I don't know how to live with this.

So here I sit, crying. Sitting in the room that used to be mine, next to the big wet stain where all my tears were rolling off my face onto the quilt before I sat up, composed myself, went to go get dinner, and then wound up coming back here to cry some more. This time with typing.

Why? My mother.

Does she every have anything nice to say? She spent the vast majority of the time I was eating my salad telling me off about using the ATM, rather than cashing travellers checks.

This is what she does. She goes on and on about my flaws, my mistakes, tries to get me to me say them in my own words, tells me what to do, and how to do it, critizes me for any mistake I make, or even the things that are not mistakes. Things like not drinking the apple/peach/passion fruit drink that was sitting on the ground, buried under some papers. How was I supposed to know she was saving that for going to Pinion Pines?

We disagreed about making food. I want to make my own food. It's simpler, and I don't have to interact with mother. She said I could, but not this time, because she had already cooked the rice (which, on reflection, doesn't matter at all). So I plunged my hands into a dead chicken and ripped off all the flesh I could, putting it into a small dish. (An amount that wasn't enough to satisfy her, apparently.) So I can eat on my own. In fact, we have agreed that it is the default.

Caveat: Talking with her after the juice incident, I am apparently supposed to ask her permission for which foods I can use to make food. For every item. How am I supposed to make my meals like that? Wait until she is around, and bring her over to the fridge and ask her about all the items in the fridge, hoping that there is enough food in the fridge that she does not have plans for so I can make my meal? This would be easier if I could buy my own food, and put it in my own fridge, but I am making dinner off of the family stockpile, like mother would, except she knows what food can be used, and I don't. This is going to be fun like nails.

But back to the criticism. She constantly does it. Constantly, constantly, constantly. Towards me, towards the kiddos, etc. Telling people what that what they are doing is "unacceptable" or telling them what to do, telling them how to do things.

Freedom: Freedom needs sovereignty. It really does. If I am not the sovereign controller of my own actions, then I cannot excercise my freedom. Putting it into practice, I'm sitting around, constantly on call. I'm glad that things have been segregated into work days and non-work days, but she seems to believe that her plans, created with no imput from other parties, override whatever other people want to do, or are doing. Dad doesn't even know what the plans are, he just takes his instructions, and does them, completely engulfed in her choices. I get dragged along as well - I spent from noon onwards yesterday simply in the car, following her around, because she decided I needed to go to the Honk rehearsal, in a somewhat revisionist version of policy. I think she wanted me under her thumb to supervise.

Honk: Originally, she was trying to contact Ammi and Danny, and I could go hang with them during the Honk rehearsal. They live in the area, three miles from the rehearsal spot. After my dental appointment, she decided that I was going along with her to pick up Kerria, bring Kerria to Speech, bring Kerria to her playdate thing in the park, and bring Kerria to the rehearsal. Golden - I expressed my belief that I was completely superfluous in all of those things - I had no role in any of it. She told me that she thought I should go to the Honk rehearsal. This made little sense, but.

Blargh, have to get ready to go to Pinion Pines. Microwave food, go. Hell, I know I'll be waiting.

People leaving.

A lot of my fellow EUSA students left today.

Carolyn is off to Spain, Carissa and Megan are on their way back to the US.

There go a bunch of cool people...

Sleep Fail.

Last night, I went to bed late. About 1am. Go me. I was working on a paper.

Today, at 3am, I finished said paper. I did not think I would be mobile in the morning to print it out before class. Walked several blocks to get to the computer lab, printed term paper out.

It is now raining. Hard.

Fuck my life.

(Hard.)

Paper

I do not like this paper. I do not like it in a box. I do not like it with a fox. I...

The funny thing is, if I were at ASU, this paper would be rediculously easy. My internet would be fast enough to run ASU's journal database, and I would have the ASU library to borrow books from. It's a four page paper. I would write it the night before.

But I don't have those resources. The books I have are off-topic, and I have to hunt through them for what I need. I can't find journals to explain everything I need to know. I just don't have the resources.

And then there's the question of additional reasons for Do Not Want. I have my internship, which takes time and tires me out. I am in London, and I would rather be doing something more interesting. It is the summer, and I don't feel like I should be writing papers.

Also, it is on a topic that I don't have very much knowledge about, and am relatively ambivalent to. Youth culture is not something I know much about in the US, and not something I know very much about in the UK. Not the history of it from the 1960s until now, and not current youth culture. I'm supposed to mention genres of music and fashion that existed in youth culture. I don't know how music sounds in the proper time period. Classical, big-band, salsa, boogie-woogie... this is not the music I need. My dad's time period, and thus the music I overhear, is unhelpfully before the time period I need, and I don't think that Roar of the Earth or the Lord of the Rings soundtrack or the Hyrule Symphony are things I can talk about.

I do not like this paper.

What the hell?

Does the world not want me to ever get a good night's sleep?

I went to bed tonight, things were not too hot, and it only took a while to fall asleep... and then I was woken up my some of my roommates coming back, talking not-hushed-at-all, and the like.

Then woke up at 7:30, not 8am.

What the hell?

I fail at sleep.

So last night I couldn't get to bed. Weather was too hot and sticky.

This night, I was going to go to bed, but wait! I had forgotten to put the laundry into the drier. Darn, had to wait some time.

Went down there, and found my laundry was already in the drier. And was dry.

I realized that I had put my laundry in, put the detergent blocks in, and then left. I had forgotten to put money in and press the button.

So now my clothes are in the washing machine. Go me.

Fuck, I might just go to sleep now, and do the drying business in the morning. At least I'll have a shiney dry new shirt...

Can't sleep.

Too hot, can't sleep.

...in Lodon?! WTF. Why is the temperature affecting me so much?

This makes no sense.

Need to sleep, have work tomorrow.

Gah.

Youth Culture?

So we were talking about Youth Culture in class again today. I feel like I missed the boat on American youth culture, and all of the comparisons of British youth culture to American youth culture really goes over my head.

Have I failed somehow?

I spent my childhood... going to college, on the internet, and reading/writing. No music, no TV (save PBS, which really isn't youth culture), not even videogames until much later. Childhood friends seem to all be pursuing videogames creation now.

I guess I missed out on music and culture and all that kind of stuff. Too much listening to my dad's generation... which was right before the start of youth culture in America.

I can't sleep.

I have to work tomorrow at 10am. I was goint to go to bed at 11pm. Well, I did. But then I lay in bed for an entire hour. Too hot, not tired at all. Drinking water currently. Don't know what else to do.

Not being able to sleep when I need a good night's rest is very annoying.

Communication

Communication (From the SGS class Journal)

My first internship (with Entelechy1) was a flop, and there is not much to say about it. When I arrived for the interview, they were in the middle of a production, and could not spare the resources to train and supervise me. So that didn't work.

My next internship was with Willow Dene2, a primary school for children with disabilities. The first day I went there, I was instructed by Carolyn Vagg, the school's liason with EUSA, that my role was primarily to observe and learn what to do, and help out where I could. I was placed into “Rose,” a classroom with 7 autistic children. There was the teacher, plus three other classroom assistants.

The teacher was very friendly, and she explained what was going on as we went through the day, and I did my best to help where I could. I was not sure how to do a lot of the tasks, and since Carolyn had instructed me that it was better to watch and learn the first time than experiment and risk a mistake, I did not act in a variety of circumstances. Additionally, I wasn't very good at what I did do. That said, everyone was friendly after the class, and they asked me if I was going to stay, and I said yes, and I headed home (which was a two hour commute).

That's where things got messy. I was quite pleased to finally be placed, and placed in a setting where there was a lot I could learn. However, on the train ride home, Joe, my internship coordinator with EUSA, called my cellphone. He told me that he had been contacted by the Willow Dene Liason, and that she had indicated that the teacher did not want me to be back the next day.

I was completely shocked, and I thought that there must have been a mistake. First, I was primarily there as an observer that first day. Second, I had no training, and so my lack of abilities was understandable. Third, if I had messed up, then someone would have told me, so I could correct it. Fourth, nobody said anything, or gave any indication that something was the matter. Joe's wording was indefinite (“she indicated”), so perhaps there had been a misunderstanding... miscommunication somewhere along the line.

According to Joe, who had heard it from Carolyn, the teacher's reason was that I “did not seem interested enough.” I wasn't sure what they meant – as far as I could tell, I was indeed interested, and I figured that was something I would know better than most. Had my actions not been assertive enough in caring with the children? The teacher had warned me not to overstimulate them with unnecessary interaction, and Carolyn had told me that my role was primarily to observe and see whether it was right for me – I hadn't thought that I was expected to interact more than I had. But if that was the case, then why didn't anyone tell me to interact more?

Or—and as an aspie I am paranoid about this—could it be that something else was the matter, and they had felt it would be more polite not to tell it to my face. For me, only letting me know that I had messed up the internship while I was on the train back from the school seemed highly insulting. Not giving me the chance to learn from my mistakes was cruel, but that they would not tell me directly was more horrifying to my sensibilities. Had I done something tactless that the British would not tell me about? Was this a cultural non-dialogue? What was I expected to do? Would this be a problem in the future?

I had Joe talk to Carolyn about my point of view on my actions in the classroom, specifically me being unsure of what I was supposed to do. She said to Joe that she would find a placement for me, but that it would be in a different classroom, with more manageable kids. I had preferred to work with autistic kids, as I have a personal interest in the disorder, but higher-functioning children would be fine as well. I accepted, and I was to start work with the “Yellow” class the next morning at 8:30am.

I got there early, and met the teachers of Yellow class. The class was very different; the kids were all FLKs to some degree, but there was no uniformity to their afflictions – all different disabilities that I wrote down and resolved to research back at home. Relations with the teachers were all friendly, but I could not get over the haunting similarities to the day before. I hadn't noticed anything the first time – what was there to look for the second time. We finished class and I reported to Carolyn, and went home.

No phone call on the way back, this time.

That night, I was not able to work on researching the disabilities. My instructor for the EUSA class had missed the first class, so the make-up class had been rescheduled for Tuesday night. Due to the commute, I got back relatively late, and then went to the class, which lasted for three hours, and ate right into my sleeping time.

To get to class, I had to wake up at 6am. Normally, I need about 9 hours of sleep if I'm not going to be taking naps during the day. At the flat I am living at, there is constant light and sound coming in the window, regardless of the blinds. And now with the class, I couldn't get those nine hours of sleep.

I was a bit tired on Wednesday, my second day with Yellow, and I helped them throughout the day, more actively this time. People were slightly different, as the classroom assistants had been shuffled, but I got to know the new people, and it was all very friendly at the end. We shared a small tea after class was done, and I specifically asked whether they thought I was going to be staying on – I wanted to buy a zone 4 monthly transportation pass, as the commute cost me about 10 pounds each day. They said that they would be glad to have me there.

I was quite happy, and I went home without any damning phone call. The paranoia was starting to subside. I missed getting a train pass on the way back, though – skipped my mind, and I didn't go back to get one, instead napping.

The next day was a teacher training day. My class's teacher said I didn't have to go to school that Thursday, but I talked with Carolyn, and she entered me in for a six hour presentation on Sensory Intergration Dysfunction (another personal interest of mine, as I had been diagnosed with it as a child). I figured it couldn't hurt – learning was why I was there, it would demonstrate commitment, and I could get to know the other faculty who were taking the class. The class was long, but very interesting and informative.

Friday morning, I found an email from Joe, asking me to visit him at the EUSA office. I did, hoping there wasn't some sort of bad news there. I mean, I had asked the teachers. Maybe it was something good.

But no, it was not good.

Apparently he had been contacted by Carolyn. It was the same complaint – that I didn't seem interested enough, and again, coming from the teacher through Carolyn. Again, I was horrified. I had asked the teachers to be sure, and everything was in order. How could this be?

Joe gave me Carolyn's number, and said that I could call her and figure it out with her, but that we probably should start looking for other options. I pocketed the number, and talked with Joe for a while.

When I went home, I pondered calling the number to figure out things internship-wise, but I decided that I shouldn't be crying while calling, and put it off for a bit. When I had composed myself, I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to comfortably work there anymore. The paranoia from the first time was bad enough, but now a second time? Again with no warning signs, no feed-back, nothing? I decided that even if I could somehow convince Carolyn to place me somewhere, I would not be comfortable working at the school anymore.

So how had this all come about? Naturally, I suspect that it had to do with bad non-verbal cues on my part, and me not reading non-verbal cues they gave. The weekend prior, I had met with two Londoner friends I knew from the Internet, and our conversation about British communication had pointed a lot towards avoiding saying what was impolite, instead indicating it by non-verbal cues (looks, gestures), and by implication (euphemisms, but also just implying in general). Since I can't read social cues very well at all naturally, and that the cues were probably different here, I probably missed what it was that should have warned me that things were going wrong, or even cues to go and correct my behavior there. However, the two of them had also noted that all the British rules really didn't apply to foreigners, for the comforting reason that, “Everyone knows that foreigners are crazy.”

I am not a socially energetic person. Unlike many people, my presence does not energize others, but rather it calms and slows them down. I am not naturally social, but rather it is something that I have chosen to do. My natural state is observing and thinking, not actively seeking participation. I am not good at forming the appropriate facial expressions for situations. That these traits are generally maladaptive is not directly the question. Most of the time, I seem to manage decently well – why not here? I worry that my quiet, passive, and unemotional manner had something to do with not seeming interested. I would reserve the quality of “being interested” as a choice one makes, rather than something that is inherently one way or the other. Perhaps the Willow Dene people thought differently.
I feel that I have been wronged in this whole matter, but more than seeking to right some wrong, I really, really want to understand how this all happened. I don't, and I can't seem to figure it out with the knowledge at my command. Maybe I'll figure it out next week.

At least I didn't buy the monthly pass.

You know what sucks?

Pervasive Social Disorders suck, that's what.

Sometimes I hate being an aspie, and this is one of those times. Most of the time I have sanctuaries where it does not matter, understanding people I can be with for whom it is no problem. Most of the time my success is not affected by my inabilities.

Well, right now I'm stuck. I don't have any of that, and the aspie stuff keeps tripping me up. How bad? I can' be sure. But I really wish I had all the mind-reading of a normal person.

ARGH.

So Willow Dene apparently does not want to keep me. Again, without warning - the teacher told the school's internship manager, and the manager contacted EUSA's internship placement manager, who broke the news to me today.

You know how things make me sad? This makes me sad.

You know how things don't make me mad? Well...

My issue with this is the complete lack of warning or feedback. Both times. The first time, things went okay, and then I got a message (same route as this time) while on the train ride home. The second time, the first day went well, the second day seemed good too, and then Thursday was a teacher-training thing - six hour seminar. And I find out on... Friday? That the teacher doesn't think that things are working out?

I can understand if things don't work. But if there are problems, then could people please tell me about them? So, you know, I can learn and improve? So that I gain from my experience in the internship?

But both the first time and the second time, I didn't even know there was a problem until after I had left. And even when I was notified, I didn't get to know much about what the problem was, due to not being told directly by the people who saw the problems.

Also - no second chances. After the teacher in the first classroom decided she didn't want me back, I didn't get a second chance to see if I could do anything about it. Same thing with the second time...

Is it really the case that I have been found so unacceptable during one day (or in the second case two days) that there is no reason to see how I might act later, that there is no value in letting me know exactly what went wrong, that I just need to be let go at a distance?

And yet despite being that bad, I got no indication while at the school. People asked me if I was going to be around for a while, everyone said "See you Monday!" etc.


Also - it's kind of pathetic that even if I work for free, nobody wants my help.

Feeling pretty shitty currently.

Urgh.

Spats with Edelweiss are not fun. Worse now that we aren't together, as I fear it will have more permanent damages.

In other news:
I'm worried about interviews, I'm worried about being able to do my internship well enough. I'm worried that I will waste away with no friends here, and I'm worried that if I spent my time online waiting for friends to appear, I will waste this trip here. I'm worried that my flat-mates quietly resent me, and I'm worried that the British quietly resent me.

Urgh.

Hum.

Edelweiss and I just broke up.  Currently a bit numb and a bit confused.  I would say more, but I don't like knee-jerk blog-post reactions to life.  I'll mention more once I figure life you.  Until then, it is naptime.

ASL

Urgh... I got A's on the first three classes... why is SHS 202 so hard?

DnD rant

Last time I complained/worried about what Tim thinks about me.  I may have mentioned DnD.

Well here's a DnD focused rant on the differences between Tim and I.

In DnD the difference in our vision is greatest, and thus the most conflicts emerge.

I want to play slow and savor the role-playing, the talking, the planning.  He wants to go in and crush the enemy with overwhelming strength, and resolve it through the fastest means possible.  I originally thought this was him wanting to go to bed, but he seems to play this way regardlessly.

In combat, I would like to accept surrender, capture not kill, and use diplomacy, coalition-building, and conflict-resolution as the primary tools.  For both myself and 2/3 characters, once combat is joined you have already lost.  Conflict and violence is the last resort.  For Tim and his characters, it seems to be the solve-all tool.  Again, I thought this was his characters at first--a vindictive holy knight and a angry barbarian--but I'm starting to think that the characters thoughts are excuses for this sort of action - I have seen him act against his character's personality, using an excuse, several times.  We were fighting pirates, and he(barbarian) was raging at the pirates, and slaughtering them.  Their ship started ship sinking, and he quickly found an excuse to take the chest full of gold, rather than finish off the pirates.  It could be that his character is ill-defined enough that I have not noticed this trait?

Metagame-wise, I like to play by the rules, and I will point things out that are not apparent.  I like to give suggestions to anyone interested, which largely means the DM, Zeno.  The more knowledge the DM has, the more tools he has at his disposal, the better he can DM.  Tim hates this, says that helping the DM is bad DnD.  For me, my character is loyal to the party, but what I the person does is not under the same restrictions.  If Zeno would like my help, then I will give it to him.  I will suggest encounter situations, I will remind him of his options.  I think that Tim's argument that this makes the game harder is foolish - the DM can throw whatever he wants at us, with whatever power level he choses the encounter to be.  Giving the DM more tools means that he can provide a more exact encounter to the level that he wishes, as high or as low as that might be.  Am I missing something in Tim's argument?

My knowledge and my character's knowledge are different.  For example, last encounter we were fighting against a dragonborn warlock.  I know the warlock class, having read it, and so I had a pretty decent idea of what he might throw at us.  Does my character?  Hell no.  I don't think he's ever run into a warlock before.  So he is surprised when he can use his combat superiorty and combat challenge to keep the Warlock from running away.  Tim's old paladin was a dragonborn, so he had read the racial paragon class for dragonborn.  He recognised it from the wings, etc.  However, his character, a minotaur barbarian probably has not - a paragon would be extremely rare, being more powerful than even our set of nearly-paragon level characters.  And we are just about the only in the land.  His reasoning is that his character is the same drifting soul as his previous one, and thus can recognise it just the same.  This works reasonably well, if it weren't for the fact that his previous character probably never saw a dragonborn racial paragon, and was a good 6 or so levels away from ever being a paragon himself.  A better excuse, in my mind, is that the Motherland is a land of predominantly humans and dragonborn, and the history of that land probably includes some rather epic dragonborne heroes.  But the question should be whether the character knows it, not how does the character know what he knows.  (Player knowledge would be extreme for a rule-savy, DM chatting guy like me.)

I want my characters to be interesting people.  I give them detailed backgrounds that can be used liberally, I give them room for character growth (Mae finding his place in the world, and strenght to act on the goodness of his heart; Shensu learning that revenge against the parties that have wronged her and her people is not as important as leading her people to freedom; Selnar learning more about the world than his slave upbringing and his effect on it; etc.)  I want my characters to be learning and growing every encounter.  But the way this game has been working, very little has been happening.  Relationships with the other character don't grow much, and the only character growth since he took the place of his sister was last session.  Some guards died because the party asked them to guard against a high-level bounty-hunter.  What effect will that have on him?  He's not as introspective as Mae, so probably a minor effect.   ...but Tim?  He seems to think that complicatedness, people, and the like are extraneous and slow the game down.  To him, the guards outside were just tools he could use because Wilhelm's Templar (us) are heroes to the people, not people whom we abused the trust and reverence of to fight against an opponent they had no chance against.  If this happens again Selnar will ask for other people not to get involved, even ask them to stay away so that they don't get caught in the crossfire.  But I think that the character growth won't have an effect because Tim is the defacto leader, and he will want to use guards for the group's advantage.  Ruins the relevance of my character's growth and pushes things into the mold of a game, not an alternate world.

Part of this is that my player motivations are different than his.  As described by the Dungeon Master Guide (Pg. 8), my motivation falls between storyteller and thinker.  Tim, on the other hand, is mostly slayer, with a hint of power-gamer (as seen in his interest in picking up wealth to become more powerful, which is in addition to the optimization of bashing in heads that slayers and powergamers share).  Scott and Bryan are power-gamery actors, Alex is a watcher, and our (generally absent) leader Tucker is an actor, which I am very thankful for... while he's there.  I'm not much of an explorer, but the true lack of explorers in our group makes me hunger for rich setting every now and then.  In theory, it should be up to the DM to make the adventure fun for all parties, but Tim and Bryan do a pretty strong case for they way DnD should be played - going out, slaying monsters, getting treasure, etc.  The game is created that way on the DM end of things - Zeno is used to catering to these tastes.  However, this creates an over-balance where the game is played the way that Tim and Bryan prefer it, and the other options aren't apparent.  Winning in combat is fun, sure, but that's all we enjoy.  We don't explore the spectacles, cultural or physical of the land our characters live in.  NPCs are dry and functional, only existing when the players look for them.  The main plot doesn't have much effect on game-play, and encounter-based plots basically don't exist - we have objectives, not plot.  The other players don't get much of a taste of these things, and I don't know how to change it.  If I did change it, it would be Tim's loss, and I don't know how to convince him otherwise.  If I didn't talk to him, and talked with Zeno, he would deride the changes as unfun - this last encounter had a bounty hunter trying to capture us, one at a time, which, while combat, was a lot less mindlessly and continually violent as the previous three - fighting a dragon, fighting a cypt of skeletons, and fighting a vampire lord in his lair.  Instead he attacked us while we were unrested from the vampire lord, escaped when we threatened to overpower him, attacked us while we were staying in a more-defendable inn, but got curb-stomped when we jumped from the inn to the roof he was shooting acid at us from.  I enjoyed it more, though it wasn't as detailed as it could be, but Tim specifically complained about the style after the session ended...

Tim accuses me of trying to be the DM at times, with suggesting and informing Zeno.  This is more true outside of the session than what he sees inside - I have shot a dozen senarios past Zeno to give him ideas, we talk about possiblities, etc.  Am I trying to be the DM?  Zeno notes that I'm better at strategy and a few other things, but the way I see it... ...I would be a very good DM for myself.  I could provide rich setting, provide personable characters that Selnar could simply enjoy a chat with, provide tactically varient encounters, and a ongoing plot that drives the action.  All of that I could probably do better than Zeno.  But would that be what this group, sans me, would prefer?  If I were the DM, who would I be catering to?  Besides, I can never be a DM if Tim does not respect me in the position, and I don't have the time for the numbers.

How do I resolve this?  How do I play the same game as Tim, yet have it satify us both?  Perhaps Tim has a Story-teller side thus unrevealed?  I dunno.  I hope that I'm seeing things all wrong, and there isn't as much of a difference as I currently percieve.

Respect.

I don't feel that Tim respects me.

Am I being paranoid?  Am I reading him wrong?

We clash, with differing opinions.  I am okay with that.  But he doesn't seem to care much about my opinion, and doesn't seem interested in even searching for a compromise in action.  We have different views, and, as I see it, he considers that his view is right, and my view is wrong.

Maybe this is me seeing it all wrong.

Maybe it's a problem with me - I know that I get contray and absolute when someone tries to tell I am meritlessly wrong.  Perhaps I am not seeking compromise to as full and extent as I could.

Or maybe it's a question of the situation - he makes decisions unquestioningly, and acts on them, as I see it.  I think of possible courses of action, try to gather information, build a concensus on a good action, and then implement it.  Not a matter of respect, just the fact that his style acts before mine is ready at all, and is in the middle of action by the time I say anything.

But the same question applies as always:  What do I do?

What to do, what to do...

Oh gods tests

Tests this week realy stressed me out.

I'm not doing well in ASL, and I had videotaped interview with my teacher in it.  Also a group debate project that will be presenting next week after the quiz.  Middle of semester ownage, apparently.

Not entirely happy with my Philosophy class, now not happy with the midterm.  I can understand if you class has a really boring topic (we have been going over theories in whether words refer to things or not half the year so far), but that's no excuse for writing bad tests.  Apparently there were serveral test versions running around.  Maybe this was why some of your questions looked like really incoherent editing - like some parts were just changed with no concern for the whole.  Maybe this was why the numbering on my test went 1,2,3,3,4,5... ...19,20 for a total of 21 questions.  That's right, not just misnumbering your questions, accidentally putting in one more than the other tests.

*sigh*

Is there something wrong that my gold standard in tests comes from my community college Intro to Psychology class?

Fainting

Fainted in jujitsu.  WTH, Wilford?  You faint because you didn't bend over properly?

In detail:

I was annoyed at the 90 degree stretch, because I can't get my back to be at 90 degrees from my legs.  Wondered if locking the legs would improve the stretch, so I tried that.

Next were arm stretches, and then head tilts/rolls.  During the last set of rolls, ever time I rolled my head the world kept getting brighter and blurier, and their was this ringing in my ears.  I worried briefly that I had some clot stuck in my arteries to my head (which is silly, because the blood pressure on the main artery would blast any clot to smithereens), and then collapsed to the ground.  People were talking around me, and things got slightly clearer, and I found that Sensei was standing over me, telling me to breath.  I evaculated the mat when I could walk, and I hobbled over to a chair.  Everything was a bit glowy, and ringing.  I sat there for a while, flexing my legs to help the circulation, and when I was clear I drank some water and joined in the ukemi.

Sensei says it was because I locked my legs, which left the blood down there not circulating.

Don't want to do this again.  Will do better in future.

Also worried a few people.

So yeah.  What the hell, Wilford.

Planning and Smoking

I meant to complain about this a few days back when it happened, but procrastination is my hallmark.

Anyway:

I was getting off the plane at Sky Harbor (PHX), and taking the bus over to ASU before my first class on Monday.  Most of my arrivals at PHX are at night, and my only worry is that I will miss the last bus.  Not so this time.

I got my bus, of course, and even got to class on time.  But that's not the point.

Who the hell decided that the designated Smoking area should be situated directly beside the bus stop.  What the hell, Sky Harbor Planner Person.

I guess I never noticed it before because there's nobody smoking there when I normally am waiting for the bus.  Maybe once or twice someone, but not multiples of people the whole time.

What the hell, Sky Harbor Planner Person.

Parental Practices.

So you know that thing?

No, you don't.

Kid: "Give me my [X] now!"

Parent: "How do you say that?"

Kid: "...May I have that please?"

Parent: "Okay."

So there's the thing.

Now here's my problem with it - it doesn't teach kids to be polite. Instead it teaches them to try the normal way first, and if that doesn't work, then say it the polite way as instructed.

Unfortunately in real situations, it doesn't work like that. Instead, they say it the impolite way, and people think they are rude.

So instead, I didn't give my little bro the milk he demanded. My mother asked him to ask again politely, and he did. I told him that asking me a second time was too late, and that he would have to find some one else to ask politely the first time.

Mother agreed with me, and Liam started screaming and making threats to get the milk himself (the carton was full, so we knew he couldn't pull it off: he knew it, so he was actually threatening to spill the milk, but we knew he wouldn't do it). He kept screaming, and I left to help my dad with his computer. A bit later mother sent him in for a second chance, and he asked nicely, and I got the milk for him because mother wanted it.

Makes me wonder, the whole thing does...

That new Blog smell.

Kudos to anyone who understands my choice of temporary title.

Anyway, this is the down blog, as inspired by Leah's like/dislike blogs.

Anyway, now it's time to go make that other blog.  Need to figure out a title.