged the sidewalks, some of them hogging the walking space with strollers and other kiddie transport mechanisms. Even walking around the festival is a pain in the ass because festival-goers are constantly coming and going. And the festival lasts two days, so there'll be more tomorrow.
Tiring as it'll undoubtedly be, I want to formally complain to the city about this. Whoever is running this festival is making money at the expense of the local residents. Our neighborhood seems rather small for this festival. And I should be able to walk straight home at nine-thirty in the evening when there is no festival running.
It looks like I've written a shit-ton about this one simple issue. I didn't want this whole damned post to be about this.
While I was out walking tonight, I got to thinking about autism and vaccines for some reason. I'm not sure but I think that the current understanding of autism renders vaccines causing autism impossible regardless of any effects the vaccines actually have: if autism is understood to be present at birth or very early in infancy, then vaccines are administered too late in a child's life to cause autism no matter what their physiological affects. But I'm not sure there's any established medical opinion concerning the age of onset of autism. It seems a tricky subject because autism is understood as a neurological condition rather than something like a disease that someone develops at a particular point in time.
The fact that stress and medical problems caused me to start exhibiting autistic traits I can't remember having ever exhibited beforehand makes me suspect that, rather than vaccines causing autism, the medical stress engendered by the vaccines caused perhaps mildly autistic children to start exhibiting more obvious autistic traits. Given how early these kids were in their development, it wouldn't be odd that a vaccine could have a significant developmental effect. Also, there has been some talk in the autistic community (and I have experienced this myself) that various substances, including medication, affect us more strongly than they affect non-autistic people. So I wouldn't be surprised that a vaccine that does not noticeably affect non-autistic people could produce significant side-effects for autistic people.
My goddamned head still hurts.
It's like a little miracle that I can understand some Czech youtube videos now. Progress seems to come in fits and starts rather than being something gradual that I can observe unfolding. And then I try to read something in Czech and find that I can scarcely recognize a single word. It's weird, these two states co-existing. I guess it's due to my vocabulary acquisition being a bit lop-sided or perhaps biased towards my study method (which is heavily based on reading online dictionaries) and the textbooks I have.
I can't ever seem to muster the will to study Russian. Maybe I should just quit. Or put it off 'til I don't need to focus on Czech so much.
Studying languages takes so much time, I would love to be able to find a job involving at least one of my languages so that I wouldn't have to take time away from them to work, so that I could earn while enjoying one of my interests. I haven't figured out what, if anything, I could do, however. Not being fluent seems to lock me out of everything, but, I'd be at a loss even if I werefluent because most language-related jobs involve listening or speaking, which are too tiring for me to do even in my native language.
