The End

I'm going home in 10 days. Before that I have two exams and a paper and I'm not very prepared. I've been doing almost nothing because I've been sick (or I've been using being sick as an excuse; I don't know that it really affects my ability to do anything, except on the first day when my hands hurt and I was really sensitive to water and cold).

I feel worried. It's funny because even though I frequently feel like an underachiever at home, I am capable of pulling all-nighters and stuff, but here I feel like I've forgotten to do work altogether. It doesn't really matter, I guess, since I just need to pass to get credit at Oberlin, and it's incredibly easy to pass here. But I'm worried that I've fundamentally destroyed an ability in myself. I hope things get better.

Here's what I think about me and school: I like systems and closed spaces. This is why I love riding trains because I feel contained. In the UK, at least at the University of Edinburgh, I feel like I'm floating around in a void. No one knows whether I do any work or not. In the US, you have to take tests and write papers all the time, and your teachers might call on you in class. Here, no one can tell if you're doing any work, and then they judge you on one paper and one exam that suddenly appear in the middle of the endless days of coming to class and spacing out because no one seems to care.

I'm not proud of the fact that I don't do work unless someone notices whether I do it or not. I know that makes me sound like I'm not a person who has a passion for learning, or anything. But, if you can believe it, when I'm being forced to learn I love learning. When I think about last year, about how much I was incredibly interested in all my classes and thought about them all the time--I mean, I am lazy, but I'm not apathetic, I just have a really hard time making decisions and planning and getting down to business.

I think a lot of the reason I have lost interest in Latin gradually since high school is that in high school we had to turn in a translation and my tenth and eleventh-grade teacher always praised my translations. I put effort into translating things not just correctly, but in a way that sounded good. Both at Oberlin and at Edinburgh, you have to write a translation on the test, and at Oberlin you have to translate in class, but it's about reading, not writing. I miss being able to create something. I'm supposed to be doing a medieval Latin project for winter term, and I'm thinking of asking my adviser if the focus of my project could be producing a translation, instead of just reading.

Stephen King

In seventh grade my science teacher, whose name was Mr. Thompson, would sometimes try to corner me and advise me in the nicest way possible that I shouldn't make a spectacle of myself because it would just make things worse. I'm too shy to give examples of what I used to do, but I'm perfectly happy to give examples about someone else, so I will tell you that there was a small boy with large ears named Evan who was very good at doing an impression of a monkey. When anyone asked him, Evan would bound around the classroom, swinging his arms and making grunting noises. Not surprisingly, everyone's complete lack of respect for him would occasionally result in Evan exploding into tears and rage. Then most people would laugh. It's really easy to look at this kind of situation and say that Evan was stupid for pretending to be a monkey, but it's harder to figure out this kind of thing from the inside, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out what kind of attention you're getting, and once you do figure it out, it's too late to try to get any other kind of attention. Well, that was my situation and Evan's, and we would occasionally be very nasty to each other in art class in the hopes of improving our status, but guess what, it never improved.

Anyway, poor kind Mr. Thompson would gently try to inform me about my bad decision making, and he would try to advise me about which kids were "nice friends," even though none of them actually were. And one day, while I was scribbling away at some Harry Potter fanfiction or pantoums, Mr. Thompson popped up and informed me, "Amanda! Did you know that when Stephen King was in middle school, he was unpopular?"

My art history seminar teacher made it pretty clear that he knows how much I bullshit everything. I guess I don't need to feel bad about this because it's kind of nice that anyone has noticed my existence. When he calls roll he doesn't wait for me to say "here" because he knows who I am. Besides my grades don't matter, I just have to pass to get transfer credit. I still feel sort of chastened or something though.

I can't wait to be home. Things here finally look pretty to me now that I know I will get to see all the trees on Wildwood Road where I live, and go to visit A.T. in her nervous, gangly town. And then Oberlin, finally, again, my small home which will be white when I get there, and when I walk around my hands will stop being able to move. The mailroom. Typewriters. Ugly basements. Blue sky.

Good times

I think I previously mentioned how in ninth grade I liked this girl who was always getting really mad at me. For some reason I decided to reread her livejournal from 2004 and it's probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. Maybe it's only funny to me because I know how ridiculous we both were at that age (I'll probably show it to my dad when I get home, he'll think it's funny too).

(There are several posts where she typed up fliers about the school dress code and made fun of their spelling mistakes.)

More aggrevation [27 Apr 2004|12:21pm]
Amanda just went and pissed me off again. I told her about the theory my mom came up with about her shocking for shock's sake, and how bisexual people are usually either gay or straight, and usually want to cover up what they are to fit in more, or want to seem more eccentric. Amanda then said today stuff that is really insulting to my mom, such as saying she is small minded and stuff. FOR GODS SAKE, MY MOM WORKS FOR TWO GAY BOSSES! I hate when people say my mom is small minded, when look at all these homophobic freaks out there. Openmindedness is one of my moms strengths, and i think that those who criticize her for that, should be labeled as intolerant. And I thought Amanda understood.

Grr... [24 Apr 2004|10:55am]
Amanda went on a parade, which means i cant talk to her for three days. This sucks. Also, I found out yesterday that she thinks gay people can become straight if they wanted to. This is not the case. Gay peoples preferences are genetic, and not something they can change at the drop of a hat. There is either a disillusioned straight person, or a gay one. You cannot STOP being gay, any more than you can STOP being straight. You can come out, of course, but that is merely a facade. I hate it when people think homosexuals can stop being what they are if they merely choose to.

In other news, amanda and i sorta made up, and i didnt push the above issue too much. I got cold stone ice cream, and me and amanda msted the newer parent trap. Pretty good day, other than the first thing.

[I'm actually surprised that I believed people could change their sexual orientation but I'm not sure I had a super clear idea of what sexual orientation was at that point; I thought I was bisexual, after all. I do think that the "liberal" view of homosexuality tries to categorize it as a much more cut-and-dry thing than it really is and that's probably what my 15-year-old self was incompetently trying to articulate. Maybe?]

funny and upsetting stuff [22 Apr 2004|10:16pm]
Today we got this awesome book in English. The importance of being earnest. Its light-years ahead of Wuthering Heights, the worst book we have gotten this year.

[Really long and hilarious critique of every book read in English class that year. I wish I could post the whole thing but it's massive. Doesn't this sound like a Dear America book or something? What kind of real kid writes a journal about the books they read in English?]

Amanda really angered me today. She is always reading, drawing, or writing, which kind of makes me angry, especially when she considers walking exercise. I don’t understand why she wants to be on track team when she hates to run, is always last, and has no friends on that team. If she has to hate a sport, wouldn’t she prefer a sport where you don’t run as much, and has a really close friend with her to encourage her? I just don’t get why she wouldn’t opt out for soccer. *sulks*

I also found that the only theaters playing Shaolin Soccer [apparently a movie she wanted to see that I didn't want to see.], were in NYC. It just pisses me off. Why can’t anything go right? One perfect day is hardly much to ask for. Amanda will probably be saying halleluiah. dammit.

Yesterday [18 Apr 2004|10:17am]

At a snack-kiosk, Amanda got the most disgusting thing i think I will ever see her eat. it was mutated cheese over nachos. There was so much nasty cheese, that the chips on the top had grown soggy. I used to see stuff like that served at my middle school cafeteria, and have never trusted nachos and cheeze since. Unfortunately, Amanda had no such experience, and had to suffer the floppy revolting cheesy abombination.

Another dorm mother gripe and other current events [15 Apr 2004|07:57pm]

Amanda and I listened to this really sexist song today. The chorus goes, "AND A REAL WOMAN KNOWS A REAL MAN ALWAYS COMES FIRST! AND A REAL MAN CANT DENY A WOMANs WORTH!" What about gay men and women? are they not real? hahahahah! and what about a man coming first? I can understand putting a partner ahead of one's self, but a man always ahead of a woman? HA! and the man cant deny a womans worth? what the hell does that mean? that he cant stand not to have s3x with her? lust hardly makes the man. self control is the key, guys. and dont listen to brainwashing alicia keys songs.

In the dorm, watching documentary on Pamela Anderson [14 Apr 2004|06:46pm]

I feel really bad for David,cause all my friends hate him for a reason that they wont really tell me about. And he has some medical disorder or something, according to one teacher. He's hardly ever in school,and i dont really know any friends of his. I think he has lyme disease. Hes actually a pretty funny guy, and just because he acts a little off-sync, is no reason to shun him, drive him away from the lunch table,insult him to his face or his back. Besides, hes a democrat and an Anti-Bush, which i can relate to.

I wish Amandas curfew was a bit later than her parents insist. They always get really pissed off when i call amanda at nine-thirty. Im really sorry, but thats the earliest i can contact anyone, because thats when i get out of study hall. I feel really depressed.

This is probably annoying and not funny without actually having been there. I'm not sure. It's easy to remember why I had such a crush on her; she had such strong (and unintentionally hilarious) opinions. It's weird that I had an easier time finding girls to crush on at my tiny high school than I do at my college which is more than ten times the size. I think this is probably because I'm just a nasty closed-off person now, and not really because all the girls at Oberlin suck like I always claim they do.

best films of the 00s that I've seen according to the Onion AV Club

Adaptation
4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Brokeback Mountain
Pan's Labyrinth
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Incredibles
The Squid and the Whale
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Mulholland Drive
The Royal Tenenbaums
Spirited Away
Memento
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I really love all these movies except Brokeback Mountain, which I should probably watch again. When it came out I was really depressed and I felt sort of angry that a movie everyone was making such a big deal out of was just about gay people being lonely and hating themselves. I was really happy that Crash won the Oscar even though I know Crash isn't actually very good. I was just sick of everyone bending over backwards saying how great it was that a bunch of straight people would make a movie about gay people being miserable.

I think if I watched it now I might feel completely different, and even see it as the love story it's supposed to be. At the time I just desperately wanted to see something positive about gay people and I wasn't capable of appreciating the film objectively.

This song seemed too gentle for me but then I listened to the whole thing and it sort of knocked me dead. I'M COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH HER. I was reading this interview with Tegan and Sara (I don't even like Tegan and Sara, I just have a little gay magnet inside me that makes me read their interviews) and they referred to Jenny Owen Youngs as a lesbian musician. I totally barfed all over the place with joy, but then I couldn't find any record of her actually saying she's a lesbian. SAD TIMES. I hope it's true.

Like me

Today is the first day after the last day of classes and I know I should start studying for exams but I'm really sick and have just been eating and watching YouTube videos in my room. But it was my turn to take out the recycling, and I also ran out of contact fluid a month ago, which means--well, if you're a lazy person who has contacts, you know what it means. It's gross. So finally at six o'clock I actually went outside, put the recycling in a bin, and went to a convenience store. I wandered around spacily before accepting defeat and asking the cashier if they had contact fluid. He said yes and came out from behind the counter to show me where it was.

My first thought was that he must be incredibly tired; he moved very stiffly and had a blank look on his face. He pointed to the contact fluid and went back to his register. I picked out a container of contact fluid and a Diet Coke, and brought them to the register. He was leaning over something, but soon sat up and rang up my things. There was just something slow and distant about him. I got the impression he was from another country, and wondered if that was why he seemed strange to me. Then I thought, maybe he's "like me." When he gave me my change, I said, "Thank you so much," and smiled, and he suddenly smiled too, in a way that struck me as unusually sincere.

I could be wrong, of course. But it would explain how he said almost nothing, and his unusual physical quality and lack of facial expression. By the way, when I say "like me," I mean I read him as (possibly) an intellectually disabled guy who takes a minute to make transitions and was concentrating on doing everything right. It's interesting that I used the phrase "like me" in my head, since I don't have an intellectual disability.

I think the thing is that I don't necessarily relate well to other people who have Asperger's, and I don't identify with the stereotype of Asperger's at all. I feel too solicitous, too gentle, too spacey, and too slow to be a stereotypical person with Asperger's. I'm good at some things and internally I feel really smart, but I come off as a lot dumber than I am and no one would ever call me a genius or an expert on anything. I don't talk formally and at length; I talk in an unusually simple way. I feel like the defining qualities of my character (however poorly practiced) are exuberance and love. Whenever I read or see anything about Temple Grandin, or most other famous ASD people, my immediate reaction is that they seem like kind of a jerk and not someone I have anything in common with. I feel everything too much and the stereotypical AS person doesn't feel anything, except some very cool austere attachment to engines or something like that.

I guess I should be disclaimering all over the place and say that I know very few people who have ASDs, especially in real life. I know a lot more intellectually disabled people so maybe that's why I've gotten this impression that they're "like me" in terms of personality and relating to people--I know more ID people in general, so of course I know more ID people who I have a connection with, and maybe the thought of those particular people is dominating how I think about all the ID people I know. But I can't think of a single intellectually disabled person who I dislike as much as I dislike Temple Grandin.

I feel like I don't have stereotypical Asperger's social problems. When I need to explain my struggles to people, saying I have Asperger's is the last thing I would do; I'd say I'm spacey or young for my age. I usually say I'm young for my age. Because I get lost easily and talk in a simple way and get excited and have trouble figuring out how to do things. The Asperger's stereotype doesn't tie in all that well with what my obstacles in life actually are.

Now that I've written this, I feel like a jerk, because I know it's probably not true that most Asperger's people are these cold, superintelligent beings. In fact, when I try to be systematic about it, I have met Asperger's and HFA people who were of the sweet, excitable type. But there really are lots of people on the Internet who say they don't want friends, don't like fiction, etc. and go on the "I GOT A 5 ON THE BC CALCULUS EXAM, STOP LUMPING ME IN WITH RETARDED PEOPLE" spiel. I just feel weird because, like--I feel like I should expect people with Asperger's to get my jokes, or something. But they don't. The order in which people are most likely to get my jokes are: 1. Intellectually disabled people 2. Regular people 3. ASD people.

Doesn't that strike you as odd?