10 Things that people don’t know about me

1.       I don’t like being touch by people that I don’t know.

2.       I know all the words to American Pie by Don McLean

3.       I know all the states of USA even though I don’t live in the USA.

4.       I am proud of my brother and sister in whatever they do in life and I love them to the moon and back!!!!

5.       I love anything to do with Vampires and the supernatural.  It all started with Charmed and then I read Harry Potter and then Vampire Academy, I am currently reading the True Blood series in books.  True Blood and the Vampire Diaries and Charmed are three of my favourite tv shows.

6.       A lot of people don’t realise that I am intelligent even though I have a slight intellectual disability.

7.       My favourite animal is the elephant.  I am starting to collect elephants. I have 9 elephants in my collection so far.

8.       I will beat my Dad at scrabble on Wednesday night (20th of June).  Scrabble is one of my favourite board games of all time.

9.       I reach out to new families who have CDC and I try to help them by telling my story and I met my first person with CDC when I was fifteen her name is Hanne and she lives in Australia

10.   I wrote this quote on my cellphone first of all when I was meant to be working the idea came into my head.  I am a daughter, sister, person living with a disability, an aunt, a friend, a granddaughter, a niece, an inspiration, a role model, an adult, I am a cook and a member of society, a cousin, and a light in this world, I am all of these things and so much more.  I have CRI DU CHAT SYNDROME!!!

Walking

I love to walk in the sun, rain, wind and in other weather.  So on Sunday night I download a pedometer onto my IPod to measure how many steps it takes me to walk around town and do what I needed to do.  Each Monday I go grocery shopping and so I thought I would test out my pedometer and I checked it several times throughout my walk and when I got home I had discovered that I had walked over 4737 steps.  I know wow that’s a lot of steps and the distance that I covered was 3.382 KMS.  I do a lot of walking during the day like for e.g. I walked up to my Mum’s to feed her cats because she was away and I get paid to do a five minute job.  It takes a lot longer than five minutes when you are walking everywhere.  On Saturday afternoon I went up to feed the cats Muffin and Beannie and didn’t actually get home for 2 hours and a half.  The only thing I don’t like about walking is, walking in the dark.  Every Friday night I go and get KFC and it is winter over here in New Zealand and I try to set off about 5pm before it really gets dark.  Sometimes I get a ride home if I am having dinner with someone that I know.  I know people are a little concerned about my walking with my IPod on and my hoodie up but I am very aware of my
surroundings and I don’t like uneven surfaces because it is the way that I walk,  I walk with a limp because of my displaced hips I even can’t run.  One year we went camping and one of my Mum’s friends said that was a short walk to a waterfall about half an hour walk up a little track.  It took like me two hours to walk up that track with one of my cousins, my Mum, my stepdad and my Pop while all of my cousins raced up and I got left behind because the track was uneven and I didn’t even complain once and when I got to the waterfall I sat down on a rock and read my book because it was slippery for me to get into the water. 
For all those who are concerned about me walking with my headphones and hoodie up and seeing cars.  I take down my hood and my headphones out to hear the traffic and see the traffic especially if it is a busy morning.  Walking gives me independence and freedom in a way that most people like to drive.

Sensory Overdrive

Imagine standing in a room full of people that you don’t know or you only know a handful of people and your senses working overtime to make it sense of it all or that you are afraid to talk to someone because you might say the wrong thing.  That is what it is like for me sometimes.  It depends on the situation but I don’t like social situations because I have to try and make sense of it all.  In those situations I take my game boy along and find a nice quiet spot once I have socialised for awhile.  I like to have someone that I know quite well like my family. I dislike crowds of people because my brain goes in overdrive and it gets overwhelming to try to keep up what is happening if that happens I get tried so fast because my brain can’t keep up on what’s happening.  I don’t go out and socialise that often and when I do its hard for me to follow what’s happening even though I am intelligent for my syndrome but I get some symptoms of CDC like a short attention span or my lack of concentration after a certain number of hours and then I need a break.  I work in the mornings because I can concentrate a lot more.  I walk everywhere around town and if I don’t take my iPod into town with me I can’t focus because there is a lot going on like the cars going past and stuff like that but if I take my iPod I can shut out most of the noise and help me concentrate better and I wear hoodies most of the time so I can also put my hood up and block out most of the background sound.   Last year at my younger sister’s 21st I brought along my game boy and didn’t actually know any of her friends but my family was there but all evening I sat on the couch and played on my game boy because I am not very good at socialising with strangers that I don’t know and my Mum came up too me at the end of the evening as my brother and I were leaving and said that she was very proud of me that I lasted long that I did.  

Words

I love to read and write.  These two things I have grown up with.  After I was diagnosed with CDC.  I began speech therapy but it was mainly that I first started school that I began to read and it helped my speech as well.  I remember reading shop signs at the age of five.  When my family moved to our current town Wanganui when I was 7 and grew up here.  The town library has played a major role in my childhood.  I remember getting all excited when Mum or Dad took us to the library.  I was only allowed to get out 7 books that was my limit.  I started reading the babysitter club books when I was 8/9 and that continued over the next few years.  Then from there it was Nancy Drew, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings books, Tomorrow when the war began books, Harry Potter, Cross Stitch books, James Patterson books, Vampire Academy series and Fifty shades of Grey series and so many other books.  Most of my lunchtimes at school would be spent at the school library I became a school librarian in Form 1 at the age of twelve until I left high school.  Even for two years at school did work experience working at the town public library.  My favourite shops are bookshops and we have two main ones.  Whitcoulls it’s a bookshop their staff know me quite well in there and say hi and know me by name.  I love to express myself through my writing when I was growing up I used to write novels and poetry.   I still occasionally write but I have had writer’s block over the last little while but I think my writing has improved over the years.  It takes me ages to write because it is all about the concentration and what I am trying to say.  At school when my exams came along I used to have a writer because I am slow at writing and all the other students would be a lot faster than I would be.  I type a lot of the time because it is easier for me and it is a lot quicker but I still practice writing during the day or whenever I have something to say.  I always carry around with me a notebook and a pen.  Sometimes on a Wednesday night at Dad’s, Dad and I play scrabble because it builds a lot on my vocab and it gives me a chance to do something with my Dad.  He gives me a handicap system, he gives me a hundred points head start because my spelling sucks and I have CDC but every time I win a game it goes down by ten points and every time I lose it goes up 10 points.  In conculsion this blog is for anyone who wants to know a little bit about my world.https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/