Season 6 What's The Dream? Blog 2: Essential Question: What's the dream?

 Essential Question: What's The Dream?

I went to a high school that allowed students to go on internships so that they could have experience in the real world. The senior internship was called Walkabout, and it was essentially a full-time job that started after Christmas break. Before going on Walkabout, you had to write a Walkabout proposal based on an essential question. An essential question was just a question that related to both the student and the site, and the goal was to answer the question by the end of Walkabout. For example, mine was: Can I be a teacher for the rest of my life?

Last September, before my "sister" Arden moved to Cincinnati, I called her to catch up. She was in the car with my other "sister," August, when she answered. Now, at this time, I was still staying with my parents to avoid my drama with Shane. I was frustrated because I had spent so much time trying to move out! "You're working on bettering yourself," Arden said after I explained the situation, "but that's only part of it. You need to imagine what you want your life to look like and take steps to get there!"

As I depicted in my last installment Shane and I have fixed our drama. Still, Arden's advice holds up. I want to figure out what my "dream life" looks like and take steps toward building it, which I've already started to do.

As I depicted in the Christmas special "Night Before Christmas (Greattastic Edition)," there was a big snowstorm last Christmas. My Dad's car that I was driving, a 2005 Scion, lovingly referred to as the toaster, has had transmission problems since I've been driving it, and the snowstorm finished her off. On my first day driving back to work after Christmas break, I couldn't get past 45 on the highway! After doing some research, we found a 2015 Honda Fit. After going to check it out, we decided it would be a good fit (pun intended), and I bought it with money that I had saved up from Kroger!

You may recall that last year I spoke at Ocalicon-line with my public speaking mentor, Dr. Brooks, and Noah's soccer coach, Katie. While I have done some public speaking before, this was my first major step into that world. I want to continue on this path and become a professional public speaker.

Last year around my birthday, my "sisters" convinced me to start doing something we call "The Mitchell Project." It was just a year-long plan to better my mental and physical health. I spent last season working on the mental health half; I will focus on the physical health part now! There are a few more things that I would like to accomplish throughout this year, but this is an excellent start to getting closer to the life I want!

Have a Greattastic Day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri 

Season 6 What's The Dream? Blog 1: Dancing With Our Stars

 Dancing With Our Stars

Boy, it's good to be back! As a minor update, before I get into this installment, it looks like I will hit the goal of publishing my second book "Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam," on the week of March 15th, but if anything else comes up, I will let you know.

As I mentioned a lot last season, I was staying at my parent's house because my roommate Shane and I were having a ton of problems! Because it was getting ridiculous, and we had tried (and failed) to make it work without one, a week before Christmas, I went full Sheldon Cooper and created a roommate agreement! After we both had signed, but before we went our separate ways to spend the holiday with our families, Shane said, "Wait, I have something for you."

He went to his room and returned with a postcard advertising an event called "Dancing With Our Stars Gala," benefiting the Down Syndrome Association of Central Ohio (dsaco). Shane then told me that he and his fiancé Jessica (who both have down syndrome) would be dancing at the event.

I'm not going to lie; I was a little conflicted. See, what I haven't told you is that Jessica had gotten pulled into Shane and my roommate drama. While Shane and I could make it work, I thought Jessica didn't like me and was under no obligation to have a good relationship with me, so I wanted to avoid her. However, as a disabilities advocate and Shane's roommate, I decided that the right thing to do was to go!

Last Saturday, February 4th, 2023, I woke up, went downstairs, ate and cleaned, and then went back upstairs to shower and get ready for the day. When I reached the top step, I overheard half a phone conversation Shane was having with Jessica in his room. ".... He's my roommate, and all that's behind us… (Brief pause)... Come on! Can't we all just get along… (Brief pause)... He doesn't hate you…." I continued to the bathroom as I didn't want to eavesdrop anymore. After getting ready, I left for the day and texted Shane that I would see him that night at the Gala.

At 6:00 PM, I arrived at the Hilton at Easton mall and entered the hotel. After seeing Shane and a slightly reluctant Jessica, I went to the ballroom and found my seat. Around 7:00, the emcee, a news anchor by the name of Kurt Ludlow, started the event. After talking about dsaco, all the dancers got on the dance floor and performed!

The event ended with a full-on dance party. A few minutes after everyone started dancing, I walked to the dance floor, and Jessica invited me over! For the entire night, I danced with Shane and Jessica (other than when a slow song played). Since we had broken the ice, I decided to talk to her.

"Hey Jessica," I said to her at the end of the night, "I'm really sorry about how crazy things got. If you're willing, I would love to be friends!"

"I'd like that!" she replied.

As you may recall, my goal for season 4 was to move out, and I achieved that going into season 5. The issue was I romanticized moving out so much that I didn't completely understand what that entailed. I wasn't ready for the potential drama that could come from having a roommate, and I was blindsided by it. But we're all adults, and I'm so proud of us for finally burying the hatchet!

Have a Greattastic day and be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Before I go, I want to congratulate my brothers, Luke and Josh, and their bandmates On their new EP, Winter! You can listen to Box Seats wherever you find your music!

New Year's Special: One Life To Write One, Two Years To Repeat

New Year's Special: One Life To Write One, Two Years To Repeat

As I explained in my installment "How This All Started," my original plan for my book "The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child" was to write about my time getting ready to go to college, and some of my college experiences, as someone with autism, but I would write the chapters shortly after the event depicted happened. The problem was that I didn't know what to write about because I didn't know what was necessary for the climax because the climax hadn't happened yet! So the solution was to start a blog (and eventually a podcast) to replace the college/adult timeline and write THREE books about my childhood experiences!

I did run into one more problem. I knew I didn't want to just write about my autism journey; I also wanted to talk about my grief journey. I realized when I was working on the master outline including my grief journey in the same binding, would cause a constant struggle between both stories. So I decided to write a spin-off book that follows my grief journey with S.M. (and a few others, including Elizabeth, who died ten years ago tonight) and how I accepted it all! The two best parts, all of the proceeds go to Sam's Fans, and I planned not to tell S.M.'s family until Thread of Hope in October 2022. For context, I've been writing this book since 2018!

I ended up telling S.M.'s mom, Nikki, in September 2022 instead since I'd kept this secret for four years, and quite honestly, I couldn't do it anymore. So it is with great joy that I announce that my new book, Once In a Lifetime: A Song For Sam, will be coming out this March for her birthday!

Now the person who edits my books, Amy, is actually a family friend I know through my "sisters." The system we developed for editing my books is I send her the rough draft; she leaves comments/suggestions on the Google Doc, and I go through and accept them. Then we do that whole process a second time. Her daughter got married the weekend after Thanksgiving, so Amy couldn't go through Once In a Lifetime the second time until the weekend of December 10th.

When I published my first book, I also learned that self-publishing is stressful, and I don't handle that kind of stress well! With that plus Amy not being able to read the book earlier, but me still wanting to hit the deadline of S.M.'s birthday week…I am about to become a very horrible human! To alleviate some of the stress, until the book is formatted, I will not be posting anything to Rules for a Greattastic Life. I'm hoping to start season 6 in Mid-February which I think is realistic. If something changes, I will let you know.

Mat Kearney is S.M.'s favorite artist. I'm telling you, this man wrote the soundtrack to her life. I don't mean she listened to him all the time (though she did that); most of his songs have lyrics that seemed to be catered to her story. For example, one of the lyrics in his song "In the Middle" is, "Twenty-five here I am with freshman LPs one life to write one, two years to repeat."

That makes me happy because that line is the best way to describe this situation. I'm 25, it took my whole life to write Miracle Child, and now two years later, I'm publishing Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam!

I hope you have a Greattastic 2023!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Before I go, I want to congratulate my friend Jane, who got married earlier today (New Year's Eve)! I can't wait to see what's in store for you next!

Christmas Special: Night Before Christmas (Greattastic Edition)

 Christmas Special: Night Before Christmas (Greattastic Edition)

Twas two days before Christmas when all through my town, the temperature dropped, and snow floated down. Ryan had come home from Chicago, you see, to spend the holiday with my family and me! We played tons of games, and good times were had, but none were outside cuz the weather was bad.

On the day before Christmas, we mapped out our day to try to keep stresses far, far away! We cleaned up a bit cuz "Santa was coming" and headed to church at 5:30 something. We sang Christmas carols all throughout Mass, and everyone there was dressed with some class. We couldn't stop singing as Dad drove us home; we're a very musical family, don't you know?

He parked the car, and we dashed through the snow, for my brothers, and I knew exactly where to go! With me on piano and Josh on his drum, Ryan and Luke grabbed their guitars and started to strum. We played "White Christmas," and I'll tell you this, with a bit of practice, man, it was bliss!

When dinner was ready, we went and said grace, and when we had finished, we filled up our plates. We ate and told stories, and like Christmases past, we hoped that this holiday season would last.

I'm telling you this for one simple reason; in fact, it's at the heart of this holiday season. Love those around you and enjoy their company, cuz to be happy, that's really all you need! For if we choose to love and to be kind, we will all indeed lead Greattastic Lives! Before I go, I just need to say Rules for a Greattastic Life will Return on New Year's Eve day!

Season 5 Blog 30 (Finale) True Confidence

 True Confidence

Back in mid-October, I got a text from my ex-girlfriend Gabby, in which she asked me if I wanted to meet up. I told her I would think about it, but quite honestly I forgot. On Thanksgiving night, after dinner, Gabby texted me again to check back in.

As you might know, I broke up with Gabby on my family vacation last summer. I'm not going to go into detail about the circumstances of our breakup, but basically, neither of us were emotionally ready for a relationship, and it had to happen over vacation because the situation was not good for either of our mental healths. When I first mentioned our break up, it was at the very end of the installment I made about that family vacation. Narratively speaking, the breakup came out of nowhere, because I wasn't going to write an installment every time I questioned the relationship. Thinking back on it now, in a way that was art imitating life. While there were a few fights leading up to it, I was trying to put the breakup off, so when I admitted to myself that it had to happen and did it, I think it blindsided her. All this to say, I felt like I owed her a meet-up.

Last Saturday, December 3, we decided to get coffee at Crimson Cup, but she said that there was a location closer to the middle of both of us. She gave me the address and when I pulled up, I was slightly freaked out because it was effectively a warehouse. We got out of our cars and we tried to get in, but the doors were locked.

“Excuse me,” a man said, “who are you looking for?”

“Just trying to get coffee!” I replied.

“Oh sorry!” he said, “This is the Innovation Lab… It's not a coffee shop.”

For a little more context, I found out later that Crimson Cup is really interested in helping people start up their own coffee shops, so they have this lab to teach people how to make professional coffee and make a business plan. “Ah,” Gabby said as the man walked away, “Silver Oak College is a couple minutes away, do you just want to walk around there?”

My first girlfriend Caroline and I had a very on-again-off-again relationship. And while she is the only ex I have ever officially gotten back together with, I would be lying if I told you that I hadn’t thought about getting back together with some of the others shortly after the break ups. I bring this up because as Gabby and I were walking around the campus, nothing happened because I think I’m finally confident with myself when I’m on my own!

Season 5 Thanksgiving Special: Lost In Tradition

 Season 5 Thanksgiving Special: Lost In Tradition

OCALICONLINE accidentally worked out perfectly for me schedule-wise because the conference happened a week before Thanksgiving, and I only had to work Monday and Tuesday the week of the holiday. This meant that when I drove up to New Story the day before the conference, I only had three school days before break.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, at 7:30 p.m., I picked Noah up at his house and we went to dinner at Applebee's (or “A-pplib-ees” as Noah calls it). While we were there, they started playing Christmas music. Usually, I'm very anti-Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but last year my phone stopped working shortly before Christmas, and I didn't get to listen to my Christmas playlist as much as I'd wanted, so I was here for the early music.

After I dropped Noah off at home, I went to my parents' house, but before I went inside I realized that everyone was at my childhood neighbor’s house. I ran in and saw, Megan and Rachel, their parents Stephen and Robin, our friends Tim and Kristin, and Ryan who was back from Chicago. After hanging out for a little bit, my brothers and I drove to the airport and picked up, our grandpa, Pop-pop, and our aunt and uncle, Eva and Zach.

The next day, we went out to lunch at a place downtown called The North Market, and that night I showed Pop-pop, Eva, Zach, and Dad the recording of my OCALICONLINE session (which I only have access to for a short amount of time). On Thanksgiving Day at 1:30, people started showing up. First Mom’s parents/step-parents (Nimba, Papa, Grandpa, and Nana) got here. Then my cousins’ family, the Mitreys (Aunt Melissa, Uncle Andy, Alex/his girlfriend Emma, Maci, Nicholas, and Ellie) arrived, followed very closely by, Aunt Cyndi, her fiance, Jeremy and her kids Kaitlyn and Cameron, and eventually my cousin Austin.

After my family dinner, I went over to my “sister’s” parents' house to see, August, Arden, Kid, Marshall, Barbara, Rich, and a Priest friend that they had over. To my surprise, they were also homing a puppy named Jr. who was in training to be a seeing-eye dog over the holiday. After I hung out with them for about an hour, I returned to my parents’ house and we started playing a game called Catch Phrase (if you don't know what that is look it up and buy it it's amazing!)

Finally, on Friday night, Megan, Rachel, Stephen, and Robin, came over to make cookies, and visit with Pop-pop, Eva, Zach, and Austin, and my parents' best friends from college, Ron and Anita came too!

I'm not gonna lie, I struggled to write this installment… but I think I know why. I think the most Thanksgiving-y Thanksgiving I've experienced since I was a little kid, was Thanksgiving 2020 because Austin came and made my family actually laugh for the first time since the pandemic hit. What I’m saying is usually I'm very good at living in the moment, but on Thanksgiving and other Holidays, I tend to get lost in family traditions… I don't want to speak for everyone, but until someone fights me on it I'm going to say that most people would agree with me. So I'm making a resolution, for Christmas, and all future holidays to make an extra effort to live in the moment!

Hope you all had a Grattastic Thanksgiving!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 29: OCALICONLINE- Only One Place I Can Go

 OCALICONLINE- Only One Place I Can Go

Last Monday, November 14th, after school I walked around the building, saying goodbye to my coworkers and telling them I would not see them till next Monday (two days after the posting of this installment). One of my co-workers Savannah, who you, the audience, all know as the bride in “A Wedding In Wooster,” was helping out in the after-school program, and she asked, “Wait, why aren't you going to be here for the rest of the week?”

OCALICONLINE was happening from Tuesday to Friday. As a brief refresher, OCALICON is an annual conference with speakers to promote awareness about students with autism and low-incidence disabilities, and this year it's online. My public speaking mentor, and family friend Dr. Brooks, along with Noah's soccer coach Katie and I, were doing a presentation called “Using Contact-Based Interventions to Create Inclusive Learning Spaces.” I didn't blame Savannah for forgetting because the presentation for OCALICONLINE had to be pre-recorded. So at the end of September, I had to take a half-day to record it, and on top of that in October I took another half day to do a separate public speaking event in Dr. Brooks’ class.

While I was excited, since I've been working to get to OCALICON since the summer of 2019, I was slightly disappointed that it was an online event. “Like yeah,” I said to Savannah, “this is going to look great on my resume, and I'm still going to be able to network, but if it was in person I would have gotten to stay in this Swanky Hotel downtown and…you know me, I'm way too social for virtual!”

Savannah laughed and said, “Mitch, you're already off, don't just stay at home…go to a coffee shop and attend. Treat yourself!”

“Savannah, You're a genius!” I exclaimed.

On Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. I went to Crimson Cup Coffee, got a frozen hot chocolate, and waited 15 minutes until the conference kicked off. The conference started with the three keynote speakers, Haben Girma (the first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law), Judy Heumann (who has been a disability advocate her entire life after contracting polio and becoming wheelchair-bound at age two), and Temple Grandin (an American scientist who has Autism and is most famous for her work on animal behavior and for the humane treatment of animals going to slaughter). As I watched I thought to myself, someday I'm going to be a keynote speaker!

I spent Tuesday through Thursday, going to presentations, getting people's emails for later networking, and learning a lot about advocacy and what other people are doing. Then on Friday morning, at 8:45 our session started. It began with Dr. Brooks explaining the class she teaches at OSU to incoming gen ed teachers on what inclusion is. She gave some stats about how many special needs kids are in the gen ed system, and how she knows me. I then took over and gave a condensed version, of the presentation I give in her class, which is basically a bunch of stories about my experiences in school. And finally, Katie took over and talked about her and Dr. Brooks’ findings about the impact of my presentation.

Basically, each time before I would speak in Dr. Brooks’ class, the students would fill out a survey, and they would fill out the same one afterward. I'm not even going to try to touch on the statistics, mostly because I’m the least academic out of the three of us, and I couldn't do it justice in that format, but in extremely dumbed-down terms, having someone on the spectrum explain their story, put a face to Autism and positively impacted these incoming teacher’s understanding of why inclusion is critical to their role as teachers. The recording ended with Dr. Brooks saying, “Hope everyone has a great day…or a Greattastic day as Mitch would say!”

“You beat me to the punch.” Recording me chimed in. As the session ended, I smiled because I knew that there's only one place I can go from here- Up.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri