Settling In!

So we've signed the lease, moved our stuff in, signed up to have power and gas and stuff. We're like real growed ups around here!!

I do keep forgetting to do a change of address. I know I have a form somewhere. Or I might get annoyed enough at the form to pay a dollar and do it online. I guess with all this email business they have to make cash somehow at the post office.

I'm doing the Big Scary and trying to fill out job applications. I like my job well enough (read: I hate it and it's miserable but it mostly covers the bills so long as I have no other expenses come up), but I'd really feel better with a little bit more coming in every month. They have these online applications now... with psych profiles. Apparently they want dumb people. That's what I understand by reading it. If you think too hard about the answers you prove you are either too smart, too conniving, too honest, or too analytical. No one wants those. They prefer the expense of retraining folk for high turnover, as opposed to the risk of one smart person taking down the whole company.

So I tried to not read the questions and put answer "C" a lot on all the multiple choice. And, assumedly due to the crap economy, there were ten pages of "so if a person isn't paid enough/denied the raises they were promised/was refused their bonus, would it be effective to..." with the answers all being choices about stealing from companies. I happily picked "ineffective" the whole way down without reading anything hahaha. So hopefully I didn't look like I was smart enough to read, so that they'll want to hire me.

Does this seem a big backwards to anyone else?

I already dragged (kicking and fighting, for realz) my roommate to the gym and signed us up! Hoorah for exercise! Now it's just exploring the neighborhood. We need to go get library cards. I think I'd die without a library card. How do you know where you live if you don't have a card stating which library to send you to if you get lost??

"If found, please return to Denver Public Library" it will say. And when I wander and forget where I live, they will find me and deposit me with books. And all will be well.

I also had to buy two more cupboards in which to fit my kitchen. It's all prettiful at least. And now the counters are clear in the kitchen so I can cook. Now I just need a place for my cookbooks and stuck up food magazines! And my books. I hate moving bookcases, so I'm going to build something much more transportable. I measured: I have 50 feet of books.

Lessee... we also got internets hooked up. Obviously or I'd have no intertubes to send this page through! They misspelled my name. And my email. But nonetheless, we have some interwebs in the house so I can be all social.

That's it. Off to the library now for my card! The one form I've never had issues filling out hahaha.

Ta!

What's so bad about change?

I'm not sure why people have any confusion about change. No one likes it. It's not an autistic only trait to despise change.

Even people who thrive on change thrive on change they create. They still don't seem to much like life throwing changes at them. They might be a bit faster at coping because of the extra practice, but change sucks.

Being in the midst of a move, my brain has gone haywire with all the changes. It's not fear of the unknown because at the moment there are not any unknowns. It's the disconcertedness of not being.

Quite simply, the here-now doesn't exist. The was is past and I'm waiting on will be to exist. So the here-now is neither was nor will be and no now is yet. So I'm in temporal limbo. Without a now how can I exist? Nothing anywhere is until time settles back into now as the temporary will be that isn't quite.

I imagine this is why most people resist change. But in any case, I'll be finished moving this weekend and the will be will be now and now will settle into existence and then I can exist and it will all be good.

Temple Grandin at TED

The points Temple Grandin hits aren't true just for autistics. Everyone thinks differently and schools are destroying kids' interest in learning. Funding is cut on the things that most involve kids in the world around them. It's all about scores and numbers, not about learning and creating and thinking and exploring.

The most interesting thing she touched on was categorization. I think the way auties categorize has something to do with the lack of filters. There aren't broad generalizations in our minds. It makes us both more capable of learning new things and less capable of coping with change.

I also like that she points out that learning social rules by rote is just learning a play. It's not natural or automatic. We learn exact responses, right down to action and voice. And then people say we've outgrown autism because we can do all the social things. It's all very silly.

Enjoy the video!