John Elder Robison's Blog, page 22

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I'm not much of a holiday person but it's still a good time to think back on the year and consider everything that I (each and every one of us, really) have to be thankful for. I particularly want to recognize and thank all of you - readers and members of my online community - for making me welcome, and for giving me your support and encouragement. At the same time, I try and forget all the miserable stuff that makes me depressed . . . . and I hope for a brighter y...

A walk in the desert

It all started with an old airplane, baking in the New Mexico desert. It could have been a scene from a movie . . . crashed and presumed lost; miles from anywhere . . . I looked at the mountains in the distance and wondered if I could have crossed them on foot . . .



Being what I am, I decided to try . . . As I got closer it didn't look so rough . . .



But as I got into it, the ground got rugged fast



Most alarming, everyone else walking the old mule paths had snake leggings and sticks. And of c...

I'm short on cash. Should I rob that convienience store?

You are down to your last twenty bucks, and people are streaming in and out of the convenience store across the street. There's money in the register and a gun in your pocket. Should you rob the store?

Most people would listen to that question, laugh, and say, Of course not! That's because most people have enough empathy to realize that robbing someone will cause them great distress. The ability to put ourselves in the other person's shoes – and an appreciation that other people have right...

Brain Plasticity and TMS

Here I am in the TMS lab at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, with Lindsay Oberman, Phd holding the TMS coil over my head. I'm wearing a cap that has 32 EEG wires in it for brain wave monitoring. And the wires on my hand are picking up tiny electrical signals from the nerves in my thumb and forefinger. It looks kind of nasty but it's actually not uncomfortable at all. There are no holes drilled in me.

You can see the TMS machine behind Lindsay. There's a camera system and moni...

The School Bell Rings!

I'm pleased and proud to announce details of my first class at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts. This course will be held on campus from 8:30-6 in one long day on Saturday March 20. Save the day!

My classes will be under the umbrella of the College's graduate autism program. The course number is ASD671 for continuing ed or professional development credit, or ASD771 for grad students. Costs are $175 for continuing ed or $294 for graduate credit, plus a $20 registration fee.

Here's the...

A visit with my bankers . . .

Meet Bill Wagner, the president of Chicopee Bank. Readers of Look Me in the Eye will know Bill and the bank from my stories. Today's I've photographed him so you can put faces to the names . . .



Things were tough in 1990, when Bill and I first met. I had quit my last real job to start a new business fixing cars in my driveway a few years before. Unfortunately, it took more money that I realized to start a company, and I'd lost all my savings getting going. Then the economy tanked, and the...