bruh moment brought to you from a vpn

downloaded a vpn just to access this site and save my stamp collection on here, spacehey blocked access from the us and honestly i dont blame them i hate it here too man

whenever i wanna access this site i now have to turn on a vpn for another country that doesnt have age verification id check surveillance state laws. this is monumental progress for my goofy ass, but i despise all of this new state surveillance stuff under the guise of "but think of the kids!" yeah this government thinks about the kids a little too much. 

backing up my stamp collection onto my neocities site (maybe other places too like my carrd but idk) so that i can still look at them, its been funny having to relearn some css and html for neocities and remembering my roots as an almost woman in stem.

fun lore cuz why not: i was going to pursue web development professionally as like a career, but i ended up choosing not to because the experience of being both audhd/generally neurodivergent and a woman in stem felt like sisyphus with the boulder fighting to be respected daily. i literally had an "oh shit" moment like "oh this is how its gonna be? like forever? man nevermind" and changed course. now im neither a woman or in stem but its fun to reconnect with these roots for the fun of it. 

ive also switched to a more fulfilling path of wanting to be a paraeducator and helping children with special needs in special education. as a former child in special education, ive seen both the best and worst of it, and the worst sent me to trauma-specific therapy at only 14 years old. im still fighting parts of this, as i call it, anti-autism training to this day, at almost 24. internalized and externalized ableism is No Joke. i also didnt have, like, any adults around me who fully understood, let alone openly had autism, so i kinda had to do my own research on what was going on with me, and then figure out how to explain it in a way that can be more well understood for everyone else, and advocate for myself as best as i could. its part of why i got so good at analogies, i think. 

anyway, i wanna be a positive force in special education, and fight against the trauma that comes with it by being a friendly face who either understands already or is willing to understand better, and who can help these small people as they grow in a world that wasnt designed with them in mind. battling ableism alone, or with only 1 main voice like my mom (who schools regularly tried to turn against me by twisting narratives), can feel so incredibly isolating and alienating, especially as a child with a still-developing brain. i wanna tell them (as someone whos been there and done that) that it really does get better, cuz i think thatll mean more than someone whos never had these specific struggles being like "it gets better! :) trust me bro you just gotta get good." maybe i can also help families understand better and give that same hope that it gets better and its not all insta-doomed 5ever the second that diagnosis is given. sorry for the ramble im just passionate. 

just like before, i probably wont access this site often, but instead of just forgetting, now itll be that and having to boot up a vpn and connect from another country just to yap a bit and then disappear. before it was just yapping a bit and then disappearing but now its with extra steps.