Group Work, continued

Some group work isn't so bad. Other group work makes you want to scream and rip heads off. I am amazed that no matter what I do, I always end up in some position of leadership within groups despite attempts to avoid doing so. When things need to be done, I can't just let them be neglected, I have this need to make things work.

If I see something that isn't working properly or could function far more effectively and efficiently, I know what it could be and what it could become if it were modified or guided in the right manner. This isn't always an ideal approach for group work. Seeking to find applicable solutions wherever possible tends to annoy a lot of people that want to get it done and over with. I'm far more comfortable having the option to go back and edit things, anxiety usually hits me hardest after everything is turned in for grading and I can't go back and do anything else (or when I'm supposed to be editing the damn thing after it is compiled, but the person compiling it hasn't sent it to me yet because not everyone has sent everything to them yet).

I still don't know what I'm doing for grad school. If I'm going next year I need to start putting in applications NOW, but I might have to get an MBA for what I want to do, and I might not have enough credits in business for them to be thrilled at the idea of accepting someone with a bachelor of music in performance. *sigh*

A side note for some of the less experienced with the meteorological phenomenon commonly known as rain:

It rains quite a lot Portland, Oregon during the autumn and winter seasons (and spring and sometimes summer, but that is aside from my point here). I don't care how "water resistant" your satin slippers are supposed to be, your feet are going to get wet in very short order if pouring rain and the seasonal puddle/pond at the SE corner of SB2 is involved. Water resistant is not waterproof, and with some of the rainstorms I've walked through across campus, your pants will get wet enough that the rain water will run down your legs into your shoes no matter what precautions you take. Rain boots are a great option for avoiding the unpleasantness of cold, wet socks (sometimes they aren't quite enough, and then I recommend leaving early for class, wearing a real rain coat, using an umbrella to keep the contents of your bag dry, packing an additional pair of socks, shoes, and pants [or stashing them in your locker], changing before you go in to class. Using the tunnels and/or sky bridges whenever possible is great for keeping dry, and changing back into the wet things to go to wherever it is you need to be next because whatever you have on that is dry, if it is raining that heavily, will soon be wet).

Goodbye, brain!

I was going to post something really relevant and interesting to some...then I did almost all my homework. I actually have to work at this, likely because I don't know any of the terminology. It isn't something I have studied before (so I can't reprise most of my undergraduate time and breeze through everything with decent grades), and I can tell I will do better in one class than in the other simply because group work isn't mandatory.

The professor in the class that I can tell I'll do alright in is not the extreme extrovert that the professor in the other class is. I am quite introverted, but I have learned to speak up for myself and to say what needs to be said (and I'm told I'm quite mercurial, but anyone with ADHD usually seems that way, we're following a new line of thought and going off on tangents before most people have processed what was said). I'm usually quite hard on myself after having spoken up, I can feel the adrenaline surging and my face turning red and and and...

I had the realization that the illusion of a social life I have had recently might have been because I wasn't expending all my energy in classes. I'm not sure that I will be able to maintain a semblance of being interested in people for the duration of this school term, particularly while working full time at the job I presently have which still occupies the absolute opposite hours of my school schedule. I essentially spend two days a week adjusting, and have one day a week off which wasn't really a day off because I am doing homework.

A side note- there is no "r" in "Washington."

Respect

Try being respectful of the background of someone you care about. Ask them about it. Go out of your way to buy and read a book. It is amazing how some of the elderly come out of their own minds when you interact with them in regard to subjects they enjoy....or stim on.

If you really want to know incredible people, talk to your own grandparents.

Reverse Stereotyping

A friend of mine volunteered, insisted someone go with me, and went with me to a hospital for a rather stressful medical test (I was having an MRI done). Everyone at the hospital seemed to think that my friend was the patient and I was there as her support, likely because of a rather obvious physical disability.

It didn't occur to me that people would assume she was the one there for the test and that I was the friend there for assistance. We both thought it was funny at the time.

In a way it is disheartening to think that the more visible the disability the more people will want to believe that you need extra help from others more seemingly physically able. More so when all you see is your friend in a person many people recognize from public transit and around town because of their disability, but these people never bothered to introduce themselves despite any interest they might have had in doing so.

Maybe I'll rewrite this one after I'm less foggy...

Read the PI sheet BEFORE you prescribe!

Upon reading the PI sheet for a drug a doctor prescribed for me I discovered that the drug in question can cause increase in production of a certain hormone that could exacerbate some issues I'm already having. I am amazed that this individual is allowed to prescribe when such a key area of the present problem could be worsened by taking this medication for any period of time.

This is the same individual that told someone I know that their c-reactive protein being so high wasn't anything to worry about. Fortunately the individual with the high CRP is now on a daily dose of aspirin.

I understand that a general practitioner shouldn't know everything about very specific areas of medicine, but they should at the very least check for interactions with newly arisen medical issues undiagnosed as of yet.

TSA

What I didn't have the opportunity to type relating to my vacation was TSA's reaction to me without a significant amount of benzodiazepines in my system. I was selected for random screening by the Behavior Detection Officers (I must warn those of you outside the United States that that particular link might not work. If you are so inclined to read up on why I might be a terrorist based on displays of rather autistic behaviors in a stressful situation run an internet search for "tsa behavior detection officers," as this will yield the same destination rather high on the first page of a search). It wasn't pretty. Mom made me take valium on the plane, which I did before arrival at the airport on the way to Missouri, but not on the way home.

Since I am a 20-something white female of a non-threatening size, when I explained to the people who were trying to pat me down that this was not okay (I was starting to have a meltdown), they needed to stop, I'm autistic, they said they couldn't have known and apologized. They're right, they couldn't have known. How my anxiety, and apprehension might be perceived by an external entity convinced that people are out to blow up planes is not something I spend time considering...or anyone else, for that matter.

I'm sure it is similar to whatever it is that makes me indelible to every single teacher that has ever had the curse or blessing of enduring me for an entire course or year. My parents say it is because I look fairly normal, then I open my mouth or am asked to engage in a gross motor activity... like skipping. I ran into my kindergarten teacher in a local store awhile back. It took me several minutes of peering around the corner of an aisle to be quite sure it was her after an initial jerking sensation of familiarity. She hadn't changed her hairstyle in seventeen years. I assured her that I can now skip properly.

Though I dislike potential sentiments surrounding the introspection "how normal" or "how autistic" am I? I must contemplate. Am I that gauche? So very obviously different? I'm not obsessed with being normal or not being normal, being someone people like or dislike (which isn't entirely true in itself because I would be disappointed, confused and hurt if my friends [yes, friends!] decided they didn't like me anymore). I'm concerned with being me and continuing to work out who I am, and who I am in relation to the world. And I promise to take the valium before going security from now on, mom. It makes passing behavioral scrutiny infinitely less work, and the amount of effort expended might have been part of the problem to begin with!

Vacation

Technically I'm still on vacation. I'm in the airport, using their free wifi before catching the two-part flight home.

This quadrant of family a lot nicer and more fun than the gender opposite quadrant family (quadrant because of which parent and which grandparent they are attached to, so we'll call this new group of people quadrant III, and the group I'm most familiar with quadrant I)... who are rather deficient in several areas (at least the ones I have met, and I have met a lot of them. They think we're strange!). Quadrant III are intelligent people, despite some obvious gaps in their logic processes, which we all have. The gaps seem to be regional, differing depending on where and what type of belief system you were brought up or taught to run around in.

I don't think mom "warned" the newly met extended family that I'm on spectrum. I was addressed as fully human. Not one relative or spouse of relative mentioned it.

I taught a little cousin a vital life skill this little cousin's overprotective parental unit A had been afraid to try, or unable to connect to the little cousin on their native frequency of operation. I was warned they had a short attention span, but it seemed perfectly normal to me. I have to remind myself that it all depends on where your norm is for that to be true--I'm sure this little person seems very scattered and distant to many, but they were wonderful, and I want one just like them someday!).

The irony of all this was the new people liked me, stimming, freaking out and all. And people that knew me from home and frequently complained to my mother about my "behaviors" seemed to get along with me. They complimented my mother on my behavior. I really hate that word. I did bite a certain aunt's head off the first day when she was attempting to glean information regarding ME from my seemingly naive mother. I don't trust the woman. I have reason to not trust her, and the last thing I needed was her to make a scene about what a horrible person I am and how I simply feign a diagnosis to get attention (clearly she has never noticed that I avoid the familial group and go elsewhere to practice at family gatherings).