As a Pole, I find this offensive. We’re more than just potato munchers.

We’re also potato drinkers.

That’s like asking why so many anime women have massive titties. Fan service, obvs.

How many times have you seen a commenter on here say, “Fuck Reddit”? OP’s just giving the viewers what they want.

Depends. How are you eating? Are you meticulously separating your food and eating it in a particular order? Do you break apart your tator tots into tiny bits, or do you pull the chocolate chips out of your muffins to eat them separately? Maybe you eat all the green veggie straws, then all the yellows, then all the orange ones, never deviating from that pattern?

It’s fascinating looking around the lunch room in a school for autistic children.

I am an “always hot” kind of person, and I have similar reservations about this technique.

I sleep under a flat sheet, usually with a leg poking out. I have a second, cotton blanket that I can layer on top of my torso if the flat sheet isn’t enough, but to cover my entire body with the cotton blanket would be too hot most nights. Unless it’s the dead of winter or I have a fever, I need to be able to free a leg out from under the blankets at any given time. Being wrapped up like in this image would make falling/staying asleep even harder.

It’s also why I don’t make my bed. Tucking the blanket under the sides of the bed just means having to undo it all when it’s time to sleep. Besides, it doesn’t make much sense to “make a bed” when you don’t use a comforter.

The timid conundrum: anyone else ever say “excuse me” in such a small voice that nobody hears you? Then you end up looking like a jerk who didn’t say anything as you squeeze through people, yet the very idea of raising your voice to be heard feels even more rude somehow?

Trauma is a hell of a drug…

There’s a park that opened up near where I grew up that’s 100% for disabled people. It’s free and the only entrance requirement is their IEP upon registration (there might be different requirements for adults. I know it’s open to adults with disabilities as well as kids, but I’ve only gone there with child-clients so I don’t know.)

It’s so dope - it’s got an array of swings of all different types; a wheelchair-accessible zipline; a sensory garden (where you’re encouraged to touch the plants and explore); a soft-ground, wheelchair-accessible baseball diamond; and a “quiet zone” for when you need a break from all the stimulation. Although I wish such places existed when I was younger, I’m so glad the kids of today have somewhere so cool to play.

Some kid pulled my hair at work last week. Straight up yanked my ponytail out and dug his fingers up to my scalp. It was an interesting moment to demonstrate my sensory differences, though, as it didn’t hurt - I was just shocked for a moment.

Meanwhile, somebody touches my side in the wrong way, and I yelp. I’m super ticklish and I hate it, because tickling feels like torture to me. I’d rather have my hair yanked out than get casually brushed by someone’s fingertip.

My workplace has had a number of trans and gender-fluid people employed there, and the students have all just rolled with it. I haven’t heard a single comment from any of them about it. They learn the right pronouns from the start and it’s just accepted. One of the managers is a transdude who’s self-conscious about his voice, but the only time it ever comes up is when he brings in his guitar and asks me to sing so he doesn’t have to.

Intolerance is definitely a learned trait, and I’m glad to say we have a safe, inclusive environment for these kids to learn in. :)

Fuck, Georgia is a terrible state to get ticketed in. In other states, if the cops don’t show up to court, they throw the case out. But in Georgia, if the cop doesn’t show up, the court case is rescheduled.

Source: receiving two speeding tickets in Georgia while living out of state (two separate occasions. One at night when there was no one else on the road to gauge my speed by, and the second in a speed trap just moments after I recounted the first story to the passengers in the car. Fuck driving in Georgia.)

I’ve found this behavior to be more or less common in different places. It’s extremely common in Florida, for one. It’s pretty common in some parts of New York too. By contrast, just one state over, I haven’t encountered it in Connecticut at all (though I haven’t driven there as much as I have in Florida or New York, and I’ve mostly used the highways, where slower drivers are explicitly instructed to stay in the right lane. So there could be a sampling bias.)

I never understood it. It’s like the driver thinks that if somebody passes them, it’s a personal insult. It reminds me of those who speed up when they see that somebody might merge in front of them; like they feel possessive of the public road somehow.

I hate it, take your upvote.

Please explain how that’s wrong?

Japanese nouns don’t have grammatical number. The closest you can get is adding an affix like -tachi, but even then it’s almost exclusively for people and means more like “and company” rather than a true plural.

The noun for “city” is 市 (“ichi”), and it can mean either one city, two cities, or many cities. You can specify how many by adding a number, but the word itself doesn’t change.

Hey, now, you’re both right - the Japanese language doesn’t distinguish between singular and plural.

30c (or 86 in Freedom Units) can be ideal outside if the air is dry. Unfortunately, I live in a part of the world where summers are humid, so I feel this meme. Just getting inb4 someone from a desert goes on about how we have nothing to complain about because it’s 40+ wherever they live. Humidity counts for a lot.

Side note, I just realized that the abbreviation for “Freedom Units” is “FU.” Which seems oddly appropriate.

/c/autism is leaking.

This is me to my core. (I mean, just check the username.) The easiest way to lose my trust is to say the reason is “because I said so.” Okay, but why do you say so? Is there a real reason, or are you being a buzz-kill? Because plenty of people have arbitrary reasons for things and sometimes that’s what it comes down to.

I can recall specific instances where I was given a reason and it made all the difference. Like a lot of little kids, I used to scream when having fun. Just saying, “Don’t do that” didn’t make an impact. But when my mom explained that when she hears me scream, she thinks I’m in trouble, and if I scream for no reason it’d make it harder for her to respond if I were actually in trouble, that’s the day I stopped.

A little bit of explanation can go a long way. Sometimes people treat kids like they can’t understand deeper reasoning, but that’s not true for everyone.

I pay it forward now. A kid I worked with preferred to point at things using his middle finger instead of his pointer finger, even when the thing he was pointing at was on the ceiling. When I told him to use his pointer instead and he asked why, I told him, “Some people think that means something very mean. I don’t want people to think you’re trying to be mean.” That’s all it took for him to start using his index finger instead.

Point is, when people explain why something is done a certain way, they can be far more likely to respect their rule. I get that there are times when quick obedience is required, like when there’s imminent danger. However, explaining more trivial situations builds the trust necessary to navigate those moments better. If someone’s always pushing for authority over arbitrary things, they shouldn’t be surprised when people (especially kids) don’t listen to them when the matter is serious. Which is why I take the time to explain things with the kids I work with - sometimes we really do need to move quickly, particularly when another kid is acting out aggressively and we need to leave the room. They know I’ll give reasons when there is time, so when I tell them to do something with urgency, they know things are getting real and it’s time to move.

Honestly, in other places I’ve worked they’ve had me “shadow” others to get a feel for the job. I was surprised the place I’m at now didn’t do that. I suspect the reason is insurance companies (since our school fills a medical need) and them not wanting to pay to have two people in a single session (unless one of them is a manager.)

The training is pretty thorough in itself, which is more than I can say for the other places I’ve worked. We all take an intensive 2-week course, even the directors and center managers. We spend some time with the kids toward the later end of it, but most of the two weeks are spent on teaching techniques, safety care, professional ethics, and honing our imagination skills (which was my favorite part.) We all go into this knowing we’ll be working with kids who might not be potty trained, or who might have difficult behaviors (aggression, climbing, elopement, biting, just to name a few.) It’s one thing to know about it, but the real test is doing it every day. Some people can tolerate it, some people can’t.

I don’t blame most of the people who quit right away - at least they recognize their limits. Except that one lady, the one that didn’t take kids to the bathroom. That’s just negligent.

Every time a wave of new hires walks in, I know at least half of them won’t be sticking around past a month. I’m not sure what they’re expecting when they apply to a school for autistic pre-schoolers, but considering one new hire recently quit after refusing to change diapers or take kids to the bathroom, I get the impression some truly haven’t thought the job through. Yeah, you’re going to deal with diapers, potty accidents, kids who don’t know how to cover their sneezes and coughs, and who will dig into their food and make a massive mess. That’s all kind of part of the deal when you’re working with toddlers regardless of neurotype. I don’t know what she was expecting.

Instructions unclear. Took oestrogen by accident and now can’t stop speaking in a British accent.

I’m looking forward to the latest anime-inspired perfume, “Scent of a Rose From a Universe Where Spirits Bathe in Moonlight.”

A sign I found IRL. Last time I checked, geese can’t read, so I’m not sure what the point of it is.