An ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Appeared!!

At about 10am this morning, I got nominated to do the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote and spread awareness the effects of ALS or as it's better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

So here's my video of when I did the challenge earlier today and hope its as entertaing as it is informative. Enjoy my friends :)

The Rosie Project Review

(Video Review)

The Rosie Project

Released in April 2013, The Rosie Project is the first novel by Graeme Simsion who previously has written two books and several papers about data-modelling. The Rosie Project revolves around a 39 year old geneticist named Don Tillman who wants to find himself a wife.

The book begins with Don covering a lecture on Aspergers for Gene Barrow, The head of the Psychology department at Melbourne University and also Don’s best friend and colleague. After using two lunch breaks from over the past couple of days to cram in some research on autism spectrum disorders and preparing his presentation which is due for 7pm at a school, to which he arrives at 6:57PM allowing himself three minutes to set up the equipment in the hall where he meets Julie the convenor for the lecture who makes small talk while Don focuses on preparing everything not wanting to waste time.

While his attention is on the task at hand, Don doesn’t see the audience for the presentation enter and take their seats. Julie then asks about Gene who Don reveals is out on a date instead of being ill as he had told Julie and eighteen minutes later than planned, Don begins his talk which focuses on the genetic aspects of the condition and even uses a scenario where a lack of emotion could be an asset where they were in hiding from enemies but a crying baby gives them away but they also have a gun. The kids give suggestions such as ambush the enemy or even shooting the baby while everyone else is stunned by the idea and this prompts an early end to the lecture and while Don is packing up, Julie asks if he could join her for a drink but Don turns her down having got things back on schedule and he states that he has other activities scheduled.

Two days later, Don gets a call from Julie who asks him a question about a point he made during the lecture where he mentioned a company in Denmark that employed people with Aspergers for computer application testing. The question she asks is how candidates are found because as she puts it "Most adults with Aspergers don't even know they have it". Don guesses that they use a questionnaire as a primary filter which gives him an idea:

Design a detailed and strict questionnaire that filters out any unpromising candidates: women who are unpunctual, overweight, vegetarian, those who drink or smoke or have STDs.

With this measure now in place, Don hangs up on Julie and embarks on his now dubbed Wife Project and hopes to find his ideal partner and avoid mistakes like in his past attempts at finding a partner.

The subject of autism has been used in fiction before with the best example being The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon from 2003 where the story revolves around a 15 year old boy with Aspergers looking into a murder of a neighbour’s dog with a pitch fork whereas Simsion’s first novel explores how the condition affects an undiagnosed adult and how he approaches a romantic situation and everyday life in general.

The irony is where everyone else can see the variant in Don, he can’t see it in himself whereas he sees it in other people such as Lazlo a colleague of his at Melbourne University. This creates some degree of confusion in some readers due to Don regularly describing stock features of Aspergers in reference to himself – “I am not good at non-verbal communication”; “Unlike many people, I am very comfortable with repetition”.

The story is presented in a mix of past tense and present tense with Don himself providing the narration which is pitch perfect while also being precise and formal with a geeky tone that encapsulates his rigidly scheduled, rationally detached world-view.

Throughout the book we get to know Don and his routines, e.g. the very efficient standardised meal system, and as he devises his questionnaire to seek out the perfect wife, then Rosie enters the story and it starts to drift off in another direction where we see Don break away (rather reluctantly) from his structured and organised lifestyle into new expanses he has never experienced before and he also learns that life and love don’t adhere to logical thought and planning.

The relationship between Don and Rosie is primarily based on Rosie’s search for her real father as her mother never revealed his identity before she died when Rosie was a child and Don with his expertise of being a professor of genetics is the perfect person to help her. Initially there is confusion between the two with Don mistaking Rosie as a candidate for his Wife Project and Rosie thinking that Don is helping her because he has an interest in her.

Even when this is cleared up later on, they both continue with The Father Project which puts the two into an entertaining series of comic set pieces and occasionally life-threatening situations and despite their seemingly justified approach to being in each other’s company, a relationship begins to form.

However I do have two minor issues with this book and they go as follows:

• Slight misrepresentation of those on the autism spectrum:

The assumptions presented here about people with autism is that they all possess extraordinary mental capabilities, when in fact only a small minority of people with the condition do and that the majority of autistic people actually have some form of learning disability. This makes it almost a cliché view of the condition unfortunately which is shared with other books that touch on autism.

• The ending:

The final act of the book has a more brisk pace compared with the rest of the story which partly disrupts the flow and build-up. This makes it seem to some readers like it was rushed in retropect.

Despite these issues, I immensely enjoyed The Rosie Project with its originality, quirkiness, wit, interesting and well-defined characters, plot twists, and setting. I also found it to be warm-hearted and perfectly pitched. At its core, The Rosie Project is a classic feel-good screwball romantic comedy with possibly the oddest of couples which proves that love comes from the unexpected and that you don’t find it, it finds you.

Overall The Rosie Project is a very well written, well-researched, engaging, charming, funny, affectionate and intelligent novel with plenty of local flavour being set in Melbourne that makes for a very enjoyable read.

I also felt an understanding with Don because I have Aspergers myself and found it endearing to have someone like him because I feel there aren’t enough characters in media in general so it made for a refreshing change and for that alone, The Rosie Project holds a special place in my library as well as my top three.

The Rosie Project is available in paperback, hardback, e-book formats, audiobook, Audio CD, and CD-ROM.

The sequel titled The Rosie Effect is set for release next month on September 24^th.