The following is an essay written by a 14 year-old boy with Aspergers for his Physical Education teacher. He is spot on, honest, and dead serious. He can not see why we all think he is being so hilarious, when all he is doing is telling the truth and the whole truth, so help me God.
I am publishing it here because I believe this is the way many of our young men with Aspergers feel about physical education and exercise. I have heard some of the same words from my son Blue. This young man does an excellent job of educating us all.
Thank you Christopher for allowing me to share it!
Christopher Owens
Physical Education
9 September 2013
Weight Training Portfolio Essay
This is my essay for the weight training portfolio assignment. In this essay I will discuss my physical condition, future fitness goals, and sports and exercises that I enjoy participating in.
By the end of this essay, you should know all of the information regarding my physical condition and goals.
First, my physical condition. As it stands, I cannot run half a mile without getting extremely fatigued. This tells you that my physical condition is poor, at best. At worst, you could say that I am so physically unfit, that a walrus would beat me in a race. In fact, the only location with any real muscle mass on me is my legs, as my arms have little to no muscle mass. I do however, manage to maintain a slim figure. This is surprising, considering that I do little to no physical activity, and have less than healthy eating habits. It is currently believed that my slim figure is due to an incredibly high metabolism. This metabolism also contributes to the fact that I am quite limber, and am capable of extraordinary feats of flexibility. So far my metabolism has shown no signs of slowing down, and I am particularly happy about this.
Moving on, I will now discuss my fitness goals. Long story short, I have none. I don't plan on needing any muscles in my job in the future, and quite frankly, I like it that way. I personally don't really see the need for muscles and such, and can't think of a single instance in my adult life in which I will require them. This doesn't mean that there are no instances in which I will need them, simply that I can't think of one of such instances. Maybe if I have a really fat baby, and it's my turn to push the stroller, but somehow I don't think that will happen. If you think I need fitness goals, well that's your opinion. I however, see no need for them.
Finally, we come to sports and exercises that I enjoy. Quite frankly, there aren't any intense exercises that I enjoy. We have an indoor trapeze at my house, which I enjoy. I also enjoy simply sitting and bouncing on an exercise ball. Swimming and the trampoline in my backyard are the last activities that I enjoy, but both are recreational only. When on the trampoline I take breaks quite often, and I don't swim laps or anything like that. Personally I find it quite pathetic that I can't swim in place for ten minutes without getting tired, but I suppose there's nothing to be done for it. I think that this is quite a solid lineup of activities that I enjoy to do, but I agree that it could be better.
This concludes my essay, and I hope that you have learned about my health and exercise habits by now. To recap, we have learned that I am flexible, and enjoy a wonderful metabolism. We have learned that I have no fitness goals, and have no desire to create any. Finally, we have learned of the exercises and activities that I enjoy to do. If you have no idea what I am talking about, due to reading this backwards or Alzheimer, I suggest that you either read in the correct way, or seek medical attention, depending on which one it is. Now if you can excuse me, I have a calender of fake exercises to construct.
I am publishing it here because I believe this is the way many of our young men with Aspergers feel about physical education and exercise. I have heard some of the same words from my son Blue. This young man does an excellent job of educating us all.
Thank you Christopher for allowing me to share it!
Christopher Owens
Physical Education
9 September 2013
Weight Training Portfolio Essay
This is my essay for the weight training portfolio assignment. In this essay I will discuss my physical condition, future fitness goals, and sports and exercises that I enjoy participating in.
By the end of this essay, you should know all of the information regarding my physical condition and goals.
First, my physical condition. As it stands, I cannot run half a mile without getting extremely fatigued. This tells you that my physical condition is poor, at best. At worst, you could say that I am so physically unfit, that a walrus would beat me in a race. In fact, the only location with any real muscle mass on me is my legs, as my arms have little to no muscle mass. I do however, manage to maintain a slim figure. This is surprising, considering that I do little to no physical activity, and have less than healthy eating habits. It is currently believed that my slim figure is due to an incredibly high metabolism. This metabolism also contributes to the fact that I am quite limber, and am capable of extraordinary feats of flexibility. So far my metabolism has shown no signs of slowing down, and I am particularly happy about this.
Moving on, I will now discuss my fitness goals. Long story short, I have none. I don't plan on needing any muscles in my job in the future, and quite frankly, I like it that way. I personally don't really see the need for muscles and such, and can't think of a single instance in my adult life in which I will require them. This doesn't mean that there are no instances in which I will need them, simply that I can't think of one of such instances. Maybe if I have a really fat baby, and it's my turn to push the stroller, but somehow I don't think that will happen. If you think I need fitness goals, well that's your opinion. I however, see no need for them.
Finally, we come to sports and exercises that I enjoy. Quite frankly, there aren't any intense exercises that I enjoy. We have an indoor trapeze at my house, which I enjoy. I also enjoy simply sitting and bouncing on an exercise ball. Swimming and the trampoline in my backyard are the last activities that I enjoy, but both are recreational only. When on the trampoline I take breaks quite often, and I don't swim laps or anything like that. Personally I find it quite pathetic that I can't swim in place for ten minutes without getting tired, but I suppose there's nothing to be done for it. I think that this is quite a solid lineup of activities that I enjoy to do, but I agree that it could be better.
This concludes my essay, and I hope that you have learned about my health and exercise habits by now. To recap, we have learned that I am flexible, and enjoy a wonderful metabolism. We have learned that I have no fitness goals, and have no desire to create any. Finally, we have learned of the exercises and activities that I enjoy to do. If you have no idea what I am talking about, due to reading this backwards or Alzheimer, I suggest that you either read in the correct way, or seek medical attention, depending on which one it is. Now if you can excuse me, I have a calender of fake exercises to construct.
If you know a Physical Education teacher or coach ...please share this with post with them!
~Karen
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago