Behavior Change Project

In a year from now I will graduate from Sam Houston with my Masters degree. Many of you know I've been studying Autism and Low incidence disabilities. What some of you don't know is that the major emphasis in this program is on analyzing behavior. Obviously this is mostly taught in the area of changing the behaviors of students with disabilities, but the principals can be applied to anyone. Every semester we have to do a behavior change project, keep data, graph the data and write a huge paper on it.
I decided I would go out on a limb this time and try one on myself rather the on one of my students. This is were I need you help and I'm opening up to a lot in my own personal life. As many of you reading this know I have hard time remaining positive all the time. Although I feel I've come a long way since high school I still have a long was to go. I've also noticed that it gets harder the more time I spend by myself - inside stuying all the time, and I have less free time to be around others. Where I can not change some of my circumstances (ie the number of hours I need to study) I can change some of my thoughts during those long hours.

What I need from you if you choose to help me is to leave positive statements about me or funny- happy times we have had together. Just click on the word comment at the bottom of this post and leave me a message. I'll then record these statements on my MP3 and play them as I drive back and forth to school or on study breaks while i'm working out. My goal is to be able to feel these idle times up with happy/ funny things to think about instead of what I'm frustrated about. Just click on the comments box at the bottom of this post. A page will come up to leave me a comment on something positive for me to focus on.

Thanks in advance for your help with this project. Hopefully you'll be able to tell the positive effects it has. I thought I would share a few of my favorite times and happy memories as well. If you don't want to leave them in the comment section you an email me. I'm addicted to email - maybe that's my next behavior change project. :)

For my birthday Lisa gave me a chest full of 30 items that had some memory attached to it. They made me laugh remember all the things we've been through.

Teaching has been a big strenght to me. There is nothing more gratifying to me then seeing them accomplish a task they could not do before.

Cake decorating with friends. Can't get much better for me. Thanks for the room this summer Ladies.

Youtube or Homework... that is the question

So I needed a little break from studing and kept singing Amazing Grace in my head so I decided to go and look on youtube for a good version. I found Hayley and I had to listen to much more then just Amazing Grace. She is from New Zealand and has an amazing voice. Enjoy!

Phantom Of the Opera

Last Saturday My dad took me to go see Phantom of the Opera! It was lots of fun to be with Dad. Especially since he and mom had been gone for a couple of weeks. I love living close to my parents and being able to do stuff with them. I must say I was blessed with the best parents ever! They've helped me a lot. I love our "Daddy daughter dates"

Goodbye Dr. Ruth Debar

My Favorite(actually all of our favorite) professor decided to leave Texas for New Jersey. Not very happy, but its a great move for her. The whole cohort met at Main Event last Monday and to celebrate her and wish her luck. We have one girl missing from the pictures (she's on a family vacation.)

Erin, Heather, Ruth, Saritha ,Me, Fara, Jan, Jennifer, Samatha, Julie, Hope Katie

Jan's Husband came to party with us. We went after class and the first thing we had to do was eat dinner. It was nice to eat before 8:00 at night for a change.

Katie, Ruth, Jennifer
Me, Fara, Hope Saritha (or her profile anyways)

Best of luck Ruth! We are going to totally miss your expertise in the field of ABA and Autism.

Happy 4th of July

A group of us went down to watch the fireworks in the Woodlands. We just parked the car at a bowling alley and put our lawn chairs up on the side of the road (I-45 feeder). The fireworks were across the freeway, but we had a great view. It was lots of fun. After the show we sat around and waited for all the traffic to die down. People had pulled over everywhere to watch the show.

Nikki, Kim, Adena, Stacie, Heather, Cordell, Scott, Alona, Shelley Ed, Tatum, Jennifer, Bobby

IF you can't tell I love firework shots!

Just to show you how close we were to the freeway, here is a video clip. I had my camera turned for the first part until I remembered you can't turn video's once you down load them. OOPS!