stanwshura

I am a 38 (39 - tic toc!!  ugh!) year old career para-professional, currently (and hopefully for many years to come) working at a very special collaborative serving students with severe special needs. 

I am also an amateur writer and poet, and have content in a variety of online fora.  I am definitely an "artisan" when it comes to my use of words, both written, and increasingly in my everyday speaking as well.  By this, I mean that I care very very much about the precise meaning of words, no doubt at least a peripheral consequence of my literal tendency, as is common among we with Nonverbal Learning Disability.  I am rather proud of the "artisan" part of this, as I find it truly fun and artistic to mine new and nuanced ways to say something, and I frankly throw my gauntlet down in front of the euphamism "words don't do it justice".  Just let *me* take a whack at it! ;)

I teach piano privately and have played since I was 6 or 7.  Well, I played earlier, but didn't study/take lessons until 2nd grade.  Supposedly I played by ear then, and do in fact have that skill today.  I don't practice enough!

I love love LOVE my job, and have a real and driving empathy for these very special kids.  I, too, have some neurological and medical "stuff", including the aforementioned NVLD, as well as hydrocephalus, pretty severe anxiety and OCD. 

I'm still waiting, and in no rush, to grow up.  :)