36 going on 24

So in the past few weeks, I somehow managed to turn 36. I understand how birthdays work, but any number past 25 is still a shock to me, as I was convinced at the age of 9 that I wouldn't live to see the year 2000. I have no idea why I had that thought at such a young age, but I'm glad the premonition didn't come true.

Anyway, I'm in the last year of my mid 30's, but almost nothing in my life resembles that of a 36 year old. I guess you could say that I'm quite lucky that I physically can still pass for my early 20's, though the gray is really starting to come in strong. I know how to shop for deals, so I still dress fairly fashionably, or as much as one can on a super limited budget (note: I'm no hipster!) I live at home (nuff said.) I feel WAY more comfortable hanging out with people way younger than me, or at least I did when I lived in Savannah. I'm not so sure about that playing out again here. Music wise, I still listen primarily to electronica and little else.

I guess the important thing is that I definitely don't feel on the inside like my age. I'm not even sure if 24 is where I feel like I am. It could be more like 18-20, for various reasons. I don't really feel like I've done much to be considered "responsible", since my credit is horrible and I'm not very good at paying bills on time (or ever.) I'm still trying to figure out fairly basic human interactions, especially with women, that other people managed to figure out in their teens. I'm trying to be completely OK with who I am and where I am in life, but it's difficult at times. That I'm OK even more than 50% of the time is nothing but a miracle at this point!

I'm in!!!

Last week I applied to the University of Wisconsin as a visiting student, so I could take the language classes I need to later (fall 2012) try to transfer in as a regular student to UW (I didn't want to take French or Spanish.)

Just got the word this morning that I was accepted! I'm not 100% sure, but I think this bodes well for getting in as a regular student next year. :-)

May: the good, the bad, & the incredibly ugly

The good: finished the school semester strong, by getting straight A's and landing on the Dean's List. I didn't know tech schools had Deans, so I was doubly surprised. Things are going VERY well with school, and that should put me on track to transfer to UW by the fall of 2012. If I can bang out some things this summer, I might have an easier path than I had anticipated.

The bad: not blogging, and not really feeling a whole hell of a lot of motivation. I still have some emails I need to follow up on too. Sorry, I've just been so burnt out by the good and the ugly that I haven't logged in to blogger in a while.

To make things worse, I woke up to find my external hard drive no longer working. This had all the information from two previous computers, so I just lost about 12 years worth of work. Music, documents, pictures, emails... gone. The estimated price to have the data potentially retrieved? $1000-1200. Ouch.

The ugly: so much for having some things figured out. I crashed and burned hard on a few situations with women in the past month. I won't go into details, since it's been since the end of April, but I've now gone the complete opposite direction with where I see things. I used to assume that no one had any interest in me, dating/attraction wise, since I never saw ANY signals of interest. Now that I understand what to look for, I think I'm seeing it everywhere. I guess that's better, but I got my hopes up in a couple situations, and a couple others that I simply don't have a clue what to do. I still have a ways to go, as evidenced by today's faux pas.

I was doing some shopping for shorts today, and this super cute girl walks all the way across the store to come up to me to ask for help with something. If I had the processing ability to handle this, I wouldn't have said "uhhhhhh... I don't work here" and probably would have said something witty, plus I would have immediately realized that there is almost no way someone could have thought I worked at Old Navy the way I looked. At least I know why I instinctively say stupid shit like that (not fast on my toes and I was caught a little off guard), but it's still frustrating as hell that this continues to be a problem. I guess some "practice" on potential social situations is in order...

Sleep link & my sleep story

I just found this blog which is pretty good, and in particular this article about Asperger's and sleep issues:

http://asdhelp.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/catching-zzzs/

I used to have significant difficulties with sleep, leading to a diagnosis of having a Circadian Rhythm Disorder earlier this year. This is one of many co-morbid conditions that typically appear with AS, according to many people in the community. Anyway, I have had many "cycles" where my sleep will gradually shift itself forward or backward overtime, to the point where I will be sleeping all day and will be awake all night. It will then shift back again a few weeks later, such that things seem to be back to normal and I can be "amongst the living" again. If only it was that easy though...

This class is killing me...

I'm not really sure how or why I ended up taking this "Cultural Anthropology" class, other than it was at a time that I had open. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it sounded even better when I realized it was the transfer equivalent of ANTHRO 104 at UW (ie counts towards 2 requirements with 1 class!), but this class has been a real PITA for me in the last few weeks. I'm rocking an A in it thus far, but we spent a good chunk of the semester not in "cultural mode" but in a "general anthropology mode" before we could dig into cultural ideas.

The past few weeks have thrown 2 assignments at me that are my achilles heel: writing essays based on videos. Couple that with having to look at two different groups of people and write on the "wh" questions (who, what when, when, and especially why), and this could be potential disaster. Luckily it hasn't sent me into panic mode yet. I do have a MAJOR problem with watching videos and interpreting them, but this class has given me a "lens" to look through, which certainly helps, but it's still a bit hard for me to watch someone and come up with an idea as to why they are doing what they are doing.