The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time Summary

At USC Upstate all freshmen enrolled in English 101 are required to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon. The novel focuses on an autistic teenage boy named Christopher. In order to understand and interpret Christopher’s actions, we are required to attend two PREFACE events during the semester, all of which are about autism. The first PREFACE event I attended was a huge let down, so I was really dreading going to another one. The second PREFACE event that I chose to attend was “Life on the Spectrum: Living, Learning and Growing as an Autistic Person.” It was by far my favorite event of the two. The speaker, Howie Jordan, is a student at USC Upstate who has autism. There could not have been a better speaker picked for this event. Howie was an extraordinary speaker. He did an amazing job sharing his experience as an autistic child, while keeping the crowd interested. The event was held in the URC Greatroom, on October 27 at 6 p.m. The room was packed with people. Howie Jordan stepped up to the podium and started the program directly at 6 o’clock. I found this interesting because Christopher has a fascination with time, and I associated this with why Howie was so prompt on the starting time. He shared his childhood stories of how he struggled with himself and other people. His
family constantly moved around, which made his life even harder. He said that every time he managed to finally get comfortable, he was moved into a different school. He shared a story about when his family moved in with his other family members at one point, and he was given a room to sleep in. Since he was unfamiliar with the bed, especially the blanket, he was not able to sleep. They eventually had to accommodate him with his previous blanket set from his other house. This story stuck out to me because Christopher really did not like places he had not been before, and Howie’s story showed me just how accurate the book was about it. Another thing that Howie did was share his “hand trinkets” that he uses when he is stressed. He always carries them around, one of which he keeps in his pocket and the other is on a chain around his neck. I noticed that one he started talking about it, he constantly played with the puzzle while he talked because he was getting nervous. I think that Howie’s trinket is like Christopher’s math. They both turn to a certain thing when they are stressed. I don’t find this strange at all, I actually would like to find myself a hand trinket like Howie had to help when I am stressed. The only thing that Howie did “wrong” would be that he was done with his presentation 20 minutes into the hour he was given.
To me this was not wrong, and in fact, it was a good thing. The fact that he finished early means that he was able to get out all of his information in a timely manor, and even managed to do so in an impactful way. Howie did such a great job presenting that I even felt the need to go tell him he did a really good job, and did something that I could never do. He was able to overcome his “disability” and share his experience with a humongous crowd. That is something that the book has wrong, because Christopher could never do
that. I am very thankful that this event did not turn out like the last one that I attended. The crowd this time was silent the whole time. I am not sure whether this has to do with the fact that the event only lasted 20 minutes, but either way I will never know if that’s the case. Howie did an amazing job at sharing how he deals with autism, and I have no doubt that he will learn to deal with autism even better. I personally believe that all events focused on a “disability” of some sort should never be presented by someone who does not know about the topic first hand. When the presenter can tell about their experiences, and their life, that is what makes a presentation informative to me.