hello I think I am live now I'm not too sure I haven't done a live stream in a long time it's been a great day it's been absolutely fab day lots of great speakers today I'm very tired though at the moment I just want to give everybody a little bit of time as I know it's I tried to give it a little bit of space after the webinar finished because it is a very long day and I completely understand everyone's got their own thing to do and etc so yeah can you all hear me let me just check let me check my microphones you can good very good stuff yes so I don't know where to start so we should we go over the events of the day actually I'll let me get up the program yeah I just want to preface this by by saying like what a fab job Connor did on organizing all of these I know it from personal experience in my job it can be quite difficult when it comes to like technical difficulties and such but yeah he did a fab job of it and you know it would be it's lovely to sort of hear that that panel that they did as well with with Andy and I think Alex if I'm right yeah Alex and Indigo I believe that was great it was really really lovely to hear all of the speakers to be honest I think presentations that probably made the biggest impact on me where the life I think Russell's was obviously quite a really great it's a really great speech it's very motivational and I can I can see why he does like I can see why he does do a lot of sort of motivation stuff over in America very interesting to talk to his surprisingly quite surprising quite similar to me in his sort of life and personality and stuff I'll have to get him on the podcast at some point good I'm glad that you can hear me I hope you've got your Friday night gin with you I don't have a gin sadly I do not have a gin at the moment although my mom does some does have some so I could probably nab some of that but got the older sneak yeah I'm not sponsored by the way it's just I just like it I'm a bit of a caffeine thing so it's it's it's it's quite interesting actually because sneakers I've been I've been looking for like a tablet form available alpheanine for a while now and what what alpheanine is it's kind of like a it's kind of like it's something that exists in green tea which is why they say that green tea is like a bit more of a smoother caffeine source but it basically like it reduces the caffeine jitters and the anxiety and puts more emphasis on the focus so I find that really useful for anybody else who's addicted to it he drinks or caffeinated beverages going down the tree very good I I am a bit partial to a bit of alcohol after a long day I did I did take a couple of days off work recently at my advocacy workplace as I've mentioned I don't want to mention it because I don't know what what the rules are around it yet but I've been working there for about three months now actually and it's a really great place and I had to take a couple of days off today yesterday and today just just you know I used to sort of go through like stages of just working really really hard and hyper-focusing and just doing all of that stuff and getting you know getting really into my work and hyper-focus but then I sort of crash and then I have mental health dips so I've been really good this time and I've actually caught myself and took a couple of days just to chill and you know obviously listen to the livestream and such so it's been really good yeah but must you know what I have a bit of a controversial view on masking because I guess it's um it's at some level it's sort of like a language that autistic people use to to communicate with non-autistic people in a sense that's not that's not disregarding all of the issues that can that as CNN has talked about it's very much the case that you know as as when you younger and you mask and you put an overemphasis on copying and sort of putting up that mask rather than integrating it you know so people that I know very much like very well I tend to be a bit more a bit less masky than when I when I sort of do things like this and talk to my friends etc so no no talk to my friends talk to people I don't really know but it's yeah it's it's a really good skill skill to learn in some respects it does take a bit of what bit of a bit of time to you know take on board those perhaps social learning things like that sort of learning about the social world and then integrating it into who you are sort of finding the balance between that it's quite it's very it's very difficult and it's always very personalized to each person so it's but yeah I I'm not very black and white on masking there are some bad things but you know I don't think that I'd be able to produce content for people who are autistic if I didn't didn't somewhat mask in a sense I mean the whole concept to start doing videos and doing live streams and stuff it's you kind of people people find it more akin to kind of like the YouTube voice and my partner and the people around me pick up on that as well and I you don't very differently when you when you doing stuff like this five straight way too far from the topic this live stream basically is an opportunity to sort of chat about anything to do with the show or anything any questions that you wanted to ask I'm not the best at keeping to a tight time schedule and so you know I did speak to Connor beforehand and say you know maybe maybe I might go over is it okay if I do a live stream after an answering questions so if you do have any questions please fire away I can talk a little bit about the presentation I did and sort of the the background to that any sort of any sort of work very happy to talk about that but yeah it's like it's telling me check video resolution does it look weird I hope it doesn't let me know if it looks weird but yeah I'll just I'll talk a little bit about the presentation but I did and my biggest source of inspiration is my biggest motive in sort of doing online work and speaking etc is to really highlight those statistics that very very much are available and people know about them but people don't talk about them so it's it's quite mind-boggling boggling to me we're in sort of a time in our lives where we have a lot of a lot of emphasis on sort of inclusivity and diversity and you know making sure that we treat everybody equally and then we have this this pop this fairly considerable amount of a population I think over 700,000 people in the UK which is nearly million who are severely under supported and experience a lot of mental health issues which is it's just crazy to me honestly that that stuff still goes on and it's heart-wrenching and not just because I hear about it from the community but also you know it reflects very strongly my own personal experiences with bullying and anxiety and depression self-harming and suicide ality as well which is you know it's those experiences that I had in secondary school really did have a marked impact on my functioning in later life and I've had to do a lot of work very extensive work to try and bring myself back up to the person I was before all these experiences and I guess in a sense that does mean that you know my put my personality changed because of the environment that I was in I went from being a very very young happy always wanting to talk to people always wanting to do stuff maybe struggling a little bit now and again but always you know keep on going and having good friends and good relationships and that all took a little bit of a roadblock when it came to the old secondary school and you know it's those those conditions that I picked up then that's followed me for a lot of my life and it's it's awful and the more that I do this advocacy work the more that I hear about more and more and more experiences so it's further just driving it into my head and making things very apparent for me but yeah I think it's but it was really hard to narrow thing narrow down sort of four major categories I think if I could add another category about the slide being too big would would definitely sort of err on the side of what Russell was talking about I think we have we tend to have a lot of emphasis on self-acceptance and you know sometimes that that's so it's sort of in a sense counter to personal development you know one is accepting you as you are one is personal development but I think it's it's a lot more the sense that you're accepting where you are now and you know personal development it's it's a massive tool that everybody should do and it's not fun it's boring it's heartbreaking it's scary it's all of those things and it takes a long long time it takes a long long time and it's it's it's it's very difficult when people don't have the motivation to do that stuff which is why I found Russell's conversation about sort of the philosophy of stoicism and the messages that is he's been putting out very like really useful very useful just gonna highlight again just for anybody who's joined who is new please yep ask ask a question thank you Lara questions are open by the way go for it so how can how best can I reassure somebody I don't know well enough to ask them directly that they needn't feel they have to mask around me and have no no need to pressure them so without sanitizing I understand that I'm terrible at reading you know I think just just I've tried in the past doing speeches and I think the place that I went wrong was the reading I think I may be slightly dyslexic without knowing which is weird because I have quite a strong literary background but your question apologies yeah I think I think in general you don't really need to say say that outright if you don't want to you know sometimes depending on the mood depending on the atmosphere depending on how they're feeling it may may go down well but it may you know be a bit awkward you could I think that the main thing is is just you know as as human beings you know for autistic people as well the energy that you give off is very much matched by the energy that you receive so if you're open if you're understanding if you give them time to process if you make the conversation fairly calm and interesting people generally tend to be more comfortable about being themselves and that's for everybody I think it's it's mostly for for autistic people as well but yeah maybe another way of asking is if they do bring up something to do with autism and ask them about it ask them if they're having a good time or whether they're struggling inside ball of wool ball of intestines just eating out the stomach just yeah just just being an open well I know an open M empathic individual that's probably I'm sure you are yeah I was I've been watching the webinar all the way through you've given some lovely messages so thank you very much Laura I hope I said your name right who's worried about that Laura Croft amazing character yes any more questions if not I will continue to monologue because very much love to do I have a really big issue at the moment and the one that's something in the outside world birds have decided to nest in my roof and the bad thing about that is is that they are directly over my window so it's not a very fun time at work because obviously it's so swelteringly hot at the moment and I have to keep my window open to keep myself cool but I get this constant Twitter and lots of crows crows are the worst for the odd sensory experience but yeah I think for anybody who did watch Sienna's talk I have actually done a podcast with her I've also done a podcast with Indy Andy who is one of the people on the what do you say guest speaker panel that they did that little thing in the middle of the day yeah that I would encourage you to go listen to them because they talk about things that they're very passionate about Sienna's a really great really great guest and she's very smart she's very well-versed she's very I guess outwardly confident I don't I couldn't give you a full personality very down but she's she's great and her books great I've actually got her book right here if I can avoid my microphone there we go and she does sign them all of them myself love the girl great it's also available on a audiobook which I tend to listen rather than read I think another book recommendation that I would do is to Maudi Benhamu is another person who came on to the podcast and it's called autism fluffle and rock and roll but it's a really it's a really interesting book because he is a scientist in Israel of all places and he gave a lot of insight into the into how Israelis treat autistic people and to my very narrow-minded surprise apparently very well they do treat it like a superpower the army apparently the Israeli army they employ autistic people in there in the what would you call it intelligence divisions in the army it's crazy but yeah it's a really great books he sort of breaks down each of the pages into scientific explanations and his personal sort of expert experiential explanations which is really interesting yeah highly highly encourage you to read those very nice I think also at some point I'm going to be doing a podcast on with Steve Silberman who wrote the book neuro tribes that's an amazing book if you want to know about autism history just read that it's great so let it's a little bit on the longer side so if you're not quite into that nonfiction style of writing or books maybe not for you but still very very informative and very interesting to see how sort of the past and the modern days sort of weigh up with each other very interesting what would you like what would you like me to talk about is there anything within the presentations that you would feel needs a bit more explanation I know it was a bit of a while ago maybe like four or five hours ago but sadly I do not know how to add my screen into OBS because I've just entered into the live-stream platform because I just haven't done one in such a long time yeah any suggestions shoot them at me whether it's talking about the channel or the podcast or the documentary time at uni special needs teaching my advocacy role or just just I guess the taekwondo if you would want to I talk about the taekwondo a lot because that's usually my end for the mainstream media sites but sometimes the only thing that I talk about which is the most frustrating bit like I've got this in I can I can go on to mainstream media sites I can I can talk on them and I can share I can sort of edge in my messages around the statistics and hopefully something will come of it but in a lot of cases I don't have a lot of time I'm on the log at least I could time and then I can't talk about it so I just end up talking about taekwondo I can understand why I get it there's a lot of autism is one of those things where it's really really really interesting really varied and you know there's so many subjects and topics underneath autism that is hard not to get interested in it but the the hard bit is is convincing people that it is interesting they just they just say okay right right so you disabled you know you've got autism okay right what do I need to do that kind of approach whereas the best one is the best way to do that is right oh I saw this this person speaking on this media site I saw this film I saw this series can I speak can I can I try and understand where that person's coming from so that's that's why I think I put an emphasis a lot on sort of reach and sort of media related work because it is quite important apologies I just I just watched the playback on my live stream and it looks a bit dodged but I'm just itching my leg don't worry come on hit me people hit me with some questions hit me with some topics what would you like me to talk about I want to know it's going through the autism show webinar page see what's going on tomorrow yeah we've got Andy andy Andy and we've got Dan Jones as well from the Aspie world very interesting don't wait actually ask bling if you're if you're on Instagram and you like the whole Instagram community one of the absolute best lovely amazing people in the autism community is a Vicky from actually ask bling she is so she is just so lovely and genuine and she promotes the hell out of all of the autism advocates she's so she's so lovely and you know she's she's being great and I'm not the best with social media but Vicky is you know she still tries to my stuff even though I'm so shabby at doing it myself and for her she still does that she's another great person to to follow and listen to yeah let's look at I'm gonna go over my slide and try and find some talking points of course if you have any suggestions then go for it but I shall get my presentation on my screen oh no where's it gone there is I don't know if my computer is going to handle this so apparently from the stream I can see that there are seven people reviewing live and 35 playbacks which means that people are far behind which would which would you know I guess sort of explain why nobody's asking about the questions asking me questions or anything that would that would explain it yes so I guess let's talk like the employment statistic that included 22% of autistic people being employed what is going on about this absolutely crazy I think the statistics did show that for a while but I think they did an even newer study with more people and the employment rates are absurd they're terrible I don't even understand this is this is including part-time employment so this is not just full-time employment this is employment in general terrible oh we do have some questions here hi Julian how are you doing Julian is an amazing dude I think you are one of my patrons or may have been let me check either or you know either or thank you very much Julian for supporting my work what helps me accept my diagnosis it's a difficult one because it's very multifaceted you know I think the first step to accepting my diagnosis was researching and understanding what it was I was diagnosed at the age of 10 so one could say that I accepted it pretty pretty early on I accepted it for what it was mostly around the difficulties I had I didn't quite understand where that put me in the world and what it meant for me but you know it sort of did help me get provisions and etc I think that the most important thing was was to realize that the reason why maybe I wasn't getting as many friends or maybe why I was struggling with relationships or stroke struggling with anything in terms of like YouTube was not because of my personality or my my knowledge or my experiences it was down to my confidence wherever I felt happy being open and honest and put myself out makes a massive difference once you do that and I mean it's it's it's kind of like it's one of those things where people say just be confident and you'll make it and I don't think people emphasize enough what that actually means you can't fake confidence it's it's it's a part of you especially if you depressed you know confidence is is usually I would say that the sort of serotonin is quite important in depression usually and tends to drop quite a bit and it's quite linked in with social dynamics so if you don't have a lot of serotonin you're not gonna really feel that you are important on the sort of social arena social hierarchy and I think that you know just doing the general well-being things doing you know as Russell said the trying meditation if you want to doesn't necessarily have to be I find the best meditation for me is just putting my headphones listening to heavy metal and going to the gym that's that usually does it for me gives me a little bit of space to think about things and to process the day I think the way to build that confidence would be to really take a look at what interests you have and look at look at look in the places that you are where you think you could get to but you there's too much anxiety around getting to that place the important thing to know is that confidence is something that bleeds into every part of your life so for me learning martial arts and getting fitter going to the gym that gave me a lot of body confidence it gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to take care of myself it also gave you know these sort of the achievements and it sort of helped as an external factor to sort of validate my existence in a sense so I think any anything that you're passionate about go for it as hard as you can be easy on yourself but doing those things and pushing yourself manually one step at a time as Russell has also said it's it's a very important thing to do and confidence we'll talk about it we all want it we'll say it's the best but how'd you get it it's a bit of a difficult one how do you feel thank you very much Lara for waiting how do you feel about the person first and identity first descriptions of autism it is very divisive you are right and as as I've said on the webinar I am not adverse to talking about controversial issues I can I can see both sides to this personally I I go with identity first autistic person I think that the I think of the idea behind person first language is that you know you are you and then you are autistic but usually that comes across of you have autism which I think is ridiculous because it's just it's literally your brain what are we we are our brains so if you have an autistic brain you know it's I had a conversation with Sarah Hope who's a GB Paralympic wheelchair basketball player and we were talking about sort of the differences between person first and identity first language around sort of physical disabilities and around autism which is a really interesting talk actually I guess that her sort of idea around it was that would she be the same person if she wasn't physically disabled she says probably yes in many cases would she be the same same if she was an autistic definitely not and so it's it's it's a part of you it is you you are an autistic person so that's my opinion but I do know that I do know a lot of people who want to get into the arena of advocacy and they have a really hard time with it because they just they say the wrong things they use person first language they don't like it at all no they use person first language they think it's okay they think that's how everybody does it and then they get and they do things online they say things safe person first they say with with autism and they get bashed for it like really really hard and it puts them off and they feel isolated a good example of that would be the autism cafe and I know she does a lot of work around sort of ABA related things which is yeah it's a difficult one I spoke to her on my podcast and I get where she's coming from do I think that the way that she talks about her kids is right I wouldn't but you know what we're all different and as long as she's doing the best for her kids then I am you know it's it's it's all good with me as long as the kids are flourishing and then that they're not suffering from the things that she's she's doing that's that's all good it's another one of those controversial issues and you know person first language usually comes with the medical model of disability usually comes with people who don't know about autism I don't know the sort of the social progression arena that we have yeah yeah exactly and if someone says I am not an autistic person I'm a person with autism I think you should just go with that autistic people get dictated by to and how to view their autism and on all of that jazz so much already we don't want to be another person to do that and say no you're wrong this is how this is how it is because a lot of people have really negative experiences due to that sort of interaction of being autistic with the environment as a disgusting in the presentation so yeah it's I hope that answered your question great questions by the way thank you Julian thank you Laura for for contributing and asking me a question it's always very appreciated especially doing these long long long live streams I forgot to say as well in the comments I will be ending the live stream either you know at the one hour mark or I will be just just going until people drop off most likely the hour because as I said I have I have sort of taken a couple of days off to recuperate the old mental health yeah I just thought it'd be nice to have a little bit of a live stream so I feel very much with these events especially for long things that I sort of get into a zone of being in this event and it's very hard for me to sort of transition off and deal with other things hence why I made the live stream so I feel like it'll be good opportunity to kind of close this part of my day and also you know as I said giving opportunity to answer questions which I did not do labels and pigeon holes never easy got to go now have an easy evening thank you very much Laura I hope you enjoyed your gin but yes thank thank you very much for coming on to the life it's always appreciated have a good day day night okay so let's be on presentation as well let's talk about depression depression very positive subject to talk about but very very interesting and very very important to talk about I have done a lot of research personal research during my degree into sort of the biological reasons for depression occurring and one of the cons of staple pathways of development of depression is the HPA axis I'm not going to go it's basically two regions in the brain basically and your adrenal glands and how they interact with each other and it's proposed that the anxiety disorders which are obviously very prevalent in autistic people and also very prevalent in autistic people at secondary school especially that that sort of has has physical brain effects on the person exposed to it for a long period of time I would also say that this is not this is not part of a study but I would also say that you know any source of chronic pain that someone experiences can lead to depression because it's it's chronic meaning long-term for a long period of time possibly not too painful but considerable for a large period of time over the course of many many years we know that the depression is it's it's very akin to a state of mind where you you feel hopeless you know not you doesn't feel like anything will change doesn't feel you ever get out doesn't think you ever feel better and and so chronic pain long stints of chronic pain can often make people get people into that loop of being depressed and feeling hopeless and so there's a lot of avenues to that that sort of depression and I think that's one of the reasons why we see it so often in autistic people and also you know on the on the front of support mental health support and understanding from our peers in workplaces and schools I guess there is there is a lot of emphasis just had a brain wipe what was the thing about schools yes there is a lot that a lot of emphasis I've lost my train of thought someone helped me retrieve it happens now and again what was it talking about I was so frustrating hate it when that happens maybe if I look at a keynote it'll help me jog my memory yes you know I think I was always talking about depression probably let's move on to something else because my brain is not having it okay I guess another one would be very important to highlight would be suicide if you don't want me to talk about that please mute I will give a thumbs up when I'm finished talking about it so I know that it's not always the most the greatest thing to hear especially if you are feeling depressed or but yeah I think one of the biggest statistics that I was most surprised by was the childhood suicidal thoughts crazy crazy stuff children feeling suicidal thoughts I've seen it in school this is one boy that I was working with one-to-one I had a lot of difficulties getting him into school and getting into I guess guess work work and work and socialize and etc. and he did have quite a lot of those characteristic low mutes and difficulties and I said also during the presentation about my mom working on a case case foul of an adolescent teenager as you was 15 who has a lot of difficulties with sort of delinquency and his his way of managing that tough environment of school secondary school was to rise to the top of the food chain you know do all the bad stuff so that people take him seriously but obviously it didn't help and he had to be taken away to a specialist sort of provision due to this behavior and yes it's difficult it's really hard to compare and especially since I've been in a similar place it's a great it's a tragedy every every time that kind of stuff happens it's absolutely heart breaking and that's why we need to do you know that's why we need to do these types of things and get people why are these stats because if we just leave it the way that they are then it's just gonna continue like usual no one's gonna talk about it it's not gonna become a big issue in the media we're not gonna get the push for it so it's not gonna change people who's gonna sweep it under the rug that's why my my subtitle was ignorance is bliss it really is it really is bliss it's bliss because it's it's hard to I guess recognize that this is happening and it affects a large portion of people the suicide rates for adults on the road are about seven or eight times higher than the general population which is crazy absolutely ridiculous should not be like that especially considering that I mean not just because of the talents and expertise and knowledge and intelligence and skills and value in in relationships and friendships but just because they're human beings who are suffering and people don't people aren't paying into any attention to them and they're suffering as a case of that okay let's stop talking about a serious idea I want to bring everyone down too much so everyone join if you have tuned out is it is one of those it's hard to talk about and for me and it's I'm sure it's fairly hard to listen because it is difficult but it's got to be talked about you know it's definitely got to be considered quite quite seriously I think another topic that I talked about was addiction and in the same vein it was about sort of substance mortality which is one of the recent things that I've come across I've done too much research into their substance mortality being it being that people take drugs and then they die but I do know that many many autistic people I now always have not always but they have many vices they love drugs drugs help and cope which is not a good thing but it's it's definitely representative of the state of quality of life for autistic people you know it's it's it's terrible but even just when I say drugs I mean anything like cigarettes or alcohol or any any drug you know it's it's used quite a lot and especially alcohol because many autistic people have quite strong moral values and sort of codes to live by and so alcohol because it's so readily available so socially accepted they will drink it and they will drink it a lot and that's one of the things that I struggled with in my last year at university yeah that alcohol is you know it it helps a lot with the anxiety helps you relax but it's not good for you and it really does carry over and the next day of the more that you do it I think you know they did the addiction and etc are all and even self harming our consequences of the fact that living as an autistic person is really hard and it's really tough and it's very lonely you know that that place is more important so I'm talking about it and developing communities and I guess I'm a bit biased but I do think that in general social media especially platforms like Instagram and YouTube are very pivotal in so bringing people together and helping them not feel so alone obviously it depends on which autistic people that you talk to but because everyone's different some people can be assholes some people can be lovely people just like with everybody else and it does depend oh we've got a new new person commenting I've heard this so many times now people must learn how to see beyond their conditioning yeah you know I agree it's it's especially for like people in the media and stuff they're living such fast-paced lives they want to be they want to be on camera they want to be looked at they want to be seen and they see autism and they see people talking about serious issues and they don't want to because it's not very relatable which is ridiculous because autistic people are people and I would say I would has to guess that if people give gave autistic people a chance autism would be extremely interesting topic I saw I saw the film Predator very recently you know the new remastered one it was really funny by the way it wasn't quite the original Predator the original sort of army man misogynistic film debatable whether that's not be accepted in modern times but the whole premise if you don't want to listen close your ears if you want to watch it give you some time the whole premise of it was that this predator came down to earth and he was he did something bad he took some secret technology stuff and he wanted to give it to the human race but one of the other predator being alien was him who was hunting this this person actually abducted the main characters autistic kid I mean credit to credit to the kid he tried his best to do like a meltdown but it was it was really poor but I really found it was interesting because it really did highlight the fact that autism should be considered to be a difference in the species you know it's something that's existed for a while and hasn't really had the chance to sit and had the chance to have an effect on society but it's still it still is a really interesting development and if we do all sort of these environmental things and we adjust society and we make being autistic as you know have have lives just like anybody else would in terms of happiness or satisfaction in life then maybe we might see autism being more of a more of a advantage maybe if we had natural selection at the moment which we may have if we have a global apocalypse but maybe maybe autistic people would be beneficial I've got another comment from Joshua apologies I did not see that the sad thing is not many employees I've come across either willing or simply cannot accommodate my artistic needs I've been struggling to hold employment you know what Joshua that is a really big issue I did talk about employment a little bit few a while ago but yeah employment is something that I think that needs to be improved quite substantially as I said 22% employment part time full time any of them terrible absolutely awful and we do have a lot of industries who go for that diversity and want autistic people a sort of a commodity but then they don't have the work internally to integrate autistic people I think the main part of call would be managers and learning learning how to support autistic people and just learning how to listen and being aware of the issues that we struggle with and also how how to get the most out of us because we you know what we do offer a wide variety of different skills from the general population so there's a lot of utility in us and sort of getting that across is a very difficult process I would say that the best thing to do if you if you are struggling with employment is to go to companies or go to organizations who do that who express that charities organizations any anything to do with autism perhaps is probably a good avenue for that but also jobs that tend to attract people who are more giving more caring and understanding you can just some levels stereotype the personalities that exist in in those different settings and so yeah I would give that a bit of a thought because each workplace is very different I sadly I didn't have the best experience when I was teaching most most of the people the main parts of call my agency the one I worked with and also the headteachers and the people who commissioned me to come work at the school they they were great they were lovely it was just the people who you know they had the headteacher of the class I was working with they did not have a great time with them I mean it was it wasn't just that the reason why left it was it was also that the teaching environment especially for special needs teaching is extremely taxing and that's one thing that I got a good appreciation of you know I got a good appreciation of how parents and perhaps teachers may may the difficulties they may experience from teaching and looking looking after and supporting autistic people obviously it's a bit more for me it's a bit more amplified because I already have those anxiety disorders and I'm not that great with constant social interaction which is something that you kind of have to do in their settings yeah there's you know it's it's it's a lot about trial and error trying to take something from each role if you if it doesn't go well highlight what went wrong and you know I found for me the for me the best thing is to tell people that I'm autistic I wouldn't advise it for everybody it's it's only because I'm quite confident in being autistic and quite open and usually sort of my masking abilities and my abilities to perform in interviews is quite good as well but that's all things that I've practiced and honed and worked on over a large period of time but if you if you do manage to to do that you do manage to as I said build your confidence up in different areas then yeah the world's world's your oyster and you'll find that things become a lot easier once you feel confident in who you are so I'm very cheesy I feel very inspired by Russell's final presentation want to end up the day ah yes I apologize why I can't do anything about that but hopefully it will be available for everybody I don't know if it will I'd be very sad if it wasn't because you know as we discussed in as that well you won't know I discussed in a presentation that we have a difficulty with mental health support because a lot of the specialist support for autistic people in terms of mental health is private and that means long waiting times that means travel time that means money and those those are all things that we find hard in general executive functioning employment routine you can't build up a routine if you see in someone once every two months and that's I guess the that's the same I'm getting a lot of mind blanks but tell you what I'm going to stay on for never half an hour because I like ending up in it in hours and it's about half five now so if YouTube will allow me I will stay on for a bit longer please YouTube I don't I don't know I'm used to that used to the Instagram live so maybe maybe YouTube lets me go on longer I think it probably does another comment from Joshua thank you very much Joshua I received my adult autism diagnosis revelating life I got my autism diagnosis last year 20th of October congratulations welcome to the team Joshua God like it's crazy I I've heard people talk about late diagnosis it's not something that I've experienced but I guess it is no it's not going off I thought it's gonna go off stress mode engage then for a second yes it's crazy late diagnosis like I can't imagine that I didn't really it was good for me because I was early diagnosed because I got the sort of support in primary school although no not up to the standard that I needed but I saw it had to had to learn it around about the age I was about 19 to now I guess I went for a long period of self-development research self journaling you know working working on myself in social situations dating all of that stuff and I think I think I guess in some senses it's the same it's just with early diagnosis it's you know about it sort of for your life but with late diagnosis you get that but it's still the same either or because you do look back on your past and you can analyze it with your adult brain you can understand where things went wrong whether it's your fault whether it's just the fact of being autistic it allows you to frame things in a lot more realistic lens and understand things a bit deeper so yeah I would definitely you know it's great you tune on to the live string because it does kind of it gives the more research that you do and the more experiences that you hear the clearer that picture becomes the clearer that picture past becomes and you can sort of move on from any sort of traumatic experiences but yeah I can imagine that that workplaces would mean stroke you would have struggled with because of the late late diagnosis it must have been really tough for you yeah so we have gone to the hour mark we've actually gone a bit past it as I said it's down for another half an hour so if you do have any you do have any questions please shoot them at me preferably in a soft way I don't want to be hurt just gently pass your questions over to me in the comments I've I've very much enjoyed today it's been been a bit full-on and you know it's I don't know it's I I'm currently playing well not right now but I've recently picked up an old game I used to play called RuneScape and it's been it's been just so nice just to have a day off listen to people talk absorb all of their experiences and knowledge and do some mindless things on RuneScape that's been great another one from Joshua I've been masking for most of my life and it turns out I'm rather good sit I knew I was slightly different from everybody else and I thought it was just a phase initially however I struggled to make maintain eye contact with people hardly spoke a word to anyone growing up that in mind looking back I feel been vindicated it'll make sense now again thank you very much for sharing your experiences yeah you do I sort of see it in my granddad and my dad you generally see the the consequences of not understanding your diagnosis in people who have gone a significant amount of time and not knowing old-school RuneScape that is true I love that game so good it's like the autistic haven work in work out you do this this way you get that result brilliant it's also quite addicting so I have to dose myself known again but yeah of course like you become proficient and masking but a lot of especially all the people who don't want to accept that they may be autistic even despite they show many many signs many many difficulties and but you see a lot of those the the consequences of masking sometimes if they've been grown up in a very harsh environment like my granddad and my dad's dad you become very sort of vindictive and horrible nature than very I guess strong willed but also rude also mean also not understanding also very single-minded another you build up so those those surface level social skills that's all that's there there's no deeper level to them this is especially strict true for my for my granddad then you know sometimes I see moments of vulnerability and especially when he's having a tough time you sort of see behind the mask now and again which in in some ways it's it's it's good to know that he does but in other ways I just I just wish I could just forward them a GP practice to get an autism diagnosis and just give them it just to let them know it's a yeah less about my granddad rescaping scarring when I go to games of choice scarring is a good one another one that takes up a lot of time you seem to like those games that just take up our entire life at least I do so any of the questions fire them at me you've got me for a shorter while longer yeah did everybody like what did the people who watched like my inclusion of Sal and Tommy I was not too sure about that but I thought it would be a little bit interesting to do that I think also one thing that I came to quite a lot was the secondary school environment which is I think is something that many people have experienced off now given its nature secondary school is is absolutely horrific all sense of the words some people really get by because they have a quirky confident personality and this don't attract people in that sense for me nope it was a magnet for me to crawl back into my shell it was really difficult at that time I was obsessed with making friends I was obsessed with dating I was always thinking about girls at that point and it is just it was just heartbreaking because I could never sort of breach that cognitive difference in a significant way and also I think people really underestimate the amount of paranoia that you feel generally people in general when they reach that sort of second secondary school age their prefrontal cortex the the higher brain function the the bit that makes us analytical and logical becomes bigger but it also helps us perceive ourselves and people become very self-conscious so you see it a lot in teenagers they get really conscious of what people think about them and so with that and autism and not understanding people and being in that environment constantly and being around bullies and not knowing where something social interaction is gonna go well whether people are communicating something that you're not getting or whether you're communicating something that they're not getting so you get a very paranoid and in your head about it all the time at school the only places that I felt good was either in lessons which ironically is my favorite part of school or in specific places like the library or I could just read or I could play mini clip games games on the computer yeah I just I think it's that paranoia is a real big thing and that's one of the things that you really do have to do a lot of work to ever come it's very hard to get yourself out of that mindset of caring so much and worrying so much about how you appear I definitely do do that quite a bit I mean I felt very self-conscious and very I had sort of had a moment at the end of the webinar series I was like am I pushing the livestream too much I have no idea I felt very I felt very much like I was overstepping my boundaries in that and I'm trying my best not to let it get to me that's just an example you just get paranoid about whether you mess read things wrong or so much stuff very difficult very difficult to have come and I still struggle with it to this day so it's very much the case but yeah we got a comment from Julia Max yep secondary school is not a great place no awful it does make you generally quite strongly consider SCN education I think that that sort of cross cross over between SCN education and mainstream is quite interesting because there are benefits to both now one of the things that's highlighted in mainstream education is that you learn to adapt to people you learn what people are about how they work and it gives you a lot more resilience in that sense but then again with SCN education you're in a place that's designed for you or designed as much to you as they can and so it's it's a lot more of an inviting place but yeah it's I mean I guess I had that I had the idea that mainstream is better personally for me middles yeah secondary school I think secondary school is high school pretty sure about 14 to 17 18 kind of age that kind of place yeah that's that's that's the one Joshua I spent most of my time in learning support room I was always a welcome of open arms me too it's a lot better a place than the general school environment awful place hey that place I school was all about survival for me I saw the societal game all my peers were playing and I didn't want to be a part of it octopi octopi academic good good stuff I always beat them tried to view them as baboons as monkeys you know they don't know what they're doing they don't understand how they're affecting me they're just annoying they don't really think logically at all they're just social slaves that's how I framed it and that sort of helped me I guess take things less personally yeah yeah high school I can imagine it's worse in the States I mean I only really have movies to go off and I know that movies can often be quite exemplified amplified what the reality is but I know that that America does tend to have quite a lot of political and social conflicts and a lot of tragic and difficult situations so I imagine that that's fairly reflected in the high school experience especially since the schools maybe it may be a lot bigger that's another thing I come from a town schools aren't massive I did go to the biggest school but you know it's probably not as big as most most schools in the States less less likely to have bad people but but naughty kids naughty horrible bullying kids I would sleep every afternoon trying to be friendly all day it's hard yeah it is it really is it's it's a tax I much prefer to to be my resting state is just not to just to listen and just perhaps contribute now and again depends depends on my mood if I'm in a really good mood like I am today I can talk for England or the US or the world I can talk for everybody but when I'm not in a good place which is probably most of the time I'm not very communicative and it's a lot harder for me to get my words out if that makes sense yeah yeah it's a big old tax I think that's that's kind of crosses over a bit into masking I saw a really interesting thing very very recently it was a professor in animal science see a face I know of her very well some reason the name is escaping me temple grand in there we go they did a scan of temple grandin's brain and compared it to a neurotypicals brain my god there is certain areas in the neurotypical brain that light up in social interaction they sort of do it based on blood flow and they've got different sort of imaging and measuring techniques that they use in those scientific settings I did a lot of research into that but also when it when it compared the neurotypical brain to the autistic brain of temple grandin temple grandin's brain was like on fire you know strong activity shows in red is really taxing for autistic people to socialize because we use so much of our entire brain to do it it's I like to describe it more as a cerebral process it's like a tactical game that you play and it very much was that way for me for so long I think as I've got older it's sort of been ingrained in me as sort of a lent skill that I've practiced over time but yeah it's you know another one from aspies with addictions cool name by the way I'd be interested to know where where that name came from I like all that jazz as well it's a great name I live in a smaller town in the south south of the US they judge a lot they don't care for my weird noises and excitement dances if you want to call it dancing now people don't like stuff it's really crazy because neurotypical people have stems as well but we don't really talk about that the stimming that that we categorize and we see is actually it's it's it's for it's for autistic people because stems for neurotypical people are so normal that they don't need to give it a name it's just very different for autistic people and I think of it that's largely down just from personal experience and looking into into these these things that is our sensory systems that are the the big players in how we stim how we self-serve so I'm really one of the only senses that I'm hypo sensitive in so I don't feel very very much is was to one is blunt pain great for fighting great for taekwondo love that part the one is vestibular so my balance is off I have to look at the floor when I'm walking I have to look at the floor when I'm doing taekwondo or fighting which is in some sense is a good thing people don't know what I'm doing so my my my stim that I did a lot when I was younger was I would just spin around on the spot all the time anytime a day all the time when watching TV when when I'm talking to someone when I'm waiting I used to spin so much and it felt really good sadly I cannot get the speed up I used to be able to do and at this point in my life I am 6 foot 3 so spinning spinning around with all this weight possibly falling over probably not a good idea doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it and I very much like to go to theme parks and go on rides it's just the most pleasant experience it's amazing and it is really really soothing for my anxiety and that sort of vestibular action but yeah I guess if you were very hypersensitive hyposensitive in hearing then maybe you might like to make noises and maybe even if you're not hypersensitive you may find noises and visual stuff very stimulating my visual system is very hypersensitive I don't like bright white lights I hate them but I love flashing circulating moving colorful lights which is great because it means that I can really enjoy the club that when again when I go it's not very often don't worry but I also have loads of lights in my room that I can make the most of and yeah it's very different for it for every person and it's not just clear cutters I don't like light I don't like sound I love movement we're gonna say I like pain but that's a bit weird I don't like sharp pain that's that contributes a lot it makes going to the doctors and getting blood tests and stuff so difficult so very difficult absolutely horrific event I also have a needle phobia so you can imagine how that goes I've got to the point where I can handle going into vaccines it does take me a while to allow people to take my blood it's not necessarily the pain that bothers me it's just the fault of it I'm not gonna talk about it because I know many people don't like it so I will quit that sorry about that all right how long do they have left got seven minutes left for anybody to ask questions got another one with from aspies with addictions thank you name came from me being an ass being having addiction problems which you haven't under control today good control ish is better than not control at all you know well I'm glad you like the phrase all that jazz that's one of my favorite phrases it's better than all that stuff isn't it you say our stuff all that jazz they're all that exciting stuff no I I I have done a video I think before on alcohol addiction if you want to search that up it's a little bit old slip it low quality presentation skills aren't as good as they are now but it's it's still worth a watch if you need some help but instead of going over to me I would if you have heard of them CG kid he's a great person to to listen to he talks a lot about addiction I had a few chats with him in YouTube comments now and again I was gonna get him on the podcast didn't end up happening but yeah he's a really great person to learn from and I'm very interested in sort of the the recreational drug talk not gonna talk about it now because I did say that my little YouTube that I wouldn't be talking about anything plus 18 so we're gonna avoid that but yeah oh you liked the last one I was really worried about it it taught me so long to edit Julian she's great she's lovely but God does she talk she's lovely she's great and she's got a lot of good experiences but she's like it's so hard to it was so hard to get to follow a rubric the rubric of the podcast she's great though I highly recommend anybody listen to that episode she talks about her addiction to crystal methamphetamine and various other drugs it's really interesting that that's another one that you could probably listen to as bees with addictions that was really interesting for me and we instead of following the typical topic outline that I have with most podcasts we decided to focus on her story and it's it's a very interesting story and tragic and an awful but you know she's come such a long way and it's so it's interesting to sort of hear the the autistic experience of these these recreational substances because I can imagine due to the neurochemistry differences then it's it's gonna be a different experience of it as it is with most people it's probably gonna be a bit more different than normal for autistic people I definitely do want to do a lot more content about that stuff be very interested to talk about it no worries Josh I hope you don't mind me calling you Josh I'm always an open book I'm I'm honest to my core sometimes not great especially in relationships but you know the honesty is part of me and I like to hold it as a good thing so I'm gonna continue to do that I mean I don't know I don't know what you know when I started this and when I started trying to become my open looking back I don't know why I was I cared so much about what people thought about me being autistic me struggling with life me struggling with mental health constantly me struggling with executive functioning confidence self-arming eating disorders but I just I don't I don't know it doesn't really matter talking about it it doesn't change people's opinions of me vastly it's just something that happens in people's lives and I'm just happy with talking about it yeah it does most people don't like honesty I found but then most people are wrong they should like it it's it's much better much better to do than hiding yourself it also let leans a lot more towards that sort of confidence I was talking about so so yeah awesome Josh Josh Josh so what are people thinking that are people thinking an hour and a half is good enough because I still have people come in into the chat I don't want to pry view of any viewer channel and it's not often that I'm feeling this up and about and chatty and social we're just just keep flying out of my mouth I don't even understand sometimes like the it's like night and day sometimes I'm just sometimes I just think about it so much and then I don't say anything I'm really quiet and really take a long time to process things and over time times I'm just cha cha cha no worries us bees with addictions yeah no no honestly like please do start up a channel just message me on social media I'll promote the hell out of you it honestly like the worst thing about starting a channel is not the actual act of doing it it's more getting people to see your stuff and know whether it's good or bad so it's you got to think even even with YouTube and social media and doing anything online you are a small part of someone's life for a very small amount of time you know if you don't like a 10 minute video your experiences people don't like it they're not gonna remember so it doesn't matter and even if they do they live a comment they probably forgotten about it the next day they probably don't care and that's one is it's kind of a bad thing in a way and so it makes you feel a bit insignificant but it's also fairly freeing because anything in life if you do something weird in public people are gonna forget about it just like you would with anybody else so it's you know if you feel that it's gonna improve your confidence and it's gonna help you have an outlet for that stuff then go for it yeah Aidan hey it's refreshing to see our generation start to add to the ASD narrative indeed could not agree more my friend yes I ask friends if they want truth or my truth those two are different what do you mean by my truth and truth and my truth I'm interested to know what you what you mean maybe it's my brain not picking up on the meaning behind it but true agreed I gain my confidence by being true and accepting myself good I am glad that that has helped you know autism diagnosis is a small part of that there's a large part but you know this every area in your life is it's part of your experience you know and I think the more comfortable that you are to tell people about it the better I would sort of I mean personally I used to be honest but I used to be very negative as well so I would be honest about negative things and not have a good spin on it at all the main way that I tell people I'm feeling is I'm confident I tell them I'm really struggling my mental health is sky-high today but you know it could be worse I you know I'm in it I'm in a good place in my life right now I just need to try and get through today and have a better chill time maybe have some some time to myself in the weekend process you know it's all about that framing it doesn't matter what what you tell people some people are arseholes of course everybody and don't want to hear it they just want to ask you how you are you say I'm doing really bad they'll be like most people say fine most people don't tell me I don't want to know I'm just doing it as a pleasantry well you shouldn't have asked that's just my opinion on that right yes we are we are going to the end of this do you want me to stay on for another half an hour and talk about something oh do you think an hour and a half is good enough and you don't want to hear anything else from me I'm happy stay on for another half an hour even though that will ignore my our time but I am trying to make the most of my flow my social my talking flow from today and I am generally I'm generally enjoying talking to you also you know we need we need a bit of time to talk and just just discuss things I mean obviously the lockdown and covid and all that stuff it's it's really difficult at the moment so it's nice to sort of have a little chat you know and just talk about things talk about different experiences and emotions and yeah so do you does everyone want me to continue I would like to know and also what are the your experiences of covid and what do you think what would you what what do you think you'd like to ask about so coping during covid so I think that's that's although I try to stay away from it as much possible because it's everywhere I don't think a lot of us talk about it very much in terms of the autistic community I'm saying the autistic community like it's a single entity there's lots of people okay I used to see my quirks differences as hindrance unbeknownst to me as an undiagnosed artist quite like artist it does sound very similar to artist no yeah exactly it's it's a good thing you know why fit in when you're born standout kind of thing he's about to people I doubt who don't embrace their quirks are boring they're like everybody else you know not not that's anything wrong with that but personal preference in the south they say bless your heart which means the opposite of what you think it means so the truth in the south is dodge the question or nice lies I tell the truth truth good tell the truth truth bless your heart is it's a very patronizing concept phrase rather it's very much akin to that the whole issue of autistic infantilization viewing autistic people are lesser or less intelligent or less socially aware than other people I guess could be applied to children but for many autistic adults it's incredibly annoying because you know that they're trying to be nice and they're trying to say oh yeah you so great good that's a great idea and they don't really take you as seriously I think the more that I've sort of got into improving my fashion and like grooming myself and growing a beard and what a serious that people are taking me but yeah I used to have a big issue with that a lot of people sort of thinking that you don't understand the situations when something goes wrong socially so they sort of chalk it down to right you're disabled right okay I forgive you kind of thing which you know I understand the situation this is very as you said yes Joshua condescending and that happens quite a bit I guess I'm hoping that with my my work my autism related work that we can sort of change the public perception of autism I try to challenge that perception in any shape or form whether it be living in Thailand for a year traveling backpacking around Southeast Asia for like two months with a friend taekwondo marshals you know a combat sport whether it be public speaking you know something that maybe you wouldn't think autistic people were good at based on sort of the stereotype oldest you know generally just lots different areas I tried to try to combat that as much as possible which I guess is is why I've been asked to come and speak on media things I really do oppose that that traditional way of thinking about it I hate infantilization of autistic individuals it's just shit ignoring some lies yes it is it's not a good thing sometimes my friends don't like my truth from this or the way I deliver it usually is me the quotes to line on the mood like with order respect order respect I don't know that quote but I imagine it's fairly witty and appropriate to the situation my source of references for general speech pretty much all come from either Alan parterage the naked gun movie series or Monty Python honestly me and my dad communicate via quotes from from those three things it's hilarious is obviously autistic as well even though he wouldn't say it was I avoided the news complete last year find out most of the main points for good idea Adam I assume you're talking about covid very good idea I hate the news and I never watch it the only time I watch it is when my partner's watching it and I just happen to be in the room and even then it's sort of semi-watching I don't really like to stay up to date on the whole covid thing because I prefer to get my information via science it's a lot more straightforward and easy to understand and not convoluted and riddled with various opinions and I guess the media sort of makes makes things out to be completely tragic all the time all of the time I guess more so in the US the UK it's a bit more controlled but yeah it's um no media is a good especially mainstream media is a good thing to avoid just get just listen to stuff based on your interests watch stuff based on your interests YouTube and Netflix like my primary sources of guess modern entertainment and gaming reenscape life boxing has helped significantly for my life combat sport is so good I love them so much the atmosphere if you get the right gym get the right place the atmosphere you know it's such a grit building confidence boosting thing martial arts and it's really great because you exercise you get all those good endorphins running around in your brain get some of that anandamide released analog to the TSE molecule and so you feel very relaxed and very social and very at ease and you can have a good chat with people after no pressure to communicate too much get there do some boxing go awesome yeah Twitter I would echo that ignore Twitter I only used Twitter as a notifying thing I don't really share much on Twitter any reason why I would is to get more people to hear my thoughts I like to do Instagram yeah great selection of movies awesome love them great movies make it good Monty Python Alan Partridge maybe not the new Alan Partridge love talking in quotes my dad taught me to communicate that way makes things a bit a little light-hearted in case I overstep yeah it's a good thing you know what I mean I might be biased in this fashion but I do think that autistic humor is either very very logical based and it's a lot to do with phrases that don't make sense or is repetitive and I will laugh at the same joke every single time my dad makes it even if it's the exact same that same way I just know that he's coming at some point I'm just I'm disabasing it and it just makes me laugh it's that repetition it's like a adverts adverts make me used to make me howl with laughter because it's like that washing machine advert washing machines live longer with cow gone and it's like it just it's just ridiculous like to me it's just absurd and ridiculous that's every time that I think about it it just makes me laugh and little things like that oh god alrighty see you later yes okay you know I think this is a good time to end things I'm going to leave the next couple of minutes for everybody to send in any last-minute questions don't feel any pressure I know it's sometimes a weird to suddenly you know you kind of have someone in the background talking they ask you to ask questions and stuff but it is you know just ask away it's a safe space you know no no wrong questions this is your opportunity so that livestream a lot see you later peeps it's been a long and okay so I'm gonna round up if we don't have any more comments and yeah just thank you everybody for who attended the webinar and thank you everybody for coming on and chatting to me on this live stream so it's been lovely actually thank you over a bit thank you especially to the people in chat who have been chatting to me keeping me company it's definitely been a lovely lovely thing to do I'll have to try and fit in some more time to do them because I do enjoy them it's really nice just to chat chat through live chat through things updates as far as the channel I've got two videos in the works one on six prob now I don't that's a different one isn't it I've got one on autism language I'm gonna produce one of two videos hopefully got this chair let's get a new chair yeah one on autism language and another one on optimizing your home environment I'm gonna try and make some more videos around dating relationships because that's something that comes up quite a bit and it seems to be something that people really want to learn about and so I'm very happy to do that and yeah just to stay tuned on the social media that's always a good place to go to learn about new new updates and to follow my work and see where I'm at with things I'm still wait for in terms of the podcast front I'm still waiting for Professor Byron Cohen to release his news so we say that we were going to release long top long time ago because I've got I've got the final episode of Steve Silverman already recorded not ready to go out for the end of season one so anybody's waiting for it I apologize I'm trying to get it out I contacted many many times over the past few months and I'll try to get that sorted out yeah I look forward to tomorrow's webinar days and yeah if you have any comments or questions post this live stream sticking down in the comments I'll try and answer them when this is finished not always going to but if not best place Instagram that's usually the place I go for yeah thank you very much for joining hope you're doing well and yeah see you later now let's stop this strange contraption


Um, let's do this more interesting kind of old rearrangement so, um, hopefully you can tell it's a kind of old rearrangement because already you got the dive The dial so You should be thinking at least thinking that there potentially couldn't be a pinnacle rearrangement also you've got Acid here sulfuric acid so You can imagine it protonating one of these hopefully you can imagine it protonating one of these because strong base or strong acid, right? Good base for strong acid, right? You can imagine the first step would be protonation of the alcohol oxygen That will turn the bad leaving group of the hydroxyl into a good leaving group Protonated hydroxyl group and again, it wouldn't have mattered which ever one you would have protonated because You'll get the same product either way. And of course we also have Ah So the next step of course would be we've got a good leaving group of Stable molecule in and of itself, so it's going to be a good leaving group water so water leaves on its own Forming the tertiary carbocation and And you can so you see the very stable tertiary tertiary carbocation very stable, so What's going to happen is the initiation of the alkyl shift the one-two alkyl shift remember The one-two alkyl shift is preferable to the one-two hydride shift Not to mention that there's no hydrogen there so This is going to These electrons are going to promote that one-two alkyl shift, and then you can just see that On move up like that and attack that electrophile So the intermolecular reaction happens really quickly Rearrangement so we've done that So we've got this still as a Six-membered ring or This has opened up from a sick this one still is a six-membered ring. This one has opened up from a one two three four five six-membered ring to This bond is now there, so it's going to be a seven-membered ring So you've got that We want to count so the proton's still there.


It's incredible in scope, you're going from one end of the Aleutian chain to the other and from one end of Alaska to another. The immense numbers of wild I found throughout the Aleutians are often found nowhere else in the world. It's wild, the weather is rough, it can be stunningly beautiful and it can be very harsh and unforgiving. I really don't know any other place like it. There are a few places in the United States that are as untouched as the Aleutian Islands.  Dap room throughout the United States are wondrous places, protected so that wildlife comes first. Are national wildlife refuges? None is so vast or so remote as the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, 2,500 islands, sea stacks and headlands. Spanning almost 5,000 miles of Alaska coast, nearly to Siberia, the refuge islands are strikingly diverse. From ice-encrusted isles of the far north to lush temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska, rugged rock spires, high bluffs and smoking volcanoes, volcanoes and earthquakes have shaped the Aleutians into a surreal landscape where places still steam and vent sulfurous plumes. The peaks, craters, cliffs and domes seen now are but the tips of undersea mountains. These peaks rose from the sea as heavy ocean crust, pushed down beneath the lighter continental shelf and forced upward its arc of volcanoes, now a scattering of distant, lonely islands. Ideal harbor for abundant wildlife. An extraordinary way to explore the refuge is to follow a season's journey of the tecla. Research vessel for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and see the refuge through the experience of the scientists who work there. The tecla is a unique vessel that was designed for the refuge and built for the refuge and the refuge emission. We're 120 feet long, but we've got a lot of ship packed into the 120 feet. Because of the uniqueness of the Alaska Maritime Refuge, some of the islands are not very well charted, so we have to improvise and we actually make our own charts as we go. We will travel approximately 20,000 nautical miles and be gone for approximately seven months this year. Tecla means eagle and the native Aleut language. The tecla is a floating laboratory, a home away from home and lifeline to the refuge field camps for scientists from around the world. Leaving the security of the ship, biologists disembark to isolated wild islands. Their mission, to study and restore wildlife, to monitor population cycles in species and be watchful of those at risk. To learn more about the habitats that support wildlife and to ensure that the biological diversity and abundance of the refuge endure. We get to see aboard the ship some of the harshest ocean conditions of any oceans in the world where the Pacific meets the Bering Sea along the Aleutian chain and creates some of the most violent waters in the world. We see winds gusting to 100 plus knots. We see sea and sea state conditions reaching 35 foot and on 120 foot vessel they're ominous. Weather reports which can change from hour to hour might call for gale force winds, swirling fog, blizzards and cyclonic storms. We're the only vessel for many many miles so you have to be very careful and safety is the utmost concern when you're transiting these dangerous waters and these remote waters. Wildlife adapts to the weather and so do the scientists. Since the maritime refuge contains areas that are very isolated and many of the areas are in this zone where the weather is strange. Our crews are isolated for the summer made of September in these various locations so we take a lot of time to think about ways to improve their margins of safety. The islands and headlands are a spectacle of seabirds. More than 40 million seabirds of 30 different species nest on the refuge. Millions more visit here. There are more seabirds on the refuge than all the seabirds in the rest of North America. Just one colony on one island can be home to over one million birds and include 20 or more species. It's been said that sailors long ago listened for the clamor of bird calls to recognize headlands in the thick fog. It looks like beehive, I mean there's tens of thousands flying all over the place. It's just a loud place and a really amazing concentration of birds in the air and on the water. Such vast numbers are a sign that the waters of the North Pacific and Bering Sea are a rich soup, thriving with fish and plankton to feed on. The Tecla is headed out to field camps and annual study sites where refuge biologists monitor marine mammals and seabirds like the kittywakes and murs on St. George in the Pribilove Islands. Red-legged kittywakes are found throughout the Bering Sea and nowhere else in the world. Over 90% of the world's population nest on the last American refuge. This is fortunate because the refuge can offer protection to these species. Most of the black-legged kittywakes will nest in the same proximity to each other, often in clusters on the cliff faces. On St. George Island, refuge biologists work atop dramatic thousand-foot-high cliffs that hold multitudes of nesting birds. Murs are very colonial seabird, they nest in very dense numbers, they tend to come back to the same site once they've nested year after year after year, they keep the same mate, they only lay a single egg and raise a single chicken in the season. St. George is the largest mur colony in Alaska, there are probably 2 million murs nesting there and huge, huge numbers, ledges that go on for miles that have tens of thousands of murs on them. As the tech loss sails between islands, unexpected sites astonish even those with years of experience in the refuge. All of a sudden, all these birds appear and for the next 30 miles we see millions of sheer waters. The phenomenon of sheer waters coming all the way from New Zealand and Australia where they breed, they literally form flocks that you can see on the ship's radar and sometimes if you get into the big concentrations you can basically see them almost all the way to the horizon. Far out the illusion chain is Kiska Island, where a field camp is summer home for scientists researching aquasites. This way of aquasites at Kiska is truly unbelievable. They come in in such incredible numbers, this mass of these huge ribbons of birds flying in from the horizon to over your head and beyond, they darken the sky and beats of their wings in their calls is kind of a deafening sound. It's really kind of a spectacle in some ways, must have been like the passenger pigeons or the great herds of buffalo that are now gone. We have just the wildest guesses of populations in those cases, some estimates run from a million to 15 million in one single location. The most abundant is the leased aqua, there are certainly millions and millions of those. Prestid are the next most abundant. Prestid aquasites have this sort of tangerine odor about them which is kind of overpowering at Kiska because the numbers are so vast. Periket and whiskered are probably the most unique. They nest almost exclusively on refuge lands in Alaska. In the islands of the Four Mountains, Chaguluk rises ominously from the sea. There, U.S. Geological Survey biologists study one of the largest fulmar colonies in the world. There aren't any other species in our Alaska seabird assemblies that are quite like fulmars and you have to come to some pretty special places like Chaguluk to have any chance to see them or to work with them. This particular study we're doing, satellite telemetry and also some genetic work that we'll do back in the lab. The purpose is to determine which fulmars are being caught in long line fisheries so that's very serious for a very long lived species. These birds live for up to 40, 50 years naturally. We're putting satellite transmitters on the birds with harnesses. These are solar powered units which if we're lucky we could get data for the next three years. We're pursuing it fairly aggressively because we get just crucial information that we've never had access to. Where do these birds go seasonally because that's a crucial management question. The vast ocean reaches that separate islands can also separate populations of the same species for countless generations. We have a number of unique subspecies. They're isolated so long that they're just different. For instance I think we've got five or six different recognized subspecies of ptarmigan scattered along the Alaska Peninsula islands and out through the Aleutians. The Aleutian green winged teal, it's a teal that's a lot like the North American green winged teal but it has its habits that it nest on scattered islands through the Aleutians and that's the only place that it occurs. From Unimak Pass the tecla drops anchor at Iktak where rich ocean waters support dense colonies of tufted puffins. Iktak provides nesting sites for a whole suite of marine animals. The most common bird is tufted puffin. We estimate about a hundred thousand nesting here at Iktak. You might see thousands maybe ten thousand swirling around over Iktak and there might be thousands in the water right offshore at the same time these big rafts floating around on the sea. Iktak is also home to the tufted puffin's cousin, the horned puffin, which nests in notches in the rocks. On the Aleutian island of Ulak highly trained researchers conduct a survey of burrow nesting birds where they must employ the most obvious technique, gently reaching into the burrow to see what's living there. Like a Cassin's oculet or a fork-tailed storm petrel. Storm petrels are also found on St. Lazaria Island in the southeastern reaches of the refuge, in habitat far different from the treeless tundra of the Aleutians. Storm petrels are burrow nesters and they're able to survive here because the soil is loose enough for these tiny birds to be digging burrows into the soil. Well the storm petrel burrows are pretty tiny. We have two or three people who are looking for burrow entrances and once they find one they give it an individual number and then they reach in to see if there's a storm petrel occupying that burrow. And if there is then we know which species it is and if it might have an egg or a chick. It's only about a week old at the most. One of the reasons for having burrows is so that they can avoid predators such as crows, eagles, peregrine falcons. They also return to the islands just at night to help avoid predation. We collect data during the night as well because that's when the adults are most active in returning to the island or going out to see to feed. What we're doing then is netting some of the birds in what's called a mist net. The bird will hit the net and then it slides down into this little pocket so that it's held gently and then the researcher can go and remove the bird from the net and then collect the diet sample because these birds usually regurgitate their stomach contents. We collect diet samples so that we can see what prey is available to these birds out in the ocean and sampling to see what foods they're bringing back for their chicks. The Tekla is a floating field research site using hydroacoustic sonar, sampling and monitoring techniques. Biologists study the marine food web. They discover critical feeding areas, sample the undersea food base, and record the changing ocean environment, boguslov. This active volcano was first seen as it rose from a fiery underwater eruption two centuries ago. Although a young island, seabirds and mammals moved in and multiplied to incredible densities until recently when the sea lions mysteriously began to disappear from boguslov and throughout most of the refuge. Stellar sea lions have declined by about 80 percent and that's happened in about the last 20 years so they are now classified as an endangered species because of that serious population decline. There's a lot of research going on and I think it's fair to say that there's not agreement on exactly what the cause of decline is at this point. The food base may be inadequate to sustain populations and that that is a factor. There's also some question about what the role of predation is by killer whales, particularly on pups. Nevertheless it's very clear that the population has declined and not gone somewhere else. As mysterious as the disappearance of sea lions is the appearance of fur seals on boguslov even though they are declining elsewhere. When I first came here in 1973, everything you saw was stellar sea lions and not one fur seal and now there are thousands of northern fur seals. I don't know whether it's the situation where the fur seals could move in after the sea lions decline or whether the environment has changed and that now the fur seals have the advantage. The sea otter population worldwide was nearly extirpated during the commercial fur harvest in the 1700s. With the protection from the National Wildlife Refuge, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the International Fur Seal Treaty, this population really flourished. So it's a very shocking result to find that in recent surveys beginning in the 1990s the population for all of the Aleutian Islands has decreased by 70 percent. Simply the adults are disappearing. We need to understand what's going on in the whole system. What we're doing right now is continuing our monitoring effort and that's crucial to understanding whether the population is continuing to decline. It's crucial to understanding whether some areas are recovering or not. Sea otters are a very resilient animal and I think if we can keep their environment pristine, if we can keep enough of them around, they'll come back. It'll just take a little while. On hundreds of Aleutian Islands, scientists encounter evidence of Aleut villages and hunting camps. Their deep houses, called Barabaras, were ingeniously designed with whale bone rafters. The Aleut, also called Anangan, have lived off the abundance of the sea and the land for 9,000 years. Today, only a few villages, like Atka, remain. Yet the Anangan culture continues, still relying on the island's vast natural resources using their considerable knowledge of plants for food and medicine and the ways of animals and the natural world. Lured by the rich fur of sea otters and later fur seals, Russian explorers brought disease and oppression. Beginning with the voyage of Vitus Bering in 1741, Russians discovered the potential of riches in fur and the world of the Aleuts would never be the same. The native people tried unsuccessfully to defeat their invaders. Instead, the Russians forced the Aleut to do their hunting. The Russians also brought foxes to be harvested for their fur, setting them loose on islands that had no land predators. After the U.S. bought Alaska in 1867, fox farming and fur hunting took on a new zeal. Introduced foxes were devastating bird populations and sea otters were hunted to near extinction. By the early 1900s, it was apparent that wildlife needed protection and the first pieces of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge were established by President Teddy Roosevelt. Rusting away on refuge islands are the remains of what's been called the Forgotten War. Most people don't know that during World War II, the Aleutians played a strategic role in the Pacific. It was 1942. The Japanese bombed Dutch harbor on an Alaska Island, killing 43 people, then attacked and occupied the refuge islands of Kiska and Atu. To defeat Japanese forces and drive them from American soil, the U.S. military built defense outposts on islands throughout the refuge. After World War II, and up until the end of the Cold War, U.S. military bases continued to be maintained on the refuge. On Amchitka, during the Cold War of the 1960s and 70s, atomic bombs were detonated underground as tests. Today, there is only a small military presence on the islands. But the legacy of war has an ecological impact in spite of ongoing cleanup efforts. The aftereffects, PCBs, oil, fuel, nuclear waste, and unexploded ammunition are still a concern on the refuge. As is the invasion of rats, which first arrived on shipwrecked Japanese vessels over two centuries ago. Later, military ships spread rats to more islands, where they now prey on seabird eggs and chicks and destroy habitat.  They will eat bird eggs. They pretty much destroyed the seabird colonies on the islands they were introduced to, and they probably had a tremendous impact on the nesting land's birds as well. To eliminate rats, the first thing we're trying to do is we're trying to prevent the introduction of rats to new islands, to islands where they haven't already gotten to. We are looking at the possibility of removing rats from rat island, the island that got rats back in 1780. And we expect, if we could do that, that we would get a substantial recovery of many seabird species and land birds. Non-native foxes, along with rats, are continuing threats to birds. On the treeless tundra of the Aleutian Islands, nesting birds evolved without land predators and have developed no natural defenses against them. When foxes were brought to the islands, they devastated bird populations. Since 1949, we've been eradicating foxes on one or more islands a year. The objectives are to eradicate all of the foxes and restore the islands to natural biodiversity. This is a program that's a part of a much larger worldwide effort. There has been a lot of interest in removing invasive species from islands where they occur and restoring islands back to their native habitat. Aleutian-Canada geese were believed to have disappeared, the first victim of the foxes. But refuge manager Bob Jones heard accounts of naturalist sightings. And in 1963, tracked down a remnant population on Bouldier Island, where foxes had never been introduced. Dedicated work continued for decades, removing foxes, transplanting geese to islands without foxes, and protecting the birds on their wintering grounds. Finally, the geese are considered recovered. We're here on Chagulek to look for Aleutian-Canada goose nests. We're conducting surveys of Aleutian-Canada geese as part of the five-year monitoring program, since the goose was delisted from the endangered species list in 2000. Listing on the endangered species list is often a one-way street. A species goes on to the list and never comes off it. Aleutian-Canada goose are a success story and one of the few examples of species formerly on the list that, through management actions, have been designated fully recovered. The success story of the geese is inspiration to the passionate scientists, dedicated to protecting and restoring all the native species in these wild and far-flung lands. I've had the privilege of flying over every island, rock, kelp bed in the entire Aleutian archipelago during the sea otter surveys. And there just wasn't a day when we were out doing those surveys that we didn't see something that made our mouth fall open and go, wow, look at this. First time I saw Sirius Point, the oculic colony, hundreds of thousands of oculets swirling around. And that's just a phenomenal scene. Seeing all the different sites of nature, seeing all the different landforms and volcanoes changing, supporting all the scientific work that's been conducted over the years. Boy, it's been one great adventure. My hope for the refuge for the future is to leave it in a better condition for future generations. When summer ends, the seabirds fly out across the ocean, and the scientists board the tecla for home. What they learn about the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and its creatures touches everyone on the planet. For their journey tells of the health of the ocean, ultimately linked with all life on Earth.