spirited away

It was very difficult to get motivated to come back to Texas. My initial plan was to leave Friday but that didn't happen. Then I thought Saturday would be the day. Nope. By Sunday I was left with no choice... I HAD to drive back, or else I would not make it to my STAR Autism training.
I watched the movie "Spirited Away" with a new friend. I had never really seen 'anime' before and didn't know what to expect. Although I was sleepy, I stayed awake for this entire movie. All of you close friends know how big a feat this is for me... and so that should tell you something about the movie. Watching it, I was struck with how much realism there is in our Western animations. This film really had fantasy that I had not experienced before. While the plot was a little thick, and I kept thinking there was meaning behind much of the action, I walked away enjoying it very much. I would definitely like to watch it again... I think I would get a lot more out of it the second time around.

In other news, I am attending a two-day training on teaching Autistic students. The course is called "STAR" or Teaching Based on Autism Research. The training is appealing to me on a research-based/scientific level. Also, it is making me feel more comfortable with the possibilities of working with Autistic students in the future. It's one of those great programs where you walk away learning something new and actually have new tools for putting what you've learned into practice. I find with education there are so many different things you can specialize in... and learn a lot about... it's hard to think of picking just one to focus on. I remember when I got done taking my "English as a Second Language (ESL)" certification I felt the same way. I never knew then that there was so much to learn about teaching ESL properly. With Autism, I knew I had a lot to learn... Our schools and our teachers definitely wear many hats in order to best serve our diverse student population!

NPR is continuing to keep me in the know. Have y'all checked out www.cuil.com yet? It's pretty rad. I like it that there are little icons next to all of the searches. However, sometimes the site has a hard time taking on broad searches. Oh, to backup... cuil is a rival google search engine. Check it out. What do you think? I like that cuil is Irish for "knowledge". I definitely feel like I get a lot of information these days from browsing around the internet. Cuil (pronounced "cool") is just that, cool, because when you search, it will provide a menu for related searches. For example, I typed in Autism and - voila!- it will show you a 'browse by category' box with links to further sites on Autism Researchers, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, People on the Autistic Spectrum and more. Anyway, I don't think I am switching to it as my primary search tool yet, but it is rather awesome.