Animal Kingdom

So Mom and Dad told me that we were driving to Missouri to see the rest of our family on Christmas Day. That morning we unwrapped a box and well, now we're al in disney World one two day car trip later. I spent most of that driving or napping, so really not much to say on that. Odd as it is the only really memorable things are my dreams of Ali but those as overly sweet and snuggly. And now I'm back in the time zone I'm used to, so yay.

This was day one and we spent it in Animal Kingdom after a bunch with cariturs. It was about a two thirds day. Not a half day but not a full day ether.

After Brunch we went in and tried to stay as a group, so first two things were together. The Rapid ride and I had Lu kid number 9 next to me. She was a fun one. There is nothing like a 4 year old laughing and shrieking with glee as she gets splashed. We then ran off to it's tough being a bug, a 4D show. Lu said she wasn't scared of the spooky parts but truth be told she spent most of it in my jacket, staring at the fine print of my shirt. After that we split. Older kids braved the 75 minuet wait for Expedition Everest. The inside jokes and  cracks at new ones made it feel a lot faster.

If you enjoy costers go ride that one. I have never been so joyfully terrifyed in my life. flying backwards and forwards in dark tunnels being haunted by a yeti.

Dinner was the Ohana experience, we got to watch a fire dancer.

I'm sorry for the short and not that informative post, but it's 12:10 I'm in a room full of kids and bone tiered from watching them for most of the day.

A more detailed post will come up probably at the end of the week.

Dyslexia on the Silver Screen

I can not say how long I've waited to see people like me be seen. Recognized. How long I've wished that there was someone like me, that wasn't fixed. No fixing, not magical cure to everything.

And finally it happened.

Meet Vanellope von Schweets from the movie 'Wreak it Ralph'.  

The idea behind the movie is that the video games in the arcade are alive, and when we're gone they go on and do their game things. Like go to the bar, or Bad Guys Anonymous, or have parties. Ralph is a bad guy who wants to be more and becomes convinced that the only way he can do so is through a getting a metal like the hero's and good guys do. Through a series of events he runs in to Vanellope who steals his metal to enter a race, promising to win it back for him. For the rest just watch the movie, it's really cute.

Vanellope is the first ever disney character that I remember that has dyslexia. Especially the first I can ever remember being picked on for it. She lives in the game 'Sugar Rush' and the whole point of it is racing, and Vanellope is not allowed to mingle at all. She is literally ran into hiding. There are posters of her face that ban her from entering anything especially races. The other racers actually corner her and destroy her car that she made. All because she is accused of being a glitch. (To which she replies she just has pixlexia, there for just a worthy to race.)

It was just this absolutely unreal experience to finally see someone like me on the screen.

Replace the game with a school, and the races with state curriculum and I'd like to introduce myself, "Hi I'm Vanellope von Schweets, good ta meet ya."

There is probably a post out there somewhere about the dyslexic joke being offensive but I related to Vanellope so much that I don't think it was a joke. I think she truly is pixlexic. She can feel it in her code that she was meant to be a racer, because she glitches however she is banned from the tracks and exiled to an unfinished bonus level to live alone. Once given the chance she excels and actually uses her glitch to give her an edge over the other racers.

I always had a thing for stories, even before I could write and it became apparent that I would not meet a few standards of writing. I am an author. Dyslexic and Dysgraphic, I am an author. The school was content to put me in special ed and then not let me take any honers classes even if the teacher, myself and my parents said I could handle it. When I finally got in to honers and then went straight Ap I was belittled in peer review groups because well, "are you smart enough if you can't even spell?" Am I smart enough to hold an officer position? Am I smart at all?

Like Vanellope even when the day is saved, I still glitch. Nothing will change who I am, and nothing will change the wiring I have for written language. But that is why I love her so much is she still glitches even when everything is fixed. Even when she can now race, she glitches. There wasn't some magical cure, because nothing was wrong with her, and she's once of the best racers because of it. My parents and the rest of my siblings didn't understand and might not ever fully understand why I was so happy about it, but there was a dyslexic hero. One who stayed dyslexic and became proud of it; used it to make her the best racer in the game. One who proved that there's nothing wrong with a little glitching.

She's a pixlexic racer, I'm a dyslexic author. In a way she's done what I hoped to do with published books. Let others out there struggling with the harassment and the off hand comments and self doubt know that they are not limited by what is 'coded' for them. They are more than their glitch, and their glitch is not a limit but a whole new way to 'race' that others will never get. It's not always easy, but in the end it's always worth it.