Lit Circles Final Blog

For my lit cirlce I read the book Thinking in Pictures My Life With Autism by Temple Grandin. 

I connected this book with the blog Haley Mooney did on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  When she was explaining her quote I saw many similarities between Deborah in her book and Temple Grandin.  Both characters are willing to challenge the status quo, and met resistance in the process.  I don't know as much about Deborah, but I'm guessing that she also never intended to challenge the status quo, she was just doing what she thought she should.  This reminds me of Temple Grandin because she was just doing what helped her feel better and what helped her function.  Neither one did anything to not be a part of the norm, that was just a secondary result.

Haley also said that the book is about overcoming the original thought or idea people have.  She said that the family needed to overcome their ideas about Skloot's research, which were mostly negative.  Grandin also challenges people's ideas about autism.  She talks about how many incredible capabilities her mind has because of her autism.  Usually people look at autism as such a massive hinderance instead of something that could be an advantage to some people.  Temple Grandin has made enormous strides in the livestock community.  These strides would not have been possible without her autism.  It shows that once you give someone that label of mentally handicapped people will only look at what they can't do, vs. how many amazing things they can do.

Deborah broke the status quo by learning more about what her mother's cells have done.  She doesn't just let the negative feelings about the research take over.  Instead she tries to honor what her mother's cells have done for others.  Like Grandin, Deborah was able to look past the negative and look at what something that was considered bad could do positively.